Happy Birthday Lucas!

Lucas turned 3 on February 10th and it was a birthday party year!

I consulted YouTube to learn how to make the tissue paper poms and I am posting them at the request of my sister. Decorations were sparse, but they generally always are. I like parties that don't leave me all stressed out before they even begin!

Early Friday morning, before Howard went to work, Luke opened his presents. His favorite presents were the clearance toys I bought a few weeks ago. The toys that he was least interested in where the one's I paid full price for - how ironic!

 

 Friday afternoon Luke helped me decorate his cupcakes. He originally wanted a Diego party, but since we couldn't find a cake topper, or even toys to put on it, we scraped that plan. Luke was in charge of picking things out, so we had sports themed plates/cups, and Spiderman cupcakes. He was happy!

 

I forgot to write out the invitations for his nursery classmates, and since I wasn't very motivated to have ten 3 year olds over, we had one family come. We had a nice time and were not overwhelmed.  Our 4 kids and their 3 kids made a nice amount of people for a party atmosphere.

 The day before his party he wanted to pose for the camera. This is his new favorite pose.

January (and a little bit of February)

Howie had a birthday and was crazy excited about his present, a boy's dream - a B.B. gun.

 This was not a b-day party year, so we went out to dinner of Howie's choosing (Red Lobster) and had cake (Angel food). The weather has been great and we've been able to go out into the wooded area behind our house to shoot. It's been fun.

 

 Howard got off of work early yesterday (he's been working long hours lately). We've also had incredible weather, so the boys got some energy out before dinner.

 Just a little while ago I heard a rustling in my bedroom. It's laundry day, so for the few hours the laundry sorter was empty and Dash managed to get stuck. This was a first for him - and too funny not to take a picture. He was truly stuck!

 

 A few days ago Erin wanted me to take some pictures of her and Dash, so I thought I would share those too. We curled her hair in sponge curlers the night before and she felt like a princess with the ringlets all day. Her hair was curly like this naturally when she was little, but now it's straight like mine.

December

 I had finals at the beginning of December and Howard was very busy with an exercise at work. Then the whirlwind of Christmas festivities fell upon us. 

To recap December:

I bought a new red dress for the Squadron Christmas party (but it was canceled, grrr) and got a new hair do at the end of November. I also earned high A's in both of my classes. It was my first semester back to college since 2000 and I'm LOVING it!!!! I'm studying history and hope to become a DoDEA teacher by the time Howard retires in 10-12 years.

 Erin had a speaking part in the 3rd grade musical - she was Reindeer #7.

 Jack anxiously awaited Christmas.

While on Christmas break he decided to sleep in the living room one night.  Luke also joined him.

This is Jack's "bed" he made for himself.

 

 Howard was off for a little while and dutifully took care of the kids with me. Howard also worked on some home improvement chores (fixed a screen, and re-sealed a door), as well as yard work during our warm front that was here (65F for about 3 days). Winter break was filled with bowling, the park, the library, the YMCA, and lots of sleeping in and staying up late. The best part has been watching "I Love Lucy" as a family every day since Christmas.  Howard bought me the complete series and it's now one of the kids favorite shows.

 Jack gave us the BEST expressions when he opened his gifts. It was like he got the best present each and every time he opened one.

The kids each got to open a gift on Christmas Eve (not pjs). The 24th was our big dinner like usual, while the 25th was reserved for a buffet of appetizers all day while we played with our new toys. This year Christmas was a lot different. We had church in the late morning, but then we spent the evening downtown at the City Rescue Mission. It was nice seeing our friends who live there and working the dinner shift. We are blessed each and every time we go there to help.

This is the most excitement we are probably going to get for a while from (an almost) 10 year old Howie.

 Erin was thrilled with her gift as well. This was her first year knowing the secret of Christmas. 

*wink wink*

Luke was more excited for his pillow pet than he was his train table. Oh well.

 New Year's Eve

Luke was the only one who didn't make it to midnight - he made it to about 11pm though. New Year's Eve was spent having an "I Love Lucy" marathon.

BTL Graduation

 For those who did not see my facebook post, this is Larry and Jack. They are best buddies at the City Rescue Mission. 

We met Larry last March when we started working in the kitchen and gained a new friend (actually several) in the process. Jack talks about Larry all the time and is always excited when we see him. Larry recently found employment and will be moving out of the Mission to be reunited with his wife (who also graduated from BTL a few months ago).

Last night we went to Larry's graduation from the "Bridge to Life" (BTL) program. It is about a year long (self paced) rehabilitation program through the Mission. Larry is special, as are the other graduates. He really did accomplish something great!  Larry was one of the speakers last night and shared with us his story. He was a drug addict for 27 years (meth, heroin, etc  - just about everything), in prison for 23 years, prison escapee, etc. He hit rock bottom last year on a high speed chase from the cops through OKC. Because of the City Rescue Mission - and most importantly the Lord - his life has been restored and he has hope. His slate has been wiped clean and we are privileged to call him friend.

