Happy New Year 2026!!

Happy New Year friends!!! If you are reading this then this is my Christmas card to you! You’ll get recent pictures and updates on each member of the family. There’s also a few fun questions that I like to use to reflect on the year gone by and look forward to the next! For this post we're already in the "Next year"! Haha but none the less, look forward to the rest of 2026!

2025 felt blazing fast. We had so much fun and made so many great memories, but there were also a lot of bumps along the way that really got in the way of us making any sort of progress on good routines. Time flew by faster than I've ever felt and even all the kids agreed that this year felt super fast. January was lots of fun, especially with the snow fall, and was pretty smooth, but then at the very end we were hit by pink eye that slowly moved through the whole family with week or two breaks in between. Every time I thought it was truly behind us another person would go down with it or I would get it again! Finally by mid April we made it out of the pink eye plague. But then the cat got a UTI in May and took a while to get better enough from his antibiotics for me to let him back inside from the garage. Also, my car was in and out of the shop for almost a month trying to get the A/C fixed. (I almost forgot Sam's car was also in the shop at the same time as my van for a couple of days! Crazy!) In June Cambria got sick and went down hill quickly. For the whole 11 days Cambria was showing symptoms of decline, until the day the vet strongly recommended we put her down, my car was in the shop. God knew I needed to spend more time at home with her. July brought Yuna home to us!! She was just 7 weeks old. Training a puppy engulfed the rest of my summer! By the time Yuna was feeling mostly trained it was October and I was leading a co-op class and decorating for a trunk or treat the same week! In November the cat declined again to the point I thought he might not recover, but he did!! At the end of October-November my washing machine stopped working and it was a few weeks of it being fixed again and breaking again before we finally ended up just buying a Speed Queen. November brought us the biggest change to our house since we moved in! We had our inoperable for 8 years master shower completely remodeled and we love it so much. Then of course December is always busy with holiday fun with very little signs of regular routine. Phew! That is a bunch of extra unplanned things for one year! Throughout the year we kept busy with our weekly or biweekly events, Discovery Crew co-op, Family night, Park day and Brains & Brawn club. We love them all! They are the highlight of each week. Thankfully God was there through it all and even though I didn't make the progress I wanted on my routines and accomplish some of my goals, I don't feel like I slid backwards in any way. So I'll call it a win. No matter where we were or what we were going through for 2025, we were feeling very very blessed by the wonderful family and friends we have around us.

2025 family member updates! Oldest to youngest

Turning 37 this year made me realize I am now closer to 40 than I am to 30. I do feel it sometimes, like when I wake up from falling asleep on the couch for a bit and my neck hurts. Earlier in 2025, I tried to do a kip up on the trampoline like I did when I was younger and hurt my shoulder/neck somehow. So yeah, I'm not quite as spry as I used to be, but I'm pretty happy that I can still do a front flip on the trampoline at 37! I try to do one every week or so. I'd like to do one every day as part of my exercise routine, but that would take me doing better at making sure I get my exercise routine in consistently! ;) I was also very excited to accomplish some ninja skills for the first time in my life this year! I can do about a 4ft lache (releasing with both hands from one bar to grab the next) and can climb a 10 foot warped wall. Since I watched the show throughout my teen years and beyond, it's so fun to get to do the skills myself now! I still read some audiobooks this year, but not nearly as much as the last few years. My brain felt too full to listen too much this year and that's ok. I think my favorite audiobook from this year was The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. I'd read the physical copy as a young adult, but for this one I got to hear it read by C.S. Lewis himself which was really cool. My favorite physical novel was Before Grace by Anna Daugherty (My sister in law) I made more time for video games this year because I really missed it. I take over the big TV and I play for about 2 hours on Sunday morning and that's it for the week. I love looking forward to my Sunday morning games! I finished Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom which was amazing. I still go back and play side quests every so often. I also finished Super Mario RPG on the switch. So fun to go back to a game I played so much as a kid made with new graphics. Now I'm playing Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and I'm about halfway! Otherwise, I am still enjoying organizing our Discovery Crew co-op, (this year I lead a drawing class for co-op. Kid me would never believe it!) leading park day and being Coach at Brains & Brawn club. I added another student to our homeschool days with Flynn entering Kindergarten! Piper pleads to do school with us, so I try to find something school-ish for her to do too. Working from home for about 2-3 hours a day is still going well and I'm so grateful for that! It's a full and beautiful life I am blessed to live.

