Amazing 9 year old

I have known a lot of kids in my life. I have awesome nephews and nieces, and have babysat a lot of friends kids regularly before we had our own children, but I have never known a kid like Zeke. I'm not saying he is more awesome than any other kid (well all 4 of my kids are more awesome than yours- haha), but he is very unique.

I have blogged about this before, but I have to again. He is so organized and responsible most of the time, and it is kind of freaky. I can't imagine how he is going to be as he matures- his organization at the age of 9 is seriously better than mine. Every night before he goes to bed, he lays out everything next to his bed. I don't mean just his clothes, I mean his boots, backpack, hat, mittens, etc. He makes a to do list each night before he goes to bed. It is weird. When he comes downstairs in the morning, he already is wearing his hat, coat, etc., and he has at least 1/2 hour before the bus leaves.

He has been loving to cook for us sometimes, and I am totally fine with that since I HATE to cook. On Friday morning, he told me he wanted to cook dinner that night. I told him he could on Sunday as I had already thawed some meat and had a meal planned (which is very rare), we had plans on Saturday night, so Sunday would be perfect. Plus, I don't like to cook on Sunday evenings. He was upset and wanted to do it on Friday, but I won cuz I'm the mom.

On Saturday, he started his prep work. He put everything that was non-refrigerated in a laundry basket. He even dug up a table cloth, vase with flowers, candles (he always has to do a candle lit dinner when he cooks or helps me cook), it is adorable.

He made his list of food. He made bagel dogs (hot dogs with crescent rolls on them, he does bite size ones), a rice dish with vegetables, black beans and soy sauce, he makes fried potatoes, and craze bars (which are granola bars dipped in melted chocolate chips).

He set the table on his own and used water goblets since it was such a fancy meal.

I didn't get a picture of the craze bars but there is a funny story behind them. He started making them last spring, and of course Michael and I raved about how good they are. He named them craze bars and makes them all the time. He was talking about how it is a secret recipe and how he is going to sell them someday and make a lot of money. I did not have the heart to tell him that there are already chocolate dipped granola bars. Then last month, he was grocery shopping with me and saw a box. He was crushed. He wanted to buy a box so I did and he was bummed as he thought the store ones were better than his. I of course disagreed. Thankfully he still makes them.

It was a great meal and one of our PCA's stayed and enjoyed the meal with us. The kid is just adorable. He said he is going to start working on developing some new recipes. I'm just fine with that idea.