IT's Official...I'm a Bus Driver

Bye Bye Armada! - As much as I hated it...it was time to say goodbye to this beauty! I seriously loved this car...had no desire to get another one. But...with the baby on the way, we needed a little more space, especially space in the back, and a way for Colby to get into the car on his own without having to fold a seat every time we got in and out. Isn't it funny how we get attached to things like this? It was really weird to let it go after having it just about 6 years.

Hello Suburban. Yikes...is this really what I am driving now? Yep, I am a bus driver...not only because this thing is a beast, but because pretty soon I will be hauling around three rowdy boys.

I do have to admit, I like shiny things :) It is fun to have a new car with all the bells and whistles (especially when your hubby makes deals like nobody's business), and it drives really nice! And yes, I know black is the stark opposite of my white Armada, and yes, I know it will get dirty often and it's going to be hot, but isn't it pretty when it's all clean? I'm a blessed girl!

Here Comes Summer!

Hooray Colby! You made it through Kindergarten!!

Colby getting his award from his teacher, Mrs. Laws, for being the "best artist." His absolute favorite center time was free art. His favorite special was art class.

Brody gets so excited to go up to school and see Colby. He is so ready to start preschool. He listens and follows all the instructions, lines up with kindergartners he really thinks is one of them. On the last day it was "Movie Day" and the kids got to dress up like their favorite movie characters. Brody had to join in of course.

Colby's is opening a DVD that his teacher made them. It was pictures of all of the fun activities they had participated in throughout the year set to music.

All the kiddos signed autograph books. Since there are 7 kinder classes at his school the likelihood he will be placed with the kids from his class in first grade are pretty slim. But they will still see each other on the playground and at lunch.

Colby and his favorite buddy Charlie. Charlie is a really sweet kiddo. He lives just down the street from us, and he has been such a good friend to Colby.

When Colby and Brody got home, they had an all out gun war in their costumes. I guess Brody is finally over his fear of masks! They played really well for about 10 minutes, and then the brotherly love began.....

and....I just about had a panic attack thinking of how I was going to manage these two rascals and a new baby this summer! I love my sweet Colby, and it really has been fun having him home, but one less to manage for 8 hours a day isn't bad either :)

The Party

I don't know a little boy, or a big boy for that matter, that doesn't like Star Wars. Colby wanted the theme for his party to be Star Wars again this year. Only this year, he was very specific about how everything would be set up. Jengo Fett seemed to be his favorite character this year...so as hard as those were to find...we found him (thank you amazon) and made sure he was the central part of the invitation and cake.

Colby designed his cake. A few weeks before we ordered it at the store, b/c last year I learned my lesson about his birthday and a little thing called graduation. We purposely went into the store early so that we wouldn't be told they were too busy with graduation cakes, but when Matt went to pick it up - they had made it the weekend before despite what the order said - and were out of buttercream. What? Oh my goodness! What will we do? No cake-we would have had one severely disappointed birthday boy who had put quite a lot of effort into designing it. But our local store pulled through. Had buttercream sent from another location and made it in a few hours so it would be ready for the party.

Colby is comfortable with the familiar. So his plan was very similar to last year as well. His request was a big bouncy slide with water. After looking at rental prices, we decided to just buy one because it made more sense. Rain was in the forecast for the entire week and the day of, so we were very worried we were going to be rained out for the 4th time out of 6 years of parties. Colby got to experience his own little miracle after praying that it wouldn't rain at his birthday - the sun shone and it was hot, hot, hot - perfect for playing in the water.

Colby and his best buddy from school - Charlie - he seriously loves this kiddo.

Matt and I made these light sabers from pool noodles, duct tape, and electrical tape. I found the idea on several blogs and totally copied it, but made it my own. It was easy, just a little time consuming tearing tape, but not bad, and the kids loved them!

Another idea I found online was to play a "free Han Solo" game. We froze two Han Solo action figures and had the kiddos relay race dumping water on them to thaw Han Solo.

We made them a little too big because after lots and lots of running....

and running....and dumping...and dumping...we still had not successfully freed Han Solo.

So Daddy brought out the hot water and we melted him out of there as fast as we could. The kids loved it anyway, and were so excited to finally get him out of his icy trap.

