One Foot Out the Door

 Marcus is nine years old!  Nine!  That means he's halfway to eighteen which means he's halfway to adulthood, graduation from high school, and moving out forever.  This freaks me out.  The past nine years have flown by and I imagine the next nine will go even faster.
We celebrated by taking him to a new indoor rock climbing gym that just opened up a few miles from our house.  Now there is officially one fun thing to do nearby when it's too cold to go to the beach.
The boys loved rock climbing and Randy is so buff, pulling himself up without using his legs, people actually point and stare while he climbs.
 St. Patrick's Day is a pretty awesome day to have a birthday.  Everyone remembers it and there's lots of fun things that made his day special.  We had a visit from a leprechaun (he toilet papered the bathroom and left his green "business" in the toilet), we ate lots of green food, and invited some friends over for dinner and cake.  I can tell Marcus is getting old because he requested a lemon cake, not some sugary kid cake that I had to spend hours decorating.  He is now my favorite son.  He got a basketball hoop which is laying by the side of the house under a thin blanket of snow, waiting for the weather to warm up enough to finish assembling it.  Randy's frozen fingers may not recover from trying to put the hoop together on a frigid March afternoon.  Yes, winter is still here in full force.  I love it.  Absolutely love it.

Freezing as they assemble the hoop

opening presents

Marcus the Cub Scout

Marcus the tree climber

Marcus the skier

Marcus the tide pool explorer

Marcus the jumper

Marcus the leaf finder

Marcus the Bostonian

Marcus the mustache wearer

Marcus the snake charmer