The Grand Kanyon is 6!

March 26 was a fun day for Kanyon Luke. This was the first year that he's started to catch on to the birthday thing.  He enjoyed picking out his clothes (red shirt and jeans of course), haircuts at the barber shop, donuts next door from the barber shop, picking his lunch, dinner, and anything else we could think of, even eating outside at the picnic table despite the chilly temps.......also a good time to note that it was a good day for Quinn to learn a little bit about letting someone else have ALL the attention.  Its hard for me to fathom all that was going on this time 6 years ago, but here we are.  This boy reaches to the deepest part of my heart. 

For his birthday, we gave him a new swing.  Its important to me (and him...whether he knows it or not) to have things outside that he can do independently.  He LOVES to swing and always has so I did a little looking around for just the right swing.  This is what we got and it was a HIT!  The super bonus is that lots of kids can pile on it together! klp is blurry in the pictures because he was "flapping" like he does when he's excited....he was so happy! 

I kinda like his baby brother too...

Jaylie June joined the swing party and I had to post the series of pictures..its just too funny.  Oh dear. 

I love the look on jjp's face...

sugar for the baby sister! 

No babies were harmed in the snapping of these pictures.  

Here we are.  

I saved klp's paint paper for a couple of days and then cut out circles from them to make the banner.  

The first thing he opened was a new set of paints. He was pumped!  

He doesn't like cake, but we wanted to do one anyways.  He may not like cake but he does LOVE to paint so I made a cake that looks like his paint.  Here he is with his new paints and his paint cake.....and his version of cake....CHEETOS!  

The "party" was just us and my mom and my aunt and uncle that live in town came over for cake. It was fun and perfect for this little guy.  He loved blowing out the candles...even though Q blew out at least 4 of them before we could stop him.  haha.  

He enjoyed looking at the cake, but when he blew the candles out he looked at Q and said, "Ok Bubba you can eat my cake now. "  (blanket + thumb = mesmerized Quinn)

Back to the swing! 

Unprompted cuddles from Quinn.  Kinda cute. 

Chalk another one up for me and Mom.  We decided life would be pretty perfect if you had someone with you all the time. I was working on the cake, she was sweeping/mopping.  Jaylie woke up, I kept icing the cake, mom went and got her. I fed Jaylie, mom got bags of icing ready.....you know....you can pretty much get it all done together! It was a fun day and I'm glad she could be here with us. 

I'll end with this picture.  klp couldn't get his new paint opened fast enough.  So here he is painting by his half eaten paint cake.  

To say we are thankful for him is an understatement. Its been a year of growth and maturing for him.  He can talk and say anything he wants to and cracks us up every day with what comes out of his mouth. He can take his walker anywhere and is closer and closer to using his crutch to walk. He now really loves to walk.  He will choose to cruise along furniture or a wall instead of sitting down to scoot. He can bounce on a bed on his rear end higher than anyone you've ever seen, He can recognize probably 10-15 letters and some numbers, he is tracing better and better and dominates his iPad learning games.  His daddy and I have decided that he has the best laugh in the whole world and still is quite the people person. I have noticed that as he matures, he gets more nervous, scared, and shy.  He LOVES Peter Pan but has recently started calling Peter Pan "the green guy".  We have no clue where that came from.  He tells me if he got in trouble at school within the first 5 seconds of me asking about his day.  I can't always piece together what happened but he spills the beans pretty quickly.  He is quite bossy and takes an "adult tone" with ease when taking charge of his brother or anyone else.  He and Quinn are quite the pair and usually have a great time together.  Kanyon loves to play with "guys" and gets very carried away in whatever is happening with his guys (any action figure type toy) in his imaginary story.  His play has really developed this year and its been really fun to watch. He can take his own shirt of remember he basically only has one hand....try it sometime. He still loves being with other kids and works hard to keep up.  Its hard sometimes because physically they just get around faster than him but he is happy to tag along the best he can. We look forward to the "language barrier" lessening as he talks better and better and can converse quicker and more easily with other kids.  We are blessed to be surrounded by awesome friends with awesome kids who love Kanyon.  He eats more ketchup than anyone I know and is still a committed carnivore.  He continues to roll with the punches quite well. It seems the bigger the punch the easier he adjusts.  He does like to know what to expect and, in general, is constantly grasping for some sort of control.  For a boy like him, his world is largely controlled by other people.  We try to give him control and independence when we can and help him deal with it when he can't have that.  This year has had its struggles too but I don't really feel like talking about them right now.  The bottom line is we've learned over the last 6 years that there's always gonna be somethin' to deal with.  We "get" one thing and something else is bound to pop up.  But we've also learned that we'll get through it one way or another.  There are times that I feel like everyone around me has it so much easier than me.  I KNOW I'm not the only one and I REALLY KNOW that we have been spared so many things that many people aren't.  But the reality is that for the most part, the people I'm surrounded by don't have to deal with the things I do.  There are times I allow myself to feel sorry for myself and its almost always followed by me feeling sorry for other people......because they don't get to be KANYON'S MOM and I do.  Haha.  Really. I know thats a silly thought, but I sometimes feel like its unfair that I get to be his Mom and no one else does. It's like I'm hogging all of the greatness and I should be sharing it with someone else. I'm just so glad he calls ME mommy. All the other stuff is SOOOOO very very worth it.   Kory and I are SO. PROUD.  We loved celebrating Kanyon Luke Phillips.  We love him so so so much.