Five Fun Years

Zach turned five today, and although during parts of the day I was definitely about at my wit's end with him, I'd have to say it's been a pretty great five years. Like I do every year, I have to do a little recap of the last six June 8ths.

Here's June 8, 2005, somewhere after 10:05 p.m., when Zach was born. It was a long labor and had some minor complications, which I was mostly oblivious to until I watched the video years later. Anyway, here's our first family photo.

And the first time Mike held his son. Who knew at the time that in just a few years people would say all the time how much Zach is his dad's spitting image?

One year later- with a few curls and chubby cheeks. So cute.

Zach's second birthday party, and a big boy haircut. It's hard now to look at this picture now and not see Drew.

Zach's third birthday and his first big boy bike. He looks so little on this bike now, but it got him through a couple of years and got him out of training wheels a couple of months ago.

This was at his party last year, when he turned four.

And here's the birthday boy today. We didn't really get a great picture of him looking at the camera, but these will do. The first one is the picture I got as Zach first saw the new bike Mike and I got him. He was excited about it for about 20 seconds and then was on to the next thing. I think he'll like it once he gets out and rides it, though.

I'm just amazed at how much older Zach looks today than he did a year ago. I know that's kind of a duh statement- of course he looks older- he's aged a year!- but still, it's one of those things that you don't notice in the day-to-day dealings with your child, and then you look at a picture and realize how much your child has changed. It's the same thing when I look at that picture of Mike and me in the first 2 pictures of this post, especially Mike. My, how he's aged in 5 years!

Anyway, here he is, my no-longer-a-toddler, five year-old Zach. Love that kid.