We had a giant water balloon fight, that lasted less than 5 minutes. You know how that goes - you spend what feels like hours tying hundreds of waterballoons - and they are gone in two seconds. After drying off- we heading inside for cake!

Then we had some wild light saber fighting - Holy Moly- it was crazy fun!

The kiddos that came to the party were - Anna, Keely, Zack, Charlie, Champ, Calvin, Case, Cooper, 2 of our darling new neighbors Tommy and Sammy, and of course Brody.

We wrapped things up with presents....

and then Mom and Dad passed out! :)

Happy Birthday Colby

6 years old, really?! Where does the time go? Happy Birthday Colby! We couldn't be more proud of this not so little guy!

Colby had his birthday planned out to a "T." It wasn't just his birthday day, no, he had his party planned - every detail - the day it would be, exactly what the schedule of events would be- when we would celebrate on his real birthday - and what our whole weekend would be like - since his birthday was on a Monday. The plan (without all the crazy details) - Friday we would be going to Dave & Busters (or the like), Saturday - birthday party and Monday the big day - Rudy's for dinner and chocolate eclaire cake for dessert.

Here we are at Rudy's on the night of his birthday. This boy can pack down some Rudy's. Colby's favorite meal: sausage, extra lean bbq brisket outside cut (to keep the bark on the brisket), bread, and beans. This location is our favorite because it has a huge backyard area nestled in all the trees.

Matt and I both love these pictures so much! Colby doesn't love the camera so we were so happy to get some great pics with him on his birthday.

In the morning before school, I promised Colby he could open one of his presents from us, one from Mimi and Papa, and one from his Auntie Brandi. He tore through them and was so excited about every single one. He couldn't wait to get home from school to open the rest. He ate his favorite breakfast - donuts and orange juice.

Colby asked me to bring his special birthday snack for the class- guess what he chose? - donuts (chocolate covered with sprinkles of course). Daddy was kind enough to go get 2 dozen from only the best place to get donuts (The Donut Taco Palace I), and he stood in line at 6am to get them. I got to drop them by the room, but all the kids were out to recess. Brody and I headed home for a bit, then picked up lunch for Colby at Sonic and brought it to school to eat lunch with him. It was pretty crazy in that cafeteria, but we had a great lunch, and Colby was eager to ditch us for lunch recess when the time came.

When he got home from school, he could hardly wait to tear through all the rest of his presents. Some of the things he asked for this year were a StarWars ship, Boba Fett and Young Boba Fett, Imaginext Robots, Jengo Fett, more circuits to add to his board he got at Christmas, and Harry Potter DS game. He got all kinds of fun science experiments from MiMi and Papa, and a really cool battery charged watergun (don't worry we got Brody one too so they could have wars in the back yard). Those have been so much fun.

Brody was so excited. At first he didn't quite understand that the presents were for Colby, but he was such a good boy, and Colby shared with him after a little help from Mom & Dad.

The chocolate eclaire cake - who knew- I thought it was so fun he asked for this because it is his Daddy's absolute favorite too!

Colby is such a fun boy. Some of my favorite things about Colby at this age are - He absolutely loves art. He draws the coolest pictures and brings home the most adorable things from art class at school. He is so dang smart - no surprise to his proud mama - but he will say things like "that's in 15 minutes mom - which you know is a 1/4 of an hour" and laugh a little sneaky laugh afterward, or he will just ramble off all kinds of subtraction, addition, and multiplication facts. He is a total numbers guy - again just like his Daddy. Believe it or not, I love all his tall (I mean really Tall) tales. I'm not sure if he ever stops talking. Really. At dinner no-one can get a word in edgewise, and its always some crazy story about things that happened at school, or all the fun science facts that just seep from his little brain. Even though it drives me absolutely nuts, I love that he is a collector - he appreciates every piece of dirt, plant, and crazy thing he can get his hands on, and he wants to treasure it and keep it forever - especially rocks- yes even dirt rocks have a special place in his heart . I love - I mean really love- that he still wants me to sing him songs and rub his back at bedtime (his favorite is It's a Small World -but we have to go in order - Twinkle Twinkle, Frere Jacques, and then It's a Small World). He still has a favorite bear that he has had since he was born. He is an amazingly complicated and wonderful kiddo and we couldn't be more blessed. We are so glad he is a part of our family. Happy 6th Colbs, we LOVE YOU!

