Benjamin's 6th Birthday--Family Party

Happy 6th Birthday

"Little Buddy"!!!

Ben wanted "Army" as his theme this year for his birthday parties. He is so into a computer game called "Command and Conquor" right now which I think spawned the idea and love of the camoflage theme for his 6th birthday party.

As usual, I attempted to make a cake for Ben's birthday. This year, he wanted to help me decorate it which turned out to be much more fun than I thought it would be! He did a great job helping me and we had so much fun doing it together! It was one of the biggest highlights of his birthday I think! He LOVES to help Mommy cook! (I made it look there was sand on and around the cake by blending up Cheerios in a blender) :)

We also made cupcakes b/c he wanted to save his cake to show off at his "friends" birthday party, so we decorated them in camoflage too and ate those instead of the cake at his family party. Braden had on his "camo" attire to go along with the camo theme. He was not in the mood for smiling at this particular moment though.

First, we ate dinner. We don't have much room in our dining room/kitchen for everyone, so the kids got to "picnic" in the living room.Then the kids played in the swimming pool out back for a little while and the came inside just before it began to pour!!! Then they got dried off and we played..... "Pin the headlights on the jeep"--yes, a game made up by yours truly. Ben caught me offguard the night before the party and asked me if we were playing any games at the family party. I had several planned for his "friend" party, but didn't even consider it for the family party. I jokingly said, "What do you want to play...........................Pin the .....(fishing for a game to play that would go along with his theme).......headlights..............on the ......jeep? He smiled real big and said, "YEAH!!!" I thought, "Oh brother, something else to figure out how to fashion before the party tomorrow." I ended up taking a hanging mobile that was a decoration and Mom cut out the lights on it and we played just that....."Pin the headlights on the Jeep." And Ben was thrilled! He just loves to play games. After Ben tried his turn at it, Lilly thought she'd show how it was done.....She said phoey on the blindfold and said, "This" (as she does to everything) and showed us right where they were supposed to go, like 'DUH people, they go right HERE!!!' It was pretty funny!

My Mom had gotten some prizes for the game and after the kids had played, she said, Hey, I have grown-up prizes too, so a bunch of us got in on the action.....

........--even "Great Grandma!!!!!" :) Ben wasn't too amused when the headlight game kept going on and on with all us "old folks" taking our turn at doing it. He was ready to open presents, but I told him we were his guests and we wanted to play the game too, so he waited patiently.

Then it was present time!!! :)

Awana Ceremony-Ben "Graduates" From Cubbies

Wednesady, July 25th was the Awana Ceremony for the 2006-2007 year. Ben has been in "Cubbies" now for three years. At our previous church, he was allowed to go into the program when he was three because they thought he was ready and plus, all his friends were in there and he was in the nursery all alone :) Then, we didn't send him to Kindergarden last year, so he had to stay in "Cubbies" another year while most of the kids his age moved on up. So he is excited to be going into Sparks this fall to be with more of his friends his age. For the ceremony, the "Cubbies" had two songs they had rehersed and had hand motions for. They, of course, had a little stage fright and didn't do nearly as well as they did in practice (I snuck ((is that a word?)) in and watched them practicing a couple weeks earlier and got to see them "in action") but it was very cute! I took a little video of Ben singing and will see if I can get it to post on here. It's pretty funny because it's sooooooo "Ben!" Here in a serious moment, he and Joshua sing the slower of the two songs for the crowd. My camera didn't do very well on these photos (inside and from a distance) but at least I captured the moment. This is Ben getting his Cubbies certificate. :)

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!!

Before I continue catching up on posting photos, I want to say

Happy Anniversary

to my Mom and Dad! They have been married 39 years today!

They are such a blessing to me!!! I am so very thankful for all they have done for our family and for weathering the hard times when I know they wanted to give up!

I hope you guys have a GREAT day!!! I love you!!!

"Peek-A-Boo"

Braden has finally officially learned the real way of playing peek-a-boo and surprised us one evening with it at dinner. When we caught on to what he was doing, he did it over and over for us~very cute!!!

My Nieces Sleep Over

Well, as always, the summer is busy busy busy!!! I have taken about 200 pictures in the past 2 weeks so now comes the fun of trying to get caught up on my blogging.

