And Now Jansen's Birthday

It's definitely a little surreal for me to think that I have an 8 year old. He's half way to having a driver's license! It's true what they say...the days are long, but the years are short. We finally got him a bigger bed. For several reasons, (like, that he chose to) Jansen has been sleeping on the same mattress he has used since he was a baby! I know that sounds awful, and it kind of is, but his feet only hung off the edge a little. :) Now he has a nice, spacious twin bed. We are slow movers when it comes to moving up in the bed world. Emmy will be 3 in a week, and she is still going strong in her crib. 

We had time to open presents before he left for school on his birthday. His interests right now are jets, chess, Legos, reading, playing outside, and riding his bike. We signed him up for a little cross country team this fall, and he is really excited.

He almost always has cereal for breakfast, and his favorites are Rice Krispies and Cheerios. He loves to read nutrition labels and spouts off all kinds of facts about protein, fat, sugar, and calories. For dinner he wanted to have plain cheese tortellini. Since it was a Friday night, I convinced him to do pizza, another favorite of his. A little while ago Jansen used my razor while he was in the shower to shave his arms. A few days later I found some weird shaved areas on his head...this time he had cut a little of his hair in a few places. He is such a responsible, good kid, but he has moments like these as well that kind of make me wonder what he is thinking!

The day after his birthday we celebrated by going to one of the Smithsonian extension museums. He is really into air and space right now, so it was perfect.

Well, not totally perfect for everyone. Natalie and Emmy were particularly difficult and kept asking to go home. We did get to spend over an hour and a half there though. 

There was a little paper airplane contest that we participated in. 

We flew them around in a back area of the museum for awhile.

I was just in awe of the space shuttle Discovery. I could have stared at this thing for a long time. It was just incredible to me.

As were driving away from the museum, Nate's mom called and Jansen talked to her for a minute. She was asking how school was going. Jansen said his old school in Vegas was like a Messerschmidt B-409 and his school here is like an F-22. That comparison cracked us up, I'm glad he is liking school. (Natalie has started to complain about having to go lately though.)

After the museum we stopped at a little French cafe that Nate has eaten at before and that others have recommended to me. The tomato soup was so good. And like it's cousin spaghetti sauce, ruined all shirts that it was spilled on. Later that night Jansen didn't get to play chess with Nate like he wanted. He got upset and quickly changed moods. He said it was an awful night, "like a rotten apple dipped in urine." That one has made us laugh for days.

A sad/sweet side note: I found Jansen in the bathroom kind of crying last night. I asked him what was wrong. He told me he was just thinking how sad he would be if Nate or I ever died. It was such a sad moment, but also sweet to see his love for us.