Bean x 7

Nathan is: Sweet, Sensitive, Compassionate, Considerate, Funny, Helpful, and Smart. Just seven reasons why we love our Nathan on his seventh birthday. There are more, of course, but today we are doing things in sevens. Nathan requested scrambled eggs and sausages for breakfast.

After Andrew's obvious delight with his Lego Black Pearl....

Nathan began looking ahead to his own birthday just a couple weeks later and started making requests for the Queen Anne's Revenge Lego Ship. My kids have very decided cycles of favorites. For a long time it was nothing but Star Wars. Suddenly without warning that changed to all things Harry Potter. Now we are exclusively obsessed with Pirates of the Caribbean. No doubt we'll cycle around again to the other interests, but right now we have sword battles between Jack Sparrow and Barbossa or Black Beard. It's fun listening to their imaginations run riot. So after scouring Utah county for the LEGO Queen Anne's Revenge without luck, I finally found it up in Salt Lake. I tried every Target, Walmart, and Toys R Us I could, but it was sold out everywhere. I was told it's a collectors item (as is the Black Pearl) and they have not been able to keep it on the shelves. The Pearl was in stock, just not the Queen Anne's Revenge. So we dashed up to Salt Lake quick and got it at a Toys R Us. Unfortunately Nathan was with me so it wasn't a surprise, but he was still thrilled.

After making a number 7 out of only 6 candles on his birthday cake, we had cake first, then let Nathan choose a restaurant for lunch. Greg had to work late so we did all our birthday celebrating in the morning before Dad had to leave. This year was Carl's Jr.

I am looking forward to the day that one of my children chooses their birthday meal to be somewhere without a play place, but knowing my kids, we might end up at Carl's Jr. until they're 18. At least it wasn't McDonalds. While in Salt Lake yesterday we stopped at Paul's work for a visit with the kids' favorite Uncle. Nathan fell down on a jagged metal pipe at the office and gashed his knee open down to the bone. At least I'm pretty sure I saw white bone along with rivers of blood. We found some gauze and wrapped it up. That was about the extent of the first aid supplies we could find. So we went to the store and bought all sorts of disinfectants and bandages. We debated about whether we should take him to insta-care and get it stitched. But in the end, after our amateur doctoring skills, it cleaned up pretty well and looked much better.

And it looks much better 24 hours later. It could leave a pretty wicked scar, but that's cool, right? Anyway, not a great birthday event, but he's such an easy going kid, it's not ruined his seventh birthday at all. I love you, Nathan! Happy Birthday, Bean.