On Sunday night, the 22nd, my nieces Sammie and Sarah came over to spend the night. We don't get to see them very often even though they only live about 30 minutes from us so I thought it'd be fun for them to come over and stay the night. They wanted to bring their friend Hailey along too, so the more the merrier. They met us at our church and then rode home with us. We stopped by Walmart to pick up some food, then went home to have pizza. Just about the time our food was done, we went out on the deck to clean off the table to eat out there when one of the girls said, there's smoke coming out of that car. I think it's on fire!!! Sure enough it was, so I ran in and called 911 and then we watched in shock as the flames proceeded to fill the inside of it. Moments passed and the flames were approaching the gas tank as we grew increasingly nervous that it might blow up. Just as the fire got to the back, the crew got there and quickly put it out. It was QUITE the show from our back deck!!! I teased and said, hey, dinner AND a show all from the comforts of our back deck! After they got the fire put out, we all walked over there and looked at the car (along with half the neighborhood) and talked to the firemen. They let the kids get on the fire truck and gave us a bunch of stickers too. It was quite the event!After we ate, the girls tried to entertain themselves with the toys that Benjamin and Braden have. I felt bad that I didn't have much for them to play with, but they improvised. They built this "castle" out of their blocks.

When it got close to bed time, the girls built a "tent" in the living room which I didn't manage to get a picture of. :( Benjamin had gotten in trouble for being a little too rambunctious with Sammie, so he lost the priviledge of sleeping under their "tent" but it was cute.

This is Sammie and Hailey. My younger niece, Sarah, had a fascination with being able to fit into Braden's high chair that night (she used to sit in that very same one as a baby) so she kept getting in and asking for a snack. Monday morning, Sarah found Benjamin's play money and decided to throw it in the air for fun. Well, Braden though it was the coolest thing in the world and just laughed and squealed! Of course, the more it entertained Braden, the more Sarah wanted to do it. It was very cute!!! Money$$$$$ Money $$$$$ MONEY!!! Oh how nice it would be if it was real!!!!!

We just hung out at the house the rest of the day. The weather wasn't very cooperative so it wasn't ideal swimming weather, but the kids all decided to get in anyway after lunch. I had Zach and Becca over too (they are my neighbor's two youngest kids that I've been watching this summer) so my house was hoppin'! Later that afternoon, I asked the kids if they'd like to help me with a project of painting eggs ("bombs") for Benjamin's birthday party. So we did, and then painted some other pictures for fun. I'm not sure how much fun the girls had, but we really enjoyed having them over and spending some long overdue time with them!

