Gabriel's 11th Birthday

Gabriel's had a pretty great time celebrating his birthday, except when he woke up on the actual day (Friday after Thanksgiving) and had a stomach virus.  He got to make a trip to urgent care to get some zofran.  The day itself was a little miserable, but we did other fun things surrounding it.  Here are some pictures from the fall and from his birthday celebrations.

Gabriel really likes to go on "dates".  Corban had a communicants class several Saturdays in the fall and we enjoyed doing things together, his favorites being getting breakfast at Panera (bacon, egg, and cheese on an everything bagel for him), playing games, going to GameStop, and eating Mexican food.  One week we went bowling:

No one else wanted to see the Halloween DAK lights, so we packed some
snacks and blankets and watched them out the back of the van together.

Playing at the school Bingo fundraiser.  He decided
his card should have his friend Aiden's name on it.

I can't ever remember what he used to draw this on his face,
but this is how we found him after home group one evening.

School project.  He made a museum display for the Ark of the Covenant.  He made
the pieces out of clay and then painted them.  His attention to detail impressed me.

After months of eye therapy and exercises at home, Gabriel completed his intensive therapy.  He had repeat testing when the therapy stopped and then again 3 months later and the score just kept going up.  I'm so thankful that this was available to him to heal his brain/eye connection after his accident.

Gabriel loves doing nursery with me once a month during Sunday School.  He's so good about getting on the level of the kids and they LOVE him.

Went to a bowling night with his friend Aela's church group. 
He was so proud to come in first place!

Oh just messing with my phone.

 Gabriel is into so many things now that it's hard to list them all.  He does violin and scouts during the week.  He loves games, especially cooperative ones or complicated ones.  He enjoys his Lord of the Rings card game the best, where he can play alone if he'd like and  have all kinds of battle scenarios to figure out.  He likes playing Minecraft and some Wii games from time to time (we like to play Mario Kart together).  He has written several short stories this year that have been very creative and funny.  Legos are still the number one thing that he plays with besides games.  He still gets into Harry Potter and The Wingfeather Saga.  Corban has gotten him (and Dad) into playing Pokemon). He likes being in 6th grade math this year because, according to him, it's much calmer and easier to focus.  He remains witty, creative, fierce for justice, a faithful friend, a leader, and an includer of those on the fringes.

So, his actual birthday things.  We did something with all the boys from school last year, so  we told him we'd do something with just a couple friends this year.  He wanted to take Corban and his friends from church, Caleb and Orin, to the video game museum in Roanoke (they had a cousin in town who came too).  They ate hot dogs at "The Roanoke Weiner Stand" (which they love) and then played games for several hours.  They had so much fun.  There were so many gaming systems, arcade games, basketball hoops, skee-ball, air hockey, etc.

On Thanksgiving we "officially" celebrated with family.  Aunt Tiffany of course made the most amazing cupcakes with a Harry Potter theme.

Once Gabriel was over his stomach thing I took him out for a celebration with Mexican (where we both ate cheese enchiladas, like usual).  The birthday treat there was crispy dough with cinnamon and chocolate.  He's not a huge cinnamon fan, but he's still a fan of sugar and whipped cream :)