Drawings from this year!

I have a health update for Sam and this might be the last one for a while. At Sam's appointment this year they moved his blood clot (located in his leg) from the acute category to the chronic category. So at this point they are not seeing much difference in the blood clot's size over the past year, but it's also not big enough to cause any issues anymore. So just to manage it and make sure it doesn't become a problem again, he is still on blood thinners and wears compression socks as the doctor advises. I am so grateful it doesn't bother his daily life anymore and that we are as passed it as possible! Sam is still working hard as a Copier Shop Technician Manager for Xerox. He works hard, but plays hard too. He has many video games he's enjoying playing now and enjoys watching movies on the weekends. I believe he's playing ARC Raiders mostly now. A couple other favorite games of this past year were Ghosts of Yotei and Clair Obscur: Exhibition 33. He is a big Magic the Gathering fan! This year he's enjoyed collecting the Final Fantasy and Avatar card sets. He plays with his coworkers on lunch break often and goes once a month for a Guys Night Out to a card shop to play with his friends. He agreed that reading through the Bible together was great last year and was ready to start on a new reading plan for 2026 together right away! We're also both enjoying playing catch together since we both got new baseball gloves recently. 

Jane is 11 and seems to be looking older everyday! She's officially a middle schooler which blows my mind a little bit. She has surpassed me in shoe size and is only a couple inches shorter than me now at around 5' 1". She is 2 1/2 years into her orthodontic treatment plan and we should be done very soon! She has come such a long way with a very complicated orthodontic journey. She just got a very big appliance out and maybe getting the braces off in a few months! Jane has been reading Manga lately and really tore through the Demon Slayer series. She enjoys the I Survived... graphic novels and she really loved the Rema Chronicles this year, also a graphic novel series and she can't wait for the next installment. We moved away from Roblox this year. She's been playing Pokemon Sword lately and building her strong Eevee Evolution team. She's also enjoyed Little Kitty, Big City and West of Loathing lately. Watching anime is still her fav. Her favorites to watch haven't changed much from last year. Frieren, Campfire cooking in another world and Spy Family. She finished Assassination Classroom and just started Demon Slayer. When she's not watching anime or playing video games, Jane likes to write and build legos in her free time. She is writing a story now called The Gang of Kids Who Saved the World. She has a big Lego goal of saving enough money to buy the Lego Avengers Tower. With her babysitting money from me and saving some birthday and Christmas money, she's about halfway! Jane loves going to Brains & Brawn club and now has a strong enough arm for me to watch out for her in dodgeball! We started trying the Ninja courses at the Middle schools nearby and Jane loves it!! She always surprises me how fast she'll learn a ninja skill. I'm trying to keep up! When she learned a lache on her own, I was inspired to try! We're hoping the Ninja gym opening soon has some open gym times! 

Atlas is 9 (Almost 10!) and in 4th grade. He speeds through school to get to video games as fast as I will let him. He was thrilled to find out we acquired a Switch 2 in the summer. His favorite video games this year were Hello Neighbor 1 & 2, Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, Mario 64 and Pokemon Sword. Atlas is a nighttime reader and is disappointed if I don't have something new for him to read. He finished all 42 volumes of the My Hero Academia manga and has moved on to Sonic the Hedgehog graphic novels. He also reads game guides often. He loves Brains & Brawn club and will never say no to a game of dodgeball. We got him a rebounder net because he always wants to throw the dodgeball with me and improve his skill and I love to as well, but I do have other responsibilities. ;) Recently we were watching the Squid Game Challenge reality tv show and he saw the Korean game of Gonggi being played and was super interested to try it. We started with dice and now he bought his own set of real Gonggi pieces and he plays all the time. He loves it. He told me just the other day, "Gonggi is the best because it's not a screen and I can play it anytime!!" Atlas enjoys the Ninja courses as well and one of his favorite places to go is Iron Sports. The warped wall is his favorite obstacle.

