Jacob's 7th Birthday

My apologies in advance for such a long post......this is my way of journaling all the details about my son that I know my frazzled Mommy brain won't remember 10 years from now.

I can't believe my baby boy is 7 years old! This year Jacob wanted a STAR WARS theme for his birthday. So we celebrated his actual birthday with a family party on Wednesday with Papa and Grandma Laws and then on Saturday he had his party with his friends. This was the first year that Jacob had a party with all boys. In the past it has been a pretty even mix of girl and boy friends. He is definitely growing up and entering a new phase of boyhood. He is still, however, very sweet and childlike.


One thing that he was very excited about was dressing up for his party. We just happened to get his costume for Halloween early this year, (he wanted to be Darth Vader) but he insisted that he wanted to wear it for his party too. His friends Gavin and Charlie also dressed up as Yoda and Annikin and I must say that the three of them were ADORABLE! We played a Star Wars version of pin the tail on the donkey where you tried to hit the death star with one of the boys Nerf Suction cup shooter guns. I painted a picture on a piece of poster board, sprinkled it with glitter (for stars) and then covered it with contact paper after the paint dried. We taped it up on the wall for the party and they each took turns trying to hit the "eye" in the center of the death star. They got 3 tries each and recieved 10 points for hitting the "eye," 5 for hitting the death star, 5 for hitting Darth Vader's ship and -5 for hitting the rebel star ship. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun. The crazy thing though was that Benjamin (who just turned 4) beat everyone. That kid has such amazing aim he put all those 6 and 7 year olds to shame! We left the poster up for a couple of days after the party and had fun playing it with each other.

Something else cute that Jacob wanted to do for his party was to finish his "tunnel" out in the sand pit so his friends could crawl through it. The boys are always out there playing (it's like a giant sand box) and recently they have started digging tunnels to drive their cars through. The last tunnel they dug was big enough to drive Ben's big remote control car through. They got so excited about that tunnel that they had the idea to dig a tunnel big enough for them to crawl through. I thought it was pretty ambitious and doubted that they would actually do it but after many days of tirelessly digging I went out there to see how it was coming and they were only about 2 feet from connecting the holes. They were so cute and smart how they used a stick to measure the distance from each hole to see how much further they had to go to connect them. Jacob worked on that tunnel for a couple of weeks but when school started he got busy with homework and soccer practice and didn't have as much time to play outside. So the night before the party (Aaron had the priests over for a YM activity) Jacob and I went outside and spent the next couple hours digging. By 9:00pm it was done and I must say it was VERY exciting when we finally were able to see each others head flashlights shining through. He would work on one side and me on the other and then we'd switch until we finally connected the two. It was totally awesome.



Jacob's cakes this year were NOT my favorite. but he wanted a Darth Vader cake ("the whole body Mom, not just his head..." he said) so I did my best. Have you ever tried to draw Darth Vader with frosting? What a nightmare! I had to mix up 3 shades of gray to black and the first cake I did (for his actual birthday I used white frosting and turned it black with food coloring-not easy. It took so long and was so ugly I just did his head for his party that Saturday. Here's a tip for you cake decorators out there. Turning Chocolate frosting into black is pretty easy. I don't know why I didn't think of it the first time but maybe I'll save someone some else some time. As always though his reaction to the cake was just what I hoped. Aaron had him close his eyes until he brought it out and he had the cutest little grin on his face when he saw it. I thought the cake looked hideous but thank goodness 7 year olds are easy to impress.

Here are some things about my 7 year old Jacob that I always want to remember:

-He is very responsible and hard working. Jacob's chores include taking the goats out each morning and bringing them into their shed at night, unloading the dishwasher, sweeping the back porch, cleaning up the playroom, putting his laundry away, swiffer dusting under the couches (hard wood floors) and cleaning out the litter box. Each day he does the goats and usually one other chore which he shares with his brothers. Jacob also sets his alarm every night and wakes up at 7am to get dressed and make his lunch for school that day. He doesn't like making his lunch but I'm trying to raise self reliant kids and although I could easily do it for him it's much better to start habits young.

-Jacob loves sports and has a lot of athletic talent. Not surprisingly he is also very competitive and plays really hard out on the field. He is very into keeping score (even though at this age the coaches try not to focus on that). He will often give us the report at the end of the game to tell us what the final score was and how many goals he made for his team. Aaron wrestles with the boys all the time and has expressed to me how impressed he is at Jacob's strength. He admits that it's a challenge to get both of his shoulders down on the rug to pin him. Jacob also really loves to run. I remember last year in Kindergarten that he would race the other boys down off the field to be first in line after recess. I'm sure none of the other kids really cared that much who got there first but every day he prided himself on telling me that he beat Gavin or whoever else he raced that day.

-Jacob loves to draw pictures. His favorite things to draw are race cars and rocket ships. I can't tell you how many pictures of race cars with flames, rocket boosters, and spoilers I have collected over the past couple years. He also enjoys making recycled art out of old food boxes, Styrofoam or toilet paper rolls. Just the other day he made a star wars shuttle out of Styrofoam and toothpicks.

-Jacob still wants to be a pilot when he grows up.......no change there. (:


-Jacob also really enjoys math and numbers. He loves to count (I had to listen to him count to 1000 the other day by 5's just because he wanted me to see if he could do it without making any mistakes). By 500 I was secretly hoping he'd mess up just so he'd have to stop. (I know I'm terrible) But he didn't make a mistake and loved doing it. Jacob also enjoys doing word searches and "I Spy" types of activities.

-Jacob recently started taking piano lessons and is picking it up very quickly. He is so cute when he practices. If a song is hard to play I notice that he does this little breathing pant with each note that he strikes. I can tell that it's something he does when he's really concentrating. His piano teacher is a 17 year old young man from our ward who plays the piano incredibly. It's been really good to have him teaching Jacob because I think he's much more receptive to his instruction.

-Jacob has a very "take charge" personality at home and on the sports field but at school it's a different story. He's well liked by the other kids and dare I say even considered to be "cool" but he seems to be oblivious to this. When I volunteer in his class, I notice that he's very quiet and even a little shy. He keeps to himself most of the time and just does his work quietly. When his classmates says hi to him he usually gets embarrassed and doesn't even say hi back. He is a good student and is very appreciated by his teachers.

-At home Jacob is for the most part a very sweet older brother. He's not always "fair" with his younger brothers when they play though. He will often times manipulate the outcome of their make believe match-box car adventures to produce an outcome where he is the coolest or the fastest car but usually they are okay with that. He could also be described as a little bossy to them too. He gets very frustrated when his brothers don't do what they're supposed to and sometimes takes things into his own hands, administering his own version of discipline (hitting them), when they don't do what they're told. He loves his little sister and is in heaven when she decides to grace him with a hug or kiss. He still lets us hug and snuggle him although he has become a little more resistant in recent months. I've also been noticing that at night when we tuck him in he will sometimes try to hide under his covers when I lean in to give him a kiss. It will be a very sad day for Mommy when he stops letting me hug and kiss him. Hopefully that day will never come. ):