Our 6 Year Old Boy

6 Year Old Favorites: 

Food: Creamy Chicken Soup and Taco Salad

Color: Blue and Red

TV Shows: Paw Patrol and Umizoomi

Movie: Lego Movie 2

Book: A to Z Mysteries, Calendar Mysteries, and Magic Tree House

Animal: Cheetah, Penguins, and Hawks

Shae is always asking, "Take a picture of me?" when there is anything interesting/unusual going on. Like a milk mustache, or accidently putting his clothes on inside out, or so he can see the birthmark on his back, etc. 

Not only does he ask to take pictures of himself, but of just about anything else that he deems to be cool enough for a picture. Like, the tortilla's that he ate in a special way.

Before he breaks any lego creation, he also asks to borrow the camera to take a picture of the creation from every single angle. Our cameras are full of pictures like this: (thank goodness for digital cameras!)

Shae is innovative. Always coming up with big ideas that usually just get bigger and bigger as he thinks about them. He is always creating new games, recipes, and systems. Just yesterday he created and wrote out a dance schedule for each day of the week. He wrote out a pattern for hip hop and break dancing for each day so that we would know what dance moves we should be doing when songs come on. The hardest part is persuading him that others (ahem, sister) are allowed to do their own types of dance, but he is still welcome to follow his schedule. 

The below pictures from his last turn at FHE snack. He wanted to make a rainbow smoothie, ie, a smoothie using foods with all the colors of the rainbow. It took me awhile to convince him to change a few of the foods (green peppers for green and blueberries for blue since they are insanely expensive here--we used blueberry yogurt instead) and to talk him down from adding colors of the sky and the clouds, like I said, once he gets an idea, it builds, which I think is a definite strength of his, but when the smoothie food is coming from my wallet, you gotta put a stop somewhere.

Yesterday he asked me if we could mix watermelon, green peppers (always green peppers), raisins, and pancake syrup together and then put it in the oven for a few minutes, and then freeze it and see how it tastes. We'll let you know how it goes.

 This is probably no surprise, as I'm sure many 6 year olds are similar in this way, but Shae LOVES to draw. He could sit and draw made up robots, monsters, and pokemon forever. I love that he has started adding lots of color and detail to his pictures within the past few months.

  Around the holidays we watched some Art Hub for Kids videos on Youtube of some Christmas folding surprise drawings. Shae loved them so much so that after he watched and drew just about every one on the site, he started making up his own.

 We started using Amazon FreeTime in order to have more access to books while here in Indonesia. They have a huge collection of the Mr. Men and Little Miss books which have been fun for us to read. They have also made quite a few appearances in Shae's drawings (I love the itty bitty red Mr. Small down there under Mr. Perfect).

Three headed monster breathing fire on a building. 

Shae is ever the curious one, which has led to some fun conversations over the past few months about periods and sex. You know, all those super fun topics that parents just can't wait to talk about with their kids.

After explaining a bit about periods one day, he kept asking me, "Mom, have you pooped out that egg yet? I hope not, I hope it turns it to a baby." There are so many things wrong with those two sentences, but we'll take it a little at at time :).

Period talk, obviously led to some "but HOW does the egg turn in to a baby?" and "but HOW does the sperm get from dad into your belly?" So, we told him. He seemed pretty unfazed by it, again, just giving him little pieces of the puzzle at a time, but what was really funny was that after our whole conversation, what he was left wondering was, "Where do you look when the sperm is being put in the mommy?" He asked, "Like, when I'm a daddy, will I be looking at you mom when I put the sperm in?" Oh boy. I explained that I wouldn't be there, so his next question was, "Well then, will I be looking at dad?" We explained that dad wouldn't be there either, just him and his wife. He settled on, "I guess I'll just close my eyes then." And we left it at that. 

I can't imagine our family without this sweet, curious, loving, thoughtful, passionate boy. 

Six Year Old Pokemon Trainer Dude

The Lego Movie 2 came out the week before Shae's birthday. We knew we were going to take advantage of seeing it while here no matter what, but it was extra fun because we made it the official kick off of birthday week for Shae. When we got close to the theater we blindfolded him and made him guess where we were going. He was pretty sure it was the Lego movie, but then kept second guessing himself. As soon as we walked in the theater he announced, "I smell popcorn! I knew it! The Lego Movie!"

 As if we didn't get enough stares already, let's blindfold our kid and walk around Jakarta. 

 The new 6 year old smile is all about no teeth showing. 

The day of his birthday he opened up some birthday cereal. 

 She was pretty excited about the birthday cereal too. These kids are getting a little tired of oatmeal and eggs. (I on the other hand, love it and hope we eat oatmeal and eggs for the rest of forever--and granola :). 

 We explained to the kids that we would be doing birthday experiences this year for their gifts since we already have Christmas toys to squeeze in to our luggage (although we did cave and get him a little lego set and I had grabbed 2 beanie babies my brother was getting rid of  to give them at some point as well, so he also got a little beanie baby hippo--Tubbo). 

