Caleb got to go for Ethan's birthday celebration in his Kindergarten class. (We took a special snack for his class on his birthday...donuts!) His teacher told me I was welcome to bring all the boys. Unfortunately, I was sick so Todd and Caleb went and took pictures so I could see. This reminds me of when I was in Kindergarten. My mom and my little sister Donna brought snacks for my whole class. I remember being so excited and I remember telling all my friends very proudly that Donna was my little sister. They all thought she was so cute....and she was, of course. :) (Funny that she was only a year younger than us, but we felt SO grown up.) I loved that my mom brought snacks for my WHOLE class. :) Ethan had a GREAT day on his birthday....even though I was very sick, I did, too. Watching Ethan's excitement about his birthday made my day! :)
Ethan has been talking about this Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree for a couple of months. He spotted it when I accidentally left a toy catalogue out in early December. So we used some of his birthday money for his much-loved tree. The picture says it all. He LOVES this letter tree! I debated about whether or not to get it because he was REALLY "stuck" on Chicka Chicka Boom Boom for awhile. (Children on the autism spectrum often have special areas of interests.) Ethan's first love is Mr. Potato Head. He has had different areas of interest over the years. Letters and numbers are another BIG area of interest and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom was one thing he got "stuck" on for quite a while. It could be hard at times to draw him out when he was zoned in on saying or singing the words of the book. He has to finish the whole thing or he won't pay attention to anything else. At school sometimes he just whispers the rest of the letters quietly to himself to finish them before he can move on and participate with the rest of the class. Then, for quite a while he wanted to draw the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree with all the letters constantly. In Sunday School if his teachers asked him to draw a flower, he'd automatically draw the tree with all the letters. One year at Easter all the kids drew flowers on a big picture they put on the wall...flowers around the tomb. Well, this tomb also had a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree! :) In Kindergarten at the beginning of the year, that's all he wanted to draw. Now he's really into the calendar. He loves to spell the months of the year, days of the week, seasons. He loves saying (for example) "Goooooodbyyyyye, January!!!!" on the last day of Jan and "Helllllloooooooo, February!!!" on the first day of February. He will tell everyone he sees, "We said goodbye to January!!!" It's so sweet. If he sees a calendar with the wrong date he is very quick to be sure it's made right. At school his teacher knows that on the way out to car line, he stops to check on the neighboring teacher's calendar to be sure all the numbers are lined up correctly. Then, when he gets out to car line, he ALWAYS goes up to the teacher who had the numbers out of order to tell her which numbers were out of order. She is very sweet and always gives him big hugs for "helping" her keep her numbers in order. :) I think I worried in vain about him spending "too much" time with the tree, though. He's played with it a few times since he got it yesterday, but he moves on to other things thankfully!!! :)

Ethan was BEYOND excited about his Mr. Potato Head lunchbox. His teacher said he talked about it all day! :)

I let Ethan and Connor go in to wake up Caleb and Sawyer so Ethan's birthday celebration could begin. :)

He FINALLY decided the week before his birthday that he would turn 6. :) Before this week he was intent on turning EIGHT. :) Eight is his favorite number so he kept saying, "I don't want 6. I want 8. I'm 8, Mommy. I don't want to be 5 or 6. I want to be 8!" We had to convince him to turn six. :) By his birthday he was very excited about being six. :) Phew! :)