Little Man Turns 5 today :)

My son is awesome! Today is the day that he was born 5 years ago and he is so awesome! I'm so blessed to have such a handsome, talented, funny, loving son. He "holds the door for the ladies", has just started to read (Bob books), draws fabulous people pictures, and is stinking hilarious. Can't wait to see what this year brings. Happy 5th Birthday Little Man!

Ryan decided he'd write a little something about Little Man as well:

Our Little Man, turning 5, half a decade. He has grown by leaps and bounds. He is taller than most and people usually do not believe he is just turning five. He has adopted in the last few months the saying of “remember when I was three?” I fear the day when he says “remember when I was 15”, of course the older we get the shorter the distance to the past we venture. He is still sporting the blond hair and blue eyes which will continue to get him out of trouble. He and his sister have recently started quoting Monty Python. His favorite line is “Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?” A year ago my son could not swim across the pool or play the piano…now he can. He could not color in the lines…now he can…if he wants to. Another year has flown by. He helps us cook and bake and is always eager to help as long as it does not involve cleaning up. He loves the bubble machine, sticks, his family, cuddling with Mommy, sittin’ with sister, going for a walk to the “story benches”, science shows including “Hunt for the Giant Squid”, learned how to do the monkey bars, out grew his first pair of Carthart overalls, experienced a 12” snow fall in Dallas (once and a life time event), went roller skating for the first time, can climb a tree like a monkey, journeyed across the sea to Hawaii, wore a tuxedo, loves swords, went to his first Texas Tech game, and has continued to excel at life. We will see what great adventures the next year brings!

Celebrating on Little Man's Birthday

With my sister getting married we've added some new family members and new birthdays to celebrate. It turns out her mother in law's birthday is the same as Little Man's and my dad's birthday is the week before Little Man's so we all got together tonight to celebrate :) Lasagna, salad, garlic bread and cake and ice cream along with a lot of chatting and playing outside - excellent night!

My beautiful son's 5th birthday party

My beautiful boy's actual birthday is not until next week but we had his birthday party today.
I say this every year but it's always so true ~ where does the time go ~ how in the world is my beautiful boy almost 5? More reflection when he actually turns 5 ~ for now I'll stick to the party :)
Today we had Little Man's party and it was so much fun ~ we called it his 5th Bakugan Bash because he wanted a Bakugan cake and decorations. For the past two years we've had Grisham Farms come out to our house and do an animal presentation for Little Man's birthday. I decided that this year we would do something different but apparently we were meant to have them out again. I randomly won a birthday party animal presentation from Grisham Farms a couple of months ago. So since it was free we decided to have them come out again for his birthday. As always they were fabulous. They had some new animals that we hadn't seen before like the armadillo lizard and some old favourites like the pot bellied pig. We ended up learning about the gecko lizard, guinea pig, bearded dragon, blue tongued skink, ball python, sugar glider, and the hedgehog. It was a wonderful presentation and the kids LOVED it! After the presentation we had pizza and cake and then let the kids play outside for the rest of the party. The weather was phenomenal and I think everyone had a great time.

Happy Birthday Little Man!

Ryan's 38th

Ryan turned 38 today :)

It was actually a pretty uneventful, normal day.

Church in the morning followed by general house stuff (Ryan weeded the garden). Then we went to our group connect meeting (church group) and then it was home for a delicious dinner of hamburgers, baked beans, fruit, and potato salad. Then we all cozied down to watch our newly purchased How to Train your Dragon.

We did presents when we did the group birthday dinner for Ryan, my father in law and Little Miss at the beginning of October. As a family, we gave Ryan a Texas Tech flag to fly on game day :) We've already used it twice! WRECK 'EM TECH!

I hope you had a fabulous day honey. I love you!

Little Miss turns 7

Today is Little Miss's 7th birthday. She's truly becoming a beautiful, intelligent, sassy and articulate young lady.

We had her 7th birthday party last night and it was so much fun! This year we decided to have a smaller party - she only invited 6 girls. It was a faux slumber party from 6-9pm. The girls were dropped off at 6pm. They ran through the house and played up and downstairs until everyone had arrived. Then we started with our first craft. We all made necklaces with our names on them. This was followed by a dinner of pizza and breadsticks. Next we made sleeping masks out of felt, purple sparkly fabric, sequins, and jewels.

