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!

Cirque du Solei - Ovo

Ovo! Tonight we got to finally take the kids to see Cirque du Solei :)

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!

They're here!

Yay! My brother and sister in law are in town and we finally get to meet (and hold and kiss on) my nephew!



Me and my nephew and Little Miss and her cousin



My super funny and fabulous brother and sister in law and Ryan with his nephew



The family in the yard and Little Man and his cousin



Ryan and Denver

A&P II Studying

Studying for A&P II is turning out to be more difficult than we imagined. Not because of the material but because the weather's been so bad that we haven't had class in two weeks!! Nevertheless, "Kim and the Brain Girls", as we have been dubbed at our local hangout, have been meeting every Monday night for our weekly study session. I've also been studying with another one of my friends who is in the Tues/Thurs. A&P II class. Our first test is this Wednesday so hopefully all of this studying will pay off :)

Father/Daughter Dance

The Father/Daughter dance got canceled last week due to the ice storm so they rescheduled it for tonight :)
Little Miss wore her flower girl dress from Lara's wedding and Ryan got dressed up in a suit and they headed out to the dinner/dance. Little Miss said that they had a fabulous time!

"We had a nice dinner of chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, and corn. We got our picture taken and had fun with some of Little Miss's buddies. We danced the last dance and had a wonderful evening. Nice time with my gal! " ~ Ryan

Valentine's Day card making

Valentine's Day is fast approaching and since we had ANOTHER snow day today the kids and I decided to make our Valentine's Day craft today :)
We've done the same craft for the last 3 years because we all LOVE this craft so today I got out my silicone heart shaped mold and a star shaped mold that I borrowed from a friend and we got to work. We made heart and star shaped crayons to give away at the kids Valentine's Day parties. We've also decided that this year we'll make necklaces out of them and change up the card a bit.
We soaked the crayons in hot water to get the paper off of them and then the kids broke up each crayon into 4-6 pieces. Once we got all of the crayons broken and dried off they each got to work filling up their trays. Then we put them into the 250 degree oven for 14 minutes, took them out and let them cool. They turned out great!
Ryan drilled holes in the tops and the kids threaded black ribbon through the holes. We cut circle shapes (and by we, I mean my friend Shelley who has a fabulous machine that cuts exact circles!) out of red and pink scrapbook paper and wrote "You color my world" on each circle. Then we used double sided sticky foam circles to attach our crayon necklaces to the cards and the kids each wrote to and from on the backs.
Cute Valentine's cards and the kids and I had a super fun snow day making our crayons!

Snow Days 2011

It's Friday morning and the kids have been out of school since Tuesday for SNOW DAYS 2011! We had a huge ice storm here on Monday night and temperatures haven't been out of the teens and 20s since then.


Tuesday Feb 1 - School was canceled today because of the ice covered roads. I went out to the grocery store with Little Miss and it was treacherous. We got our groceries and then Little Miss and I went over to the Burger King parking lot and slid around on the ice - She had been begging to do it since she saw the Kroger parking lot. Played outside a bit in the backyard with the trucks when we got home and then did some slipping on the ice in the driveway. Then the kids came in and played upstairs. We all watched Alpha and Omega for movie night since we knew school was already canceled again for Wednesday.














Wednesday Feb 2 - All of the sleet from yesterday that melted a bit in the sun has frozen solid. There is a solid 1-2" layer of ice on the driveway so Ryan, the kids and I took a plastic tub top and turned it into a "sled". We had so much fun sliding down the driveway! The kids and I started re-organizing the toys and toy storage today as well.



Thursday Feb 3 - We were finally able to get out of the house today. Ryan went in to work for a bit to catch up and the kids and I ran some errands: took back the Redbox, hit up Petsmart, Walmart, and Target to look for a dog bed for Little Dog and stock up on some groceries and family board games. The sheet of ice on the parking lot at Walmart was all to tempting and the kids and I spent 20 minutes or so slipping, sliding, and "ice skating" on the road. The kids and I made it to piano lessons this afternoon as well.

Friday Feb 4 - Today we got all decked out in snowsuits and gloves and took our tub top "sleds" to the hill down the road to sled. We got too much snow this morning though (around 5 inches) so our makeshift sleds didn't work. Ryan busted it on the ice on the way home - slipped and went down - he's okay and it was kind of funny! We came home and played outside for a bit and now the kids are upstairs playing and getting warm. Ryan made some "snowmen" outside in the garden. The snow wasn't wet enough to pack together to make normal looking snowmen so Ryan decided we needed snow "heads" in the garden. They turned out great! The father/daughter Valentine's day dance is canceled for tonight - rescheduled for next Saturday. It's been a great week of snow days and family fun!