Celebrating Our Amazing Mazy!

Our amazing Mazian turned 10 yesterday. 10! This incredible boy has been in our lives for a full decade. He's brought us immeasurable happiness, worry, pride, angst, joy, fun, laughter and annoyance. Simply put, life with Mazy is awesome. 

Just one day before his birthday, he was featured in the Sunday edition of the Des Moines Register for his recent blog post about holiday-flavored Peeps marshmallows. "Mazy is not your average food blogger." I'd say that sums up everything about our boy: he is not your average anything. As is my tradition for my children's birthdays, here's a list of everything I love about him. 

10 things I love about Mazy

1. He is a great brother to Bo and Violet. He plays with Bo all the time, he reads books to Violet and he is very patient and kind most of the time.
2. Mazy has an extraordinary vocabulary -- he uses big words correctly and without being a smart aleck. 
3. He truly is an adventurous eater! I love children who are willing to try new foods and enjoy new and exotic flavors. 
4. He's so kind and sensitive -- Mazy loves to prolong his bedtime by asking me to stay up "and talk a little while." He'll ask about my day and my work and about content strategy. He'll tell me about his most recent football game at school and how he scored an amazing touch down and threw an amazing pass. He'll ask me to play the color game -- where we pick a color and have to take turns naming a fruit or vegetable that's that color until we can't think of anymore.
5. Mazy has an impressive memory and knack for remembering stats and facts. He is his father's son in this regard -- between the two of them, they remember everything. Which is awesome for me, because I forget everything. 
6. He is a very good arguer. We have called him "Lawyer Boy" since he was three years old because of his debating skills. He is particularly good on Saturday mornings when we want him to help clean the house. 
7. He's an avid reader and appreciates a good book! I love that about him! He enjoys going to the bookstore and searching for books, and sitting and reading back covers to find a good one. 
8. He throws one hell of a spiral. Seriously, he's great at football and I hope he finds the confidence to try out for quarterback one day because I think he has the arm and brains to do it very well!
9. He's becoming a compassionate advocate. After many years of patient mentoring about the great need for standing up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, Mazy has really embraced this idea of sticking up for his friends when they are being bullied, of telling his friends not to use words like "gay or ret$%rd" and feeling compassion for people. This makes me very happy. 
10. Finally, if I must quit here, I will say that I am very proud of Mazy's creativity -- from writing, to drawing to his funny replies. He is a well-rounded artist. 

And now some photos from special day with me yesterday when I sprung him from school at 11:30 to have lunch and go shopping with me! He chose Joe's Crab Shack for his lunch so he could get crab legs. Then we went to Barnes and Noble for some birthday books, and he picked out some gifts for his siblings for Christmas. We also donated four books to Broadlawn's Hopsital for children who will be there over the holidays. Then we went home and watched a movie and baked cranberry bread. 

And some pics from his basketball game on Saturday afternoon. He scored his first basket!!!! Whoohooo!