Alexandria is 7 and in 2nd Grade. She is still my animal loving girl. Losing Cambria this year hit her the hardest of the kids. She really really loves Yuna. She can't go to bed without giving her a hug goodnight. <3 Alexandria really grew in her reading skills this year!! She was reading just Elephant and Piggie books last year and now she's in regular graphic novels. Her favorite is Wings of Fire by far! She is going through a build your own dragon world book and loving it. She also enjoys The Dragon Kingdom of Wrenly, Jellaby and City of Dragons. Alexandria used to play a lot of Roblox because there was a Wings of Fire simulator on there, but now she's playing Pokemon Sword and Draconia and loving both of them. Alexandria doesn't struggle with school at all. The only thing she has trouble with is focusing to get it done in a good amount of time. The world of pretend play is always at her fingertips and her imagination is always running! Bringing a stuffy or other animal toy along to school to instruct in school will help her get things done though. Obviously, dragons are still number 1 for Alexandria. I wonder if anything will ever knock them down from the top spot. Xan loves Brains & Brawn and our trips to the Ninja courses as well! I think half of the fun for her is the friends we get to hang out with at those places. :) 

Flynn is a new 6 year old and in Kindergarten! We take our Kindergarten days very easy. We will skip whole days if it's just not going to work out with schedules or attitudes. I'm ok with repeating Kinder for Flynn as well since he was 5 when we started and his ADHD can make things more of a challenge at times. He's super hard on himself when he can't get writing a letter or number correctly as fast as he would like, but he's still getting the hang of it! He can read a few really simple bob books, but otherwise he loves it when I read him any book with pictures that is related to disasters. We are reading flap book called wild weather and he loves it!! Volcanoes, tornados and tsunamis still fascinate him and he says he wants to be a storm chaser when he grows up. Recently he's really been enjoying Mark Rober videos and all the science behind the fun! Flynn is not into regular video games at all. He does like playing games of the Kindle though! When we go to Brains & Brawn Flynn is not quite ready to be a good sport to play the games. He will play from time to time, but he would rather run around the park with his buddy Ranger for now. Flynn really loves Ninja! He asked to go to Iron Sports for his birthday. Because he is light and determined, he can get farther on the cliff hanger than all of us!

Piper is 3 years old and I guess she's in preschool?? Haha, I will give her a book to follow letters in but that's about all for now. Piper has grown up so much this year!! She's officially potty trained and just now started buckling herself in the car. She gets dressed and puts shoes on by herself. She also learned to swim all on her own this summer!!! She was so resistant to swim without holding my hand. I kept telling her she could swim faster without holding on. She finally believed me and got it down super fast! Piper is my little helper. She wants to help me with everything!! I have to tell her there are just some things she can't help with yet. She's so so sweet and tells me, "You're my best mom ever." often. Toddler temper tantrums still happen, but thankfully less often than they were a year ago! Piper wants to play all the video games, but her skill is not quite there to really play most games. She likes to play Paw Patrol, but asks for my help for the harder jumps. She also plays Wrestledunk sports with us and laughs so much. Piper stays with Marmee for Brains & Brawn, but a couple times I've needed to bring her and she likes to play along with the games and share a book. Maybe in another year she can start coming each time. Funny thing is Piper loves the Ninja courses even though she can't do much on them. She asks when we're going next all the time!

Although we didn't place for best trunk, we had a blast doing a Kpop Demon Hunters trunk this year!

I have so enjoyed the tradition of asking these 4 questions at the end of each year! I love the reflection and forward thinking it brings.

Some of my B&B regulars!

1. What are you most grateful for in 2025?

This is really cool actually. My word for the year last year was "Connection" and for 2025 I am most grateful for the connections I made. They aren't necessarily new connections, but deepened connections or a reconnection. I've gotten really close to a few of my homeschool mom friends who consistently show up to Park Day and B&B, (what makes it extra amazing is the kids enjoy each other too!) I had some really enjoyable mom lunches through the year, I have loved staying connected to friends and family even through distance. A monthly video chat or just a regular call to stay up to date in each other's lives and prayer requests. Another way of staying connected we've done with friends and family is sending snail mail letters and sending recent pics/videos and sharing ninja wins with each other. Sam and I have reconnected more this year by getting on the same page with our budget and priorities and completing a chronological one year Bible plan.

