Corban's 9th Birthday

Corban is now 9. He has so much excitement, silliness, and such a tender heart.  He appreciates time alone to listen to an audio book and play with Legos, but he loves playing family games and spending time together at home too. He's happiest when everyone is home and there's nowhere that anyone needs to go.

Corban likes to share little "secrets" with me, but he also feels the need to confess or apologize for things both right after they happen, but sometimes for things that happened quite a while ago. Two examples:

One night after they were in bed and we had turned off the lights and told them goodnight, Corban whispered that he needed to tell me something.  With a silly little smile on his face he whispered "I hide this little slinky in my bed to play with after you turned off the lights and you didn't even know." He then handing me the slinky and rolled over the go to sleep.

Another day after the boys got home from being somewhere with Taylor Corban came to me and whispered "I need to talk to you about something in private." He closed my bedroom door and proceeded to tell me that sometimes when he's in Dad's car he picks his nose and doesn't know what to do with the boogers, so he just hides them somewhere in the car.  I had to contain my laughter and asked him to please not do that in the future.  He said "Ok!" and the conversation was finished.

Things that Corban likes: "spinning adventures" (where he winds up the rope for the tree swing a lot and spins until he almost throws up), cute land (the world for his stuffed animals in his bed), bbq chips, sleeping in bed with Mom when Dad is away, playing four square at school, being in 5th grade math, reading Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians books (where different kinds of sand are made into different kinds of glass for sunglasses and each pair has different abilities), and animals (especially birds)

Corban also enjoys making rubber band bracelets. He was wearing one in church this past week and he was holding it on his hand so that he could shoot it.  I asked him to please not shoot them in church, but the rubber band shot off of his hand, high up into the air, and landed right next to the coffee of a man in the section across the aisle from ours.  I know that I should have been horrified, but I laughed.  Someone who had been standing in the back of the sanctuary at the time said afterwards "that thing got good height!" The man by which it landed didn't see it land, but looked confused to see it in front of his feet. When Corban went to the retrieve the bracelet at the end of the service that man laughed and said "well I'm glad I had a lid on my coffee cup."

Corban's birthday was the day before school started this year, and when asked what he would like to do to celebrate he said that he wants to do something with the Boreyko twins (in his class at school and go to our church) and the Strom twins (friends from church).  Unfortunately both sets of boys were not available on the same day, so he ended up having two fun friend events.  On his actual birthday he went with Gabriel and the Boreyko boys to the video game museum in Roanoke.  They ate hot dogs at the Roanoke Wiener Stand and played video games all afternoon.  On Friday evening the Strom boys came over and the boys all ate pizza and watched a Harry Potter movie.  They then spend the night (totally new territory for us).  We thought it would be a struggle to get people to get some sleep, but around 10:30 we had them get ready for bed and go into their room, thinking that they would be up for a while goofing around, but they all just went right to sleep. Corban said that the best part of having a sleepover was having them here in the morning for breakfast.

One of many needed pairs of "Alcatraz" glasses

New Gryffindor bathrobe

Binoculars and a book about Virginia birds. He goes outside a lot of mornings checking out the birds.  There was a blue jay that would sometimes hang out in one of the trees in the front yard and many days he went and checked to see if it was there.

Red Lobster for dinner.  We got Red Lobster delivered one evening last summer with a giftcard that someone gave us while Gabriel was in the hospital. We chose that because Corban had always wanted to try it.  We ended up getting a "family feast" and discovered that Corban loves seafood.  We've done this a couple times since as something special for Corban.  He devoured the salmon, lobster tail, and multiple kinds of shrimp

Corban asked that I make an ice cream cake.  I was a little intimidated by the request but it turned out pretty well.  Gabriel requested one for his birthday as well, just with Reese's cups instead of Oreos.

Lining up all of his birthday presents

Waiting on the porch for a friend to come over

He still loves Pokémon cards and playing the actual game

A couple weeks after his birthday we went to the Safari park.  He loves feeding the birds and didn't want to leave their enclosure for a long time.  He had a goal to see how many birds he could have on him at once.

A little elaboration on the Red Lobster situation.  We have very adventurous eaters around here.  Not that the boys like everything that they try, but they usually will take a couple bites of something new with no complaint.  They are fine saying when they don't like it, but they are willing to try it. A woman at church who's from Japan brought us a traditional meal last week.  She brought individual containers of a custard made with egg, seaweed, and chicken.  Corban dove right in the loved it.  He even wanted to again the next day for lunch.  If Corban could pick anything to eat it would probably be steak, spaghetti, or seafood.

Someone from church brought Coban and me a steak dinner one weekend while Taylor and Gabriel were gone. Corban loved it so much that he made a plate from his food to share with Taylor when he got home later that evening.

For quite a while Gabriel has been making card and board games.  Corban decided to jump on this idea and make a card game of his own. He made copies of the directions and made himself a spot to read while he waited for people to walk by that he could offer to sell the game to.

And, lastly, Corban got pets.  He's been asking for over a year for a pet and Taylor suggested that he get rats like he had when he was little.  Last week Corban said "you keeping telling me I can get a pet but it never happens.  When can we do it?" So, the next day Taylor took Corban to get Pipsqueak and Nourishing.  I wasn't sure about the whole rat idea, but they are actually really cute and cuddly (when they don't have an "accident" on you).  Corban is very gentle and patient with them.  One of them is much more skittish than the other, and he patient's hold the scared one until his breathing slows down and she relaxes into his hands. One day he was being very quiet in their room and leaving the light off to let them sleep.