Tomorrow is Noah's eighth birthday. Part of me cannot believe I have a boy this age in the house, but I get a visual reminder every time he stands next to me as he's not far under my chin these days!
The past year has been an especially full one with our trip to the UK last October creating so many wonderful memories with our UK family and seeing the great sights and sounds of London and Abu Dhabi too. Then there was our recent trip to Queenstown and all the thrill and adventure of luge riding and a trip on the jet boat to add to the excitement of our special family adventure.
Noah has thrived on new experiences like mountain biking with Dad up in the hills behind our house and has loved getting stuck into Cub Scouts the past few months too. He spends a good part of his spare time kicking the football around the house and has loved playing both summer and winter football as well as imagining himself an integral part of the recent football world cup. He has also enjoyed singing in the junior choir at school with his friends, and even braved stage fright last year to get up and sing 'What does the Fox say' with his best buddy at the school talent quest.
He's quite happily reading chapter books and recently enjoyed the latest 'The Magic Treehouse' book where Jack and Annie went back in time to the 1970 Football World Cup final and saw the great Pele play. He's starting to learn multiplication and already has good strategies for equations, knowing that 7 x 9 is 7 less than 7 x 10 to get the answer. His swimming skills continue to improve and he's now in the deep water end of the pool for his weekly lessons.
He's still super interested in the natural world, and more often than not the library books that come home are non-fiction ones like 'Predator and Prey' or something with amazing animal facts. Dinosaurs are still a big interest, so it was a huge thrill for him to see the awesome displays at the natural history museum in London last year!
This will be his last term being the only one at school with his little brother joining him at the end of this term, and we know he will enjoy having him there, and be able to take him under his wing when it comes to combined events like holiday programme activities.
All in all, we are so thrilled to watch you growing from this cute wee poppet into this lovely boy who is so much fun to be around.
May God richly bless your year ahead Noah!
Love Mum and Dad
