BJ had an eventful birthday celebration.  He had three friends over last Friday night for a sleepover (although one decided he needed to leave about 10:30 after the others decided telling ghost stories would be fun).  The boys were up until the wee hours running around and giggling.

The next day, he and Alyson had their annual joint family birthday party (we’re still eating lots of cake, Mom, LOL).  It was so nice to have family over to visit.  Alyson loves her doodle mat, clothes and Dogz game.  BJ loves his soccer game and Hyper Jump game.

On his birthday, BJ got to choose what restaurant he wanted to go to.  Luckily, the Alvords were able to join us at Old Country Buffet.  The kids ate like there was no tomorrow.  I think Christian and Joy managed to eat 5 plates of food plus 3 desserts.  Crazy kids.  Alyson loved the beanie moose and white tiger (the tiger was BJ’s but she paid him the $10 from her card for it).  She takes quite good care of her stuffed friends.

BJ is excited to bring home the class tortoise sometime this school year.  His teacher said she was surprised just how many of the parents called and said it was ok to take him home.  BJ enjoys school, although he’s been trying the ‘I feel sick’ most mornings lately.  He just wants to stay home and watch TV (who doesn’t?).  Mostly, though, he’s a sweet, helpful boy who still loses control of his body parts on occasion and loves to make rude noises.  We had to write ‘r’ words down so he could make sentences with them for speech.  He thought up the word fart and was absolutely stunned when I actually wrote it.  I think he giggled for a good 15 minutes over that.

The kids enjoyed decorating their gingerbread house from Grandma Karen again this year.  We had a bit of an issue with the roof sliding off, but the kids remedied the situation by starting to eat it rather quickly.

Side note:  Alyson doesn’t understand the concept of an advent calendar.  Or perhaps she’s smarter than the rest of us.  She ate every chocolate in her advent calendar on the first day, even after we repeatedly explained that she needed to wait.  BJ decided to ask if he could eat all of his and jumped to the conclusion that if he ate them faster, Christmas would come faster.  *sigh*

BJ’s report card came home today.  He’s doing great.  He got 3s pretty much across the board (meets expectations).  He’s a joy to have in class and needs to work on letting his classmates do their work.  He got a 4 in PE (exceeds expectations), and is progressing nicely in speech.

Speaking of speech, I don’t think I’d mentioned here that the school finally decided he needed help, after we’ve already invested in months of private speech.  He only has one sound to work on, ‘r’.  At practice for the Christmas program a few days ago I realized just how far he has come in the last year.  When he spoke his lines, they were clear and understandable (and he had memorized his lines well).  We’re so proud of the hard work he has done.

“The pilgrims lived on an island and then they sailed on a ship for like billions of years and then they found the Americans and shared their food.”

Thanks, BJ, for today’s history lesson.