Our Six Year Old

After a difficult pregnancy filled with unknowns, our little blessing was born healthy and whole. In my head I know that was 6 years ago, but in my heart it feels like yesterday. Aaron William is such a delight, and God continues to show us His creativity through Aaron's life.

We started his birthday celebrations with my husband's family on Friday. Last summer Aaron loved to collect toads, so I tucked that away in my memory and used it for his cake idea! Of course a frog cake is much cuter than a toad cake. :) I made a big dinner and am always amazed at how long it takes to prepare it and how quickly it all disappears! Aaron loved all of his gifts, most of which had to do with (surprise) Star Wars!!!

Aaron and his frog cake :)

Our family made complete with our little Boo

Monday, April 12th dawned sunny and warm--such a change from April 12th, 2004! Big, fluffy snowflakes covered the ground six years ago. Aaron and I both agreed the sunshine and warm breeze is much nicer birthday weather. :) He put on his new Star Wars shirt and counted down the minutes until his party started! Daddy joined us at our local fun center with Aaron's best buddies. God blessed us with the place to ourselves! Derek played with the birthday boy and his friends, much to their delight. I had fun taking pictures of them having fun.

We piled in the van and drove home for lunch. Aaron's choice for lunch? Mini corn dogs of course! The boys worked up big appetites and even asked for seconds. They loved playing with all of our nerf guns. Since Star Wars is Aaron's favorite thing right now, and his friends know that, they all got him something Star Wars-related. How fun for Aaron! My favorite part of his whole party was watching the boys have light saber wars in our backyard. They are so much fun at this age. Aaron and I put these cupcakes together to look like two light sabers crossing over one another. He wanted the red light saber to win, so I made it look like the red one is on top of the blue one. Pretty simple to do, and he loved it!

Once the party guests went home, I breathed a sigh of relief and geared up for Aaron's birthday supper. When Daddy got home from work we let Aaron open the rest of his birthday gifts. One of his favorite gifts is Super Mario Bros. for the Wii. Yay for Grammy and Grampy sending that to him! They also sent him fruit flavored hot dog bubble gum. For the boy who loves hot dogs--how perfect! Thanks to Skype, they were able to see Aaron and sing to him later that evening. Aaron loved his meatball supper, and I loved to watch him play with his new things. Braylen and Kaleb did their part to help Aaron feel special on his birthday, and I'm so thankful for that. Derek and I hope and pray our boys will grow up to be the best of friends while being brothers for life.

Exhausted from all the fun, Aaron fell asleep and I reflected on what a great day we had together. (while doing the dishes of course.) Birthdays are so much work for the mom--not only in labor and delivery, but in managing every detail of the celebrations year after year! But it's all worth it. To end this post, I'll end with an "Aaronism." If you know the Veggie Tales Pirates song it will make perfect sense to you. Two lines from the song are supposed to go like this: "And we've never been to Boston in the fall. Pass the chips!" Aaron sang several phrases in the car yesterday, and he sang them this way: "And we've never been too bossy in the fall. That's my chipmunks!" Then he said, "I know this one really well, don't I Mom?" :)

Spring

Easter 2010

Looking super-handsome with their haircuts and new shirts :)

January starts out slow and drags on and on. February does too. Things pick up speed in March, and by the time April begins, time does not slow down again until January! Spring is definitely here, and we are welcoming it with open arms. Our Ginger is one year old today. Happy First Birthday Ginger Girl! She's enjoying her "birthday bone" as I type this.

looking pretty after her bath...she really needed a bath...

Aaron lost his first tooth last week, thanks to the permanent tooth cutting through his gums to take it's place. And thanks to Daddy. ;) The tooth fairy visited our house for 2 nights in a row--once for Braylen and once for Aaron.

Speaking of Braylen, he and I enjoyed a "date night" last week. I enjoy my sons even more when I have one-on-one time with them! We picked up Arby's for supper and went to a concert together. Braylen loves this particular artist, and when I heard the concert was close by, I decided we couldn't miss this opportunity. The trip was made even more memorable thanks to the sheriff deputy who pulled me over on our way there. Thank you LORD for the warning instead of a ticket. I was on my way to a Christian concert after all...

Easter break brought beautiful weather our way. Yay! Maybe with basketball, catch, and hide-and-go-seek-tag, we can clear out the "Star Wars Psychosis" that consumes our thoughts around here. I am not kidding. I have become a walking encyclopedia of Star Wars facts. Ask me anything you want about all 6 movies and I bet I will be able to tell you the answer. Does admitting that I like Star Wars make me any less feminine? Because I do. Like Star Wars. But I've been known to ask my children, nicely I hope, to please change the subject now and then. Even a girl who likes Star Wars can get tired of it! :)

Braylen had a friend spend the night over Easter break, Aaron took an afternoon trip with his cousin and Grandpa, and Kaleb LOVED going to the BMX track. We had the place all to ourselves one very windy day. :) Derek let Ginger off-leash and she raced the boys all over that course. It's so much fun to watch her run. We colored Easter eggs--with a Star Wars kit of course. What a treat to have Derek color eggs with us. Now that our kids are older, he's realizing it's more fun than work, instead of the other way around. One thing that's a bit harder now that they're older? Finding things to do with them around the house that they have fun doing. I was SO ready for them to go back to school this morning. My creative juices had all run dry.



Aaron's birthday is on the horizon. From now until next Tuesday, my days will be consumed with birthday happenings. His requested birthday cake? Star Wars of course!!!

The House That Love Built

We're having a good week. :)

Aaron and I made a cake today in honor of 2 things. First, as of yesterday, we've lived in our house for 7 years. Building a house is such a lot of work that you never forget the day you saw it through to completion! Second, today would have been my grandma's 84th birthday. She's been celebrating birthdays in heaven for 9 years now, but I will never think of March 31st without thinking of her.

Don't laugh too hard! The 7 is for our house, the 84 is for grandma.

Aaron continues to hold my heart in his small hands as this school year comes to an end. Our lunches and afternoons are spent together, just the two of us, every day. Most days he wants a "hotdog on a bun" for lunch. I keep telling him he's going to turn into a hotdog, but since that hasn't happened, he knows that's just something I like to say to him. :) Since the weather's been so nice, he's been riding his bike around our subdivision while I walk Ginger. It's so peaceful here in the early afternoon. Aaron stays within my sight and Ginger and I bring up the rear. I try not to think about next fall, when I'll be walking Ginger by myself. But it's so hard not to. I love being with my little boy and I don't want things to change. Can you tell I'm an emotional girl? There's a song about that..."sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cry, sometimes I do both and I don't know why..." That fits me perfectly. My poor husband. :)

Aaron likes to tell me he has a good "remembery." (memory) I like how he combined "remember" and "memory" into one word. These spring days with Aaron leave me feeling like I'm dangling off the edge of a cliff. The cliff represents the 11 years I've been privileged to have 1 son at home with me, then 2, then 3, then 2, and now...1. I'm hanging by a thread from that cliff. But I have such incredible "rememberies" of these days. And they're not over yet. :)

One of Those Weeks

I'm so glad today is Saturday. I had one of those weeks this week. Not altogether bad, but no bed of roses either. While we were in Chicago, some mice decided to make themselves at home in our wall between the garage and living room. Besides leaving messes everywhere they've been, they chewed through our tv antenna cable and the wiring in the wall for our deep freeze. Grr! The funny thing in all of this is Kaleb's comment: "So that's why we don't get ESPN!" Who am I to correct him? I'd rather he blame the mice than his mom and dad for depriving him of cable television. :)

Derek repaired the wiring, and we caught one of the little buggers this morning. This brings our grand total to 3 captured mice (and many more deceased mice who are no longer in our wall.) Between the visit from pest control, traps, and home repairs, we figure these disgusting creatures have cost us about $100 so far. I find it ironic that Braylen's name was drawn to bring his class hamsters home this weekend. Here we are, doing everything in our power to get rid of these rodents, and our son brings more into our house! Hopefully they behave themselves and stay in their cage. :)

On Wednesday I got one of those dreaded phone calls from the school secretary. Braylen had fallen on his knee while playing soccer and split it open just enough so it wouldn't stop bleeding. Off to the clinic we went for some dermabond and steri strips. Aaron tagged along like the trooper he is. My former neighbor, Jean, had just arrived for a suprise visit when I received the phone call from school. Sometimes I have to wonder at God's timing. We haven't seen Jean since she moved away 3 months ago. She told me her son-in-law passed away, and all I could do was give her a hug and tell her I had to go.

On Thursday we woke up to a mess in the garage. Ginger had a major case of the trots, and she's still not better. Thankfully Thursday was warm and sunny, so cleaning out her crate and bed was not as bad as it could have been. Still, it was just one more thing to make me think of how much fun this week was NOT turning out to be. I hope she gets better soon, because I really don't want to spend more money on her. The garage door and the mice and our son's knee is enough, thank you.

Some good things happened this week too! Aaron's first permanent tooth poked through this month, but he still hadn't lost any baby teeth. That means he had two teeth competing for the same spot. Last night the baby tooth came out, and he was so happy! He was even happier to find the tooth fairy left him some fruity mentos and a quarter this morning. :)

Finally, I have two "Aaron-isms" from this week. While telling me what he wants in his Easter basket, Aaron said, "I want some of those clown nuts that Daddy and I like." Translation? Daddy and Aaron love circus peanuts! :) While eating a delicious Chinese lunch with some friends yesterday, Aaron declared, "I want one of those tortured cookies." Of course he meant fortune cookies. A little bit of laughter makes one of those weeks a bit more bearable!