Connor: Seven Years!

 

I was so bummed that school pictures weren't a few weeks earlier so they could have captured his full four-gap smile! Three is still pretty good though

Age: 7

Height: 3 ft, 11.75 in (and yes, I had to get that specific--for his birthday outing we went to an indoor pool with a waterslide that you had to be four feet tall to ride and they wouldn't let him go on the slide. I felt so bad for him)

Weight: 53 lbs, 2 oz (I had to double check that number after I typed it--he put on a full eight pounds since last year. That's heavier than Garrett was at eight! I wonder if he's just hitting a growth spurt earlier than his brothers did and if he'll end up roughly the same size as them eventually or if he'll maintain this height/weight difference over them. Time will tell!)

Favorite Color: Blue 

Favorite Animal: Cheetah (first year it hasn't been a dog and/or cat, and no idea where it came from--we'll see if it sticks!)

Favorite Book: Wings of Fire (a little ironic since his favorite last year was also a dragon-themed book, but aside from these two series, I don't know that he's ever read any other dragon--or fantasy--books. And to be honest, "favorite" really just means the books he's reading right now, and he was super excited to find graphic novel versions of Wings of Fire, because big brother Garrett was reading through the much more extensive chapter book series)

Favorite Song: Jingle Bell Rock (as much as I have always been a "no Christmas music until after Thanksgiving" person, when the older boys wanted to keep their Christmas piano books out year round to play out of them I couldn't say no because who am I to deny them access to the songs they want to play on the piano? So we Christmas music on the piano year round. And William has been playing this song quite a bit lately)

Favorite Sport: Soccer (not very shockingly, the fact that he joined a team this fall greatly influenced this opinion)

He's the cutie in purple kicking the ball. We'll pretend like he's passing it to his teammate, but no guarantees. Corralling four 6 and 7 year-olds and trying to get them to work together is no small feat

Favorite Thing to do With Mom: Color

Favorite Thing to do with Dad: Play soccer (which is convenient since Darrell was the coach of his--and William's, and Garrett's--soccer teams this fall!)

Chillin' with Dad on the pontoon!

Favorite Thing to do Outside: Bike (three years running on this answer--it's a shame that they can only bike like eight months out of the year!)

Favorite Place to Go: Great Wolf Lodge (haven't been back since William's 10th birthday outing in 2023, but man the boys STILL love talking about it)

Favorite Fruit: Raspberries (also very surprised to discover this is the third year he's given this answer--I would have never guessed because he eats most fruits really well!)

Favorite Vegetable: Zucchini

Favorite Cereal: Cocoa Puffs (third year in a row a chocolate cereal has been his favorite!)

Favorite Treat: Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (look closely at his birthday picture at the end of the post--his cake was a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake and he was so stinkin' excited about it)

Favorite Meal: Italian Spaghetti (Wow. Another repeat. Now I really want to go back and compare his brothers' answers their first few years, because I don't remember any of them repeating so many answers for three years straight. He may be only seven but he sure knows what he consistently likes!)

What Makes You Happy? School (truth. I love how much he loves school)

Sweet boy on his last day of kindergarten!

What Makes You Sad? Falling off the monkey bars (knock on wood, but I'm shocked we haven't had an ER visit with this kiddo's monkey bar antics. Multiple times a week we have to go over to the monkey bars when I'm picking him up after school because he has to show me another new "skill" that he's mastered, which is usually some variation of skipping bars or crazy hanging things. He's definitely got some ninja in him)

Case in point of my monkey boy

Who are your Best Friends: Garrett and Steven (same as last year--not his brother Garrett, but a classmate named Garrett. Who also happened to be on his soccer team, so that was super fun)

What do you want to be when you grow up? Soccer Player

What was your favorite part about last year? Gym 

What is one thing you want to do this year? Have more fun (I mean, shouldn't this be everyone's goal? Love it--and hope we're doing a good job helping him be successful with it!)

Photographic proof that he doesn't shy away from having fun and being silly, so I think he'll have an easy time hitting his goal for the year!

Well, par for the course, I got (ridiculously) behind on posts again. It's a darn good thing I only have one birthday in the fall/early winter to catch up on after the chaos of the holidays--although I don't have lots of time to play catch up since we start the year with a January birthday and February birthday (one of which has already passed!). And honestly, the hardest thing about getting so far behind is that it is hard to separate the Connor who just reached his seventh birthday from the Connor who is (practically) halfway to eight. However, one thing we really started to notice as Connor started 1st grade is that he began having a lot of problematic (or at least annoying) behaviors around not getting to do things his older brothers were doing. They get to stay up later, they get to read "scarier" books (Harry Potter is the big one right now that he's mad he has to wait for), they get to do different activities, etc. Life just isn't fair, and he has a world of complaints about it. And it doesn't help that there's an extra year between him and Garrett (currently 1st grade to 4th grade versus William to Garrett which is 6th to 4th), so not only does he have to watch both William and Garrett do cool "big kid" stuff, but his wait is longer than Garrett's was to do the same activity. Of course it doesn't matter to him if William and Garrett didn't get to do those things when they were in 1st grade--they are doing them now and so he wants to do them now too. Definitely a growing pain that we are having to work through, but we'll get there!

Of course, despite Connor's perspective of *never* getting to do the cool stuff his brothers do, he still had a pretty spectacular year--including lots of things his brothers haven't done yet or things he got to do for the first time at a younger age. It isn't easy being a middle child (and I'm sure the younger of the two middle is even worse!), but someday Connor will grow to love his perfect little spot in our family--because we love having him there.

First kiddo to wear a WHS football jersey! We love that our elementary school has such a close relationship with the high school that most of the students will feed into, and homecoming week always has fun festivities!

First time sweeping his arm through a fire! Darrell showed the boys this trick during a bonfire last fall and they all thought it was super cool

First kiddo to get a picture with a AU cheerleader! She was his student teacher and Connor was so excited to see her at a game

Okay, we fish enough at the lake that I don't really think there are any "firsts" he can check off there, but he's too cute with his fish for me to not share it

First time water skiing! And youngest kid to successfully get up. William and Garrett both tried last summer (at eight and ten), and William *kind of* got up, but not so much Garrett. We got a new pair of youth skis though and all three older boys popped right up this summer!

Happy Seventh Birthday my sweet boy! I know you want to get older so you can do the "cool" stuff like your brothers, but I hope you never get too cool for cuddles and bedtime hugs and kisses from Mommy