It's Great to be Eight!

Now that my posts about my Spain trip is done, I have some catching up to do!  I know, I know.  I still haven't finished posting about our Great-American road trip (NYC! etc) but I thought it best to first fill in what has gone on between our Spain trip and right now, and get back to the road trip when I have more time after the holidays. Good? good.

Lets start with the most important thing that happened this fall.  Caleb turned eight!  In our church, eight is a banner year, because that is the year you get baptized and become an official member of the church.  

Eight is great!  So we did a little photo shoot on his birthday.  Here are some of my favorites.

Man I love this kid!!!

Caleb is awesome.  He is so creative and artistic, and when he gets it in his mind to create something, there is no stopping him.  He loves to stamp and make cards, and he loves to write and illustrate his own books.  He is constantly stapling papers together to make his books, and the main character of his books is "The Man", someone who is always getting into all sorts of trouble for being a bit too manly.  (Between you and me, I think the stories are autobiographical.  Caleb is The Man!)

Caleb works really hard at everything he does, and really gets into what ever is occupying him at the moment.  I love the insightful things he says at random moments, and his sense of humor.  I love this extra tall kid with his broad shoulders and small waist (built like a swimmer!), his floppy blond hair, huge brown eyes, and smattering of freckles on his nose.

He is so excited to turn eight and to get baptized.  He is super excited to be a cub scout too.  For year and years he has watched his brothers have so much fun and do so many cool adventures with scouts, and has begged to do it with them.  Now it is finally his turn and he is beyond excited.  Caleb will be a great scout!

For his birthday we took him out to dinner at Cheesecake Factory.  He insisted on wearing his new suit that his grandparents got him.  He picked out the huge bacon double cheeseburger!  No kid's menu this time.

We also had a little family party for Caleb and other October birthdays with swimming and food.  Caleb got to open a bunch of presents and blow out more candles.  Caleb was so cute.  I guess he thought his pile of presents wasn't quite big enough, so he found a bag and filled it with gifts for himself.  To: Caleb, From: Caleb!  And he was just as happy and surprised to open them as his other gifts.  See why I love that kid so much?

Eight is great!  Its so fun to have an 8 year old in the house!