Lukey is Five!

On March 17, Luke turned 5! As I know I've written, our plan was to spend two nights at Kalahari to celebrate both his and Kara's birthday. However, with the move to Florida, everything is up in the air. Kara has said that as long as we go to a waterpark at some point, she will be happy. Luke hasn't mentioned it much, but we have definitely not forgotten that we owe him an experience.

Unfortunately, Thomas and I had to leave for Florida on the morning of his actual birthday. I felt pretty guilty/sad that we weren't going to be there to celebrate the whole day with him. But, we tried to make it special. We told him he was going to have four days of fun. The first came on Friday when they had a St. Patrick's Day party at school. Saturday, we made his requested cake, which was a "sparkly baseball." Sunday, his actual birthday, Summer made him cupcakes and got his requested dinner of Little Caesars pizza and noodles (Pasta Roni Fettucine Alfredo is his favorite) and then on Monday, he had his party at school. So, he did not feel deprived.

It is also funny to think that Luke is the same age Kara was when he was born. We are finally back where we started! I remember thinking how crazy it was to be having another child when we were finally getting to the point of having all three in school. Kara was just months away from starting kindergarten. Now, she is in fourth grade and Luke is just months away from starting.

Now, all about Luke! He is still very sweet and cuddly. He loves to sit with me or Thomas and be close to us. He also LOVES balls. That has not waned a bit. He would rather be playing catch or baseball than doing anything else. It has been super wet this year and we haven't been able to play outside in the yard as much as he would like, which is a consistent source of frustration. He starts t-ball on Monday, so hopefully that will satisfy him, but likely, it will just remind him to keep asking us to go outside and play baseball. I am excited to see if he enjoys it as much as we think he will.

Luke is also very smart. He seems to really enjoy math and numbers. We found some old workbooks and he likes to do "homework". He is able to see patterns with numbers and can do basic addition facts easily. The workbook he is currently using is a 1st grade one, so we know he will be well-prepared for Kindergarten. He can also sound out simple words, but isn't as concerned about learning to read, which is fine. We have seen with our older kids that they all get to the same place, the pace and interest just varies. I remember Jack being a fluent reader in Kindergarten and Anna being so upset that she wasn't getting it. It was second grade before she reached the point that Jack was at in Kindergarten, however, now they score within a few points of each other on the standardized language tests and she is in the gifted program for English. So, I know not to worry or to try and push (not that I would be worried at this point anyway--he hasn't even started Kindergarten!). Regardless, we think he is very smart and he is definitely interested in learning. I am sure it helps that he has the advantage of having three older siblings to emulate.

Our "gift" for Luke was to get the old dune buggy up and running. He seemed happy with that. We are holding firm to not bringing any additional stuff into the house.