Eight is Great!

Luke turned eight on Monday! This is quite the exciting birthday with his baptism coming up next month. So here are a few things about Luke at age 8.

Luke is a great big brother.  He and Seth are either best of buddies or fighting like cats and dogs, but he loves his siblings.  He told me just the other day that he would never want to "trade" his family.  Good thing because I'm pretty sure that's not an option.  He has become quite a good helper with Leah and often with Ian too.  The other day at the bank he got them both suckers and threw away the wrappers, boosted Ian at the drinking fountain, played with them both, and even wiped Leah's spit up for me.  He does have quite the soft spot for his baby sister.  Yesterday he told me that he thought Leah's Chinese mom and dad were probably really sad to leave her, and he wished they could see how happy she is here with us.  Ahhh...if only that sweetness was there when one of his younger brothers even looked at his Legos.

Luke did a great job at his second grade program "Seasons of Service."

Luke had the most awesome teacher this year.  We will miss her a lot.  Mrs. Mills went above and beyond to say the least.  Luke's school doesn't have any kind of structured A.R. rewards program but Mrs. Mills surprised them on that last day with A.R. reading trophies that she got herself.  Luke received one for having 150+ points (the next stop was 300).  He has done such a good job in school this year.

Luke played rec soccer again this spring and had such a fun season.  He had friends on the team and really had a good time.  He is a great little player when he hustles.  He's still working on really getting his competitive juices flowing.

I did an awful job documenting Luke's birthday.  I will have to redeem myself at his baptism festivities. He begged for a friend party and since it's a milestone birthday I agreed, but we're definitely back on the every other year plan now.   On Saturday we went up to Preston to grandma's house with all of his grandparents and cousins for a family shindig--no pictures!  For Monday he invited 8 boys to mini golf at the Willows and then back up to the house for treats and games.  Luke served a USU cake and Aggie Blue Mint ice cream.  Some of his BYU loving friends had to close their eyes.

The one group shot I did take was horribly overexposed because I had my camera in manual still and didn't notice.  It was super hot so everyone got a water gun, and they spent the rest of the time at "war" with each other.  It got a little crazy at times but everyone lived to tell.  A note should be made about the shirt Luke is wearing in the picture above.  He loves those tight Under Armor type shirts and would wear them everyday if I let him.  He has a short and long sleeved one and attempts to live in them.  We tease him to no avail and if for some reason he can't find them his next preferred shirt is a muscle-T.  Sad.

You can't tell in these shots but Luke finally lost his bottom two teeth with his big teeth already coming in.  We had an appointment to get them pulled, but they suddenly came loose and he was spared the extraction.  Finally after two years of never making the tooth loss chart at school my eight-year-old has lost two teeth!  Now he's just waiting for those six-year-old molars to come in.  Seriously, he's that slow with teeth.

Happy Birthday to Luke!  He is a funny, smart, clever, active kid.  He's up early, goes all day, and has a hard time getting to bed at night.  I wish I had his energy.  He can torment his brothers (especially Seth) with the best of them, but he's rarely truly mean.  One of these days he'll reign his kidding in, or Seth will realize his size, or both!  It has been amazing to see how much he has grown up this year though.  He has always been my most dependent, homebody of a child and he is slowly gaining independence.  He is also becoming aware of the existence of other people's feeling and needs.  Several times lately he has sincerely apologized to me for misbehavior and then gone out of his way to make it up with extra chores and helping with his siblings.  That does a mother's heart good.  He is so excited to be baptized, and we are so proud of him!