Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Cars 2!!! & a Birthday Party

Cars 2, oh and a birthday party.  That was about the way it really was.  Way back in December, while my student teacher was teaching, I was working hard on my computer and just happened to find out that Cars 2 was coming out the weekend of Riley's birthday.  I knew right then what we were doing for his party.  The only problem was the first couple of places I tried were crazy expensive!  So Riley & I started looking into other options, but just nothing else was going to do.  Finally I checked into Southlake Harkins.  This theatre was in my price range.  Although I do have to say that my type A personality did NOT like sending out bday invitations without a movie time on them, but I couldn't be sure of the time until the Tuesday before the party!!  Grr!  Anyway everything went off without a hitch.  We saw the first movie of the day on Saturday in the Cinema Capri (600 person theatre) with about 550 other people who were totally excited to see Cars 2. It was really funny when getting the tickets, I had to ask if they wanted parent tickets and in most cases both parents came.  Part of that is because most were our friends, but also a big part was because both parents wanted to see the movie. 
 The kids had popcorn, a drink, and a piece of candy and were scattered throughout 6 rows.  They were so excited and really good.  Plus I had no clean up. :)  After the movie we walked over to the patio area by Brio, ate Cars cupcakes, and opened presents.  We had not originally planned to open presents, but several of the kids were dying to see Riley open his presents.  The theme of the presents, you guessed it Cars!  He got Cars Legos, remote control Cars, cars with sounds, Cars book, Cars tshirt, with a few non cars toys like a cool plane that he had been wanting too! What a haul!
 After the fun friends part, we headed back to my mom & dad's to hang out with family.  My grandfather has been dying to have a fish fry with all of us, so we cooked tons & tons of fish, ate more cake, and opened more Cars presents.  This year his main want was Legos.  So he got lots of Cars legos and Star Wars legos.  He & Daddy spent all day Sunday putting them all together!
 His big present this year was from us and my parents.  We got him an XBOX 360 and Kinnect.  Again he & Daddy have had loads of fun, well at least until the TV went out 2 days ago.  But that is a whole other story....
 Here is the Cars cake for the family.  I didn't get any pictures of the cupcakes though.  On Friday evening when I went to Kroger to pick everything up it was a site.  I have 2 kids with me and a cartfull of cake.  We had 18 cupcakes (for the friends), the sheet cake for the family, and a smaller sheet cake for my grandfather to celebrate his 75th birthday.  In fact I even passed an old friend from college while in the store, and he looked in my cart and said, "THAT is a LOT of cake!"  I know, right!
 Ahh!  2  birthday boys!
Both parties were a big success and lots of fun!  He shouldn't be asking for toys for a while...except that Tuesday on his actual birthday, he wanted to know if he got any more presents!  KIDS!!


Tuesday, June 28, 2011

My Big 6 year Old!

As I sat down tonight to start my post about Riley's birthday, I started my uploading each year's birthday pictures.  Then I started thinking about it and realized that I did that last year.  So instead as I reflect on the fact that my sweet little boy is not so little anymore and his age is now on 2 hands, 6!, I am instead going to reflect on the highlights of his life from the last year.  I'm pretty sure that all of these events will have been blogged about, but here they are all together now. Because this has been a HUGE year for Riley!

Just to prove how much he was growing up, Riley had his first freebird burrito by himself last July.  Some of you are probably thinking, hmm, what?  Let's just say in college I ate Freebird's at least once a week, so to see my son follow in my footsteps makes me proud.
Then we get to the biggest event of the year, Riley started school.  He became a Kindergartner at Bluebonnet Elementary & loved every minute of it!
Shortly after school started, we got the first pet to be added to the house since we had kids.  Daddy came home with Sadie, the kitty.  It is so cute how she still loves to take evening naps in Riley's bed.  Then we wake her up when we go to bed and she spends the rest of the night in our room.
In October, Riley was in his first parade.  He was a knight in the "Once Upon a Time" Fossil Ridge Homecoming Parade!
For Halloween, he chose his costume this year.  While he has chosen some from the past, this is the first one that was not bought at Gymboree or Old Navy.  It was just another Toys R Us costume, :(
This winter Riley added basketball to his list of sports.  It was definitely a "first" season of a new sport, but more signs of growth.
 In March, Riley conquered his fear of roller coasters.  We went to Disney World for Spring Break and Riley rode every roller coaster that he was tall enough for and absolutely loved them.  Here we are right before riding Expedition Everest.
Another huge first was the loss of his first tooth in April 2011.
 Then that same week, Riley went on his first field trip, rode his first school bus, and saw his first IMAX movie. 

In May Randy killed the first BIG snake at our house, so Riley had time to get over his own fears and tease mommy of her insane fear of snakes!
 Then the end of May was Riley's first school program, where they sang "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head".
 The end of May also marked the end of the school year and the end of that precious Kindergarten year!
The beginning of June was VBS and his first time to be a first grader!
 To wrap it up, a picture from Riley's birthday party at Southlake Harkins Theatre, where the kids saw Cars 2.
Happy Birthday to my sweet little red head.  I love watching you grow and change.  You make me so proud every day.  6 years ago God blessed me with the best job ever, Mommy!

