Nine is Fine

 Eight was great, but...

 

 

Nine is Fine!

(yes, we are totally cheesy with age rhymes but after 9, I'm outta luck. If you know something interesting that rhymes with ten let me know in the next 10 months or so...)

 

 

This boy is all boy and is so, so fun. For his birthday we had some friends over and had a massive Nerf-gun battle in the backyard, followed by a campfire with S'mores-- his dream come true! And it definitely was a fun night.

Mason got rollerblades for Christmas and they are his favorite thing to do all day every day (especially if he should be doing his grammar instead). Most of the kids in our neighborhood also have rollerblades so they all have a lot of fun together. In addition to being an amazing blader, Mason is also pretty great at manipulating convincing his friends to tow him around. He is also really growing as a big brother, though, and I see him more and more taking the time to help and take care of his brothers. He's taught Levi how to rollerblade and is now working on Micah!

 

 

Thanks to Joe's art lessons, Mason is also growing as an artist, but his favorite medium is still found-object multimedia sculpture (making stuff out of trash he finds or parts he dissembles from broken electronics). He still loves taking things apart-- he got his own set of tools for Christmas so that Joe wouldn't have to share ;)

 His favorite foods are still hamburgers and ice cream. We've been taking full advantage of Steak 'n Shake's happy hour lately. Apparently milkshakes are the best pre-soccer practice nutrition.

 

Whether by nature or nurture (we put him in a lot of monkey-themed baby clothes and painted a monkey hanging out of a tree on his nursery wall)... Mason is a natural climber and loves to hang out in trees. On school days his favorite spot for snack is up in the tree in the front yard :) We're going to need to visit mountains more frequently (yearly Colorado Camp is already officially planned whether Aunt Cassie likes it or not).

 

 

One of our favorite parts of this year have been our Fun Fridays, when we do homeschool co-op on Friday mornings with our friends to fit in all the art and science projects that are way less fun with just a few people. We love our Fun Friday friends! The boys most of all love to run outside and play football as soon as we're done with school. Whether they are homeschooled or not, lunch and recess are still their favorite subjects!

 

 

We've been making some new friends at our new church, Action Church, which has stretched us out of our comfort zone, but the boys are having a great time. We attract families with boys-- our new friends have three boys also, and we love hanging out with people who actually get it. They get the noise and the dirt and the wrestling piles and the NOISE. Did I mention the noise?

 

 Mason has been such a faithful prayer warrior in our loooong season of waiting for Tesfa. He prays faithfully and specifically for her every day. Lately his favorite prayers are for her not to be scared on the airplane and for her to like Millie. Whatever the content of his prayers, I just love that he is so thoughtful and that hopefully one day we will get to tell her how much her biggest brother prayed and waited for her.

 

 

 

 

Most of all, I really just love how funny and creative Mason is. He's always got a great joke, voraciously reads the newspaper comics, and if you ask, he's usually storing up a few really interesting and completely disgusting fun facts. Although he still mostly hates the idea of writing words on paper (drama!) his ideas are exciting. His latest stories have centered on gigantic Vikings who create hurricanes, dragons who fly into people's ears and get smashed in pizza, and thread snakes which could slither through the hole left by an absent pencil lead. We may be lacking in rainbows and unicorns, but this manly little guy always keeps us on our toes.