9 Things about Zach...

1. He is a HANDSOME (biased mama - I know) and smiley boy. love that about him.

2. He has a great sense of humor and loves to crack jokes and be silly. he is OBSESSED with curly mustache faces and draws them all over the place. Including on himself;)

3. He is very inventive and loves to come up with his OWN way of doing things (here I caught him using tongs to put away the dishes) For Halloween he was ADAMANT that he was going to be an iPhone. And he pulled it off.

4. He is very well loved by his siblings. Sav and Bella always fight over who gets to sit by him, so he inevitably ends up sandwiched between these 2 girls often. they think he is the bees knees and he is very tolerant of them. thank you buddy!

 5. And he loves THEM lots too. I love seeing him with the girls, especially Lily.

6. Z and I have a special bond. When he is frustrated or upset, I can usually calm him down. At night when I lay down and cuddle him, he loves for me to "draw" and tickle his face and loves to talk about bones and their names with me (science boy for sure). at church he likes me to give him back rubs or draw pictures on his back (he has to try and guess what I am drawing) to help him with the wiggles. He STILL picks flowers and puts them it cute little vases like this for me. I dread the day that he does this for another girl :/  though I know he will be a sweet and thoughtful husband, and that does makes me happy. But he will ALWAYS be MINE. Sorry future girlfriend/wife.

7. He's a huge fort maker, and he's pretty darn good at it too. He always makes 2 --one for he and Josh and one for the girls. In this pic above he made one for a family movie night.

8. Z is our nature and science man and has always loved doing science experiments, I have to watch him closely when he is on the hunt for items for his current  projects- he likes to make them up on his own most of the times...yikes! He also loves outdoor living creatures. He collects rollie pollies by the hundreds (or so it seems to me) and cleverly puts them in creative containers that I have the pleasure of finding in random parts of our house- eeeeks! it makes my skin crawl just thinking of the times I have found them by surprise! Favorite thing to do is catch frogs, lizards and turtle with J and Mike (and with cousins on special occasions)

8. He has a compassionate little heart and a great love of animals. For Christmas he got 2 pet dwarf hamsters that unbeknownst to us were male and female. They quickly multiplied from 2 to 8 (mama had 6 babies) then we apparently didn't take out the dad fast enough because  2 weeks after that she had a SECOND litter of babies (6 more for a total of 14 hamsters!!!!) Z really wanted to keep ALL of them. HA!!! we took the babies to a pet store  and poor little Zach cried. We kept the mama and the daddy (SEPARATE after we learned our lesson the hard way) but the day after separating the mom and dad and dropping of the babies. we noticed not one BUT 2 hamsters in Dad's cage!!! yikes!!!! we had a stow away baby that must have hid. the kids decided that the stow away with dad must have been a boy because they  didn't seem to "fight" mate like the mama and daddy. so after much begging, we kept the baby and dad together and mama separate. Well, last week Zach got to take the hamsters to school for show and tell and the kids LOVED them. When I came to pick them up I overheard a cute little girl (Jamie) telling Zach how much she wished she had a pet hamster. Zach decided he wanted to give her one (which is REALLY hard for him) and told her she could have one. That very afternoon she called us and asked to come pick up her hamster. She came over with her dad and took mama since she was by herself and was SO happy and excited. Poor little Zach cried after mama was gone. He loved ALL of his hamsters and felt so much pride and ownership over them. Then he received this note:

then he felt MUCH better and he was glad he had been able to share his joy in having a hamster with someone else. sweet. boy. He takes great care and pays good attention to Buddy and Buddy Jr. (down from 14 to 2 hamsters...what a RELIEF!!)  

Here he is on his birthday with J...Favorite breakfast...pop eyes (sunny side egg encircled by a slice of toast) and fruit.

the girls and I took him a cookie cake to school and sang with his class. I love hearing kids sing their version of happy birthday.

Zach got to pick 8 friends to come stand with him to be "candles" while singing happy b-day. at the end they "blow out the candles" and the kids get knocked down. cute. I LOVE his teacher.

For dinner we went to Fuddruckers and opened presents . angry birds t-shirt. tons of hex bugs. nikes. and an origami yoda book. he was a happy 9 year old boy. (thanks grammy and grampy:)

when we got home, he received a special delivery from our stalwart home teacher. He's the best! It made Z feel very special~It was the perfect ending to his day!

Happy Birthday sweet 9 year old Zachers!!! Thank you for all the joy and laughter you add to our lives!!! Love you!!!