Today, I knocked the dust off and took some pictures with it. Thoughts?

I love how he’s missing his 2 front teeth. It’s so beautiful when his face lights up and he lets loose that amazing smile with his teeth missing.

When he’s into something, be it Cars, Legos, Star Wars, space, angry birds, geography, he’s INTO it. It consumes him for a while, then he moves on to something else.

He’s absolutely brilliant. I love watching him think, you can see it on his face. He’ll be doing some crazy multiplication problem in his head that a first grader shouldn’t be doing, or he’ll be explaining to me the difference between a meteor and an asteroid, whatever. He blows me away constantly.

He’s at the point in his life where he’s starting to be conscious of how others see him. He’s against pink in all forms (even joking), as well as anything that might embarass him. I don’t know whether I like that stage or not. Side note: Anyone reading care to share any tips? We’re kind of a wild and (at times) embarassing family, so it’d be nice to get him over this hump.

I love that he still snuggles with us. In fact, he says he’ll never be too big to snuggle (I agree). We can be found every night snuggling up for story time, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

He’s got some way with the ladies. They just seem to love him! Maybe it’s because we baby’d (made that word up) him a little too much when he was a baby and that cuddliness stayed? Either way, it’s cute to watch the girls blow kisses at him at lunch every Friday, then he turns shy, gets a little grin and hides it.

He LOVES geography. The Eiffel Tower. Learning facts about places in the world. He’s a big force in our decision to head over to Europe for an extended trip in 3 years. The kid just can’t get enough geography. He makes his own maps. He’s constantly reading a book about other countries. He’s an adventurer at heart.

He loves his sisters so much. Any time they’re sick, or hurt, you can see the genuine worry on his face. He’s so compassionate.

On our bike rides, he makes sure we stop for any and all recycling we see.

We talk a lot about health in this house. About artificial colors, eating your veggies, high fructose corn syrup among other things. He hears this, soaks it all up, and reads the food labels. If he notices something unhealthy in it, he won’t let us buy it.

He’s a great son. It’s hard to believe we’ve had him in our lives for 7 years, yet, I can’t remember life before him. My life is better because of him, and for that, I’m thankful. Happy birthday, buddy!

To celebrate Max today, he asked for birthday cake pancakes. So I made him a stack of 7 (he only at 3) for breakfast. Then we ambushed him with silly string after school (don’t worry, after a few minutes, we gave him his own can) and built Alien Conquest Legos before bed. A great day if you ask me.

Here’s what I want to remember about Ava now:

That giggle…

The “I love you SOOOOO much’s”

The tongue that sticks out after she scores a goal while playing soccer. The one that says, “I’m excited because I scored, but shy and now you’re all looking at me.”

The joy Ava finds in creating. From painting, to coloring, to writing love notes…”I want to COLOR!”

Famous Ava hugs and kisses.

The love of reading. When Ava disappears you know you’ll find her somewhere with her nose deep in a book.

The kindness. The sharing. The “wanting to please everyone.”

The LOVE she has for this family. She’s the first to do ANYTHING that will make one of us happy. This includes giving up whatever she may have to one of her siblings, even if it’s her last one.

The fearlessness. Of all of our kids, she’s the first to jump into new situations with a smile on her face ready to take on whatever challenge may come her way. (i.e. the ziplines in Oregon)

Her high pitched voice that we only hear when she’s SUPER excited for something and she starts stuttering and rambling in run on sentences and and and…

When she asks me to sing to her at night (the only song I know is Not Fire, Not Ice by Ben Harper, but still)

I’m sure I’m forgetting quite a bit in here, but it’s hard to sum up the love you have for one of your kiddos in a few words. There’s so much more to the dynamics of a child growing up. They’re one year closer to being out on their own. One year closer to finding the love of their life. One year closer to not relying on you quite so much. I’m not going to focus on that, though. For now, I’m going to focus on (as my good buddy John said) “soaking up” as much of my little Ava as I possibly can.

And for Ava, whenever you find this post, please know that we love you so much. You bring us so much JOY. Our lives are better with you in them and you’re going to do big things in this world.

And, on her birthday today, we had birthday pancakes, blew bubbles in the house and surprised her with oodles of balloons to play with…

Full post will be up on the Happy Family Movement soon.

Here’s a few of the things we ate:

• roasted corn with a ton of crap thrown on
• churros
• the biggest funnel cake in the world
• tri-tip sandwich
• chocolate covered strawberries
• deep fried krispy kreme chicken sandwich (jelly filled!)
• cotton candy
• beef jerky
• chocolate covered bacon
• deep fried Snickers
• baked potato
• ice cream donut sundae (the biggest glazed donut in the world called the Big D) topped with chocolate ice cream, whipped cream and a cherry
• potato chip nachos
• the biggest sno cone in the world
• some pizza
• beer

I think I covered it all, but I might have missed something.  Jenny wouldn’t let me dig into some deep fried kool-aid, although it looked mighty tasty!

Note: The 50,000 calories does not represent an accurate calculation of calories consumed…just an estimation.

2nd Note: It might actually be higher than 50,000, I’m not entirely sure.

3rd Note: This post is dedicated to Jamie Oliver.

4th Note: Jenny got two chances because although she ate the first one behind a corn cob picture thingy, the baked potato was kind of lame.

Ava went school clothes shopping with  mommy.

I took Lia (and my camera) to the zoo.

I picked out a few of our favorite adventurin’ pictures for this post, but if you want to read about our family DC trip in more detail (and see more pictures) head on over to the Happy Family Movement blog and check it out.

I’ll now leave you with a fun image from last night.  Congrats to Pam + Taylor! So glad we got to celebrate with you…