... and my heart swells

Last year at B's IEP meeting, they told us one of the big Sensory Disorder "aha" moments was when the kids tried different tastes and Brecken wouldn't even let them put anything on his plate.

Today, he told us that they tried a bunch of food at school today to see if it was sour or sweet or salty, AND they had to taste it with their eyes closed.

He tried them ALL. (and with his eyes closed, mind you!)

I sent his teacher a message on facebook, just to make sure, (because you know, kids have been known to remember things differently from time to time... haha!) and she replied with, "He absolutely did and we were all so excited - it was GREAT!" And then said they had so much fun today and he's having such a great year and is now one of the leaders in the class.

I'm SO PROUD OF HIM!!!! (and I won't lie, I got some happy tears in my eyes.)

He did NOT like:
Hot Tamales

Pickles

Lemons

Bitter Chocolate

But he LOVED:
salt

salty chips

pepper (this one surprised me!)

Way to go, my B-man!!!

five

We have a five year old.

I'm not sure how that happened.

I blinked, and he was no longer a baby, but a big boy.

And as he told me today, "See Mom? You didn't even cry about it."

We had a great weekend. We had a party for him yesterday. No family was available for a party this year, which was really odd. So we invited friends from school for the first time! We had a few kids running around, and his new babysitter, and a couple of our friends, and fun was had. This year, instead of a football cake, B-man wanted a basketball cake. Woo-hoo! I got to buy a new cake pan! :) (he had a football cake for his 1st, 3rd, and 4th birthdays!) He got a giant box of crayons, a coloring book, and a toy Lightning McQueen camera from his friend Sophie, a Lightning McQueen bowling set from some new friends (the dad is a new teacher at my school), a Play-Doh Cars set from his babysitter, and $10 from our friend and fellow coach and his wife. We had a football pinata filled with toys like green army men, plastic dinosaurs, plastic airplanes, etc. They all thought that was fun.

Today was about perfect. We woke up and B discovered his gift from Josh and I in the living room... a new Lightning McQueen bike! His 12" bike was getting too small, so he's now the proud owner of a new 16" one. He also got to open his cards he got in the mail... $5 from my mom and dad and $5 from Grandma Lou... put that together with what he got yesterday and the $5 he got from Josh's parents, the kid raked in $25 for his birthday! And said he's not spending it... he's saving it. For Disney World in 2014!)

After going out for breakfast, he got on his new bike and we headed to the park to play for a while. After he picked pizza for his birthday lunch, he and I played a couple games of Disney World Candy Land (from Aunt Kristen and Uncle David, which he also opened this morning!) while Daddy went to his football meeting. After the meeting though, we all got to go golfing! B was in total heaven. We played more Candy Land this evening before bed.

And a big day today in another sense... he wore jeans and a new t-shirt for exactly one minute AND let me take a picture! They came off after that one minute, but one minute is one minute longer than I have seen him wear denim since he was a baby, so I'm thrilled with that! :)

(I should note, we did get to celebrate with BOTH sets of his grandparents last weekend... we went out to dinner to Pizza Hut with them, where he received the spy plane from the new Cars 2 movie from my mom and dad, and a Cars 2 stunt set, a Cars 2 book, and a couple water guns from Josh's mom and dad. He loves them all! And can you tell he's a Cars fanatic??)

My baby said I didn't cry about him turning five, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to. He's come a long way in those five years and I couldn't be more in love.

the shoes

Brecken got some new shoes this weekend. We looked at three stores in Scottsbluff for just the right ones. He really wanted yellow and black ones, like his old shoes were. We looked and looked, and we found the perfect ones! He loved them from the start and I was really excited when he tried them on and he loved how they felt on him. I made him walk all over the store, try running, etc., just to make sure they were going to work for his senses. *phew* - he wanted them!

The shoe on the left is the one he had on in the picture I took on his 4th birthday. The shoe on the right is the new one. The one on the left is a size 9. The shoe on the left is a size 12. 3 shoe sizes in one year. Holy moly. I about fell over! (He has been wearing Crocs all summer, of course, so we didn't have a "real" shoe size for him!)

(These shoes are lined up at the back.... you can't tell, but they are.)