Leander Roxas | 6 1/2 Year Old Update - Kara Abbey Photography

Half Birthday Backyard Portraits in Irwin PA

Every year, for the kids’ “half-birthdays”, I take them out & do some fun (typically “themed”) portraits of them. With Braelynn being born in January and Leander born in December, I knew that we would never be able to do “fun”, warm and glowy, outdoor “birthday” portraits – so I have simply compromised with “half-birthday” portraits every year. And it’s so much fun!

Guys, I did it.
For the first time (maybe ever) I actually took my children’s “half-birthday portraits” fairly close to their actual half-birthdays.
I feel like I should receive some sort of award.

Typically, we are so busy in the summer that I just forget to take these photos until August rolls around and I panic because technically I’m late to the game (and if you know me, you know I’m NEVER late to anything). Leander’s half birthday falls in June and Braelynn’s in July – so the first week of July is truly the sweet spot and for once, I actually accomplished this goal right on time.

Like I said, I’ll take my award now. (It feel so good to check this box and have these photos done!)

So, without further ado, here is a little summer, half-birthday update on our sweet Leander Roxas:

Leander has been a tooth-losing machine over the last few months! It seems like every week we turn around and he’s got another tooth loose!! I actually panicked for a moment because he had lost so many teeth, but his dentist assured us that it was totally fine and normal and just how Leander’s teeth are. It’s resulted in our kid having this really crazy smile!
Leander is all-boy. He constantly wants to climb, run, jump, shoot nerf guns, and build Legos. Don’t get me wrong: he also is constantly trailing along behind Braelynn and doing anything and everything she’s doing – but if I can catch him off by himself, I’ve been seeing this whole new side of my boy coming out – and it’s adorable.
Yes, he loves his big sister, but it seems like recently they spend more time fighting than being a peace with each other. As they get older, their relationship is clearly changing. However, as much as they might fight sometimes, they still always come back to each other. They’ve gotten really good at apologizing and asking each other for forgiveness – so in that aspect, their relationship is very sweet.
This fall, Leander will officially start 1st grade – which means I have to OFFICIALLY report him to the state of Pennsylvania as an official homeschool student. (How did that even happen?!) I got all of his school books in a few weeks ago and they all look like so much fun!
I started the process of teaching Leander to read earlier this summer. I had the best of intentions, thinking I would teach him to read over the summer break! And it was going great! He was doing SO good! But then we went on a big trip to Florida, some smaller long-weekend trips, had family come to visit, and simply got derailed and lost our momentum. I decided that it’s okay, we’ll take a few more weeks off, and then jump back in toward the end of July when we officially start back to school (slowly – we always start toward the end of July with 2-3 days a week of fun stuff to ease back in!)
Our poor boy remains terrified of roller coasters. He loves so many other “thrilling” things (being pushed as high as possible on the swing, swimming and riding down waterslides) but he just isn’t a fan of roller coasters. In that way, he REALLY reminds us of his Dad at this age – tall enough to ride bigger rides, but too scared to do so. Derrick is determined not to push him, knowing that eventually he’ll come around when he’s ready.
He LOVES to swim though and loves to visit water parks! He loves water slides and just about any water-activity!
Featured in this round of photos is a stuffed animal wolf Leander has named “Strawberry” – Derrick’s Mom visited at the beginning of June and bought it for him. He still loves “Cattail” (a TY cat he’s loved for a long time now), but Strawberry is the “new kid on the block”.
Leander LOVES to play video games (so much so that we’ve had to set some pretty strict boundaries this summer!) He loves Mario and racing games – but we have the most fun when it’s Sunday night (and we’re home) – that’s pizza night and we all 4 sit down to play Mario Party together. The competition gets VERY heated and it’s so much fun (even though Derrick still almost always wins)!
Leander has become a night-owl over the last few months. We put both him and his sister to bed, but he stays up, playing quietly in his room or reading books, generally until Derrick and I come up to bed. But the kicker is: he might stay up until 10pm – but that means he also sleeps in until 9 or 9:30am! He really loves to sleep, just not at night.
Just like his sister has a sweet group of friends at church – Leander has found a few friends at church too. Orion has been a friend for a few years, but over the last few months, Leander has found a new friend: Jackson. They’ve bonded quickly over a love of Legos and a common sense of mischievousness.
Of course, his cousin Layla remains his very BEST friend – they love each other so much! It also clicked in his head this summer that his (second) cousin Leah is just 2 days younger than him (they came so close to sharing the same birthday!) and that created a really sweet bond between the two of them!
Did I mention that Leander LOVES Legos? He will sit and build for hours on end (no joke). He’s very creative and loves to build cars, trucks, rocket ships, buildings – you name it – the sky is the imagination in what he builds for his mini-figures. He (and Braelynn too) both love a TV show called Ninjago (which center around Lego ninjas) and SHHHH, but we have a big weekend trip coming up soon where we’re going to take the kids to LEGOLAND and stay in the actual Lego hotel – in a Ninjago room!! It’s going to be a incredibly exciting trip and I can’t wait!

If you’d like to compare & contrast this summer’s photos with the summers of the past, you can go back & check out Leander’s 5 1/2 Year Update, 4 1/2 Year Update, 3 1/2 Year Update, 2 1/2 Year Update, and his 18-Month Update here!