Honorable mentions: Being blessed with Yuna, B&B & park day continuing to be such a joy for us, our new shower, my Sunday routine of rest and recharge, Piper being potty trained and learning to swim!

2. What was your favorite moment of 2025?

Going to Camp Tejas for labor day weekend has been a favorite memory of the last three years for all of us. This year we had friends join us at Tejas and it made it even more special. I grew up going to Tejas with family and friends, so adding the friend piece for my kids was super cool. My cousin and her fam joined us as well which was also very cool because we grew up going together. I was able to attend the Tejas Staff Reunion in November and it was different than going for the Labor Day Retreat, but soooo much fun!!

Honorable mentions: The kids at B&B starting a game of step on toes on their own, my birthday at B&B, Landing my first real lache at KMS and my longest lache at Iron sports, both of our Great Wolf Lodge trips (winning a one night stay for one of them!) and our trip to visit my brother and fam.

Great Wolf Lodge giveaway trip

These pictures represent the new stage of motherhood I am entering. For the first time I can no longer hold Jane on my side for our annual Christmas eve picture and she is tall enough just to stand next to me.

3. What are you looking forward to in 2026?

Moving farther away from the stage of having babies! I'm looking forward to this year being completely in the later years of toddlerhood as my youngest age. Enjoying things like everyone being potty trained and able to buckle themselves in the car and family trips becoming easier.

Labor day at Tejas as always or any time we will get to spend at Tejas this year. The kids ask me how long until Tejas all the time!

Honorable mentions: Mostly maybes here, Maybe getting to go to a Ninja gym more often since one is opening nearby! Maybe things being a bit calmer this year(God willing) and getting back to good routines.

4. What goals do you hope to accomplish/habits to form in 2026?

1. Prioritize health. Still work on a better bedtime, exercising consistently and eating well. All this banks on self control. I really gotta work on that fruit of the spirit this year! Habits to implement - Same as last year: getting ready for bed when the older kids go to bed and having dinner done before 7pm to have the younger kids in bed at a better time. Sticking to a nighttime routine for myself that includes putting my phone to bed at 10:30pm and being in bed before 11:30pm.

2. Complete a pull up! Habit: Do a pull up work out at least every other day. Look into getting an indoor pull up bar.

3. Train Yuna to quiet her bark on command. Habit: Each time Yuna barks inside, call her to my side and have treats nearby to teach the commands Quiet and Enough.

4. Make it up this ninja wall without the help of the side bar. Habit: Get back to my track drill workouts at least every other day and get my recovery slide/walk down when I don't make it so I'm not scared to try at 100%.

Accomplished goals from 2025, Piper can swim and is potty trained! YAY! I have a strong community through B&B and Park day. <3 but I'm still searching for a way to make it deeper and more intentional.

I'm a bit disappointed in myself for not accomplishing my biggest goal for 2025 which was a better bedtime, but I will put a quote from C.S Lewis here to encourage myself! "Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success." Here's to failing forward toward success! Hopefully this will be the year!

Kids answers 2025

Grateful 

All - Life 

J - Her friend Sammy

A - The Switch 2

X - Her cousins

F - His gumball machine

Moment

All - both Tejas trips

Looking Forward to

All - Time at Tejas or any trip

Goal

J - Save enough for the big Lego set

A - try more foods

X - improve her drawing skills

F - become the best scientist 

The Daniels side of the family was all together for the first time in many years!

We said goodbye to Cambria and hello to Yuna in 2025. We miss Cambria so much, but Yuna is such a joy. Milo has had some UTI issues this year but he's pulled through and seems healthier than he's been since May of this year.

Just for funzies.

Most said phrases by me this year: 

"I love you"

"Why??"

"Go to bed."

"Yuna! No!"

Word for 2026:

Last year my word for the year was Connection. And as I explained earlier in my gratefulness for 2025 question, it was definitely appropriate for the year! For this year I'm really feeling:

"Consistency"

Goodbye 2025!!!!! Hello 2026! Happy New Year Everybody!

Galatians 5:22-25

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Atlas is Nine!

