Gage's Birthday

We finished celebrating Gage's birthday on Saturday with some school friends at Times Square Entertainment. We had a great time! Here's a video of all the fun we had celebrating Gage turning 7!

Enjoying the Weather

It is starting to get into the 90's here, but for the past month the weather has been SO nice (except for the the rain and flooding we had one week). Gage, Griffin, and Luke love to ride their bike and tricycles on the sidewalk in front of our house. Griffin would spend all day out there if I'd let him. They ride up and down, meeting each other halfway and then racing to get to the next driveway before the other does. It's great fun! Here are some pictures and a video.

Happy Birthday, Gage!

Today is Gage's 7th birthday! Actually he won't turn 7 until 8:01 this evening, but today is the day! :) Griffin and I woke him up this morning by singing 'Happy Birthday', and he smiled before he even opened his eyes. He got a stack of pancakes with whipped cream for breakfast, complete with 7 candles to blow out. Funny story about that... when I pulled the candles out of the pancakes, they had melted into the hot pancakes, so I threw that stack out and gave him 3 fresh ones. He said, "Yeah, wax tastes bitter." I said, "Well, it doesn't really have a taste, but it has a texture, and it's not something you want to eat." He kept insisting that it tastes bitter, and finally, as a last resort to make me believe him, he said, "I'VE TASTED MY EAR WAX!" He's always been a curious young man. :) Anyway, back to the birthday stuff... after breakfast, he got a phone call from Aunt Soosy wishing him a happy birthday. He was so excited! Here's a pic:

After the phone call, he opened some cards he got in the mail last week, and after seeing what was inside, he decided that we should go to Toys R Us. Thank you, Grandpa & Nana and Great-Grandma & Great-Grandpa Stover! After we dropped him off at school, Griffin and I went to Randall's to get a few groceries. Since we aren't having a party until later this month, I decided to get a treat for him to have tonight. I picked up a cookie cake that said "Happy Birthday" on it, and went to the counter to see if they could add "Gage" to it. I guess the regular cake decorator had the day off. Here's what it looked like after the little man finished.

I don't really care too much what it looks like, but I thought it was funny! The man was trying really hard and being very careful to spell it right. It was great. I showed it to Amber and she thought Gage had written his own name. OK... enough making fun of the little man's handwriting.

Gage is such a special kid. I hope he has a great day at school today! We (Gage, Griff, and I) are going to Chuck E Cheese's for dinner tonight. I'll post some pics of that later.

Swimsuit Season

Ugh. I'm never ready. But I started going to the gym again this week. With hard work and a miracle, I'll be toned up by June. I have a friend who has graciously invited me to lay out with her at the pool at her loft, which sounds nice, except for the swimsuit part. So, today I decided to go shopping for a new suit. Griffin was excited and said, "We can find a BIG one!" :-( Yeah, a big one, to cover my BIG butt. Gotta love the honesty of a 3-year-old. ;)

Easter Rewind

The kids and I did this cute little craft for Easter, and I loved the outcome so much that I wanted to share it here. I also wanted to share some pics of them dying eggs a couple of weeks ago. I know... I'm going back in time, but that's just how it's gotta be. (I do this pretty often... blog something and then think of something else that I should have blogged first. I usually delete the more current blog, blog the older story, and then reblog the current one. Tonight, I am being lazy, admitting my mistake, and blogging out of order. Don't judge me.)

Here's our craft: We took styrofoam eggs, wrapped them with cool, fuzzy yarn, and then used pipe cleaner, pom poms, and cute blue eyes to make them look like bunnies and chicks. It was fun and easy! Here's a pic (By the way, the first bunny with the pink nose is Griffin's, the chicky is Gage's, and the multi-colored bunny on the right is Luke's.):

Dying eggs:

Easter 2009

For Easter we went to visit Josh's parents (Grandpa & Nana) in Abilene. We had a great time just hanging out and catching up. The last time we were there was at Christmastime. Josh and I got to take Saturday afternoon off and go to the mall. I love shopping with him. He actually likes it too. He needed a pair of sunglasses and a wallet (long story). I got a dress to wear to a wedding cruise on April 25th. It was fun to get a break from the kids and just have fun together for a couple of hours. Saturday night after we put the boys to bed, Josh and I got to spend some time with some college friends. It was a fun day.

On Sunday, we went to church with Grandpa at Southern Hills Church of Christ, and the boys got balloons, which, in their eyes, is probably the coolest thing that's ever happened to them at church. We heard a good message and sang lots of great worship songs. After church and lunch at Red Robin, we went back to Grandpa and Nana's house and had a little egg hunt for the boys. I say "little" because I didn't have many eggs to hide. I had intended to boil and color some last week for them to hunt, but I didn't get it done. So I filled about 15 plastic eggs with coins and dollar bills and let them hunt those. They were thrilled to get the money, and I was thrilled that I wouldn't have 2 boys on sugar highs running around. Plus, I always end up eating the extra candy, and that's just not good for my thighs.

Sunday night, Josh and I and the boys went to Sam and Kathi's house to visit them. Sam and Josh entertained Gage and Griffin, and Sam even let them feed the cows. Meanwhile, Kathi and I were free to sit and talk. It had been quite a while (years) since we had been able to visit like that. It was a lot of fun.

Monday, Josh had to catch a plane to KC out of Houston at 5:30, so we left fairly early that morning to drive back. It was a nice drive considering the DVD player wouldn't work. The boys surprised me by playing nicely for most of the trip. Griffin slept for a while, too.

We said goodbye to Josh Monday about 4:00pm, and he's been in KC all week. He'll be home tomorrow evening for the weekend and then back up there for another 5 days. After that, he'll be home for at least 10 days. I'm really looking forward to that. I am going to implement "Date Night" when he gets back. :)

Overall, the weekend was really great. We got to see quite a few people that we have been wanting to catch up with, and the boys got enough Grandpa and Nana to last for a little while. It's always fun to get away from the ol' routine, even if it's just a few days.

Here are a few pics:

Heaven

Gage: In heaven I bet the blind can see again.

Me: Yes, I bet you're right.

Gage: Heaven is a magical place! I bet there are whoopie cushions all over the place!