Eli is 5

On Eli's actual birthday at our house

Birthday party with the Wicherts

Party with the Wertenbergers

The boy who made me a mamma turned 5 yesterday and I have all the feels. I was caught thinking that he may be spending his birthday mostly in his kindergarten classroom next year and I almost started crying. I know he will be ready, but it is bittersweet. 

Lions are his favorite animal. This was taken at the Rolling Hills zoo a few weeks ago.

Eli is such a bright little guy. He asks questions that I don't even think to ask. I often say, ask your daddy when he gets home. Ha! On the way home from Wednesday night church last week, he and Brent had quite the theology discussion about how big God is. Brent told Eli that God was bigger than everything. So Eli said, "is God the biggest thing in Heaven?" To which Brent replied, "He's bigger than Heaven." Eli said "He can't be bigger than Heaven if He's in Heaven". I don't think Brent had a valid response to that except that we can't fully understand God and his qualities. We have conversations like this often. 

Playing Legos in the light of the Christmas tree.

Eli loves to build with Legos more than probably anything. He does pretty complicated builds completely by himself. He also enjoys putting puzzles together. Just recently he has started enjoying coloring and is quite the perfectionist. He always includes blue, his favorite color, green, Micah's favorite color, pink, Grace's favorite color, and red, Hayden's favorite color. He really is quite thoughtful to those that he knows well. He isn't the most outgoing to make new friends. He's completely content with the people he already knows. 

Jesus healed the 10 lepers, but only one returned to thank Him.

Eli loves laughing and silly things like America's Funniest Home Videos, but is very literal so he doesn't understand jokes very well, which is pretty funny. 

He likes to be prepped before doing new things. He negotiated singing 2/3 songs at the Christmas program. He knew the other song too. I forgot to tell him that they were also going to be singing on Sunday morning (in addition to the Sunday evening program). That didn't go so well and he ended up crying a lot before the performance and daddy had to go up with him. Preparation is key. Hopefully he'll get to be a little more comfortable as he prepares to go to kindergarten.

At Union Station for his birthday trip to KC. We went there to go to Lego Land.

He's a detailed story-teller. He will tell anyone who will listen very detailed facts of animals that he has been read to about, or from Wild Kratts. Or recount an event from his life. 

Santa in a box.

Stats:

Height- 3ft 7 1/4in

Weight- 42.6lb 

He was around the 60-65th percentile in both.

Lego Land

Eli loves to ride his bike and run fast. He is very happy when he is doing these two things. He always wears his helmet when he is riding his bike. He is very safety conscience and a rule-follower. This is when he and his brother tend to get in to arguments when Micah isn't "following the rules" according to Eli. 

Sibling love

We love our 5 year old and the joy he brings to our family. 

Brothers and best friends