Friday Funny

This morning during his bath, Jack says, "Hey! What's this?" And I say, "your armpit." And he says, "it's a pit when your arm is down and then when you lift it up, it turns into just skin." Then he thinks for a bit and with his sweet smile says, "God is funny sometimes, huh?"

The fun never ends

We took a couple days off from celebrating Jack's birthday and then started up again this weekend:

With the Sawyers.

With the Driskills.

The lucky birthday boy asked this morning if it was still his birthday? And would he be turning five tomorrow?

It snowed.

Not surprising as it is January but still disappointing after having balmy 50 degree temps all week. Jack, however, was thrilled!

And I should be grateful, here's last year:

Space Camp!

Ava's class had "Space Camp" all week. Complete with NASA id tags and all kinds of fun space projects and assignments, including her writing and presenting a little report on Venus...which, did you know, is the Earth's "twin sister" because it is closest in size and make-up to the earth, except for all that pesky sulfur dioxide that makes it 860 degrees and impossible to live on!

growing up is hard to do

Jemma's top four teeth finally popped through....after many weeks (months really) of doing a lot of this:

(top half)
(bottom half)
Can you stand those yummy legs?

The Birthday Party.

Jack opened his gifts right before his party. His favorite was the bike (I love Ava's face here--she was so excited for him and kept this secret a long time!). My favorite was new underwear...if you're going to spend most of your days without pants, it's just polite to wear nice unders!

Jack is so lucky to grow up in a community where almost all of our family friends have a boy close to his age (which is why his preschool class is already full!) so he thought maybe he would have a HUGE party but I told him to keep it to just 4 friends that will be in school with him next year and, of course, his cousin Will. It ended up being the perfect number! They all got decked out with weapons and Ed worked them up into quite a frenzy. Then they breaked for some cake and chilled out long enough to be super polite for the presents.

Jack really wanted a football party this year--he picked the plates and napkins and knew exactly what he wanted for his cake!

This one's for Sarah! :)

They busted out a couple of the new toys--this one was a dart game that came with safety glasses for the shooter--I'm thinking they should have provided glasses for everyone else instead!

Lately Jack's been saying, "are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" (To which the answer is pretty much always NO) So after his party he says, "Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?.....I'm thinkin' 4 is really fun!"

A day in the life of a (brand new) 4 year old...

Pancakes with huckleberry syrup for breakfast after sneaking into Ava's room at 5:00am for some snuggles and then waking me up at 7:00 by singing "Happy Birthday" to me in bed.

Heading to drop Ava at school.
(Clearly no grasp of the fact that it is still winter here!)

Making his birthday cake!

Cuddling Jem.

Lunch at his very favorite...Qdoba!

Starbucks for a red velvet cupcake.
(I've been wanting an excuse to try one!)

He went to the bookstore with Grandma to pick some books for his present but he snookered her into buying him a Prince Caspian sword!

Home for a nap!!

Still to come.... dinner at (where else?) Pizza Hut. And his first ever friend party!

Happy Birthday to my Jack!

In honor of Jack's 4th birthday, here are (just) four ways to describe him:

laugh-out-loud funny

super loving

immensely cheerful

and most of all, 100% dee-lightful!

Happy Birthday Bubba!

3rd Birthday.

2nd Birthday.

1st Birthday.

Birthday.

Smile

It's Friday!

My Jack

Jack stole a drink from a gin and tonic and says, "Mmm. hmm. I like the taste of this but I don't like the spice of it."

And speaking of Jack, last night he says, "mom, what do you want to be when you grow up?" And I say "I am grown up. I'm your mom."

And he thinks about that for a bit, then says, "and you're a good mom. (pause) But don't you maybe want to be a superhero, like a girl firefighter?"

And I say "no, I just want to be your mom."

And he smiles and snuggles in tight and says, "I was just trickin' ya."

Progress.

Apparently we don't have enough to do here because we tackled an overhaul of our bedroom for the third time in the four years we have lived here. Last week it was a cozy navy-colored room that Ed hated--he thought it felt like a cave, which it did...but frankly, I like sleeping in a cave. The rest of my house is white and bright but when I sleep I like no light peeping in anywhere! But Ed knows I like a good project so as long as he does the actual painting, I'm game.

