Cooper turned seven this week. I know every mom says this, but he’s growing up so fast! He’s a full on big kid now – he doesn’t even need me to walk him to his line before school (although sometimes I still do and am sad when he forgets to wave goodbye to me). He has a few good extroverted friends at school that have been really good at helping him break out of his shell. He has a budding career as an illustrator. He’s constantly drawing pictures and making little books. He loves building impressive lego creations and recreating scenes from his favorite Pixar movies. He’s pretty much obsessed with Pixar movies. He has the Cars 3 movie release day marked on his calendar and is working on memorizing the lyrics to the song “Ride.” He’s getting really good at communicating. Some days when I pick him up from school he lists off every single thing he did at school that day. His teachers and support staff love him and are always proud to share his accomplishments with me – like the first time he talked into the class microphone or the first time he stayed through an entire school assembly.

He was lucky enough to not have school on his birthday due to a testing day. He woke up at 5:45 am he was so excited. We tried to get him to go back to sleep, but ended up caving and waking Ellen at 6:30 so he could open his presents. Cooper was spoiled with presents as usual, most of them not from us. We got him some clothes and a new (to him) bike. Learning to ride a bike has been a long road for him and he still isn’t past the training wheel stage, BUT we are past the crying every time he sits on it stage so that’s good. He’s getting too tall for bikes with training wheels, so this next step should be an adventure!

He got a lot of Cars 3 paraphernalia as well as a lot of Legos. The kid was in heaven.

He invited a few friends over for a lunch party. (He invited three boys and one girl – Amber. Amber lives down the street from us and has been such a good friend to him. I suggested he invite at lest one more girl to keep her company, but every time I’d suggest someone he’d say, “No, she’s a girl.” When I pointed out that Amber was a girl he said, “I know, but she’s my friend.” ♥) We had pepperoni pizza with olives (his favorite), fruit, and Naked juice. The kids then ran around and played for awhile. Cooper specifically requested a pig piñata (no idea where the idea came from). The piñata was a labor of love. The first one didn’t cure right (I left it on the porch over night and I think it got too cold) and developed a gigantic crack, so I had to make a second one that was barely finished in time for the party.

He had a blast with his friends. He requested his usual birthday cake: Tres Leches with maraschino cherries on top. That evening we had Noel’s cousin and husband over for empanadas. Cooper stayed up late because he wanted to see the stars with his new telescope from Joy and Chris.

The day before, my sister had her second baby, adorable little Theo. I kept thinking, “It feels like I was just the one having a May baby.” Really it’s been seven whole years. He’s a pretty good kid though; we’ll keep him another year.