noodle's celebrations

as always, birthday celebrations go on and on each year for our boys.  we have recently adopted "family fun days" as a better substitute for a birthday party.  and believe it or not, the boys prefer it...maybe because they get to plan our entire day, including meals and activities.

we celebrated noodle's family fun day on a friday that we did not have school.  it began with a trip to dunkin donuts.  i didn't complain!

then we headed to walmart to buy a small present for him (he chose a new beywheelz), after trying out the skateboards!

this is completely hysterical to me!

then we ventured on to the fort worth science and history museum to meet up with a few of his friends from school that graciously invited us to take advantage of their membership there.  we spent the morning hours digging for dinosaur bones and exploring their exhibits, including a bed of nails and a hurricane wind tunnel.

bed of nails

i love their faces!

noodle chose mcdonald's for lunch.  i am not a fan, but hey, it's his day.

then we went to main event for some family fun bowling.  after 3 games, the lure of the arcade games was too much.  after trying to convince both boys not to waste their money on those claw games that are designed to never let you capture and grab a cheap stuffed animal, we relented and this is what happened!

he won twice!!!  we ended the day with dinner at chili's and renting a movie and eating candy.

the next birthday celebration was at mimi and poppy's house.  he was so excited to get a harry potter lego book, a new beyblade, some new athletic clothes, and a new scooter with light up wheels!!!  we ate cookie cake and played outside.

on noodle's actual birthday i took cookies and drinks up to school at recess for his school buddies.

before dinner, he opened presents from us.  he got a new basketball goal (which broke in 2 minutes and i had to ship back so don't buy this one!!!), basketball shorts and a beywheelz stadium from his brother burrito.

don't ask me why he is doing the star trek sign???

we also went out for dinner (again, his choice!) at ihop and then came back home to open presents on skype with nina, pappaw and nonna in st. louis.  he was so excited to get more beywheelz, a beyblade destroyer dome, money and a scooby doo game (thanks uncle daniel!).

i would say that this boy is blessed beyond measure and we sure had a good time celebrating him!  happy 7th birthday noodle!!!

Happy 7th Birthday to my Noodle

 well, it's happened again.

another of my babies grows a year older.  i don't like it.  at all.  but i haven't figured out a way to make it stop.

my sweet noodle is 7 today!

noodle, you are such a blessing to our family.  you are just the right person to level out the other 3 high-strung residents of your home.  you are sweet and sensitive.  you don't take things too seriously but you do your best.  you are still a game nazi.  you love playing games all day long.  you are quite the sports buff too.  it's been fun for us to watch our little leftie play baseball this season.  you are doing great in 1st grade.  your lowest grade was a 99 for the first quarter.  you are a great reader and i am constantly amazed at your tenacity to sound out words that you don't immediately know.  math comes natural.  i think it's from all those games you make us play.  you are a budding musician and we are so glad you are learning to play violin.  you are a good friend and easily float from one friend to another....everyone is your best buddy.  i love that you and your brother are close and share a room and sometimes sneak into your big bed together.

we are so grateful for the gift from God you are to us.  we look forward to seeing the Lord develop your gifts and skills for His glory.  we pray that you will be a passionate fireball for Him for your whole life.

we love you so much!

Better late than never! Burrito's 8th birthday continued...

so this year for burrito's birthday we did something a little different.  rather than have a friend party, we opted to have a family fun day.  we let burrito decide what to eat and what to do for the entire day.

breakfast was donuts, of course!  after opening presents on skype with our family in missouri, we headed to rain forest cafe for lunch.  it's a really fun place decorated like a rainforest, complete with animals that move and make noise every 15 minutes.

burrito was horrified when our waiter and waitress announced to the restaurant that it was his birthday.  he refused to stand in the chair but they sang happy birthday to him anyways.  we finished the lunch with the lava mud dessert, complete with gummy worms!

after a trip to the lego store, we headed to chuck e. cheese for an afternoon of games and fun.  we bought 150 tokens and spent a couple of hours playing games.

then we headed to our friends' house in dallas for some more birthday fun.  we ate pizza and cake outside and let our two boys and their three girls play in the backyard.  it was so sweet to share burrito's birthday with such good friends!

i had the wrong setting on my camera here so this picture isn't that great...besides, trying to take a pic of 4 kids is nearly impossible!

we had such a great time and burrito is already planning next year's birthday family fun day!

burrito's 8th birthday

yesterday, april 6, was a very good day.  it was good friday, which as a believer, is a very significant day, though in this case, it was a very good day for another reason.

it was burrito's 8th birthday!

the day started with this:

and ended with this:

with a whole lot of fun packed in between.  more details and pictures to come!

happy birthday burrito!
happy easter!

noodle's 6th birthday

as it seems to be standard practice now, we had a several-day celebration of noodle's birthday this year.  on friday, we celebrated with friends at school.  noodle sat at the front of the classroom while his friends sang "happy birthday" to him.  it was very sweet.  he then helped me pass out juice boxes and m&m cookies that he picked out from the store.

it also happened to be "texas rangers spirit day" so that it why all the kids have on rangers shirts instead of uniforms.  a fun day all around!