Now time for our fashion show. Little Miss and I had gone to Goodwill and picked out 8 oversized dresses that she liked along with purses, jewelry, and hats. The girls each picked out an outfit and accessories and then I announced each one of them as they came through the sparkly door hangings to show off their ensemble. After the fashion show they ate birthday cupcakes and then it was upstairs to brush their teeth and change into their pajamas. While they were getting ready for bed, Ryan and I got the downstairs ready for "slumber". The girls then came downstairs and chose where they wanted to sleep and we put on the brand new movie "Barbie: A Fashion Fairytale".

Little Miss (and the girls) had so much fun and honestly, so did I :)

Tonight we had Little Miss's family birthday party. We celebrated Little Miss, Ryan, and Mark's birthdays by grilling burgers and hanging out at our house!

Happy Birthday to my sweet young lady!

Little Miss's Birthday Invites

We are crazy and we decided to hand make and hand deliver Little Miss's Birthday Party Invitations. So last night Little Miss and I sat down and made the invites and this afternoon we delivered them to six of her little girlfriends. She was so excited and had a blast driving from house to house to deliver them :)

Little Man turns 4!

Little Man turns 4!

Another year has come and gone and my Little Man has turned 4!

Little Man is so amazing! He is extremely intelligent, thoughtful, and full of energy. He constantly surprises me with insightful observations and his ridiculously funny comments. (I asked him the other day why he pushes his straw into his juice box so that he has to drink it like it's in a cup. His reply - "So that I can drink it like a beer." - So matter of fact that Ryan and I burst out laughing!)

He is always surprising us with his observations and the way that he sees the world. I love it that he is still at home with me 2 days a week so that I can help cultivate his blossoming creativity. Just this year he started drawing people in his pictures and has been writing his name for at least 6 months. His teacher says that he won't let her write his name on anything - he wants to do it himself - so independent. Little Man also loves to be the center of attention and will break out dancing, doing karate chops, or quoting from his favourite movie "Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" if given the opportunity. And of course, he is still "all speed and no direction" and we wouldn't have it any other way :)

Little Man, I love watching you grow and mature and can't wait to see what the future brings. Happy 4th Birthday Son!

Little Man's 4th Birthday Party

We had Little Man's 4th Birthday Party this afternoon and what a party it was :)

Little Man wanted a snake party this year so I called up Grisham Farms and we made it happen.

When the kiddos arrived at 3pm I had colouring sheets and stickers for them to work on. Once they finished with that most of the kids went outside to play in the sandbox or on the playground. We then called them inside for the animal presentation.

Stephanie from Grisham Farms brought out 8 animals including a rabbit, hedgehog, pot bellied pig, bearded dragon, green eyed tree frog, chinchilla, tarantula, and a ball python. She did an excellent educational presentation about each of the animals and let all of the kids pet or hold the animals. Even the parents were quiet and paying attention :) It was so much fun and Little Man had a blast holding and petting all of the animals - especially the pot bellied pig and the python!

After washing all of our hands, we snacked on munchies and then played outside some more.

Then it was time for cake. I made a super cool diamond backed snake cake this year that turned out really great! After cake we opened presents and then it was time to go.

Little Man had a BLAST and the party went off without a hitch!

My 34th Birthday

My 34th birthday was great this year. My actual birthday was on Friday, December 11th but we celebrated it over the weekend (twice).

Ryan, the kids, and I had our own little celebration where they gave me my presents on Saturday evening after the Movies by the Fire in our neighborhood. Then on Sunday morning we had the entire family over to celebrate my birthday with a brunch at our house.

Little Miss Turns 6!

Six years ago today Little Miss was born and our journey into parenthood began! Oh how time flies.

Little Miss turned 6 today and what a busy day it was :) We started out the morning with soccer team pictures at 8 am followed by a 9 am soccer game. The girls are really getting better at working as a team and passing the ball. Soccer game ended at 10 am and we were off to order pizza for Little Miss's birthday party!