Update

This past week Andy and Benjamin went to Nebraska for a "guys" trip. A friend of Andy's from college started a Christian basketball camp in the sticks of Nebraska and he asked him to come up and speak for the services at the camp. He also coached some basketball while he was there. He and Ben have made this trip an annual Daddy/Son trip and Mommy gets some quiet time at home while they are away (which I enjoy greatly.) Ben adores going with him on these trips. He talks about it weeks before and hasn't stopped talking about it since he got home on Saturday. We had lunch with my Mom and Dad and family on Sunday afternoon and Mom said that's all he talked about the entire time we were there. It's cute to see him so excited about stuff like that. He and Daddy got their fill of each other though and he has been Mommy's boy ever since he got home. It's nice! Anyway, they left early Tuesday morning and got back around 7 p.m. Saturday night. I accomplished a lot of things around the house while they were gone. And Braden and I got some fun one on one time while they were gone. One of the things Braden and I do a lot right now is take a walk around our little block (a literal walk meaning he walks too) It's so cute because he has to stop and look at everything and everytime he sees a bird fly by he has to stop, point it and say "boo" (Braden for "bird.") The other night we were walking and we ran into a sprinkler that I wasn't paying attention to and we got sprayed with water. I swooped down and picked him up and ran out of it laughing. Well, he didn't think it was quite that funny and clung to me for dear life for about 6 house lengths. It was so cute! Something else that Braden does a lot right now is point to anything that is round and say "Baaaaaaaaaaaaaa" (Braden for "ball") If I am reading a book to him that has a ball on the page, he will take his binky out of his mouth just long enough to say "baaaaaaaaaaa" and put his binky back in. :) The other words he says right now are "go" whenever he hands me something (Braden for "here you go") , Ma-ma, da-da, and he imitates the dogs barking all the time--so cute! His big loves right now are playing chase, peek-a-boo (even with himself in the full length mirror in my closet,) playing with an old snoopy jack-in-the-box I had as a kid, stacking cups, and going outside (to do ANYTHING--he loves to be outside!) His biggest frustration right now is if you shut a gate or door behind you that leaves him behind. He just cries and cries (I've learned that it does me no good to try to take a shower when Braden is awake. He'll just sit and cry and open the shower door over and over until he is as soaked as I am) :) Anyway, back to my weekend--Friday evening I decided that I was going to go and help my parents paint the outside of their house on Saturday so I stayed up until all hours of the night to make sure the house was clean when "my boys" got home Saturday night. Sat. morning I called my in-laws to see if they'd watch Braden for me so I could go paint. So Braden got to spend some quality time with them while I got some quality time with my Mom and Dad. We got a lot accomplished and I wished I would have been able to help earlier in the week because it's quite a daunting task to take on by yourself. Around dinner time, I went to pick up Braden to get home before Andy and Ben got home. As I was driving home, I realized this was the last night for us to sign Ben up for soccer (fall session), so I ran to do that on the way home. When the "boys" arrived home, Ben began telling me all the tales of his trip including his bout with two wasps who got the best of him as he was at "the creek" swimming (his first experience with wasp stings--I guess it was quite the scene--poor thing!) But they both came back in one piece, thankfully and it's on to enjoy what's left of Ben's 3 weeks of summer break that he has left before starting Kindergarden. Sunday morning was a new adventure for Mr. "Bray-Bray" (which Ben so affectionately calls his brother) As I was walking to the nursery to drop him off for the morning, I decided as soon as I hit the door of the baby nursery that I should probably take him across the hall to the "big boy" nursery. I have been in denial that he was ready to go over there but knew that I really should take a step into reality and let him be the toddler--YIKES did I just say that word???--that he is. As I walked over there, I began tearing up. There was a couple scheduled to be in there and the wife had just stepped out to do something. Well, as I set Braden down to let him play, the husband of the couple saw that my eyes were teary and I told him it was the first time I had brought Braden to the toddler nursery. He said, "I promise I won't hurt him!" (you'd have to know the guy to appreciate that comment) It was a "lol" moment. I then told him " I'm sure I'm taking it harder than Braden is." I think the husband was thinking, "Take your emotional moment somewhere else, cause I just don't get it!" :) Well, I left Braden, (he was also crying), as I headed to the bathroom to compose myself (which didn't really work) then went up to my SS classroom. I teared up a few more times during SS again (sheeeeesh--you'd think I was pregnant again being so emotional like that! And NO girls, I'm not pregnant again. Don't get any ideas! I love the two I have to death but would probably go off the deep end if I had another one to worry about growing up too quickly on me!!!) I still don't understand why this is such an issue for me right now. I have been home with both boys since they have been born and spend all day with them. I even have a hard time leaving them with either of our sets of parents not because I don't completely trust them, but b/c I think I will miss something. What is wrong with me??? It's craziness! It hasn't always been like this, but lately I just cannot get over this. Maybe it's midlife-early. Who knows??? Maybe it's all spawned off Ben getting ready to start school. (???) All I know is that I am trying to cherish every single day and moment of their lives right now. I guess that's all I can do. Maybe it'll get better soon. And bla, bla, bla, bla, oh poor me. What am I going to do when I have REAL problems? Speaking of real problems, some friends of ours, (Shelly and Mitch) are going through a really rough time right now. Most of you know they just had a baby a few weeks ago and he has been in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit since he was born. He just had heart surgery and is now recovering. They have a 2 1/2 year old at home to take care of too. What a heavy load to carry. Please continue to pray for them as little baby Mason is scheduled to come home sometime in the next week or so. I have several photos to post for today, but sleep is more important to me tonight. Maybe tomorrow. :)

Braden's 1st Haircut

BEFOREAFTER Well this has been an interesting week for my littlest squirt. As you can tell, he was just not himself and decided to show me his mean face when I tried to get pictures of his first haircut Friday night.

Wednesday he started feeling yucky and had a terrible runny nose and sneezed all day long. Thursday he had a temp of 102.5, had yellow stuff coming out of his left eye much of the day and felt YUCKY! Friday he perked up a little and played some, but still had a temp of 101.5 and woke up in the middle of the night crying unable to sleep until I gave him more ibuprophen. Saturday he whined ALL DAY LONG--nothing would satisfy him and he wanted to be held all the time (and that didn't even stop the whining.) Finally when I was getting him ready for bed, I thought about taking him over to the urgent care to see if he had an infection but decided to call a friend of mine who is a doctor to get some advice first. She said since he had had a fever for at least three full days (I don't know if he ran one Wed. cause I didn't take it that day but he was a little warm) that he may have an infection. She told me I could bring him over and she'd look into his ears and check them out. Well, sure enough he had a good reason to be whining all day--a doubly good reason--he had a double ear infection. UGGGGG! Poor little guy. So off to the drugstore I went to get him some relief. After getting some medicine in him, he slept well all night and was much more like himself this morning--on the road to recovery!

