The Zorio Family: Carter at 8

Carter at 8....oh, where do I begin. Carter is and has always been our family comedian he loves jokes and silliness and making people laugh and happy. He's so much more than just that though. I always tell him that his brain is an amazing place because I seriously do not know how he comes up with things and works math problems so quickly. I am also continually impressed with the way he thinks. Sometimes when I ask him to explain things, I'm surprised at the way he has thought them through. It makes perfect sense to hear him explain, but it's just not the way that I would think of as the common explanation. He loves math which probably explains this. He also enjoys science. He enjoys reading, but complains that taking the time to discuss or analyze what he read is "wasting my time."
I say that Carter is a solid muscle. He loves to run and climb. He's strong and fast. He wanted weights to keep in his room and makes himself use them each day. He is constantly coming up with fitness challenges for our family (he currently has us all in a push up challenge-totally his idea). No one loves a competition as much as our Carter. This could be part of the reason he enjoys basketball and soccer as much as he does! He played both again this year and did fantastic.
Carter is a master at Monopoly. Of course, this is a game that he loves to play despite it taking hours to compete a game. He loves all of it-the real estate, the money, the numbers. It's right up his alley.
Carter is still our tender-hearted boy. Nothing can upset him faster than someone getting hurt. He hurts for them. Carter is emotionally involved in everything he does. This is wonderful because everything fun is SO wonderfully fun for him. The only downside to this is that he also feels the sadness, but he usually has a fun joke to make everyone happy again if someone gets in trouble or hurt.
Carter is a great big brother to Nora Kate and Clayton, although it's funny how different his relationship is with NK...I think because they have basically grown up SO close in age. And he's a great little brother to Dawson. He and Dawson still share a room, and I honestly think he would be so lonely if he had to have a room alone. I mean, he only lived alone for 12 months after all.
Carter did awesome with our transition to home/hybrid schooling this year. He has great friends at school and at church. Carter is very social and makes friends easily. He's very outgoing and I imagine he's a fun friend to have.
We love our sweet, tender-hearting, strong, competitive, fun loving, joke telling, climbing, running, soccer playing, basketball shooting, fishing kind, math brained, compassionate Carter.
We had planned that this year for the first time ever we would combine Dawson and Carter's birthday parties since they share a lot of the same groups of friends at school (like siblings in both boys' grades) and have a laser tag party, but because we are still under a Stay at Home Order due to the Corona Virus we cannot schedule the party or have the party until the order is lifted. This was really disappointing but he made the most of his special day and really enjoyed it at home with our family.
Here are some pictures from celebrating his birthday at home and then a few pictures of him from the past year.

We put candles in everything on his birthday...even his pb toast. (Don't worry he had more than just that for breakfast though)

Our very sweet and thoughtful friends, drove by for a drive by party to visit from their car 6 feet away (as required) and to deliver bday gifts for Carter. This made his day! And all the kids loved seeing some friends even if only from a distance.

The kids know how much Carter loves a good joke. They took a big box and wrapped up a weight to trick him into thinking it was a heavy gift...he thought it was hilarious.

Success!

Carter mentioned how he wished he could have his very own cake to eat for his birthday. Since all we have is time with this stay at home order, I surprised him and baked a simple cake just for him. He was thrilled!!! (as a disclaimer, he did not eat the whole thing!)