Garrett: Six Years!

Oh Garrett, what a year it's been. Who could have guessed how drastically the world would change just a few short weeks after your fifth birthday? Here we are though; we made it another trip around the sun and not only are you another year older, but now you are a kindergartener. And a mighty fine (albeit entirely too grown up looking) one at that.

Birthday Interview

Age: 6

Height: 3 ft, 7.5 in

Weight: 41 lb, 11 oz

(Still my little peanut, but growing steadily so no concerns from the doctor!)

What is your favorite color? Pink

I couldn't begin to tell you where I got a pink tie, but using it as leverage made it a lot easier to get Garrett dressed up for a wedding last summer

What is your favorite animal? Puppy

What is your favorite book? Garfield (I actually think he means Clifford? He's been using them both to refer to what seems like the same thing, plus he talks about reading them in school, and as much as I enjoy a good Garfield comic, I'm a little dubious that they would be part of a kindergarten curriculum) 

What is your favorite song? Yankee Doodle

What is your favorite sport? Kick Ball

We happened to be at the lake the weekend before his birthday, which definitely influenced some of his answers, but... This photo is from the early months of quarantine and kickball at the lake was just as big back then

What is your favorite thing to do with Mom? Bake Stuff

Cheesing out while helping Mama make the frosting for Connor's birthday cake!

What is your favorite thing to do with Dad? Play Kick Ball

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play Football

Just a little outdoor football in November in South Dakota... NBD

Where is your favorite place to go? Lake

And favorite thing to do at the lake? Fishing. The worst part of going down there during the quarantine months (and the few times we made it there this winter) was the fact that he couldn't fish

What is your favorite fruit? Apples

What is your favorite vegetable? Peppers

What is your favorite cereal? Cocoa (basically anything with chocolate: Cocoa Krispies, Peanut Butter Cocoa Spheres, etc)

What is your favorite treat? Cupcakes

A good friend sent Darrell and I anniversary cupcakes in May, and I'm pretty sure the boys were more excited than we were!

What is your favorite meal? Beer Cheese Soup (or, according to his spelling, Bear Cheese Soup)

What makes you happy? Piggy

So Piggy isn't actually in this picture because he is a very recent addition to Garrett's animal menagerie, but you can see Baby Elephant in this picture, who was three (or more!) animals before Piggy. He goes through phases with his "primary" stuffed animal, although Taggie (the small blueish blanket near baby elephant) has been an constant since before he was one

What makes you sad? When I don't make the podium (in Mario Kart--a very recent obsession of both William and Garrett)

Who are you best friends? Aviana

What do you want to be when you grow up? Firefighter

What was your favorite part about last year? Jumping in leaf piles

It goes without saying that anything Garrett likes Matthew likes--or at the very least Matthew is forced to try it because Garrett can't not be around Matthew

What is one thing you want to do this year? Do Mystery Mosaic (a type of color by number book that he's been really in to lately)

And just because it's too fun not to share, Garrett insisted on writing his own answers to his birthday interview (usually I write the answers to make it more of an interview/conversation and less of an independent activity) and his handwriting is just too cute

I feel like there are so many more things I need to say about Garrett as he turns six, and at the same time I can't think of anything at all to say. I think I'll just throw a few more pictures on the post (and inevitably unnecessarily long captions with said photos) and hopefully that will capture at least a portion of the past year with my not-so-little (but definitely still little!) boy.

Less than a week before things shut down I took him to the pottery store for story time and a craft and this pink-loving unicorn-obsessed boy very much every minute of it (and didn't bat his eyes once at being the only boy there) 

One of the sweetest ladies from church sent the boys marigold seeds during quarantine and Garrett got really into the whole gardening thing. He wanted to get more and more stuff to plant (which unfortunately we never did last year because #covid), and when the marigolds started going to seed he made a point to collect as many as he could so that he would have plenty to plant this year

I love, love, love the joy in this picture. We were a little bit nervous about how he would do at the beach since swim lessons got cancelled last spring, but as you can see he did just fine. Kids are resilient 

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have my moments of sadness thinking about all of the "normal" kindergarten experiences Garrett would miss out on because of starting school during a pandemic. But, like so many things this past year, he took it all in stride (and candidly, it's not like he knew any different). We had our fair share of rough morning drop offs (which I'm certain would have happened regardless of the pandemic) but overall he has done so, so well

Nothing to see here, just a silly boy hiding in a tree

Garrett got some air dry clay for Christmas and LOVED it (all things arts and crafts are incredibly popular with him; I can't tell you how many of his school papers come home with doodles on them). He was very intentional about making the animals small so he would have plenty of clay to make lots and lots and lots of them

Check out that tooth! He lost it shortly before his birthday, although it hung out in this weird twisted position--with the shark tooth behind it--for waaay longer than I thought it would. Fortunately there is no shortness of rough play in this house and a wild game tackle game with William was the collision he needed to knock it out.

We were so, so fortunate for a (mostly) mild winter that allowed for plenty of outdoor (aka COVID-friendly) gatherings with Grandma and Grandpa (and cousins, of course!). It may not be the most exciting sledding hill in town, but this Mama sure had fun watching her boys enjoy sledding on the same hill (aka Grandma and Grandpa's front lawn) she grew up on! 

There were so many places that I didn't get to take Garrett to "one last time" before kindergarten because of the pandemic, so being able to rent the Bounce Around Inflatables facility (aka a warehouse with four different inflatables to play on)--and having all of the family view such an arrangement as "safe"--was a blast for everyone

Happy 6th Birthday sweet boy! You may not always remember a lot from the year (plus!) of the pandemic, but I hope you remember that your sixth year was filled with as much fun and love as we could fit in to it--because I know you helped fill our year with the same even (and especially!) when we were feeling overwhelmed with what life looked like outside the walls of this house