Wow! Atlas is 9! And for the first time since I've been doing birthday blog posts, I am 8 months behind in writing this... So it's going to be interesting to try to remember back to when Atlas had just turned 9. There's been a lot of experiences and growth in the last 8 months. It's going to be tough to remember if it all happened before or after he turned 9. Some of this might end up being super similar to a 10 year old birthday post. I will keep it shorter than previous birthday blog posts because of this fact and try to focus on only what I am pretty positive was true by the end of February 2025. One thing I can tell you about right now is I wrote the first line. "Wow, Atlas is 9!" back in February. Sitting here in November I do feel like his age feels right and I'm not going to be surprised to call him a 10 year old in 4 months. For his last birthday post I said that I kept calling him 7 for a while when he was already 8 because it still sounded surreal for him to be that old. Maybe it's because I've seen a lot of maturing this year or maybe I just finally came around to the fact that his not one of the little kids around the park anymore. He's middle of the pack now! 

Atlas has been levitating while playing video games since he was 4. Haha! He can't resist the urge to jump up and down while playing video games. Hey, it keeps him moving and fit because he plays a lot of video games!! ;) He still wanting to be a video game maker of some kind and getting to play video games is still a the biggest motivator for Atlas to finish school. He is soooo logical when it comes to school. As soon as he understands a math rule he is set and barely gets anything wrong unless he gets distracted. Grammar is fine too because it's focused on rules. As soon as he has to do creative writing it's like I am purposefully trying to make school terrible for him! There are not exact rules to follow and he can get super stumped. We're working on it! But I also know that not every kid has to like writing or be super good at it. I will be surprised if he's chosen vocation turns out to be writing focused. Although he's not a writer at this point, he is a super reader!! If I don't have anything new for him to read at bedtime that he's interested in he's so disappointed! Graphic Novels are his favorite. He started reading Manga this year which I love! I'll go over more of that in the favorite books section.

Super Friday was good for the first semester and he enjoyed his classes but for the second semester when he took Chess, Rubik's Cube and Spanish it didn't pan out. He stopped wanting to go all together. I'm not sure exactly the reason other than he did complain of his stomach feeling uncomfortable most mornings we needed to leave for SF. I know this is due to anxiety because I had the same problem growing up. Not sure why it took until the second semester to come up. Maybe because something in those classes was stressing him. He told me in Rubik's cube if he wasn't getting the algorithm he wasn't really helped and fell behind and in chess they weren't really learning any strategy or moves to try just playing each other each week. I never heard anything negative about Spanish though. He had the same teacher for Rubik's cube and Chess so I wonder if the teacher for those classes was just having trouble with the student load and Atlas was getting lost in the mix. Any way with about 6 weeks left. (Like halfway) He said he wanted to stop going. My mom, who was helping pay for tuition said she was fine if he wanted to stop. I decided not to force it and let him stop going. He didn't seem to be learning much and he was miserable going. At least this reaffirms to me homeschooling is definitely the way Atlas will learn best!! We also started Brains & Brawn club around the time he decided he was ready to stop Super Friday and he loves it so much more than he ever liked Super Friday. WIN!

This is where I'm not going to remember how he was acting with his siblings back in February. I will say he really does love his siblings and being with them. The only distinct difference from my last blog post that I know of that happened was Atlas and Alexandria figured out how to play video games together and not fight. It still happens from time to time but more often than not their enjoying the time together instead of ending up screaming. Atlas still needs to work on some sportsmanship while playing with his siblings, but overall they have a great time together!

Atlas continues to have a stellar friend group! His birthday hang out in February was such a fun time!! He asked for body bumpers for his birthday and I got a couple of extra sets and we had a blast doing a body bumper tournament! They played a bunch of video games too. This was also the last time we all got to hang out at our house with our friends, the Wilsons, before they moved away. It was a special day! We miss them, but we are happy they are doing so well in their new town and we enjoy keeping up by sending each other pictures and writing letters. Atlas has a big group of boys around his age he hangs out with at park day, some of which include, Elliott, Calvin, Kyden, AJ, Amari, Gabriel and Caleb. (he's made even more friends this year but these are the ones I remember most from last year) I am a fan of all of these boys and so glad they also come to Brains & Brawn to play games with us. I'm super grateful for such good homeschool friends!

