Silas' 6th birthday

Silas had a wonderful time turning 6.  He got to have 3 days of fun!!

1st: Family birthday party. Silas wanted a superhero party so there were decorations and games with a superhero theme.  We had the family over for brunch and were able to sit outside in the beautiful weather.  We had a kids table and it was really enjoyable seeing the cousins talk and laugh together.  Silas got lots of nice presents, Lego watch, Anders And Junior magazine (Donald Duck) subscription, a soccer ball, a handball, sandals and a t-shirt. The sweet boy he is, he said to me at the end of the day..."Mommy, I didn't get so many presents"....the more we talked about it, we got down to the fact that he didn't get any legos. He was dissapointed, but fine.  It's hard when that is just the biggest and most wished thing he has for the past 3 years!

In the afternoon the kids made superhero shields and had some superhero games. Accuracy frisbee throwing, strength exercises and a obstacle course with villians that had to get shot with silly string.  It was a lot of fun!  

2nd: Pre-school boys birthday party.  At his pre-school they can invite the kids from their group home 1 time during their pre-school years.  Silas decided he wanted a boy party so it was just the other 6 boys who came.  It was great though.  The boys had a lot of fun playing with Silas' things and there was also a superhero theme with the games from the weekend before.  Just this time the boys had capes instead of shields. They had pølsehorn and cupcakes for lunch and fruit for a mid morning snack.  Silas got a present from the pre-school...a rubber pencil that you can bend, and 2 of the boys brought a present too...a rockfrom Lukas and a little lego thing that Peter had made.  Silas had a great time and you could see he really enjoyed it.

Got the real villian

3rd: His real birthday! He opened his presents in the morning and got: Orange cones, soccer goalie gloves, 2 jump ropes, a squirt gun, and lots of money.  He went to pre-school in the morning as they were having a traffic day where they get to practice traffic rules on bikes etc, but got to have his friend Samuel home for a play date afterwards.  In the afternoon he was really excited to get to go to the toy store and use some of his birthday money.  Of course he found some lego...a bank with police men and robbers.  Afterwards we all went out for pizza and Silas got a really big one all for himself.  It was a nice day as well.  

Silas age 6

So now we have a 6 year old, and he is very proud of it!
Here are some of the traits we see in Silas as a 6 year old.

-LOVES LEGOS- he loves getting new sets and building them, but he also is really into making his own creations.  He says himself: "I'm good at making  Lgeos from fantasy".  He also wants to make lego videos and puts a lot of details into his creations and videos.

-Makes funny and high-pitched noises - boos booz, sweetie..just high noises, etc.  A lot of it is aimed at Liam but sometimes he just makes these loud noises.

-Asks a lot of questions about God.  "Why did God make...."  He thinks and know God made everything, but wants to know why God made mosquitos, etc.  He doesn't quite understand why some things are here...but hey, neither do I!

-Calls me Mama a lot of times.  And will also just come up to me and say "I love you Mama!"

-Loves his baby brother Liam and is very helpful. In the car talking to him and giving him his pacifier, feeding him, bringing him to us, making him laugh...etc.

-Really likes to have someone playing with him. He can play by himself but prefers company...even if just to watch him build legos etc.

-He now shares a room with Benjamin and they enjoy it a lot.  Maybe a little too much sometimes with all their giggling and throwing stuffed animals, etc.  But latelty Silas really loves it if Benjamin falls asleep first and he will call us into the room and ask if we will help him fall asleep.  This means running our finger over his forhead and the bridge of his nose.  He really enjoys that.

-Still loves doggy, and if I use him as a puppet, Silas will talk to him.

-He has noticed that some langauge is not so polite or okay.  Some of the danish phrases using various words for the devil are very interesting to him.  One day I asked him if he knew what those words meant and after saying No we had a talk about it. He doesn't use the words anymore actually and now just has lots of questions about the devil.  It leads for some good conversation.  One of my favorite things he said is ---"if he (the devil) comes knocking here,  I will lock the door!"

-Has some really good friends at pre-school (all the boys from his group) and he calls them his boys
Lukas, Viktor, Peter, Jonathan, Nicolai, William.

-Still asks about Grandma and brings up memories....just they other day "That's the movie we say with Grandpa (Finding Dory)...He will also say "I want to talk to Grandma but I can't, she's dead."...so matter of fact.

-Apparently he has a wife in pre-schol named Celina. He calls her his wife.  He also said the other day that he wanted to be a dad one day and have 16 children.  I said, "Wow, that's a lot of children",,,He then thought about it awhile and said...Yeah maybe 16 are too many, that's a lot of money, and that's a lot of babies that have to be in Celina's tummy.  (I laughed so hard!)

- Has gone to Soccer and Handball this year.  He really likes playing goalie.

-Has lost 5 teeth.  4 on the bottom and 1 on top!

-Some favorite activities are: Making a stage and having concerts, playing police and robbers, jumping on the trampoline, seeing Lego videos on You Tube, swimming (without wings), playing store - setting it up and using money to pay, etc, drawing- especially writing words, he knows almost all of the letters and can write them, and of course building LEGOS, both small and duplo.

Silas is a very sweet boy and is very energetic and positive.  He likes to try to make people laugh if he can see they are a little bit sad...even if it means hitting himself, etc.  He gets very excited about things and can just blurt out "Wow, this is just a really great day!"  He can have a hard time stopping when somebody says stop or no, but he says himself that he is "practicing" that. We love him so much and look forward to a new chapter of his life when he starts school in the fall.

