Happy 7th Birthday, Mr. Justis!

I love Justis, I wish I could just get him stopped long enough to come give me a hug more often. Justis gives the best hugs in the world, and they mean so much coming from him, because he doesn't just pass them out to anyone! Loyal and "just," that is our Justis.

Justis has the most tender heart, paired with fierce wits, memory and energy that makes for nothing but an absolutely essential and fun part of our family. We have watched him continue to bravely venture out from under Madalynn's wing more often this year and do things on his own, which has been so fun to witness. We are thankful Maddie and Justis get along so well, but Justis's new independence has been encouraging to him and enjoyable to even Madalynn. Travis, the other three kids and I can't help but love everything about Justis.

The fact that Justis started couting down the days to his birthday (faithfully) over a month ago is just a little proof we've seen over the last year of his growing persontality. Justis is the kind of person you have to experience, because he's just so very interesting and energetic!

Justis is always observing. He loves to count, keep track, and note and remember what people like. He's very specific with what he likes, as well, but he's by no means high maintenance. Utility is and convenience saves time, in Justis's opinion. Time Justis has to spend fussing over something is serious play time he's missing, in his opinion! He lives to play and his favorite activity is jumping on the trampoline with Travis and putting the garden hose at the top of the slide so he can go down the "waterslide."

He is fiercly smart. Justis posesses this level of understanding and applying new concepts he's learned things that Travis and I just cannot put a name to. For example, he picked up this little concentration-type game at my grandparents cabin and mastered it within minutes. He was the first child to find the game, of course, because he's always the first child looking for something else to do because he's already "experienced" whatever he has already conquered and he's on to the next thing. This little game had numbers 1-13 engraved separately on little slidable metal pieces. The goal is to move the pieces until the numbers 1-13 appear successively from left to right, top to bottom. He brought the completed puzzle to Justis and I and said he had done it on his own. Both Travis and I thought he had found it with the numbers all in place, so Travis mixed the numbers up and gave the game back to Justis to go work on again. Justis, again, came back with the numbers aligned within minutes. The number game has been at the cabin since I was very young, and not until a few years ago could I sit down and figure it out within a reasonable amount of time (reasonable being 15 minutes or fewer). Travis then challenged Justis to a little timed race to see who could solve the puzzle fastest. Both came in under 5 minutes, but Justis beat Travis's time by at least a minute!

Justis is always the first to fall asleep at night. We are convinced he's the first with his eyes shut because he expends enough of his own energy daily to sustain the other three kids and himself. Playing hard, sleeping hard. What more could you ask for?

Well, speaking of asking for thing, Justis is pretty humble. He wants our time and we are so thankful he DOES ask for that. We encourage him to. I was suprised at the detailed list he gave me this year when I asked for birthday ideas.

He specifically told me he wanted mashed potatoes and gravy and kool-aid for supper, with vanilla ice cream cake for dessert. He also specified that he wanted one candle in the shape of a "7," instead of seven individual candles.

He couldn't, however, make up his mind about what gift he wanted most for his birthday. He's wavered between a rocket fishing rod and pogo stick for the last month. I hadn't gotten him anything when I finally reminded him that he needed to decide, because his birthday is tomorrow! He went back and forth between the two and then, like he'd been thinking it the whole time but had been afraid to ask, he said, "an iPod?" Then he quickly went on to say, "I probably ought to think of something else, huh? That's too expensive." Travis and I were standing there and we could tell an iPod was truly what he wanted. The sweet fact that Justis had kept his gift wish under wraps because it was expensive is a good picture of what makes Justis so special. He's always thinking of others first, but I'm so glad we got to see that HE wanted for a change. We love you, Justis Shane.