THE EVANS FAMILY: Kade

Kade turns 8!

Another birthday and another year with our fun-loving, silly boy. Kade keeps us laughing and always keeps us guessing about what he is going to do next.

Kade is about 44 inches tall and weighs 43 pounds. Him and Reece continue to share a room with bunk beds and Kade sleeps on the bottom bunk. He usually goes to bed around 7:45- 8:00 after we sing "Silent Night" to him while scratching or tickling his back. He will then repeatedly say "Good night," "See you in the morning" and "I love you" until we get to the bedroom door and close it. Kade often wakes up around 6:00 am and plays with Reece in their room for a while. When he has a chance, Kade will sleep in till around 7:00-7:30 am.

Kade still continues to be a happy little boy. He loves to be silly and make people laugh and has the best faces and facial expressions. He is kind to those around him and desires to make good decisions. He will randomly walk up to us with his arms open and say "Huggy?" He is happy to help when asked. He is up for just about anything life throws at him. He just gets a little too silly and out of control at times in trying to make the people around him smile and laugh.

Kade loves to be around other people -whether that be his family or his friends. He loves having playdates and asks to have them often. He gets so excited when he has someone to play with when we go to Ember and Reece's sports practices and games. He spends alot of time outside. He loves playing kickball with Reece, riding on scooters and bikes and rollerblading. He likes playing "sharks and minnows" with flag football flags on the turf. Kade loves catching lizards or bugs and making habitats for them in containers. Kade loves going on trips - whether it is camping, Lake Powell, Mexico or a new adventure. He loves swimming. He is starting to enjoy things like fishing and crawdad catching more and more. He loves going to Levitate or the Aquaplex. He really likes getting "special drinks" and popsicles and he never forgets his daily piece of gum. Some of Kade's favorite foods are: cereal, breakfast burritos, chia pudding, bananas, berries, corn dogs, salami, pizza, frozen grapes, pulled pork, ribs, and a honey tortilla. Kade continues to have the biggest sweet tooth of our kids and will never turn down a treat.

When Kade isn't playing outside, he's usually good at finding something to do inside. He has been really into building forts with blankets. He still loves building with the Picasso magnetic tiles. He enjoys doing Legos. He will randomly pull out craft supplies and make something creative. Reece and him will still often do trick shots with the small basketball hoop in their room. One of the things he does the most is wrestle and giggle with Reece on the rug in their room. Kade loves fidget toys and little trinkets. He will play with infinity cubes, slinkies, squishies, small cube puzzles, etc often. He has acquired quite the collection. Kade got much better at reading this past year and enjoyed reading "Splat the Cat" and "High-Rise Private Eyes" books over the summer for the summer reading program. Other books he requests we read to him often are: The Bad Guys, Grumpy Monkey, I Just Ate My Friend and Dragons Love Tacos 1 and 2. Kade is getting more and more able to play and enjoy card games. He has been playing Speed with Ember and Reece and is able to occasionally beat them. He still will play War and Solitaire often as well. He, of course, till loves playing Shawn and other silly games with his Dad.

Although Kade is agreeable and positive over all, he has some things that frustrate him or annoy him. He doesn't like always having to tag along to drive his siblings to and from their various sports practices and games. He is not usually excited about having to take a shower. He will sometime get easily offended by something his siblings say to him as a joke. Some foods he doesn't like are hotdogs (he'll eat them but would rather not), tomatoes and salmon.

As stated above, Kade has grown alot in his ability to read this past year. He is always eager to try to figure out bigger words himself and can get most of them. He is still continuing to do well at math as well. He is excited when he knows his weekly Bible verse and loves trying to answer the questions during our nightly devotion time. He got the award of "Prayerful Heart" from his teacher at the end of first grade. Kade is growing in his adventurousness. We did the Lava Tubes and he wasn't scared at all during that. He also jumped off a MUCH bigger cliff than he would previously when we went to Clear Creek recently. He played flag football for the first time and improved immensely after just one season and helped lead his team to win the championship ring. Kade got to be a ring bearer and wear a suit for the first time this past year when his cousin Kiley got married in Florida.

Kade truly is a sweet boy to be around and greatly liked by many. He is creative and genuinely funny. He is an integral part of this family and it wouldn't be even close to the same without him! Happy 8th birthday, Kade! We love you very much.

BIRTHDAY ACTIVITIES:

We celebrated Kade's birthday the night before his birthday this year because of the FCS Lost Canyon trip starting on his actual birthday for Ember and Reece. Kade wanted pizza. So, we got delicious pizza at NiMarco's.