I was leaning toward a bright poppy color, Ed was leaning somewhere else so we compromised on turquoise (which was really more my second choice than an actual compromise). I forgot to take a before shot but I caught Ed right before he finished priming:

(don't you wish you had that cute little buddy chattering behind you while painting?)

Generally when we paint a bedroom we whip it all out on a Saturday and get everything back to normal by bedtime but we turned this into quite the production. Ed primed and painted multiple coats, I painted all the trim and closet doors (that somehow didn't get painted when we installed them two years ago!), Ed hauled the bed out to the garage to paint it, I painted the nightstands and bench, and then we cleaned the carpets. whew.

We were bedless late Saturday night and about to bunk with the kids when we checked the carpet and it was dry enough to put the mattresses on the floor so we settled for that--which the kids (all of them) loved:

Once again me and my camera lack the skills to show the true color here. It is definitely much greener, lighter, more turquoise (not really blue at all) than it looks! Think more like the ocean in a postcard from some tropical place.

After we moved everything back in, Ava made us wait in the hall while she left these notes by our lamps ("Welcome to your new room mom/dad. Love, Ava") and she taped up a fantastic watercolor she painted to match the new color.

I really like it...it's bright but still really peaceful feeling. However! I have not slept good since we painted and I'm hoping it's just the residual paint fumes and not the fact that it is so much lighter all night! I miss my cave just a teeny bit.

Happy Birthday Stephen!

Stephen has the first birthday of the year and Jack is always especially excited because it means his birthday is next!

Double shot

So Ed was working in town yesterday (a rare occurence!) and he stopped by to say hi and bring me a peppermint mocha from a new coffee place I've been wanting to try. And it was not very tasty so I shared it with Jack (generous, huh?):

He liked it!
And literally three minutes later I remembered that even terrible mochas have caffeine in them:

oops.

Back on schedule.

Christmas break is always great and with Ed home last week I got to do all kinds of fun things by myself and all kinds of fun things with the big kids and without the baby (and I slept in every day)! But I'm a schedule girl and I gotta say I'm loving being back on track!

Ava's back in school (she was, of course, up at 4:30 the first morning so super excited to go back!) which means I'm home alone with these two...and who wouldn't want that?!

Right now they are busy playing in Jack's room and I can hear Jemma say "Bub-ba!" and he says, "what Jem-Jem?" and then he makes funny noises and she laughs and so (for a few minutes) all is right with the world.

This one makes me laugh...

We miss you guys!

Happy January!

I like this month. I know it can be icky and gray (like yesterday!) but today it is bright and sunny and the Christmas stuff is put away and all that is left is white (my favorite color!) snowy decorations and the house feels clean and bare and ready for new projects!

I have been cleaning cupboards, sorting clothes, digging toys out from under the beds and I love it! And this weekend, we're starting in on our bedroom--more on that soon. But first a couple shots from the new year!

We used to do a fancy shmancy New Years Day dinner but over the years the tradtions have changed and this year was egg rolls and margaritas--a super hit and probably a tradition to keep!

My boys on their way to a basketball game.

My girls being girls!

And Jack being a goober as usual.

My favorite quote of the decade....

Today Ava looks at me and says, "When you grow up, you are going to be a really good Grandma!"

Hello 2010!

The new year started with a bang...

We drug the kids out of bed at midnight for a supermini fireworks show (like just the three little fountains I remembered we had left from the 4th!):

I know she looks shivery and miserable here but they did beg us to get them up so they could see "the New Year" (I'm not sure what they were expecting but here it is!)

We chowed all day on leftover party food from last night's shindig.
And then we lounged around the house watching football and reading the paper:

(Yes, even Jemma)

And mostly we remembered that we are too old to stay up all night party-ing!

Eventually, Ava and I hit the mall for some Starbucks and stocked up on earrings at Claire's and soap at Bath and Body (I love after-Christmas shopping!) and then spent a good chunk of time looking for new bedding and paint chips because I woke up this morning with an itchin' to redo my bedroom. Yay for January! My favorite house project month of the year!

Happy New Year!