Ways you have grown: Dane, you have grown so very much this year in so many ways! You began your eighth year with the decision to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Your Dad baptized you and it was such a special day with Grandma, Grandpa, Grammy, Papa, Uncle Troy and Stacy in attendance. You always amaze me with your spiritual maturity and incredible memory of scripture stories and gospel truths. You choose the right and display integrity in all that you do. You are a favorite for all of your primary teachers who admire the example you set in class― always being reverent and answering with thoughtful, insightful responses. This year you have grown physically! Though you are still on the smaller side in comparison to your peers, you have certainly grown taller and bigger! Your speech is improving and this will most likely be the last year in which you will receive speech services at school (for which you are extremely grateful!) Your palate has matured! You now enjoy a variety of foods and you are open to trying new things. You have turned into such a good sport. Last year, it was incredibly difficult for you to loose at anything… sports, boardgames, etc. This year, you have been able to take it all in stride and display great maturity whilst winning or losing! You are a fantastic big brother to Grant and Anna. Anna looks up to you and considers you her “boyfriend”. Every morning when I ask her to help me wake up the kids, she runs out, “I’ll wake up Dane!” She loves to hug you and spend time with you because you treat her with such kindness and love. Although you have some heated moments with Grant, generally speaking, the two of you are pretty close friends and again, you are such a great example to him of how to get along, resolve conflict, and have fun thinking outside the box. I am so grateful you are there to guide and help these two little ones― it is a huge blessing in our family. Lately, you have also become better friends with Evelyn as well. you are always a good sport to watch her music videos and youtube tutorials. You try not to bug her and she notices this and cuts you some slack in return. I think you’ll miss not having her at your school next year when she moves up to Middle School. You’ve enjoyed a third year of class with Ms. Blais (now Mrs. Fagan). She adores you and is a wonderful teacher. You have strong and good friendships with many children in your class: Andy, Daniel, Roy, Cole. You are loved by your classmates and though you are not a huge fan of school― you do well in all of your academics. Your biggest dislike about school is homework. You favorite thing about school is playing sports at recess. This year you joined cub scouts and you’ve really had a great time participating in all of the fun activities with your troop and leaders. You won the pinewood derby! You love camping and fishing and anything outdoorsy, so this has been a passion right from the start. Of course, your greatest passion is sports. You love to play soccer, flag football, basketball and golf. You are so athletic and focused. You try your best at all you do and you are so fun to watch out on the field or on the court! I am so proud of you for trying new things. Though you are always hesitant at first to join a new activity or team, you push through with courage and always make the best of it.
Favorite Things: Your favorite food is teriyaki chicken with rice, dad’s home-cooked hamburgers, steak, caesar salad and pancakes. Your favorite TV show is probably SpongeBob and Alvin and the Chipmunks, although you don’t watch a great deal of TV. Your favorite activity at home is building legos, racing hotwheels, playing soccer out front with Grant or other friends, and riding your new electric scooter around the neighborhood. You love to have visits from Grammy and Papa and love to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for the weekend. You enjoy rocks and have quite the collection. You love to go to Old Town San Diego and find new rocks. You love to geo-cache around town and bring a soccer ball to the park with Dad and Grant. This year for your birthday dessert, you’ve requested Evelyn’s home-made vanilla cake sans frosting. You are not a huge sugar kid and we are proud of you for being a pretty healthy eater. You eat a lot! But it does’t show:) You love to stay up with Mom and read. You love to have alone time after school. You always need about 30 minutes to unwind alone in your room. This year you’ve started to become more and more interested in cars and particularly race cars. You are the most hard working and responsible kid around. I can always count on you to get your chores done quickly and correctly. You rarely complain about a task and have a great attitude about work.
Memories: This year we enjoyed a wonderful trip up to Seattle where you went fishing, and visited with all of the cousins. You loved looking for frogs and running around in the woods. We also enjoyed a family vacation to Palm Springs and Pismo Beach with the Paces. You loved traveling out to Tucson to visit the Rustands and Old Town Tucson where you finally bought the cap gun you had been waiting to purchase all year! They don’t sell them around here so it was quite a treat. You loved riding the tractors and playing soccer with your friends. This year we had a LegoLand pass from Grandma and Grandpa and so you enjoyed visiting many times. You loved building cars and racing them. You loved building ships and racing them. You are quite a competitor! You were very brave to go down steep water slides at the water park. You enjoyed participating in a few tournaments this winter and spending the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa all by yourself! IHOP is your favorite restaurant and you had the chance to eat there along with many other amazing activities they had planned.
Dane- you are such a kind, gentle, hard working, funny, sensitive, spiritual boy. We could not be more grateful for the wonderful spirit you bring into our home . You are an example to us all and you are adored by everyone. We can’t wait to see what life has in store for you! You will be successful in whatever you choose to do. We love you, Dane!
