Zaiden turns 5

 Our baby bean is all grown up. Zaiden celebrated his fifth birthday this year. He has really grown a lot (almost the same size as Zander who is 2 years older). His personality continues to shine through. He has a smile and a laugh that continues to charm everyone around him. He is a silly guy who loves to listen to music and loves to memorize theme songs to his favorite cartoons. He was able to learn Zander's piano recital song by listening even without instruction. He has made good progress with writing his name, all letters and numbers. He is very smart and knows his letter sounds and has learned how to spell many words. He continues to be a lover of all things trains and enjoys our almost daily walks across the train tracks. He also really loves animals and we look forward to returning to the zoo. He still loves rhinos and orca whales, but his latest favorites are red pandas and anteaters. Zaiden also really loves sports and loves playing basketball, tennis, ice hockey (in the basement) and bowling. As everything else this year, our birthday plans were changed by the COVID pandemic and we celebrated with a day full of "all things Zaiden loves" and a small family gathering with his aunts. We luckily had beautiful weather and the boys were also excited to set up our backyard pool for the summer. We love watching Zaiden grow up and look forward to what our year will bring. 

We went all out with decorations including a morning balloon drop. We also had a piñata, scavenger hunt and birthday donuts

Zaiden's Pre-school graduation

 2020 has been such a crazy year, but everyone has been pulling together and being creative. Although Zaiden's pre-school was cut short with the pandemic hitting in March leading to an unexpected and prolonged closure of his school. We are still so proud of him and how much he has grown and learned during his time. We will all have many lasting memories and friendships from our days at Christies Carousel. His teachers and school staff did a great job of planning and having all the kids celebrate their graduation with a socially distanced car parade. He was just as excited to receive his graduation certificate from dad's Jeep. He was full of smiles when saying good-bye to his teachers