Got home just in time. The entertainment for the party had just arrived - a rainbow pony! Little Miss was SOOOO excited. The pony was there for an hour and all of the girls loved riding and petting him (Little Man reminded us that the sparkly rainbow pony was in fact, a boy!). In between riding the pony, everyone played on the deck with their magical pony wands, swung on the swings, played on the swingset or built sand castles in the sandbox. These are my favourite kind of kid parties - play outside, ride the horse and I'll call you in for food when it arrives!

Pizza arrived at 11:50. We ate then the pony left and then it was time for cake. Little Miss picked out a cute little pony cake with a mountain background and 3 ponies on top. After cake we opened presents and then it was time for everyone to go home.

Little Miss had a blast at her party and loved being able to invite some of her new kindergarten friends.

Happy 6th Birthday my wonderful daughter!

My Dad's birthday present

Out in my garden
early in the morning
see the little vegetables all in a row
see the rows of carrots
and the rows pf peas.
Water, hoe, grow, grow
In my garden please.
~ Sing to the tune of Down by the Station


These were just too cool not to mention :)

My dad's birthday is actually in February but with family being out of town and having to reschedule a couple of times we finally got to celebrate his birthday in April.

The kids and I decided that Gramps had enough woodworking tools so we wanted to make him something special that he would actually use.

We came up with Garden Stones. My dad just planted a fabulous garden out in his backyard and made little labels for each vegetable or fruit. We made him special garden stones for some of the plants. They turned out so cute that I'm going to make them for my garden as well.

Little Man Turns 3!

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday my Little Man

Happy Birthday to you!

It's official! My Little Man has turned 3. Unbelievable.

It's been three amazing and adventurous years with Little Man :) From the adorable baby boy that he was (here at 2 days old) to the awesome little boy that he has become. Anyone who knows him will understand what I'm talking about. Little Man is so much fun and so different than I expected a boy to be. I'm so glad that I get to experience the joy of being the mother of this awesome little boy. He's inquisitive and thoughtful and downright hilarious. I find it difficult to discipline him sometimes because he is so stinking funny. Seriously!

Little Man has taught me patience (an art for me that is still very much a work-in-progress), the joy of discovering dirt and grime (I know, I'm still not quite there either), and to not take myself too seriously because he surely doesn't. Little Man is all boy - or as my Dad says... He's all speed and no direction. I can't wait to see what the years bring for him!

Two weekends ago we had his 3rd birthday party. It was, of course, a Cars themed party. We invited all of our best friends along with his entire 2 year old class. My Dad made wooden race cars on the lathe along with the coolest race track. I spray painted all of the cars different colours. As each child came in they chose their car and wrote their name on them and decorated them with different coloured Sharpies. They then took their cars out onto the deck and raced them down the track. They had so much fun! Once they were done racing they went out into the yard to play in the sandbox or on the swingset.

Once playing time was over, we had lunch which was Little Man's favourite food.... peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! The kiddos had the sandwiches and the adults had pizza. It was such a great simple party and Little Man had a blast.

Little Miss Turns 5 !

Happy Birthday to you...

Happy Birthday to you...

Happy Birthday Little Miss...

Happy Birthday to you!

I get kind of nostalgic on my kids birthdays! I truly can't believe how fast time passes when you have kids. From this super cute little bugger making faces at me in her carseat to the beautiful, intelligent, and amazing little girl that comes out with some of the most insightful and hilarious comments every day. What an honor God has bestowed on me to be able to learn from her and watch her grow into the awesome kid that she is.

So my baby has turned 5! This past weekend we had a wonderful Tinkerbell birthday party at the house. We rented a Tinkerbell bounce house, bought some Tinkerbell plates, cups, and napkins, and Little Miss picked out a super cute Tinkerbell cake. All her friends came over to play in the sandbox, jump in the bounce house, have hotdogs, veggies, fruit, and cake. Once the playing and eating were done we opened up the presents. This year's presents consisted of Barbies, Barbies, and more Barbies! Little Miss had a grand time and we spent the rest of the afternoon opening all of the Barbies :)