Carter is SIX

Carter is six!  I cannot believe our sweet, little 7 pounds 13 ounce brown eyed bundle of joy is already six years old.  This sixth year has been a BIG one for Carter with the biggest change being that he started kindergarten.  Our original plan had been to wait one more year, but after talking to his wonderful preschool teacher who assured us he was more than ready and giving it lots and lots of thought-we decided to send him on...and I am oh so glad we did.  I realize now after seeing how well he has done this year that his preschool teacher was exactly right when she said that he would be bored if made him wait another year.  Carter has done amazing in Kindergarten.  He has the same kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Johnson, that Dawson had.  She is great-she's loving and she challenges him-two things Carter thrives on.  I've been so impressed-at this point with basically a month left of kindergarten Carter has being doing some multiplication and reading chapter books.  Carter has done great in Kindergarten, and I couldn't be any more proud of him.
In addition to starting kindergarten, this year Carter also played fall and spring soccer.  He absolutely loves soccer, and he's good at it too!  He is so fast and has great coordination.  He loves the competition of soccer too.  This year he also played basketball for the first time.  John and Grandad were his coaches, and he LOVED it!  He says he likes it just as much as soccer.  Carter also enjoys running.  The longest run he's ever done is 4 miles.  He ran an official 5k this year (just last month) and a 1 mile fun run in the Rebel Run.  Carter is one solid little muscle.  He's fast and strong!  We recently put a stop to it, but Carter could climb the door face in the kitchen just by putting his hands out to the side.  He can get all the way to the top and them drop down.  One solid muscle, I tell ya!
Carter also loves to sing!  This sweet boy has had a song in his heart since he learned to sing, and he sings often!  I love it.  This year he started church choir.  He's enjoyed it, and I've been very proud of him for singing in front of church several times.  He also had a duet in the Christmas musical program at church.  
He is our family comedian.  If there's something silly going on, Carter is involved in it!  He loves to laugh and to make other's laugh.  I always say he's our comic relief!  I love his silly antics, and my favorite is when he gets to being so silly that he can't stop laughing himself.
As much as Carter loves to laugh and make others laugh, he's equal parts emotional.  He loves hard and these emotions spill over into laugher, hugs, and often times tears.  At this point he's the most emotional child-things can make him sad so easy sometimes, but his highs are also the highest!  I think of it as him just feeling everything (happy, sad, funny, etc) SO much!  It has been eye-opening seeing so much emotion from our second born child when our first born is so even keel.  I love them both, it's just interesting to see how different things impact them differently.  Carter also seems to have this, I'm not sure what to call it really so I'll just call it "odd wisdom" sometimes.  Right after we had told the kids that Pop had gone to heaven Carter said several times, "Pop's not sick anymore now!" "Pop is in a better place now that he's in Heaven." Of course, both of these things are true, but we had never said these things to him or in front of him so it was odd to hear them coming from the sweet heart of our 5 year old.  Carter has also been the one to talk about Pop the most in these months since he went to Heaven.  Carter regularly talks about Heaven and Pop.  He will be doing something random and out of the blue say, "I bet Pop is watching us from Heaven." (said that one day when he was coloring)  Or he will say certain things about heaven, like how you can't be sick when you're there or how you're with God when you're there.  I never know or can anticipate what is going to come out of Carter's mouth.  It could be some sweet comments like this, a boy humor joke about poop, some deep question about God that I'm not sure how to answer (I need to do a better job writing these questions down-they're always asked at a busy time and I'm completely thrown off), or a long math problem that he wants me to work in my head!
Carter loves his brothers and sister.  He and Nora Kate, being so close in age, have a special relationship.  I never know what those two are going to get into together.  I jokingly tell John when they're into mischief together that they're as thick as thieves.  Carter's relationship with Dawson is one of total admiration.  He admires and looks up to Dawson so much.  It's sweet.  Carter  loves to be the one to always make Clayton laugh.  
Carter is our most affectionate child-he loves to hug, kiss, and snuggle us all the time.  He very frequently will randomly just say, "Mommy, I love you." and it always melts my heart.  He loves us, loves his family, and loves his friends.  He loves people.
Carter, we can't believe that our sweet little baby for whom we had prayed is now SIX years old.  Thank you for being such a wonderful boy!  We love you!