Five

I never did my nostalgic "I can't believe he's five" post for Garrett's birthday. I CAN'T believe he's five, but as previously mentioned, we've been too busy doing stuff to really sit back and reminisce. But for some reason, the birthdays of friends always make me more weepy than the birthdays of my own kids. Today is Garrett's best bud Xander's birthday. Its pretty awesome that these two boys have been friends since they were six months old. At first, it was the mommy friendship more than the boys, but now, its all of us.

This past year, the Shumans and the Compton families have boated, bar-b-qued, attended school events, and just generally hung out more than we have any year in the past. And that's saying something, since most of our major holidays have been spent with our "Florida family"

We have had a LOT of great friends come and go in the past few years. We've been so blessed to have such excellent friends. I grew up as an only child, so I love that not only will Garrett have his sister to play with, he also has his wonderful neighborhood friends to call on. Its pretty awesome to say you've been friends with someone your whole life.

And Jess and I were talking that even if they have their little falling outs as life goes on, they will have to make up because even if they don't want to hang out with each other, the families still will.
They've had so many "firsts" together in the past five years . . .
And goodness knows there will be plenty more.
Part of the reason I've been putting of the "five" post is because I haven't been too sure what to say. Garrett is amazing, he's reading and busy and incredibly adventurous. He can be mean to his sister, then incredibly sweet to her in the next breath. He loves his dogs. He loves to play. He's always busy. Its hard to summarize all the changes and amazing things in a few paragraphs. But if I ask him what he wants to do on any given day, his first responses is almost ALWAYS "Can Xander come play?" He declares to me on a daily basis "Xander and I are best friends!" He even asked if he could take Xander with him on the much anticipated trip to Grandma's house in a few weeks. So, I can't believe they are BOTH five. I'm really looking forward to watching them share the next five years of this wild, crazy ride together.

And, since I haven't given you any new pictures in this post, just a recap of the old ones, enjoy this one of Garrett going off the diving board at Xander's 5th birthday party!