Monday, June 27, 2011

7 years ago...I do!

It all started with this...the perfect storybook proposal...set in a beautiful Renaissance wedding chapel with tons of our Renaissance friends secretly in the back to share in the moment.
8 months later, here was the happy couple.  June 26, 2004 All my dreams of my princess wedding came true.  Even looking back now, I wouldn't change a thing about it.
Now here we are 7 years later.
A little older, few more pounds, 2 beautiful children, a house with one acre of land, still working at the same school and same construction company.  If you had asked us 7 years ago, where we thought we would be today, I'm pretty sure my answer would have been pretty close to right where we I am.  Considering I am someone that doesn't accept change too easily, that makes me happy. 
    Don't get me wrong, there are still days I want to kill my husband, who doesn't.  But then there are also days when he can be the best!  That was pretty much my answer 7 years ago to why I was marrying, Randy.  He made me madder than anyone in the world, and made me love him more than anyone in the world. 
   Take last night for example.  I arranged for my parents to keep the kids overnight.  My plan was dinner at PF Chang's (my favorite) and a movie.  His plan was Winstar.  I had never been, so I went along with his plan.  Now fast forward to 5:00.  I start getting ready and now he doesn't want to go and I waited too late in the day.  We went and spent all of dinner (Toby Keith's restaurant) still mad at each other.  Finally after a little gambling, losing on Randy's part and winning on mine, he got over it and I remembered why I loved him so much.
   I guess some things never change, he still makes me soooo mad, and still makes me love him so fiercely!   But then again, I said I don't like change....

Happy Anniversary Honey!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

VBS- Shake it Up Cafe!!

Well it has taken me a few days to finally have life slow down enough to post about what has consumed ALL of my time the last few weeks.  This year I was assistant director for VBS at our church.  I had NO IDEA just how much time that meant.  We have 2 directors and 2 asst directors for our church's VBS.  This year we had 295 kids and 140 volunteers that needed guidance.  
Let me start by explaining my schedule for the first week of summer.  We did not have a decorator coordinator this year, so all 4 of us plus our 2 fabulous children's directors (paid staff) took on the job.  We were up at church everyday from 9-12 in the morning, grabbed lunch, took a quick nap, and headed back to church every night from 6-9pm. Then all day Saturday & Sunday to complete all the decorations after the wedding, and church services.  My poor kids spent a ridiculous amount of time in the church's nursery.  Luckily they had lots of fun playing with all the other kids, but still, not exactly what every kid wants to do their first week of summer. 
Then just as we survived decorating & prep week, it was time for the real thing.  VBS with all the kids and everything we had prepared for.  Sunday night had the worst trouble sleeping, I even had the typical nightmares like I do before the first day of school.  Monday was everything I worried about and more.  Ok actually it wasn't that bad.  With the exception of the registration table that I was running, everything else went really smoothly.  The registration table was another story.  We had about 30 people that had registered online that did not show up in our system.  So I was trying to assign groups at last second, as well as apease parents who were having to fill out a really long form for a second time.  It was totally chaotic and really stressed me out. 
After each day of class, we had a director's meeting to go over everything and prepare for the next day. Somehow that always kept me at church until about 3:00.  Luckily my mom & dad were there to help out and take the kids out to lunch and just get them out of the church. 
 Our theme was Shake it Up Cafe.  So everything was food related.  Here are two adorable little chefs in front of Matt's Muffins table.  Believe it or not these were all made out of spray insulation and painted.  Barbara did an awesome job!  They looked so real, that we even had to put up signs stating they were for VBS & not real food. 
 This was the first time I had to face my baby boy being in 1st grade!!!  But it was all ok, because Nana was his shepherd.  Yes my parents had to put in some serious time decorating & working VBS, when they weren't watching my kids so that I could be in meetings.   
Some really big spaghetti!!
 My dad even shephered for one of the 4th grade groups!
My size cookies & milk!!!

 On Thursday morning, I decided to sneak down the hall and check out what our preschoolers were doing.  Here is Alex in morning assembly.  All week she had seen me pass by her classroom, and just commented there is my mommy.  But I think by Thursday morning, she was just plain tired.  Because she just started crying and wanted me to take her with me.  So I had to quickly sneak out and leave her to her teacher's to stop crying.  Sorry guys!!
Our star of the week, Scraps!
 God has a recipe for ME!
 Extra large pizza, please!  Notice Alex's lunch box- On Wednesday I was beginning to feel bad about my parents having the kids so much, so I packed a lunch for both kids to eat in the nursery after VBS.  I cannot even begin to tell you how excited Alex was about having a big girl lunch in a lunchbox like Riley takes to school.  It was so cute!  Too bad she didn't eat more of it...
 This one of our cute tables set up around the hallways.  Plus I had to have at least one picture of all 3 of us in our matching VBS shirts that I was in charge of ordering! :)
 Group 1B- Or Shepherd Nana with Little Chef, Riley
Shepherd Greg preparing for the last day!
By the end of the week, I was exhausted but happy.  We changed alot of things up this year, but all in all I think there were lots of good change.  We will have to tweak things for next year, but when do we ever not make changes, in efforts to make things better!