James Turns Seven

James turned seven on April 1st. My April Fool's joke was saran wrapping his closet shut. He wanted strawberry pie for his birthday "cake". He also wanted to have relay races on the tennis court near our home. His favorite gift was either the "Game of Life" from Nana or the Nerf machine gun from Daddy.
Here are wonderful things about James:

1. James loves games. His new found love this year is the computer game, "Age of Mythology". He also loves the game of "Risk" and "Life" and "Monopoly". This year he has learned how to play "Great Scott" with the Rook cards. He also loves the Wii.

2. He loves TaeKwonDo and is currently a red belt working hard to earn his black belt.

3. He is learning how to read in Korean.

4. His kitchen job is sweeping and loading the dishwasher.

5. He loves wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

6. He loves to earn money. He often asks me what he can do to earn money and when I put him off, he finds something he can sell and before I know it he's down on the street "earning" money.

7. He loves to shoot guns and to kick balls.

8. He loves to put Daniel to bed by reading him stories. Daniel loves this, too.

9. He is reading The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien with Daddy.

10. He loves numbers. If the clock has a number pattern (like 1234 or 444) he gets very excited.

11. He is good at math (I think this is related to his love of numbers).

12. He is good at the Piano, right now he is working on the piece, Fir Elise.

13. He is a very consciencious student, he does his homework independently and scores high on his tests.

14. He is always on time (make that early).

15. He is fast. Very fast.

16. He loves a challenge. Every once in a while, I will challenge James to read a book. Before I know it, he has finished the book. He is determined. He loves a goal and like I said earlier, he is fast. His favorite books right now are "The ABC Mysteries".

17. He believes in prayer. One day we came home from church and he started to break out into these huge hives all over his body. The hives were huge. Bigger than a fifty cent piece. I couldn't help but act a bit alarmed as I looked at his body. He could see that I was worried and he began to worry too. He looked at me with wide eyes and said, "please pray for me". Another time, Margaret started to choke at the table. There was a hustle and bustle to help her and I caught out of the corner of my eye, James' eyes closed, his head bowed, and his lips moving reverently. He was praying.