Sam and Atlas continue to have many similarities! Ever since we started our Brains & Brawn club event Atlas has showed greater interest in watching sports with Sam. He's definitely not to Sam's level yet, but the spark has been kindled. Some of Atlas's anxious feeling and his response to it remind me a bit of Sam as well. I don't remember if this started happening before or after Atlas turned 9, but sometimes at night Atlas's brain won't let him relax and the only one that can help him calm down is Sam. I seem to only make it worse! It's a sweet connection, but I do wish they didn't have to deal with that strong night time anxiety. I'm glad they have each other!!

Weight

Birth: 8lbs 7oz

1 Year Old: 22 lbs

2 Years Old: 27 lbs

3 Years Old: 32 lbs

4 Years Old: 35 1/2 lbs

5 Years Old: 37 3/4 lbs

6 Years Old: 42 lbs

7 Years Old: 47 lbs

8 Years Old: 48 lbs

9 Years Old: 54 lbs

Atlas is still a lightweight. He's getting a bit better about his pickiness, but still not great. He finally has a bit of motivation to build some muscle since we play sports every week now, so he is understanding the need to eat protein more. We're still working on better eating habits!

Height

Birth: 21 1/2"

1 Year Old: 29"

2 Years Old: 33"

3 Years Old: 36"

4 Years Old: 3' 2.5" (38.5")

5 Years Old: 3' 6.25"

6 Years Old: 3' 8.75"

7 Years Old: 3’ 10”

8 Years Old: 4’ 1/2”

9 Years Old: 4' 2"

Atlas is still on the shorter side as well. I don't have much else to say about it other than his height doesn't seem to bother him! So I'm glad he doesn't put any of his value into his height.

A Year in Pictures: Firsts & Favorite Moments

March 2024 - Upgraded bike!

April 2024 - Meeting up with friends at the fair!

May 2024 - Beach Golf Cart Ride

June 2024 - Holding a butterfly

June 2024 - Book it reading reward

July 2024 - First Hurricane! (Beryl)

July 2024 - visiting the Riedels!

August 2024 - Tejas Trip!

First z-tag

Muddy thumbs up!

September 2024 - Laser tag!

September 2024 - Reward for finishing a novel

October 2024 - Finishing Super Mario 64

November 2024 - Landing a front flip!

December 2025 - Helping finish a 5000 piece puzzle

December 2025 - Finishing Explode the Code   

January 2025 - Sweater arm gorilla

January 2025 - First requested hairstyle 

January 2025 - Mounted Patrol Barn field trip

January 2025 - Making a real snowman!

February 2025 - Eating the apple to the very core!

February 2025 - Great Wolf Lodge

Favorites

Oof! I think the favorites section going to be the hardest part to remember. I usually ask their favorites when I do this section. If I ask him now it's going more similar to 10 years old than 9. For his favorite foods, at least this picture reminds me that he was already in love with wings!!! I started making baked wings last year and it has become his favorite meal that I make! He also loves burgers, especially ones that Sam grills. His favorite restaurant is Hacienda Palomas and fast food is Canes or Crust.

Again my picture is helping me with favorite toys here! He asked for a Lego for his birthday and He really did enjoy building it. I'm not sure it's his favorite thing though. He built one of the arms backwards and he was definitely not interested in trying to rebuild it. Now that Kirby stuffy next to him he does love and it sleeps next to him each night. Otherwise he enjoys his door basketball hoop we got him for Christmas and his monster trucks too when he remembers them.

Atlas is still the biggest video game player in our family! He has Sam beat just because Sam has to work all day. ;) Gosh, I'm trying to remember his favs from last year. He definitely played a lot of Super Mario 3D All Stars last year and was very proud to get all 120 stars in Mario 64 which is the game in the picture above. He also enjoyed Super Mario RPG for the switch. I love it because it was my favorite video game around his age. He also enjoyed his WarioWare games Get it together and Move it and found a WarioWare game he liked on the Advance virtual system. Sonic, Mario and Kirby games are all favorite franchises. He'll always go back and play what the golf when they release new content. Rayman Legends comes back around a lot too. He got really into My Hero: One's Justice 2 after he got it for Christmas! It also goes along with the books he's been reading recently! I'll go more into that shortly. He really honed his skills in Mario Tennis to be able to beat Sam from time to time. We still work on sportsmanship with playing competitively with family but there is improvement! Oh I almost forgot about Untitled Goose Game! He did even did all the extra tasks after you finish the game. He asks all the time if that developer will release another game like it. 