As for the haircut, well amongst wiping snot from his upper lip for three days I was also constantly brushing the hair out of his eyes. Friday evening I had had ENOUGH of the hair in his eyes, so I sat him in his high chair, filled his tray with small chunks of watermelon (one of his very favorite snacks right now) and set out to get the hair out of his eyes. It went fairly well at first but when he ran out of watermelon he, being the little clone of his father that he is, began showing his incredibly animated side and started flipping his head back and fourth when I'd get the hair all gathered up to make a snip. It became a game after a while. After wrestling with him for a few minutes, I got the hair to a place that I could live with until I decide to take on the challenge of evening it up a little more, I gave him a bath and we called it good. But, as usual, I should have known not to cut hair when I was frustrated because I ended up taking off more than I wanted to and now I want it to grow back quickly. Now he looks way too grown up--just what I needed (Paula will understand that comment :) And yes, Sheila, I understand perfectly what you meant when you said, Mommy got a little emotional :) There's a little smile :)

4th of July 2007

Ok, so I posted about a months worth of pictures this weekend, so you'll have to scroll down and read it in reverse to get the full effect. :) Hope you have a few minutes. :)

Last year was our first 4th of July in our new neighborhood and we found that there was nothing better than being right in our own driveway on the 4th. Our city is fireworks CRAZY!!!!! You can sit in our driveway and look in any direction and see fireworks. It's like being in a war zone. It's the BEST!!! Last year we had invited my mom and dad over to experience it with us and this year they were happy to be invited again. We also Andy's folks, my Grandparents, and Andy's sister and her family.

Here's our second "Little Sparkler." His bib (which Ben also wore when he was close to Braden's age) says, "I'm A Little Sparkler....Happy Fourth of July!"

By the way, somehow the date on my camera for all of my 4th of July pictures says Jan. 2 of 06 ~Not sure how that happened--oh well. Andy had quite a time grilling our dinner for us. The clouds began moving in about 1/2 hour before we were going to begin grilling so he decided it'd be a good idea to go ahead and get started so we would have something to eat for dinner. Well, about 1/2 way through his cooking, it began pouring. We pulled our deck table that has an umbrella attached to it over to try to shade him from the rain, but he still had to hold another umbrella over the grill to keep it fairly dry. It was hilarious. I wish I would have taken a picture of it. After he was done grilling, it stopped raining, of course. Since it was still pretty wet outside, we all ate inside instead of outside. The kids just "picnicked" in the middle of the living room floor. Braden had his little "throne" to eat at as always and enjoyed every minute of dinner. After dinner Ben and his cousins Sammie and Sarah went out and swam in the pool for a little while waiting on it to get dark so we could do fireworks. A neighbor of mine had invited us to a 4th of July party they were throwing at their house, but since I had already planned on spending the evening with family, we didn't go. I took a picture of all the cars anyway just because. She told me the next day that I should be glad I didn't come. She said it was CRAZY when it started raining because ALL those people were inside her house. (Her garage was full because she had a garage sale the very next day and had stuff all the way down to the end of the driveway so they couldn't get into the garage! She said she thought she was going to lose her mind that night because of all the kids running around with punks and she was so afraid of someone getting hurt. Someone from a block over from our house shot off a big firework that shot parachute men out of it. Ben saw them coming towards our house, so he chased them all the way into the back yard and found them. He brought them back to proudly show me. We are still not ready to let Benjamin light any fireworks on his own yet, so we'd let him go up with one of us each time and light it and we'd run back together. He had a BLAST--literally--ha-ha!

On the 3rd, Andy, Ben, Braden and I went out to get some fireworks for the big event. Andy and Ben had shopped a bunch of the tents a few days earlier and found out where the best deals on certain items were. We set out that night to get the good deals and ended up even finding some even better deals since we waited until closer to the holiday. It was a lot of fun shopping together for fireworks. That's something we've never done as a family before.

None of my pictures outside turned out very good this year. There was too much going on and we waited until it was almost completely dark this year to go outside, but I wanted to get one of Ben and Andy since I got such a cute one last year of them together. Mom, Grandma and Grandpa stuck around to watch the fireworks displays with us. My Dad was not feeling well at all that night, so he layed down in our room while all the hoopla was going on outside. We put Braden to bed before going out to start shooting stuff off. He definately didn't mind that at all. About 1/2 way through shooting our fireworks, we took a break to go back on our deck to watch the city fireworks display that is set off in a park just 2 streets behind our house. It's so awesome to sit on your own deck and watch something that we used to drive for miles to see when I was a kid.