then the party continued the next morning at the soccer game.  after the game we shared gatorade and more cookies and the team all sang happy birthday to noodle.

i love his little smile here!

then the real party moved to skatetown that afternoon where the boys from noodle's class plus a couple of our dear friends from church joined us to skate it up.  even john and i strapped some skates on and relived our glory days from middle school!

this is a little game they have the kids play...balancing the ice cream on your head.

noodle doesn't like cake (or ice cream) so we went with the big cookie for the cake!

noodle's actual birthday was on sunday so we celebrated the real thing with a family party at our house.  this is one spoiled little guy!  his ultimate present was the nintendo dsi and a multitude of new games for it.

happy 6th birthday noodle!  we love you so much and thank God for you each day!

happy 6th birthday noodle!

 happy 6th birthday to my super sweet noodle!

i simply cannot believe that you are already 6.  i definitely don't have a baby or little boy anymore!  you are such a sweet blessing to our family.  the Lord knew we needed a laid-back, easy-going personality in our house of first-born type a personalities!

you are my little pumpkin because you were due on october 31, but you chose to come a little early, which was fine with me!  we love your little innocent personality, your inquisitive nature, your love for all things electronic, and your love for all sports. 

you are enjoying being in kindergarten and you work with such intense focus and determination.  you beg to read to me, you love coloring, and you can sit and work on a puzzle or lego set for hours.  you memorize God's Word with ease, you come home from school singing praise songs that you have learned and you love being on your older brother's soccer team with kids that are 2 years older than you.

we have partied all weekend long and when things settle down a bit, i'll post pictures from the multiple celebrations we've enjoyed having with you.  we love you so much and are so thankful that God chose us to be your parents.

we love you noodle!

happy (belated) birthday to my sweet hubby

though i am a week late, we do love and treasure our september birthday boy john.  we have celebrated multiple times with friends and family.  we love him so much and are so thankful to God for his humble leadership and shepherding of our family.

john and i celebrated his birthday first with a date to chuy's and starbucks.  and our super sweet and awesome babysitter did not charge us as a birthday present to him.  isn't that awesome!?!?

we celebrated with friends last sunday night by meeting for MORE mexican food and then coming back to eat dessert at our house.

we celebrated with family last night at my parents' house after eating at chuy's (do you see a trend here?  we love our mexican food!) by eating more dessert and spending some relaxing time together.

the boys bought john a bicycle helmet and then made him a coupon to pick out a new bike.  we didn't want to do that without john's input and who can wrap a bike!?!?  the boys love going on bike rides with him and he's always had to jog along, so this really is a good present, ha ha!

john modeling the new helmet and holding the coupon for one free bike!

happy birthday to the best dad and husband ever!  we love you!

burrito is 7!

i just can't figure out a way to celebrate the boys' birthdays with just one party.  we've always got the family party, the actual birthday party with fun snacks at school, and then the birthday party with school friends.

i am worn out!  ha!

so first up this year was our family party with my side of the family.  we celebrated with dinner from panda express, a huge oreo cookie cake and presents of course!

the boys with cousin porkchop

 

i love this picture of burrito's face....such glee and anticipation!

 

isn't this a fun cake?  and sweet mimi even remembered noodle's distaste for cake (go figure!) and had cookies complete with decorating icing for him!

 digging in!

 noodle decorating his cookies with the letter "t" for the birthday boy

 i think cousin porkchop enjoyed his cake too!

 and the birthday loot!  lego sets and some spending money!

second was burrito's actual birthday on wednesday, april 6.  john and i took a cookie cake up to school for the kids to enjoy.  we were clearly a distraction (read: chaos) in the classroom, so i failed to snap a pic and we scooted out pretty quick.  we have the tradition of letting the birthday boy pick the place to eat out the night of their birthday and burrito picked cafe brazil.  pics of that celebration with john's side of the family were here.

then came the all anticipated school friends party.  this year we chose a campout theme and invited all the boys over to our backyard friday after school.  john and i both took the day off of work to prepare and i'm glad we did because we worked like crazy people up to the very last second!

these signs greeted our guests as they arrived.

 

we tried to transform our backyard into a campground complete with tent, fire pit, and picnic tables.

when the boys first arrived, we had a camp backpack they could color with fabric markers.  this also served as their party favor bag at the end of the party which included a flashlight, compass, whistle, camp pencil, and s'mores granola bar.

i was camp counselor and i led the boys in several camp games such as a backpack relay, hoola hoop pass, tug of war, telephone, rainmaker and other random games the boys wanted to play.  it was fun but exhausting.  the boys were hot and sweaty by this point so we took a break to eat hot dogs and chips and get a drink!  

we had originally planned to roast the weenies over the fire pit but we quickly realized this was just way too much to handle with this many crazy boys so john just slapped them on the grill.  

then it was time for dessert!  i made individual cups of dirt cake complete with gummy worms.  this was a big hit with the boys.

we concluded the party with opening presents and then just letting the boys run wild in the backyard.

i think the boys had a blast and i was in bed by 8:30 that night!  i was exhausted!

happy 7th birthday burrito!  we love you!