This has been emotionally a rough week for us! Our big boy, Jacob, will be going on to Kindergarten this fall, *sniff-sniff*, and has graduated from the Awana Cubbies, completing two books of Bible verse memorization!

His pre-school had a closing-day program filled with songs and then cookies and playtime afterward. Here's Jake in the back row, yellow polo, next to his best friend Joe*. He and Joe met last summer at his pre-school's summer school and have become inseperable!

See how they even walked in to the chapel together, holding hands! *Awww...* How cute are they?!
I've become really good friends with Joe's parents and we've worked it out so that Jake and Joe can attend summer school again this year on the same days. I'm really hoping this friendship lasts, because this fall Jake and Joe will part ways as they go to different Kindergarten schools. Jake has already expressed a distaste in this situation, and thinks it's totally unfair that Joe won't be going to his school. I guess this is a good lesson on the value of one's friendship, and how life isn't about getting what you want, nor is it about life being fair all the time. I better not say that out-loud to Jake or he's likely to throw sand at me...

(*Joe* is not his real name)
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Aside from school, Jake's next biggest passion is going to Awana every Tuesday night. He absolutely LOVES it! I can't believe he's actually going on to Sparky's this fall! I mean, that's for elementary school-aged kids... when did he join that age group??

Here he is fresh from receiving his award. He was so thrilled to have received a ribbon ("...and it's BLUE, Mom!") that he immediately demanded I pin it on to his vest that instant.
Here are the boys outside of our Church, and Ben not wasting a moment to be silly.

His wonderful Cubbies teachers put together a computer disk of pictures (with background songs) for us to have, and we watched it today. Hubby watched it this morning while I was at Curves, and when I came home I found him with red eyes, and there were wadded Kleenex balls on the counter. "What's wrong? Allergies?" I asked. He looked at me shocked... "No! It's that Cubbies CD. Did you watch it yet? It had me in tears throughout!" So I hurried over, not wanting to miss the action, and plugged myself in to watch. Before I knew it Hubby was hovering by my side, praising and exclaiming over the greatness of this photograph-filled CD.

It was a great CD, and was ten minutes of all the Cubbies children, Jake being in it here and there... but I couldn't quite grasp what all the fuss was about. About five minutes into it I realized the heavy breathing had deceased out of my left ear and I turned to find Hubby, again with the Kleenex wads, tearing up in the kitchen. "Man up and get a grip!" I shouted. Sure, it was cute, but was it really tear-jerker cute? Hubby protested, "But this is my baby! He's just getting so big! He's just so adorable and I'm so proud of him. I'm the proudest Dad ever!"

*sigh* There are times when I think he definately wears the pants in the family, and then there are times like this when I really know it's probably me. I padded him on his back, passed him the Kleenex box, and left him to his tears.