After discovering a bowling alley close to our apartment, Shae decided that that was what he wanted to do for his birthday. Along with McDonalds for dinner, because "then I'll get another toy." We met up with Darin on our way to the bowling alley. We all think it's hilarious to see him wearing his mask (although glad he does it in hopes of protecting those lungs just a little). 

 Stopped for a few bday pics on our walk over.

And then to bowl! The bowling alley was puh-ritty ghetto. The balls were covered in scratches and the lane seemed to have some weird lumps in it, as our balls would randomly turn while moving straight on till morning for a strike that never happened. Still fun for the kids and that made it fun for us.

 Another ice cream cake for this ice cream loving boy. We did it Oreo style. Crushed Oreo crust, then layered chocolate, vanilla, chocolate ice cream. He decorated the top with some more Oreos and a few Pokemon. 

 Convinced him to flash me those pearly whites.

From my instagram post:

Belén is convinced he's still 5, "But guys, he's not taller. Or bigger. He's still the same! He's NOT six." It's hard for me to believe too. He's soft-hearted, passionate, and thoughtful. He's a rule follower and a budding baseball lover. He's a Pokemon/Lego expert. He dislikes just about every food these days ("It tastes better in Ithaca"). Audiobooks and stuffed animals spark deep joy in his heart. And he really truely is 6 😱.

We sure do love this kid.

January Little Things

He's half-asleep in the picture below, but he was so happy when we woke him up at midnight on New Years so that he could see the fireworks. Poor Belén did NOT want to be awake, but was rudely awoken by the fireworks blasting, literally, right outside of her window. She laid in bed with her ears plugged having no desire to get up and see anything. 

I quickly learned that ordering bananas on the grocery delivery app was not the smartest thing. 

 The one time I try locking my bedroom door while editing, in hopes of getting a little bit of quiet without interruptions...didn't end too well. I've learned my lesson. "I just putting makeup on mom." 

 Belén learning to play badminton with some kids in the neighborhood.

 Hanging out at the pool, she says, "Dad, I'm Miss Frizzle. This is our school bus. Let's go to the moon." 

 Date nights are always in-house these days. This particular one was us waiting to order food until the kids were in bed and sharing some Indian curries with the biggest piece of naan either of us had ever seen.

 The second I get out of the pool, she comes out as well, to keep me company. 

 A normal day for us right now looks a lot like, swimming at some point, walking around the "neighborhood." Sometimes stopping at the old creaky see-saw.

 Usually always throwing balls around the tennis, soccer, or basketball courts.

 We usually try to do some form of school together. Most days we work on reading, writing, and math. Sometimes we will do art projects, or watch science videos. This particular day we read a story about cinnamon and then made our very own cinnamon clay.

  When she falls asleep during quiet time you know she must have REALLY been tired. 

 Trying to distract Belén with selfies on our way to church one Sunday as her brother screamed and yelled on the taxi floor because it wasn't the taxi he wanted, which was added on to the frustration of him not being able to take cars to church, but the root of the problem (I found out after sitting in a classroom with him still yelling and crying halfway through sacrament meeting) seemed to be that he struggles with his primary teacher and his son who is "not very kind" and he didn't want to go to class. I'm sure it was causing him lots of anxiety on the way to church which led to meltdown after meltdown and total confusion and "what do we do?" from the parents. Phew. It was so nice to figure that one out and be able to discuss it with him calmly. 

 Hard to tell from the picture, but I tend to be DRIPPING in sweat after my short runs here. Iiiiiiiit's hot here.

 We had a week in January where we REALLY felt the rainy season upon us. It rained, most of the day, every single day. Most days it rains, but just for an hour or two and then clears, but not that week. After 4 days of staying inside due to the rain we finally just got our bathing suits on and went out and played in the rain.  

  Things that you don't realize you are signing up for when you become a parent: Saving match box cars that slide on to dead rats while playing outside. 

Another day, another mall. 

 She really enjoyed Shae's haircut. 

 Then a quick stop at the toy store so that we could play with their legos since we are missing ours so much.

 We were going to go see How to Train Your Dragon after the haircut, but it wasn't showing (even thought the web-site said otherwise), so I caved and let the kids play in one of the "kid zones" in the mall. They are everywhere, in every single mall. Besides the part where a kid started throwing up on the stairs without us realizing it until we were already walking up said stairs to the trampoline where he was...it was really fun.

 A lot of the toys were duct taped together and the bouncy houses were half deflated, but the kids didn't seem to mind. 

 

 Going grocery shopping after the zoo, we stopped at new mall. I just can't get over how big and beautiful and FANCY they all are. This one had a cool display for the Lunar New Year, and a really sweet see-through elevator that we (of course) had to try out just for fun.

 And then off to check out the Lamborghini store, because, why not? 

   We occasionally do a Cosmic Kid (on youtube) yoga video for exercise and I'll just let you guess how excited Shae was when he discovered that she had just recently posted a Pokemon yoga workout video.

 We're really loving the charts these days. We had pretty good success with a behavior chart for Shae last month, and now we're helping Belén see the fun in trying (putting on clothes, shoes, wiping herself after going potty, etc.)