Six Years Old!!!

Kaden's birthday, June 20th, is one of my two favorite days of the year because it's a day that we devote, as entirely as possible, to coming together in celebration of our beautiful boy. Parties and commotion are not generally Kaden's thing but he seems to make an exception for his birthday.

There was cake. There were smiles. There was a Monsters University themed backdrop.

And there was SO MUCH love.

Despite the million things that were swirling in our lives on his birthday this year (a major move, job change, etc.), for a little while it was all about our precious boy turning six. And he loved it!

Five was a tough year.  Kaden broke his leg on his third day of kindergarten and had spinal surgery two weeks later. Recovery was long and hard. But this is what I want to remember about the past year:

This is Kaden's kindergarten school picture. It was taken at the beginning of April 2014 and it captures a little bit of the Kaden sparkle that I've mentioned.

This is Kaden working his butt off at physical therapy.

And this is Kaden learning how to ride a bike.  I wish I could post the video I took of him riding but I can't figure out how to upload it to Blogger. Kaden loved this bike. It's one of the things he'll miss the most about this particular therapy center.  One day he took my phone and repeatedly watched a video of him learning to ride the bike with his therapist.  It was as if he was studying it, trying to figure something out. At the very next PT session he was super-excited about the bike and pumped his legs harder than ever the second he was strapped in. Gross and fine motor tasks are still very difficult for him so his first few attempts on the bike had been frustrating. He jerked muscles all over his body as he attempted to isolate the specific ones needed to push the pedals. But, like so many other things, Kaden eventually conquered it and was able to do more than ten pushes on his own after a while. The best part for me was seeing him be proud of himself and happy to be engaged in a physical activity. I loved that bike, too. It's definitely going on the short-list of way-too-expensive-but-totally-necessary things to get for our boy.

Finally, this is a shot of Kaden that I took earlier today at the park.

Here's to you my sweet, strong, brilliant and adorable angel. You're amazing and I love you to the moon and back a gazillion times.