Alexander (the great) is 8!

My my, Alex is eight years old. He's got a mouth full of holes, a chipped tooth, and his most defining characteristic continues to be his hair. 

Affectionately known (not by me) as the "mohawk mullet". 

So what do we say about Alex. For starters, he is probably the smartest person in our family. It does not make him nice. In fact Alex is kind of edgy and has quite the temper and attitude. In the mornings, I never know what side of the bed he is going to get up on (one time he claimed he was up all night. He said "You know, the closest I got to sleeping was blinking, Mommy" and stated that he should probably have a later bedtime. Ha! I don't think so.). 

How about another example? Sure. So not long ago I stopped and got donuts. They were out of the kind Alex likes (strawberry frosted) so I purchased a regular glazed. When he arrived home from hockey, I gave it to him and held my breath. Here's what happened.

Anyway, as Alex is more touchy than I would like, I got him a punching bag for his birthday thinking it would help LOL.

Temper aside, he was very excited about the gloves :)

When Alex isn't stomping around, he's actually quite funny. And sarcastic. He thinks nothing of telling adults what the real deal is and can make a joke out of anything. His teacher is his hero and probably the one person he reveres besides himself and his grandparents. Alex is quite the showman too and for this personality trait I got him a microphone.

Can't say that was a great decision.

Alex wears a 2.5 shoe, is alllllmost a youth Medium in clothes, stands about 4'5 and hits the scales at 63 pounds. Pluto is still around. Ask him his favorite dinner and he'll tell you turkey burgers or ideally, McDonalds. And watch your Diet Coke - he will steal it. Alex does NOT like chicken (and yet, eats it pretty frequently). 

He plays hockey (his Comets Mite B season just wrapped, and ON his birthday March 16 he found out he made the elite team for the Assabet Patriots, which will be his club next year, so that was huge news). Alex is very competitive and is currently playing lacrosse for the Natick Redhawks, street football, basketball, and whatever else he feels like dominating. He spends his free time watching YouTube videos: DudePerfect, awesome hockey tricks, things you can build with Legos, etc etc. Alex loves the song "Industry Baby" by Lil Nas X and if he had his way, his birthday gift would have been a Playstation. Alex can also tell you with almost 100% accuracy what kind of bird is flying around. 

So what did this little ratso want to do on his birthday? He asked for another skating party but there was no ice to be found due to all the hockey tryouts. I sprung him and Ashton early from school and we went to Fun and Games for TWO hours which to me felt like two days but hey. They played in the arcade, and chased each other in laser tag and generally bounced around, the happiest of clams. 

It was actually really cute - in the beginning they shared the games :)

This next one is BEYOND typical of Alex. So, a lot of towns have early release on Wednesdays, so even though it was 2:30 pm there was a birthday party going on with other boys. Alex became fixated on this game where you had to stop the number climb at 1000. (Imagine being at a gas pump, holding the trigger and trying to let go to stop the numbers at exactly $10.00, for example.) The timer starts at 0 and the numbers ascend quite rapidly. Hit the button at the split second it's 1000, without going over, and you win.

Well Alex got a 999. And he had every kid in the place witnessing it.

He couldn't believe it. They were like, AWE, you were so close. Wow. And then they all tried it and didn't get anywhere near 1000 like Alex did, which he knew they wouldn't. He wins, or nearly wins, at most things. 

Ashton takes it all in stride thankfully. As a brother, Alex does like to use his fists and there is a fair amount of shoving, laughing that turns to crying, indignation, and argument over resources (i.e., parent attention) but overall they are super tight.

Anyway, here are a few more recent photos of Alex as he has hit 8 years old. 

Don't let this last one fool you. The boy does ZERO chores and I was indulging him because he claimed he was so good at cleaning he was going to start a service. I said, "Well that would be nice to have. What is your rate?" and he said "Obviously, 10 out of 10."

"I meant, what do you charge?"

"Oh. Probably too much for you to pay actually." And promptly quit. Sigh. 

(Haha, I looked up last year's 7 year old post and there is a specific line that says "You might be Alex if 'your chore chart is empty. You have literally no chores as you've decided the money isn't worth it.' "

Everything in that 7 year old post is still true.

Up next: His first communion. And he was asked to be the gift bearer at the mass which should be interesting...

You're a lot to handle Alex, but we love you! HAPPY 8!

Ho ho hoooooly moly it's been a long time since Christmas

Well everyone there is not a better time than March to relive our Christmas spectacular. Although this post hasn't happened yet because there is not much to relive. SPOILER ALERT:

Now that there test all the way on the right is Jason's. We took rapids before packing up and getting in the car to head to Vermont after opening presents. Two lines = positive. Positive = no travel for the Nills. Whomp whomp. Jason was totally asymptomatic but one more rapid and a PCR a couple days later and it was a YEP.

But of course we didn't know this was going to happen so we still had a pretty nice December and holiday leading up to the test. 

Annual tree selection, in which the boys become increasingly disinterested. They actually suggested they wait in the car this year! [aghast]

Letters and cookies and decorating more things. The usual business.

The boys were still very into Pete our elf. Although he's becoming more high maintenance as they are requesting that Pete maybe do funny things and get into trouble in the letters they leave for him. I guess elves in other houses have made a reputation for themselves SO, the best I could do was have Pete bring a friend over (Cherry Cinnamon from next door). The boys just about had a heart attack when they saw there were two. And of course Cherry brought some kind of magic where you put tic tacks in sugar and they grow into candy canes overnight.

Behold, the following photo with the results:

How many days would that have to sit on the counter, be moved around, spilled and "replanted" before you considered it really annoying? 

That's rhetorical.

Changing the subject, I very much like to decorate my Christmas card envelopes differently every year. I chose washi tape this time around and WHOA was it a hit with the boys. Yards and yards wasted, but...they spent HOURS "helping". The holiday season is about making sacrifices isn't it? Refer to comment above about open glasses of sugar on the counter in a very busy area.

So cute though :)

Then cute becomes intense. (Kari show this picture to Callie, it's her flamingo key chain that Alex spent a lifetime wrapping LOL)

I'm feeling the need to advise the 3 other readers here on the flamingo back story. Which is that Alex went to Hobby Lobby on December tenth, saw this at the checkout, and proclaimed Callie just had to have it. Like, as a present. 

Callie has now duly received said Flamingo so Kari, comment below on its status. Most 7 year olds don't have keys so...no expectations ;)

Which brings us to Christmas Eve. In addition to wrapping the glorious gift above, Alex also spent a tremendous amount of time making a Lego version of Santa's sleigh in preparation for Santa's visit.

One of those creations where you find yourself laughing in surprise at how good it is.

Anyway, here's the Christmas morning picture.

And the rest is history. Lots of blurry photos and paper everywhere. It was about 11 am that we found out Jason was positive and everything stopped in their tracks. We spent 5 days home as a family (HOME home) and that was a wrap. The boys and I never got it - Jason didn't isolate from us in the house and we tested repeatedly, so maybe vaccines work after all ;) I'll take good health as my Christmas present any day. xoxox