The BTL graduation was the best graduation I have ever attended and I hope to attend many more while we live here. It was filled with celebration, worship, prayer, scripture, and personal stories. Not too many dry eyes were there last night. The Lord is working miracles in the lives of His children - it's an awesome thing to witness. The people we have met at the Mission have enriched our lives in innumerable ways. We don't bless their lives with our service, they bless ours!

Black Friday

We had the most awesome Black Friday this year! It was actually the best and most fun I've ever had Black Friday shopping. We went prepared and that made all the difference in the world. Fortunately we didn't get anything big - I think that helped a lot too. We only had a shopping cart at one store.  Being able to maneuver in Walmart and Target without a shopping cart made a huge difference and contributed to our speedy checkout.

Here's a little timeline -

6:00pm - Dropped Howard off at Toys R Us and he waited in line. Lisa and I went back to her house to get the kids ready for bed and finalize Black Friday lists
7:00pm - Got in line with Howard, Levi watched the kids
9:00pm - We were in the first group of 50 people to enter the store. Howard waited in the checkout line while Lisa and I shopped. Picked up 5 items, out in 10 minutes.
9:10pm - Howard went to Target to wait in line, Lisa and I drove to Walmart.
9:30pm - Waited by the 1 item I wanted (legos) while Lisa browsed a few items. Out about 5-10 minutes after the 10pm sale started.
10:30pm - Joined Howard in line at Target
12:00am - Howard worked his way to electronics while I got the toys on our list. He had to wait in the electronics line in the store, so we didn't get out until about 12:40am.
1:00am - Our list was complete, but we browsed the mall a little. Picked up some boots at Macy's for myself.
2:00am - Back to Walmart for a price match
2:30am - Back at home in bed.

Favorite stories -

- A food food truck pulled up to the front of Toys R Us and Howard and I were able to enjoy some hot chocolate together.

- Met some awesome ladies in line at Target! I wasn't able to get an item at Toys R Us, so I asked Walmart to price match. They wouldn't. One of the ladies knew the Walmart manager personally and put in a phone call to him and fixed the problem. We didn't even ask her to do it, but are glad she did! The best part was that instead of getting the sale price matched for $24.99 (leapster) we got it for $15 because the box was damaged. Once again, we didn't even ask for it, but that's what they did.

- While at the mall there were male models in swim trunks in front of one of the clothing stores. Naturally we're shopping for swim trunks in November (haha). Anyway - they looked exactly like the models that are on the posters in those stores. I heard one lady squeal "Oh My G--, they're real!" yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking, but I didn't say that out loud. I was in the middle of a conversation with Lisa and Howard, but when we saw them I went speechless. That's never happened before to me. It's pretty funny in hindsight. The picture below is a similar representation of what we saw at the Columbia, MO mall.

Jack's Birthday Celebrations

 Jackson had his birthday several weeks ago - October 25th to be exact. Howard has been either in the field or TDY for the past month and was home for a brief 16 hours the weekend prior to Jack's 5th birthday. We celebrated early with presents and cupcakes so Howard could participate.

 On Jack's actual birthday he was able to bring snack to pre-school. We made mini-cup cakes. Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (from a box, and tub) Yeah - I'm a great homemaker that way. Ha Ha!

It was so cute watching his class sing happy birthday. A class full of 4-5 year old children  are so cute!

 The Saturday following his birthday was his big birthday party. Since it was so close to Halloween, we dressed up in costumes and decorated the house in spiders and cobwebs. The kids had a lot of fun and I was relieved when it was over since I was doing it solo.

 

We also had a spider cake with eye ball cupcakes. It's safe to say after having cake for 3 days within a week, I'm still not ready to eat a bite of cake.

Myriad Botanical Gardens

After the Taylor Swift concert on Saturday night, Erin and I walked through the downtown Myriad Botanical Gardens before we went to our car. The gardens had been closed for a long time due to renovations, but just reopened. I was so impressed with it I had to take the family back ASAP!

Here the children are waiting for the wave fountain to splash water on them.

Get ready...

Get set...

Go!

I tried taking cute pictures of each child, but they are in that awkward photo stage. 

I love Jack's goofy face.

While I was snapping away at the kids, Howard asked a passerby to take an impromptu family photo. Turned out the passerby was a photographer scoping out the place. Lucky us! Too bad not all the kids are looking, but at least Luke isn't hiding and everyone has their eyes open. I've really lowered my standards to what is acceptable photography with 4 children.

Luke rolling down the hill. If only he had made his legs straight, then he would have gone much faster.

Gorgeous view of the gardens!

This may seem random, but my Okinawa friends will appreciate it! The renovated bathrooms have this hand dryer which actually dries your hands. These are all over Japan.

It spells GROW.  This was in the Children's Garden area.

It's amazing how a random piece of metal art can be so entertaining. I have so many pictures of the kids doing crazy things on this.

My stud muffin!

I had to keep yelling at the kids because they kept putting their hands in the photo or jumping in. We were loosing daylight fast and Howard was having difficulty with the camera settings.

The Crystal Bridge changed colors throughout the evening. There were also lighted rectangles embedded into the sidewalk as well as lighting under benches and along the walk paths to light your way.  There were a lot more interesting things, but not enough time to blog about it all.

The temperature dropped fast tonight and the winds really picked up. I can't wait to go back!