This firework was named "Squiggly Star" and Ben HAD to buy it and get his picture taken with it because he has a blanket he is still very attached to that he has nicknamed "Squiggly."

Of all the things that Ben is NOT afraid of, he is AFRAID of some of the strangest. Just like shooting off all those loud obnoxious fireworks and then being afraid of holding a sparkler, of all things. It took me all evening to get him to do a sparkler. I kept asking and asking him and he didn't want any part of it, but finally he gave in...... and even flashed me a little grin :)

4th of July Fun

A couple days before the holiday, some of Ben's neighborhood friends were shooting off a few of their firecrackers so we went over to watch. Our next door neighbor, Jeremy had these firecrackers that are designed to put in water and they blow the water up in your face. The kids were fascinated with that for the longest time. If you look closely, you can actually see the water droplets shooting up to hit them in the face. We are so fortunate to have so many kids Ben's age in our neighborhood for him to play with. It is wonderful! Later that night, we went over to my Mom and Dad's church for their 4th of July festivities. They had several inflatables set up for the kids along with water inflatables. I didn't snap many photos but Ben had a great time being there and especially because he got to be with his "Grandma Judy." Grandpa was working a food stand to raise money for Royal Rangers that night so we went over and bought a bottle of water from him and then saw him again when the fireworks were set off a little after 9:30.

Braden wasn't too happy that he was stuck in the stroller most of the evening. He wanted out to run around. I let him out a couple times, but he kept running off. He's such a go getter right now. This is probably the most challenging phase as far as going out to do stuff like this because he wants so badly to run around, has no fear of anything, and he doesn't understand that he needs to stay close to me. But, several crackers and juice kept him content in the stroller while Ben had fun. He looks thrilled doesn't he! Ha! We also got to spend some time with my brother and sis-in-law and my niece and nephew while we were there and got to sit with them this year to watch the fireworks. That was a treat! My brother snapped these two photos of Braden "watching" (more like enduring) the fireworks. These two were taken at the very beginning before he realized exactly how loud they were. He did NOT like them at all. He cried through about the first 7 minutes of them and hung onto me for dear life. Then he shut down by burying his head in my armpit and going to sleep.

Help!!!!! They're TOO loud!!!!! Get me out of here!!!

Ben was very quiet this year during the fireworks display. He didn't sit on Grandma's lap or anything. He sat in a chair all by himself and just watched in awe. He is getting so big :(

After the fireworks were over, I put Braden down to change him into his pj's and he came alive. He was a totally different boy--so excited to be running around and awake with no loud "boom booms" (as Ben used to call them.) Ben was walking around with his Grandma collecting water bottle lids for a craft she is doing with the girls from her church and he fell and busted his knee open. So we had to dr. him up. What a way to end a perfectly enjoyable evening.

Bible School

Friday the 22nd, Ben, Braden and I went out to our "old church" (as Ben calls it-and because I don't want to publish too much information on this blog site, I will just call it that) to visit the Bible School they had had all that week. Since Ben was in school and had to get up so early, we were only able to go out on Friday night. It was SOOOOOOOOO good to see all our EG friends! Paula had invited us out and I met her and Roxy at McDonalds for dinner before Bible school that night. Then Braden and I wandered around the church talking to different people all evening while Ben joined in the Bible school fun. Melissa and Braden get a chance to "catch up" a bit. Melissa and Ronnie were in charge of Bible school this year and it looked phenonimal! They did such a great job!!! Ben got to spend a little time with one of his best buds--Bradon! He was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited to see him! He talks about him so much, but since he now lives about 45 minutes away, he doesn't get to see him very often anymore. Those two put together spell one thing.......ornery! They are so wild when they are together, but Ben absolutely adores Bradon! After Bible School was over, Ben, Braden and I went to Dairy Queen to get some ice cream and spend a little more time talking with Paula. It amazes me that Ben still takes such a liking to Paula. They have been buds ever since he was a baby. He is getting older, but still has time for her--I love that. (I forgot to take any pics at DQ)

Just as we were leaving DQ, Melissa and Ronnie showed up to tell us they were going over to McDonalds to eat some dinner, so we went over there to spend some more time with them. We let the kids sit in their own booth so we adults could talk. Kaycie looks like she's posing for a magazine. So adorable! It was fun to see them again. We'll have to do it again REAL soon (hint, hint!!!) :)

Braden's Turtle "Pool"

This is Braden's pool for now. It was an old sandbox that the previous owners had left for us. He is enjoying it quite regularly. While I was setting up for the garage sale I just recently had, I let him play in this. It kept him contained for a little while at least. :)