Six years nine months

6 years and 9 months old - Rocco is enjoying first grade.  He is one of the top readers in his class.  Jason and Rocco are a team on the Accelerated Reader program.  Rocco will bring a book home, most of the time it is a non-fiction book about animals.  He and Jason will read it three times together.  Then, Rocco will take a test at school on it.  I've helped him a good bit, too.  Only Meg Kapustay has more points than him.  He has over 20 points which means he's read at least 40 books this school year.  Several months ago Jason told him that he would give him whatever he wanted at the end of the school year if he would reach 20 points.  Well, only half of the school year is over and Rocco has reached it!  Here he is with his first grade teacher, Mrs. Ashworth.  He's wearing  a scarf that she made him.  For Christmas, she made every student a scarf and also gave them a bag of goodies.

Here are a few of his classmates at their Christmas party before school let out for the holidays.  

And speaking of Christmas, Rocco racked up this year.  He only asked Santa for one thing when he talked to him at school.  More hexbugs with tracks.  Santa brought that and so much more!

 Some of his favorites were the Spiderman tent...

 toy knife that has a fake blade going in and out...

and he even got a Sheriff's outfit.

I don't have a picture of him, but Rocco's favorite toy was a turtle that lights up.  When you turn off the lights, Stanley (what we named the turtle) will project stars and the moon on the ceiling.  It is like a Dream Light, but Nana Carolyn found this one because he isn't fuzzy and I'm not allergic to him.  Rocco goes to sleep each night with Stanley lighting up his room.

 This Christmas season we stayed busy at church.  Construction was in full swing on our new sanctuary.  The children's play was held in the old sanctuary while we waited for it to be finished.  The title of the play was The Joy Story.  Rocco played a toy soldier who cleared the way for the toys to arrive.  I was the toy store owner, Mrs. Joy.

 The adult choir was able to sing in the new church building for their musical, Noel Born is the King.  Rocco played the young, boy Jesus.  Here he is with the wise men.

 Of course my birthday was this month.  I turned 36.  My best friend from South Carolina showed up at our house on that Friday after I got off work.  She drove four hours to come see me.  Surprise!  Jennifer, Rocco, and I went to Chattanooga to see the Polar Express on the big 3-d I-Max screen.  Jason stayed behind to watch Maverick.  After the show, we drove to LaFayette and ate at the Dari Dip with my mom and nana.  Afterwards, we drove about a mile and stopped to see the lights downtown.  Even though it is small, I love going there every year because all of the lights are synchronized to the music.  My brother, his girlfriend, and my dad joined us.  Here's Jennifer and me.

And here we are at the lights.  Rocco and I danced...and his favorite part was racing Tyler and me around the track.

In other updates this month, Rocco lost another tooth.  This one was on the bottom.  He lost it Dec 20th.  It's neat that I have one son losing teeth and another one getting them.

Rocco loves to sing Jingle Bells, but when he does he sings, "Bells on bobcats ring!"  He's such a fan of wildcats, and even though I told him that wasn't right, he just keeps on laughing and singing it that way.  I love my silly boy!