Atlas's favorite movies or TV hasn't changed. He did absolutely love Sonic 3 when it . He also loves the other Sonic movies and Mario movie of course. Definitely not surprising that he favorite movies are related to video games. He still loves Bluey too! Oh and he enjoys watching America's Got Talent and Kaiju #8 with me when the older 3 get to stay up.

Atlas is a super reader!! He doesn't usually choose to read during the day at all, unless it's required for school. BUT he is always reading at night. He will read until after 11pm most nights. So he gets a lot of reading in! He went through all of the Branches series and moved on to bigger things! Press Start stayed his favorite of those books. He completed his first novel, Trapped in a Video Game and he liked it but it wasn't his favorite. His favorite things to read are manga or graphic novels. I'm a big manga fan so I LOVE that he's enjoying some of the same manga I do! He has read everything in the My Hero Academia and Kaiju #8 series to current. He finished the Promised Neverland series twice. (one of my favs!!) He read some One Piece but definitely did NOT finish. It's so long. He finished the Bad Guys series twice as well and says Aaron Blabey is his favorite author. 

Atlas is equal parts relaxed and active when it comes to favorite activities. Of course, he loves videos games and enjoys playing chess, but he will willingly go outside to play almost anytime. He enjoys hitting a whiffle ball in the backyard with a bat and throwing dodgeballs around in the trampoline. He likes to walk around the park and talk to his friends about video games too. He still loves swimming, swinging and jumping on the trampoline as well! He LOVES most of the games we play at Brains & Brawn. His top 3 are Dodgeball, Sharks and Minnows and Bricket Ball. He will definitely let me know when he didn't like a game! Haha! 

When Piper was an infant we watched a video on indoor water parks (like Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari) and Atlas was enthralled. Immediately he asked when we could go! I told him not for a while and probably not until Piper was really good at walking. That was very disappointing to him at the time. To the point that he expressed distaste for having a baby sister right then. He did realize having Piper was more important than going to an indoor water park as soon as he would like. So time went on and he only asked about it again once or twice in the whole 2 1/2 years since the discussion and then the day finally came! Thanks to awesome discount homeschooling booking codes and my parents gifting us the trip as a Christmas present, we finally made it to Great Wolf Lodge right before Atlas turned 9! It is definitely one of Atlas’s favorite places now!! He loved it all. I would say it didn’t quite knock Tejas out of the top spot, but it came close. He loves all the same places we did last year, although he is very concerned with germs since he hates getting sick. So his favorite places are ones that are outside or that he feels are appropriately cleaned. Some of which include the park(especially the new elementary school playgrounds & MS ninja parks we started going to right after his 9th birthday), the fields, the library, Open Gym, Tejas, the beach, friends’ houses, Big Rivers, Cidercade, restaurants, and home!

Finish

Atlas has really gained some athletic confidence this past year! Excelling at video games was the first thing Atlas felt really confident in and I loved that for him! He definitely still finds confidence in video games, but I was so happy to see him put himself out there with athletics and play new games at Brains & Brawn club and continue to improve each week. Right after his 9th birthday, we went to a ninja inspired obstacle course at a local middle school to try it out and he loved it!! He kept trying to beat his own time and improve on each obstacle while we were there. We're still working on him not getting too upset when he doesn't get it after several failed attempts, but even if he's upset and tired he doesn't give up! I love to see his determination to conquer these obstacles and his joy and pride when he finally does!! For example, in the picture above, he tried multiple times to get the technique right on these spinning wheels and when he did get it down, it became his favorite obstacle of that course. He asks when the next time we can go to a ninja park is all the time. :D He's still my chill, loveable, goofball and is developing some pretty fun comedic timing and making me truly laugh out loud. I love this age when there starts to be more moments when I can put my mom mode in the backseat for a bit and we can grow more in our friendship. I consider it such a privilege to have a front seat to watch him grow into the man God has created him to be. 

Happy 9th Birthday Atlas! We love you so much!

Romans 5:1-4

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope