Happy Birthday Bud!

The night before his birthday, Bud ran down the stairs looking very exited.  He exclaimed, "Mom!  Tomorrow I'm going to be 8 and I'll be able to get baptized!"
"That's true!  Are you excited?"
"Yes!  And all my sins will be washed away!"

We then had a little talk about it and I am so happy that he is so excited about the covenants he'll be making.  Turning 8 years old is a really important milestone.  He'll now be accountable to God for the choices he makes.  He is such a sweet, good, kind little boy.  I think he'll take his commitment seriously.  I can't believe he's so old!

(Picture courtesy of Spice)

One of my favorite character traits about William is his passion and zest for life.  When he finds something he is interested in he goes after it with his all.  Insects are one example.  He was afraid of insects a couple of years ago and then he found a praying mantis.  Praying mantises don't bite, so he picked it up and decided to make it his pet.  In order to feed a praying mantis, you have to catch bugs.  He researched everything about praying mantises - habitat, food, etc.  He then researched everything he could about the bugs he would find to feed his praying mantis with.  He then researched as much as he could about insects in general.  He got so into bugs that he now says he wants to be an entomologist when he grows up.  Right now, we have a praying mantis egg in our front room.  In the Spring, it is usual for us to have 5 or more different containers with different types of bugs living inside them.

Another thing he loves is the Harry Potter books. He read the entire series twice!  He knows many of the spells and he often plays Harry Potter with his siblings.  Lately he's also into the Wii (he got a new game from grandparents for his birthday) so I get to hear all sorts of details about that - and he has read about all of the short cuts and tips for his game.  He has also been reading the Chronicles of Narnia.

Harry Potter reading Harry Potter

He gets such joy out of the simple things in life and he helps us feel it as well.  Often, when he's reading, he'll burst out in laughter.  We'll all look at him and he laughs as he tells us something funny that he just read in a book.  We can't help but laugh with him because he thinks it is so funny.  He is often laughing at the cute things Baby does and the funny things Bazink thinks of.  Life is just so fun with Bud around!

He is a very analytical thinker.  It is expressed in his art work.  When he draws something - he doesn't try to draw it in a cute or even realistic way - he draws the characteristics that differentiate it from other things.  He likes to tell a story with his drawings and you can tell what is going on because of the distinct features that he places on his drawings that differentiate them from something else.  It's really intersting.

He loves analytical games.  He plays chess nearly every day.  He also loves games like DaVinci's Challenge, Set, or other games in which you have to think in an analytical way.  He's very good at them.  The other day he decided to figure out how many different ways a king could be put in check mate in chess.  What a great "game"!  I think he'll make a great scientist someday if still he wants to be one.

Bud is also very kind and loving to the people around him.  I have seen one of his friends being rude to another child.  Bud tries to be kind to both of them and tries to help them be friends.  He is a natural leader.  When he is in groups, he doesn't hesitate to organize a game and get everyone involved.

He has really been into playing the piano lately.  He's not interested in any formal instruction, but he loves to figure out songs on his own by ear or from simple sheet music.  He likes to play the same song in different places on the piano to see how the sound differs.

For Bud's birthday, we took him and a friend to play laser tag.  He had so much fun.  I think his dad may have enjoyed it the most though, he's the one who has been asking to go back :-)  They also played in the Pirate's Cove at the laser tag place and ate pizza.  Baby Ray was sick with pink eye though.  I'm not sure if he had much fun :-(

On his actual birthday, we "woke" him up in the morning with a song and presents.

There's not any pictures of the rest of the day because he chose to play Wii almost the entire day!  I let him choose whatever activity he wanted and since he is usually only allowed 25 minutes of Wii per day -  he took full advantage of playing it as much as he could on his birthday.  He was especially exited about it because he got a new game from his grandma.

We did get him to pull away from it for cake in the evening though :-) 

I sure love that little boy!  I am so proud of the young man he is becoming.