Dylan is 5!

Age: 5 years old (April 14th)
Height: 46 inches

Weight: 45 lbs
Size: Boys 6-8 depending on the brand
Shoe Size: 13
-Has his 6-year molars coming in on the bottom! And one of his bottom front teeth might be starting to get loose. It's hard to tell since when he knocked out one of the bottom ones when he was 1.5, the remaining front teeth shifted and never really firmed back up in their spots. So it's hard to tell if it's getting loose because the adult tooth is coming in or it's just still loose from his accident.


Five-Year-Old Survey
Favorite Book: Wolves books
Favorite TV show: 
Favorite Song: Psy "Gangnam Style"
Favorite Toy: Beyblade
Favorite Movie: Walking With Dinosaurs
Favorite Color: Dark Blue
Best Friend: Caiden
Favorite animal: Zebra
Favorite sport: T-Ball/Baseball
Favorite food: Tuna fish sandwich
Favorite Activity: watching movies
What he wants to be when he grows up: Construction Builder
Most exciting thing about being 5: Being able to play T-Ball

He is growing up too fast for my liking. I was sorting through old pictures from when he was a baby, toddler, etc. and just couldn't believe how quickly he's grown and changed. I really am enjoying watching him learn and enjoy new things. He's loved trying out new activities and sports. So far he's done indoor soccer, TaeKwonDo, swimming lessons and his newest adventure is T-Ball. He also has been really loving riding his bike and got a new bigger bike for his birthday. He had one day where he decided he wanted to try to ride it without training wheels but then chickened out and they are back on for now. He also received some roller blades from his neighborhood friends who all have them and they play street hockey so he's really anxious to try them out so he can really play roller hockey with them. I'm a little nervous for him to use them. We need to head to buy some elbow pads, knee pads, a chin guard, and full bubble wrap for him before I'll let him take to the streets (just kidding, well, sort of...)He's learned so much at preschool (daycare) this past year and is more than ready for Kindergarten.

He's super excited to start school and I'm still having to explain to him that even though he's 5 now, he doesn't get to start right away, that he has to wait for the next school year. We're still trying to figure out his childcare situation. We decided on half-day Kindergarten but that leaves before- and after-school care TBD on Tuesdays and Fridays when I work. His current childcare provider, even though she lives just two streets away, is in a different school district so he can't catch a bus from there. One of our neighbors has a friend who's son will also start Kindergarten next year and she is considering starting to watch some kids for extra income and I talked with her briefly about taking Dylan there on T/F. Her neighborhood is AM K and we are PM so I'd have to look into having him switch over to AM instead which would leave him without bus transportation home the other days I'm home so I'd have to be available to pick him up. Which I think I could manage if that would sort out the daycare situation!


This is where he's at educationally:
-Can write all letters uppercase and lowercase
-Writes his name and can write words if we spell them for him
-Knows all the letter sounds
-Can count up to 100+
-Can do simple addition using his fingers (3+2, 4+5, etc)
-Recognizes/reads sight words (I, a, am, we, me, big, at, is, and, etc)
-Recognizes and draws all shapes
-Knows his colors
-Understands rhyming words
-Understands how to recognize and make patterns
-Can cut shapes and lines with scissors
-Knows left from right
-He can memorize parts or entire books, especially his non-fiction animal books where there's pictures of types or sharks or wolves, etc. He can remember the specific names of all of them and gets really excited to tell them all to us.
-Still working on the days of the week, he understands the difference between the weekdays and weekend but can't remember the order of the days of the week yet

I convinced Dylan to pose for me for these pictures yesterday so we could avoid the trip to JCPenney where I normally take him for his yearly photos. I haven't been all that impressed with the quality of the portraits there since they take a limited number of frames and sometimes his expression in those few pictures are not ones I love all that much. So I'm really happy all of these turned out! I have so many to choose from and I don't have to pay the insane sitting fee, portrait package fee, and all the extras they charge you for. I still haven't been back to pick up Luke's photos we had taken there in February. I wasn't that in love with his either and still ended up spending close to $60 on photos I didn't really even love that much! And he didn't really smile and look at the camera for the JCP photographer either so it's not like they could get any better than I could. 

AND I finally feel like I'm able to get the lighting and settings right on my camera to take the pictures since it's taken very little editing to get the color and lighting right in post-processing!  I'm so excited! It's been so much faster to edit when the photos right out of the camera and so much more spot-on color and lighting-wise. All I've had to do is sharpen the eyes a bit and crop some of them! After so much practice, I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere!