Jaxton turned 7!!! Where is the time going! My little man is just growing up so fast! We took some cupcakes into his classroom for his birthday, each cupcake was topped with a lego. His favorite thing :-). He was very excited to bring in cupcakes. We had a family party for him on Sunday with Grandma & Grandpa Routsong. He got packages from the Giraldi's and Grandma & Grandpa Hutchinson in the mail. Everything he asked for and everything he got was LEGOs! That's his love right now! He got so many lego sets and some giant lego idea books. You can imagine that we didn't see much of him after his birthday. He has been very busy building and creating with legos. He also had to have a lego cake, which made me have to get a little bit creative! Here are some fun things about Jaxton at 7 years old:
1. First and foremost, his favorite thing to do is build with legos. He is so very creative. As a little boy, he loved to build with blocks. He would build cities and amazing creations with regular blocks. Now, as his fingers are able to work with tiny objects, this has transformed into lego play! He can follow the directions that are intended for a 14 year old and build amazing things. Then, he always puts his creation on display somewhere and will never break it down. So after a while, we actually did kind of run out of legos because all the legos were used up and sitting on display in our upstairs office shelves. So he picked and chose the ones that were not as important to him and he broke them down to create more. Really, though, he amazes me at his creativity and focus.
2. Jaxton enjoys soccer as his favorite sport. He really is very good at soccer. He is very good with his feet. He is not afraid to get in the action and steal that ball. His other favorite activity has been Tae Kwon Do. He is very good at this as well. He enjoys advancing by belt and earning level after level. He loves to succeed at things, and in Tae Kwon Do, he can advance and succeed, and that is exciting to him. We have taken a break from Tae Kwon Do during school because it gets demanding with practices, but he is currently a camoflauge belt in the Tiny Tiger Program.
3. Jaxton's favorite subject by far is math. He is a math whiz! He wants to understand high school math problems! He understands already so much multiplication and division. He is not fully able to figure problems on paper, instead, he will do problems in his head. It's amazing. Since he is interested so much, I have worked with him a little bit to teach him how to multiply by place value and divide numbers using long division. Though its a little complicated at his level, he can follow the steps as we work through it together. Then, he will ask me some random question about the x. What does the x mean? And so I proceed to teach him basic algebra, trying to figure out what the x is worth. He's interested in decimals and has asked what the dot means. So I have taught him basic info about decimals and fractions of 10. Further, he wanted to learn fractions, so we drew pizzas of different amounts of slices and worked to discover different fractions as well as adding fractions, or adding the slices of 2 pizzas left to figure how many slices total were left. He amazes me. It is amazing! He is soo soo brilliant!
4. Jaxton is a sweetheart. He is maturing so much. I see such maturity in him as he has grown older. He is definitely not a little boy, but he really is growing up. We can hang out and talk together in regular conversation, which is so fun. He is an amazing helper around the house. Though he'd rather do something else, he is so good at helping out, especially with his little brother and sister. He also does not like conflict, and so he will avoid it. He enjoys bugging his little siblings, just like any older brother, but for the most part, he avoids conflict and avoids getting hurt in wrestling matches.
5. Jaxton will say that his favorite food is Mom's homemade mac & cheese. He would eat it every night. He also loves bagels for breakfast. He has never been super picky in his eating as a little kid, but he is getting more and more particular about his food as he gets older. Which may mean that might end up being a fabulous cook, cooking exactly the way he prefers his food. He likes to scramble eggs, but won't eat them contentedly if we did not mix them with milk or add cheese to melt over them. He likes his water cold from the fridge instead of from the faucet. I usually have him get up and change whatever he needs because I can't cater to 4 different menus :). And he does, which makes me believe he will be an excellent cook one day. He also has told me over and over how much he likes noodles. I understood that he meant pasta with alfredo sauce. But every time I made that, he said this is not what I mean. One day when we were pretty much out of most food, and I didn't have the energy to cook up something great, we cooked up ramen noodles. This, he exclaimed, was what he was talking about! He apparently absolutely loves ramen noodles!! Funny boy!
6. Jaxton loves gadgets. He loves numbers and he loves to be very particular. So for Christmas we got him a nice watch with a digital clock, timer, alarm, clock, and a few other features. He wears that thing night and day, taking it off briefly for a shower and that's it. He has the alarm clock set to wake him at 7am every morning, and on weekends or school cancellations will just turn it off and roll over and go back to sleep. He loves his watch! It's also been great helping him understand time and different time frames. When I say we are leaving in 10 minutes, that is a hard thing for a kid to really know how much time they actually have. Now, Jaxton has a very good concept of time. He can watch the minutes go by and understand how much time he has. It really has been a great thing for him.
7. Jaxton is a very social kid. He loves to be around other kids and doing fun things in groups. So we got him into a Cub Scout Tiger Scouts group near our home. He loves getting all dressed up in his scout uniform and being a part of the group. They work on projects and earn things also at home and it has been fun for him to earn patches and beads and work towards goals. He also has been giving our Family Home Morning lessons using his Tiger Scout goals. It's been a great opportunity for him. They had a rocket derby and the kids got to build rockets. Then, they had the classic Pinewood Derby. This was our first derby, and the car he built was not the fastest car. He knew it, and he was ok with that. But when his car got 3rd place on some of the rounds, he was thrilled that it wasn't the slowest. It turned out to be a great experience and he now has all sorts of ideas for his car next year.
8. Jaxton says he wants to be an engineer when he grows up. He loves building, he loves numbers, he loves computers and gadgets, and he is so dang smart. We had to get our old HP computer fixed, and the computer guy gave me back the old broken power supply out of our computer after he had replaced it. He said the kids would probably love to take it apart and play around with the wires and things. I had never thought of such a thing, but what a fun activity!! So, we waited a week or so before playing with it to ensure that it wouldn't send out electrical shocks to the kids, and then Jaxton went to work. He opened up that thing with screwdrivers of different sizes. He examined the wires, changed them around, and played with that for a long time. Nate helped him to rearrange the wires to the fan that was part of the power supply. They made some kind of electrical circuit and by putting the wires in the right positive and negative places, they made the fan work. Jaxton was amazed! He loved it so much!
9. Jaxton loves little kids and babies. He is so very good with them. He already is a great little babysitter at home, but he will be an amazing babysitter someday. He gravitates toward babies. He will googoo gaga with them in their face and make funny faces at them to get them to smile and laugh. He is gentle and sweet with babies. He is great with Dawson too, and if I give him the option, he will choose to play with Dawson. He will make forts or walls out of boxes or toys and barricade Dawson in his room or in the toyroom so Dawson can't escape and get into things. And then the two of them will just play. I love to sneak in and watch them. Dawson loves the attention. Kaylee has some friends that come to play sometimes too. And Jaxton is so good with them. He loves to take the little girls and build them slides out of table and forts. Then he will read stories to them and create obstacle courses and games for them to play. He is so great with little kids!
10. Jaxton loves to read. He has excelled at reading so much! We love to read chapter books aloud to each other, and he is able to read to me too. It is so much fun. It is one of my favorite things to do, to read books together. He got a clip on bed lamp for Christmas and he put a bean bag up on the loft area of his bed. He will get cozy there and read from his "book box" before bed. I just can't believe how much he is growing up!
Happy Birthday Jaxton!!! We love you forever!!!