Field Day

Do you remember field day? I remember having so much fun on field days. It seems like every year of elementary school they got even more fun - and we always had water games. Colby didn't have any water games, but they did have a blast. The only bummer was we had gotten some rain and the sprinklers had come on too, so it was a little muddy, but of course the kids didn't care.

They played a really long time. From early in the morning until lunch time. I only stayed for part of it, but got to see Colby do a baton race, jumping rope to music, parachutes in the gym....

Frisbee toss

and an egg and spoon race.

One of Many

I am so proud of Matt. One of our many projects was to build a gigantic deck off the back of the house. Let me tell you, I would never have called Matt handy before, but he is now Bob Villa in my eyes :)

The planning probably took just as long, if not longer, than the actual build. Second step, delivery of materials. That, I must say, did not go off without a hitch. Lowes brought the special order, but didn't deliver any of the special order pieces, and failed to tell us that they were not being delivered as planned. Oh, minor kink since my dad was driving up from out of town to build this with Matt. No worries, after a day of calling literally 30 lumber places who laughed at us every time we asked if they had any of the boards in stock...we were able to locate the boards we needed and they were only a 1.5 hour drive away. Oh, just kidding - the boards were 24 feet long - no way to get them -

After lots, and I mean lots, of frank talk with Lowes, they did deliver - literally- they had their truck drive the 1.5 hour trip and were able to deliver part of the wood 2 days later and the rest of it several days later...so my dad and Matt were able to squeak by and finish most everything before Matt left out of town on business.

Third step- build - well not really - Matt had to plan out exactly where all the support beams would go, and dig post holes - fill with concrete - and attach the posts to these babies. Yep, there were 16! And if you know anything about Austin - you know that we literally sit on rock - so digging these 16+ inches was no simple task. We did luck out...as our sprinkler guys were finishing up reworking the lines - they offered to pour the concrete for Matt, so in about 15 minutes they had all the concrete mixed and poured saving Matt hours of work.

Next up went all the ledger boards and frame. And if you can't tell by now, our yard has all kinds of slopes and hills (that seem subtle -that is until you build something that needs to be level). Again - props to Matt on the planning!

Dad - couldn't have done this without you! My dad really is Bob Villa in his own right. This man built two rooms onto our house growing up - and renovated our cabin that was seriously damaged by fire. He knows just about everything there is to know about everything! We were so glad to have him here, and although I tried to keep him from doing to much - he of course did too much! He really did help Matt to have confidence in the things he had never done before and taught him a thing or two along the way.

It was so fun to see the joists go up and to see it begin to take shape.

Everybody pitched in! Including me. I couldn't do much - obviously no lifting boards - but I kept the kids out of the way as best I could - filled up water and tea glasses - sorted screws - helped snap chalk lines - and caught smaller boards as they fell off from being sawed. The boys counted and lined up literally hundreds of screws as Grandpa and Dad screwed in the deck boards.

Even when Matt had to leave for work - dad was out there working. We kept telling him - we didn't ask for his help so he could be our slave while Matt was gone - but he kept going like the energizer bunny. Shhh, don't tell him, but I think he kind of liked all the hard work - and we sure appreciated it!

Whoo hoo - after 3 or 4 days this is what we had! Not finished, but we could walk on it - and envision it! After many little snafoos along the way - we were thrilled to be this far and have done it ourselves!

Just after Easter weekend - Matt began to work on the railing. I had to get a little action shot in here! There was so much sawing, hammering, drilling, screwing, and leveling!

Bob The Builder.

Benji the destroyer

Don't be fooled by this darling little boy - he chewed and ate just about everything involved in the build - even the neighbors skill saw electrical cord - oh yes - I almost killed him - he is lucky to be alive. Just kidding. No - really.

Matt completed all the rest of the deck all by his lonesome. Again - I tried to give a helping hand when I could - but it was probably mostly annoying to Matt who just wanted to finish - instead of hearing me say - "is that a little loose, or crooked -or does that need to be tightened" I do have to make a comment about my hubby's rockin calves though. Check out those muscles! Whew!

Hallelujah! It's finished - well - almost - the stairs proved to be a big pain - but now they are finished too! Thank you Matt and Dad for building this awesome deck! Now all we need is landscaping - hmm -that will have to wait till the fall - or at least until Benji the destroyer learns some manners :)