I interviewed Silas the other day and here are his responses

What is your name: Silas
When is your birthday: May
How old are you: 6
What is your favorite color: Blue
What is your favorite food: Risengrød
Who is your best friend: Samuel and all my boys
What instrument do you want to play: Bass and Electric guitar
Who do you love?: Doggie
What makes you sad: Nothin' (big smile)
What makes you happy: When I tease Benjamin
What do you want to be when you grow up: Garbage man, working man, snitte man, or tanks where you shoot animals that aren't so nice.
What does love mean: I love you really much
Far always says: No to that he hasn't taught me to say "øv bøv bussemand, sur tær i saftevand"
Mom always says: I don't know
Do you like speaking English or Danish: Both
What does Mommy do with you that is fun: Plays lego
What does Far do with you tahat is fun: Plays lego

Liam 8 months

Liam 8 months

We've got an independent man on our hands.  Liam is now a full out crawler and crawls any and everywhere.  He can crawl into the most small and odd places and most often get himself out again.  He is also so much more stable when standing up and can get down again without falling backwards and hitting his head. He can "walk" around tables, counters, whatever, just moving one foot slowly after the other and even scooch chairs or boxes around and walk with them. He is so curious and it's really fun to see him explore!

Liam continues to be a good eater and is eating more and more of whatever we eat. (Including ice cream which Søren gave him one day) He really likes to eat by himeself and is content sitting through a whole meal.  His absolute favorite food are pea pancakes which he can eat all by himself. He has a perfect tweezer grip and is getting quite fast at eating small pieces of fruit, bread and meat.  Liam is content to sit in his high chair for the entire meal...and sometimes that can be a long time with the tempo his brothers set.

Liam now has 4 teeth...two on top and two on the bottem, but 1 more on top is on his way.

Liam got the chicken pox 3 weeks after Benjamin.  You couldn't really tell by his mood, he was just his normal happy self.  He got about 60 pox but they never seemed to itch or bother him.

Seperation anxiety is something that we definitely understand now.  Even if we are in the same room as Liam he will start really crying hard if he can't "feel" or see us.  He gets really upset and frantically crawls where he thinks we went.  On the other hand, if you sit on the floor he will crawl all over and just come over and say hi once in awhile and then crawl back to play.  It's quite cozy!

Liam sleeps a little bit longer stretches at night lately.  For ex: 7:30-12 _ eat _ then sleep from 12:15-4/4:30.  He has a hard time falling asleep again there at 4 sometimes, but sometimes a feeding can help and he'll sleep until 6/6:30.  As for naps he still takes about 2 naps.  One nap lasting 2-3 hours + 1 or 2 more about 1 hour. However, it's been a little more challenging lately to get him to sleep for naps as he constantly wants to spin on his stomach and sit up!

Along with the seperation anxiety,  Liam has really become a Mommy's boy. If I leave the room even though Søren is there, he will cry and cry and try to crawl over to me.  If he is just playing fine by himself and he catches a glimpse of me, he will start whining and crawl in my direction.  A lot of times if Søren is holding him and I get too close, he will reach out for me and want me to take him instead.  As both Silas and Benjamin are major Daddy's boys, I am actually really enjoying this!!!

Liam likes to babble and talks non-stop..da da da, ba, ba, BAH..etc.  Especially if he has something to chew on.

Liam has been going with me every wednesday to Gospel-Kids practice and the kids have watched him grow.  Every time he has learned a new trick, they are so delighted.  One girl was gone a few weeks and when she came back Liam could crawl.  She was so excited and exlaimed "He can crawl".. Liam was alwasy great and just entertained himself.  All the kids love him and had a hard time saying goodbye last week after our last rehearsal as they all wanted to hold him one last time!

Oh and Liam is very camera happy! When you point it at him his whole face lights up with the biggest smile!

We love our little boy and he brings us very much joy..,,we are blessed to be a family of 5!

Missing teeth

Way back when Silas was 4 he lost his two bottom middle teeth.  Now at almost 6 his teeth are falling out like crazy! He lost 3 teeth within a month and his smile is the cutest.  When he lost one of his front teeth he talked with a lisp for a few days! He was so excited to put the teeth under his pillow and in the morning he had gotten a few coins....which was really great because he is saving up for a big lego set!

After the bottom ones came out

A week or so later!

Benjamin's chicken pox

Chicken pox has infected our little town of Skjern and Benjamin picked it up too!  In fact out of 12 kids in his pre-school group, 8 of them had the chicken pox at the same time!

Luckily for Benjamin he has a very mild case of it. I couldn't really count them,  but I'd say maybe only 100 or so spots and only 10 of them that ever got big. He never got at fever and in fact he was in a great mood the whole week.  The only time he seemed bothered by them was one evening, in the beginning, at dinner when he had to sit down and the ones on his bottom bothered him. 

Benjamin stayed home all last week and it was very nice to spend some time together.  Every day while Liam was napping we played outside swinging and playing restaurant in the playhouse.  Eventhouh it wasn't the most convenient time...Søren had a lot of obligations that week and was also gone for 2 days....we made the most of it and this week I miss spending the whole day with him.

Here are a few pictures...he wasn't so excited about getting his picture taken.

 

Relaxation time