7.

Time has certainly flown by!  Hard to believe Skyler is 7 years old today!  (All photos taken approx. a year apart.)  :)

April 30th, 2011 9:51 p.m.  Our lives were never the same after this moment.

One year old.

Two years old.

3 years old.

4 years old with his best buddy, Eddy cat.

Celebrating his 5th birthday with a present from Auntie Sarah.

6 years old.  Short hair.  :(

The last day he was 6 years old he told us.  :)

Happy Birthday Skyler!!  You are very loved.

At the greenhouse.

We made our annual trip to the local greenhouse yesterday to get starts for the garden.  Okubo's greenhouse has been around pretty much forever.  Hutch Okubo the owner, is 96 years old!

He was surprisingly well behaved.  He loved reading the tags of the various plants.

Garden 2018.

Has begun!  Skyler helped Mommy plant potatoes last Sunday after I tilled the garden.  It turned hot here yesterday and I've already had to spot water places in the yard.  I'm not ready for this already!

Nice and fluffy soil to plant in!

Box Elder bug!

A little birthday party preview.   Skyler got a bug magnifier from Mommy the other day and used it to look at a Box Elder bug.

Pretty cool!

Riding at Eagle Mountain.

We celebrated Earth Day by going mountain biking out at Eagle Mountain.  None of us had ever ridden there before and it was rather great riding.  Skyler was amazing!  He has incredible balance and can navigate single track and even rode a single track bridge!

Here he comes!

Taking a break and looking at the well house.

Water!

These giant beetles were everywhere!  They can fly...

Desolate.

Snack time.  Mommy needed to meet her exercise goal and made another lap.

Timpanogos peeking over the hills.

He made it!  He was such a little trooper, he didn't crash or complain the entire ride.  :)

Swimming!

I've had to take Skyler to swim lessons the last 2 times since Mommy was out of town.  He's doing fantastic!  He can back stroke the length of the pool and is really comfortable in the water now.

Great lighting this time of year.  He got a new teacher last night.

Science Fair!

Friday was Skyler's annual science fair out at school.  This year he chose "What makes the sun shine".  We settled on exothermic reactions and what happens when they are exposed to ambient, elevated, and cooled temperatures using plaster of Paris since it's an exothermic reacting compound.

Pretty happy!

The book with no pictures.

Skyler was tasked to bring his favorite book to school for show and tell on Friday.  He chose B.J. Novak's "The book with no pictures" and got to read a bit of it to the class.

He laughs with delight every time we read this part of the book.  :)

Monday evening, we built a robot!

Maybe not a real robot, but Skyler had a good time.  He drew up the plan, and with a little help from me, (and LOTS of hot glue) we had a cardboard robot!

The plan.  Note the paper is from the old "Hercules" corporation, now OrbitalATK.  Soon to be a division of Northrup Grumman.

Building underway.  The cardboard "eyes" started this whole project.

Finished!

He's been thrilled all week.  We even made a "controller" by wrapping a used jukebox with paper and he  added a skewer for the antennae.

Montessori Math.

Skyler continues to love school!  So much, that he wanted to leave a half hour early yesterday morning!

This was from Monday, a nice picture sent from his school Kid Reports.

"Where's Mommy?"

The dog keeps looking for Mommy.  I think we're all missing her and will be relieved once she's home tonight.

LOTS of looking out the window for Mommy.  Poor Maizey!

"Mmm, hamburger!"

Skyler takes after Grandpa and Me when it comes to the love of hamburgers.  After we dropped Mommy off at the airport he requested "something grilled" for dinner.  I suggested a few items but his face really lit up when I suggested a hamburger.  He likes his hamburgers with "a cheese" on them.  :)

"Mmm!"  Note his new M*A*S*H shirt, he wanted one because I have one.

One last craft with Mommy.

Mommy flew out for work Sunday afternoon.  Skyler managed to get her to help him build a raft made from sticks that he saw on PBS earlier in the day.

All laid out, ready for assembly.

He was having some trouble with the twist ties so Mommy stepped in to help.

Getting pretty good.

At flying the drone!

He is able to take off from the floor and land it on the stacked ottomans now.  :)

Science Fair!

Skyler has worked on his science fair the past 2 weekends.  His subject is "what makes the sun shine".  This resulted in an experiment involving exothermic reactions using plaster of Paris to test ambient, chilled, and heated temperature effects on cure time.

All set.  Wearing his scientist coat and goggles.

Can't be too safe!

Mixing the plaster.

Exothermic reactions are working.

Finishing up yesterday.  (Mommy did the majority of the reporting.)  Sigh...

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my Mom's birthday!  She's the strongest woman I know.  She's also Skyler's favorite Grandma, especially since she lets him have plenty of sugary treats every time he comes over.  We celebrated a day early up at Red Butte Garden since she has been volunteering up there and it's a favorite place of hers.  It was a perfect day to be out in the garden.

Reading the map with Grandma.  This proved to be a bad idea, he got incredibly grumpy when we wouldn't follow his lead later.

LOTS of daffodils!

Looking back across the hillside of daffodils.

Quince blooming against the stone wall.  Gorgeous!

Mom liked the Quince too.

Majestic pine with a chemtrail plane overhead! 😱

Bristlecone pine.

Perfect sunshine day.

Skyler making Matt entertain/watch him.

My parents and sister.

Skulking up to a butterfly.

Skyler showing Grandma his rocks he found earlier.  Note his pants tucked into his socks.

Goose!

Drinking goose!

Looking up Red Butte Canyon.

Gazebo structure at the new conservation garden.

Mom resting under the gazebo in a "comfy" chair.

Southwest view across the Salt Lake Valley.

Everyone relaxing.

Northwest view across the University of Utah.

Matt was kind enough to take our picture.

Grape hyacinths up close.

After the garden, we headed back to G & G's house to celebrate even more by opening  presents and enjoying some cupcakes.

Look at the cupcakes that Mommy made!  Gluten free and delicious!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!