Happy Birthday, Tommy! Tommy's birthday was June 12th and it fell right in the middle of our busy family reunion. But we still had a marvelous time celebrating Tommy's big day. Jon and Tommy started out the day with a breakfast date (donuts, of course). Then I took the three boys down to Provo to visit my brothers, Ellis and Paul, while Jon spent most of the day with his family at Seven Peaks Water Park. (I didn't think that would go over well with a pregnant woman, an on-the-go-toddler, and two boys too short for water slides, which is why we split up.) We did some of my favorite things in Provo, which happened to be a hit with Tommy as well:
We first went to the Bean Life Science Museum. Tommy adored it, and would have been happy to stay there for several hours. He was so intrigued by all of the different species and wanted to spend A LOT of time at each different "family" of animals. Unfortunately, we had to cut it short because the other little boys got bored, so we went to our next favorite place...
Can you guess where this is?
The Pizza Factory! Tommy LOVED his six-shaped cinnamon bread! I forgot to take a picture of the boys' dinosaur-shaped pizzas.
We all loved the twisty breadsticks. Yumm.
Next we headed to Bridal Veil Falls, where the boys had a blast climbing up, down, and all around the waterfall. Thank you, Ellis and Paul, for supervising them!!!! The water was freezing, but the boys didn't mind. In fact, at one point Joey got out and said, "Oh, it's hot out here...I'd better get back in!" That was right before he came to me soaking wet to tell me that his shirt had fallen in.
Tommy is such a cool kid. He just finished Kindergarten and had some big milestones: he learned to ride his bike without training wheels (which he LOVES to do), he began Little League (he LOVES t-ball!), he learned to read pretty well in Spanish and picked up lots of new Spanish vocabulary, and he is also beginning to read in English and is doing fantastic. He's read about 22 children's books (in English) on his own so far (with mine or Jon's help). He learned to "blob" (aka, put his whole head under water) in the swimming pool and is trying to be a little fish in the water! Like Jon, he still adores geography and nonfiction and has a great memory. He's always learning about new states and countries. His favorite book series at the Public Library is one with a book for each state. His favorite book series at the school library was one with a book for many different species of animals. He looks forward to Saturdays, when he gets to play his favorite video game Motor Storm for a little while. He also loves playing Angry Birds on Jon's kindle. He still really enjoys drawing--maps, people, houses, vehicles, angry birds, etc. :) He has filled up a few notebooks with his sketches over the past year. He's a really good and understanding brother, and he plays great with Joey and adores Samuel. He usually even warns us when he's about to do something naughty (e.g., "Joey, I think I'm going to punch you..."), which gives us plenty of time to step in and prevent catastrophe. He has lots of fun with his friends and has overcome a lot of the shyness he used to experience in group activities. With his friends, he likes to pretend to be a spy or a good guy in Star Wars. He also loves to be outside, and in the Spring we spent some time exploring the forest near our home. Tommy is just a really great little boy, and having him makes us so excited to be an eternal family and even to have more kids who we know will also bring us so much happiness. Happy Birthday, Tommy. We love you!
