birthday boy carson

we had a great time at carson's 5-year-old b-day party. 1-1/2 hours, 11 5ish-year-old kids, 2 pools, 1 slip-n-slide, 2 craft ideas, 4 pizzas, 1 ice cream cake, about 18,000 water balloons (which lasted for about 3 minutes), and a backyard full of festive anticipation.

after carson opened each gift, he had to find the giver, look him/her in the eye, and say "thank you" before moving onto the next unwrap job. the kids all thought that was hilarious -- carson's frantically looking around at the faces of all the friends to make eye contact with the one who would be, by this time, standing very still and trying not to smile to see how long it would take him. it was a cute memory for me -- we're so grateful for his good friends!

just want to say a word or two about carson: he's a wonderful kid, very sensitive and inquisitive and smart. he's good at solving problems and will often "take one for the team" when diplomatic compromises among peers aren't working out. (his preschool teacher told me that carson would often wait until all the kids had lined up before going to the back of the line, "so no one else has to be last.")

he's imaginative and loves to create projects -- many every day, and the more complex the better. he's getting braver at getting dressed by himself in his basement bedroom and is becoming very confident about the abilities of his superhero alias (super-shades) to "defeat the bad guys." carson loves playing and reading and riding his bike. he's a good big brother to his sisters, playing with layla and helping to keep addie safe and laughing. he wants to know the inner workings of the world and will ask "why?" until he's satisfied with the answer (rarely) or the adult shrugs and says, "i just don't know" (not as rarely...in fact, his mother does this more often than she probably should).

he is a sweet kid mixed with silliness and a budding streak of independence, and we just plain ol' love him. happy 5th birthday, kiddo.