Lukas turns 5

Lukas' Birthday was another fun family celebration.  We started our day, just the four of us with Luke's favorite, Pancake breakfast.  And then Lukas dug into his gifts, including the magnaformers you see in the second picture.  Then we skyped with Cousin Chris who's birthday is the same day!  We had a lot of fun and the boys even raked/blew the leaves.  So then there were mid day baths before the parties began.  The Pfeiffer crew came over in the afternoon to celebrate.  Then in the evening, the Sprenkles came up for a Pizza party and Evan stayed over for the two of their's first ever, sleepover. They stayed up until about 10 talking in Luke's room before falling asleep, it was cute and funny.  Then we got up early and went to church, like usual.  It just so happened that Pastor Ron's birthday is the same week as Lukas' so that made for a funny and timely children's sermon.  Sunday afternoon Grandma Estevez joined us for round 3 of celebrations and we ended the weekend on a very fun note!  Lukas appreciated all his gifts and company very much.   

"I'm just going to keep on eating these chips until you take the bag away" (his rebellious streak ;))

 

The family musician gave us all a piano recital too!

 

Finally, for family memory book purposes, here are some fun facts about our five year old! 

1.  Favorites - pancakes (with sprinkles and peanut butter) and peperoni pizza.  Candy - peanut butter cups.  Fruit - grapes.  Veggie - sweet potato fries. Color - Green, and red.  He loves crushed ice. 

2.  Favorite things - vehicles of any kind, transformers, dinosaurs, animals.  He likes legos too, and really cute stuffed animals.  He likes reading books about animals, factual/nonfiction is not boring to him as long as it's about animals.  He likes to color and watch shows and movies about super heroes or animals. 

3.  Favorite activities - playing with friends, playing in the sandbox at school, biking, scootering, going to the playground, climbing trees.  He is fantastic at puzzles - he can easily do a 60 piece puzzle without any help and likes doing 100-200 piece-rs with help, especially if they include vehicle or animal scenes.  He likes to paint pictures, but also wooden or plaster things in 3D.  He likes roller skating but isn't very good.  He likes to visit the local zoo, Hershey park, the museum and Monkey Joes. 

4.  Best / worst traits - he is very kind and lets others go first most of the time, he's thoughtful and wants to help especially if someone doesn't feel good.  He always wants to negotiate everything.  He doesn't like to eat what mommy prepares, regardless of whether he actually likes it or not. 

5.  Friends - our neighbors: Lily, Vivian Carper, Abby, Emma and Joe Wincovitch, plus Charlie and Nicholas too (although he'd probably say they're too little to be friends).  Evan and Carter Sprenkle, and Carter Ward. 

6.  School stuff - he's the best artist in his class, two years in a row now (according to me at least!), he's a creative drawer and will draw anything if you ask him too.  Also with his art, he is very confident, contrary to some other things.  He knows all his letters, upper and lower case, can write them all relatively well, can spell his name without help and a few other words, knows about 5 sight words, can count to 50 or so with help on the 10s.  Does has some simple addition memorized, many books memorized and has dozens of strange animal facts memorized.  He is fascinated by extinction of the dinosaurs. He knows the Lord's Prayer but doesn't like to recite it on the spot, and always wants to say grace. 

7.  Teeth - he hasn't lost any yet! 

8.  Other stuff - He isn't sure if he believes in Santa and we haven't talked about it much. He's doing his first volunteer activity next weekend.  He does a few chores - feeds Ruby, gets the mail, uses a dust buster if he makes a mess, and helps to clear the table regularly.  He loves to do windows and clorox wipe floor boards too if he's asked.  He helps daddy with outdoor chores quite a bit also.  He doesn't get an allowance but does have a piggy bank and is working on saving.  He happily spent some of his own birthday money on crocheted stuffed animals for himself and Nicholas last week! 

All in all, Lukas is a tremendous blessing!  He's fun, curious and thoughtful.  Happy birthday big guy!!