Max is 8!!!

My sweet Maximino is 8!  Can you believe it?  Just 5 days after his diabetes diagnosis, we got to celebrate this stud's birthday.  I always knew Max was brave, tough, and smart but the past few days he has blown me away.  The way he is handling everything is incredible.  Since his birthday was on a Monday, we had the family celebration the day before.

Grandma Jeri and Scott gave him this sweet Star Wars clock.

Grandma Jackie and Grandpa Curt hooked him up with some sweet basketball shoes.

Max was such a good sport to take a photo with everyone.  He is so loved!

He had a little help from Tuck-man blowing out his candles.

It was his first birthday accounting for all the carbs in his cake.  Such a bummer.  I am still in shock we are doing this with him.  How I wish I could take it away from him.

The next morning was his actual birthday and he had a bunch of presents to open.

His reaction to every gift was priceless.

He is so fun to give gifts to.  You can see the pile of athletic clothes he recieved.  He also got a sweet red motorized scooter.  I don't know how I failed to get a picture of him on that.  He was too busy cruising around the neighborhood with Cohen.

German panckakes and bacon for his birthday breakfast.

He requested KFC (totally random) for his birthday lunch.  We chiecked Hank out of school and Grandma joined us too.

After lunch, we picked up all his friends and headed to Hang Time for his birthday party.  I didn't realize they wouldn't open until later on a school day.  We had an hour to kill before they opened.

Max opened his gifts from his buddies.

Anthony, Max, Cohen, Kenny, and Ryan

Ahhh, frosting!

I love these boys.  We had time to kill and they figured out some game to play with a ball in the parking lot.  They were totally entertained.  It was like I planned it that way!

Hank and Nate joined us for some jumping fun.  We were all waiting right by the door for the second they opened.

Not annoying at all.

Max and his buddies spent the majority of their time in the dodgeball court.  We spent the remainder of his birthday at Hank's baseball game in Spanish Fork.  All in all, I think he had a great birthday.

Now for a few details about Max at 8 years old so I don't forget.  Max hates to go to bed at night and hates to wake up in the morning.  He loves to play minecraft with his buddies.  Pizza is his favorite food although he enjoys most things.  He has a serious sweet tooth and cookies and cream Hershey bars are his favorite.  He loves the following songs, Centuries, Whip/Nae Nae, GDFR, We Are Young, and Froggy Fresh.  Team Titans Go and Uncle Grandpa are his favorite TV shows.  He also loves to watch Minecraft videos on You Tube.  Max is an excellent reader and loves the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.  

He plays with Sam when no one else wants to and never complains about it.  No one can make Sam laugh like Max can. Max is hilarious.  Some of the phases he comes up with crack me up like,"Hey mom, I haven't seen you since the 70's", or "hey baby, you single?". While Hank and Max fight on the daily, I can see them growing closer together too.  Max loves to serve others and I can always count on him to help me.  Max always keeps me on my toes.  He takes everything I say literally.  He is also my most sensitive child.  Sometimes he doesn't know how to deal with the intense emotions he has.  I question my parenting skills every day with this one.  He knows how to push my buttons more than anyone on the planet.  He also knows how to melt my heart faster than anyone on the planet.  There is nothing he loves more than one on one attention.  He is one of a kind and I'm so grateful he's mine.  This kid is going to do amazing things.  I love him so very much.