FIVE

Today the boys are at home with me for their 7th snow day of the year. But, much more important than that is today is Cale's 5th birthday!!! I cannot believe my baby boy is five. Everyone says that when their child turns a certain age, but I REALLY mean it. I truly can't believe that five years have past since I gave birth to this precious boy!

How do I even begin to describe my bug? He is such a stinker-pot! He makes me laugh all throughout the day...each and every day. I'm just SO thankful that Cale is in my life! To this day I just know that God knew we needed him in our life whether we did or not and I will be forever grateful for that.

This is a copy of the letter we wrote about Cale when he was the star of the week at school this year:

Dear Cale's class,

Cale is a very special little boy. In our house we call him "Bug" or "Calebug". His daddy started calling him that as a baby and it just stuck. Cale is so much fun and so full of life. He wakes up with a smile and goes to bed with a smile every night. He is such a joy!

We love that Cale is so outgoing and fun! He loves to meet and talk to new people, especially grown ups.

He is always giving us hugs and kisses and saying I love you. Getting kissses and hugs from Cale always brightens our day.

Cale is a wonderful brother. Cale and his older brother Connor love to play baseball together. Cale and his older brother Coby love to play legos together. They have so much fun together. Connor and Coby are so happy to have a little brother to hang out with. They think Cale is really cool!

One of Cale's favorite things to do is make our family laugh. Sometimes he makes us laugh by telling silly stories. Other times he makes us laugh by making up songs and dancing. WE love hearing all the songs that Cale makes up. He is so good at it!

Cale is also a very smart boy. He loves to learn and we love to teach him new things. He likes to teach us new things too. We love when Cale teaches us something new.

The most important thing you should know about Cale is that we love him so much. We are so thankful he is apart of our family. He brings us son much joy every day!!!

Cale's mommy, daddy, and brothers (Connor and Coby)

Cale, Cale, Cale....he is such a silly, sweet, funny, loving, and smart little boy! I just adore him more than words can ever express. Out of the blue last night he said, "I'll never stop loving you mommy." He is a momma's boy (who also loves his daddy so) and is ALWAYS hugging and loving on me. I am SO thankful that he is in our lives.

I am so grateful that I told Darren we should leave the "option" open to have just one more baby when he thought otherwise. Because of that, we were blessed with Cale and without Cale in our lives, we would feel incomplete. Cale completes our family, plain and simple. I am so thankful to be his mother and his daddy is just CRAZY about him! We are SO thankful he is apart of our family. What a blessing he is. I love him so!

Now, for his five year old stats...he weighs 35 pounds (with clothes on) and is 39 3/4" tall.

Cale seems to love hanging out with the girls more than boys. According to him, his best friend is Mia-Kate. He seems to really like to hang out with girls, but is also very much a "boys" boy as well.

He is reading books with simple words and is very good at sounding out words he doesn't know.

He reminds me SO much of Connor (intellectually) at this age...both very smart little boys with amazing memories. Personality-wise however, Cale is much more outgoing and silly than Connor. He is a people person for sure and I have a horrible feeling that he's also going to be a class clown.

He loves to meet and talk to new people...when he and I are shopping, he will talk and talk to the sales clerk (especially female sales clerks :) and it seems as if I am always waiting on him to wrap up his conversation so I can leave a store! I'm not sure where got this social side to him....although I have to admit it is pretty cute!

Cale thinks Coby hung the moon. He loves to hang out and play with Coby. They have so much fun together and I just love watching them play. I know one of these day Coby is going to think he's "too big or too cool" to play with Cale so I'm savoring every minute I see them having fun together. Most recently they like to play cars (Hot Wheels) together, play with their Playmobil toys together and they also spend lots of time building Legos together. Coby also likes to read to Cale and loves to help Cale read (and learn) as well. Seriously, these two are just precious together (when they're getting along because when they're not it gets pretty ugly around here!).

Cale has recently started using a deep voice when talking to other people (people other than our immediate family). I don't know if he thinks it's cool or if he's nervous, OR if he started doing it and it just became a habit. It's funny, but I hope it's just a phase that will quickly go away because I much prefer his little boy voice over his deep voice...plus, he'll really have a deep voice soon enough without having to pretend.

There is so much I could say about my Calebug, but for now I think I'll wrap this up and go spend the day loving on him.

Happy Birthday Cale!