Brandon 5th Birthday - Star Wars Fun

Wow what a busy week! Brandon turned 5 on Friday and we celebrated with a birthday party on Saturday afternoon with eight of his little friends. Brandon selected Star Wars as the theme. I made invitations for all the boys in his class and one other special friend from church. It was lots of fun and Brandon had a great time!

The Birthday Boy!

The invitations - I put Brandon's head on Anakin Skywalker to make him a Jedi

The cake

Singing Happy Birthday

The Darth Vader pinata

Special appearance from Darth Vader (daddy)

It did not take the boys long to attack Darth Vader with their styrofoam lightsabers that we made for all the boys

Happy Birthday Boy!

The whole group!

If Your Happy & You Know It

Though the challenges are great with Caleb so are the rewards. His smiles, his hugs and his kisses melt my heart. Each week he seems to be learning new words and in many ways he acts much like a typically two year old. He is starting to sing and do the actions to several songs. Here is one of his favorites . . .

Caleb, Elmo and Special Memories

Yesterday morning Charlie and I took Caleb & Emily to see Sesame Street Live - Elmo's Green Thumb in Sioux City. Caleb absolutly LOVED the show!

Caleb's "I Love Elmo" shirt that mommy made.

Caleb all simles!

Elmo and the whole Sesame Street gang danced, sang and a told a story about Elmo's new friend the sunflower.

We had great seats - 4th row!

Abby Cadappy

Cookie Monster

Oscar the Grouch

Caleb danced, cheered, clapped and stood up the whole time!

Even Emily seemed to enjoy the show!

Hook'em Horns!

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would marry someone from Texas. Growing up in Colorado most of my experiences with people from Texas came from the ski slops and a few friends in college and it wasn't very positive. In general I thought people from Texas were arrogant, loud and way too proud of their state. However, leave it to God to open my eyes, change my heart and show me that goods things do come out of the state of Texas. Not only is Charlie from Texas, but he is a big Texas Longhorns football fan. Even though I enjoy watching football, it has taken eight years of marriage to slowly pull me into rooting for the longhorns. So tonight with them playing in the Fiesta Bowl we got the kids dressed in there Texas duds, invited several of our friends (3 other families - 14 kids in all) to our house for a party. Even though our friends had to leave at halftime to get all the kids to bed we had a great time and the Longhorns pulled it off in the last few seconds and WON the GAME!

The whole gang! Even Caleb is trying to give his best Hook'em Horns!

The Boys!

The girls - so sweet!

Getting a little crazy!

Sisterly Love

When we found out that our 4th and last child would be a girl I was very excited. Since I was blessed to grow up with amazing sisters who are now two of my very best friends I was very happy that Taylor would now have that opportunity as well. As you can see Taylor & Emily are well on their way to building that very special sisterly bond.