Ryan Turns 4

Yesterday my baby boy turned 4. It makes me happy and sad at the same time. I will never have a 3-year-old again, but I'm so proud of the kid he's growing up to be. Ryan is so sweet, thoughtful and has a compassionate and loving heart. Every night he prays for his family, and thanks God for his "pretty Mom," as well as his brother and dad. When he sees me each evening, the first thing he asks me is if I had a good day at work, then he offers to help me carry in whatever I'm holding. He also loves to sit on the counter and help me make dinner, and set the table. Man, I just love this kid, and I can't believe he's already 4 years old.

I think he had a pretty good birthday yesterday. We started the day with a birthday breakfast -- donuts, then went to the dentist (ok, not so fun, but had to be done) for his 6 month cleaning. Then I dropped them off at daycare (Miss Bessie's) and I made them some cupcakes for their snack. At home that evening, he opened his present -- a complete painting set because he loves to paint. He got a wooden easel, paint set, brushes, canvases and carrying case for everything. He loved it and immediately started creating his first masterpiece. Then off to swim lessons, followed by dinner at Sammy's with Nanie and Bada. What a fun day! His birthday party is this weekend, and he's counting down the days.

Happy birthday baby Ry-Ry! I love you so much!

Pizza & Movie Night

Friday we had Pizza and Movie Night at home, but instead of ordering a greasy pizza from one of the local shops (that don't deliver), we made our own personal pizzas. It was so much fun. Everyone, even Bud, enjoyed making their own pizzas, exactly the way they like it.

We had cheese, pepperoni and jalapenos to choose from which was perfect, but next time, I want to have some olives and mushrooms too. Yummy! After we made our pizzas, we enjoyed eating them on trays in the living room while watching Rocky II (remember JD's boxing obsession?). We always eat dinner at the table, so eating in the living room is a real treat for all of us.

And we've really gotten into the Rocky movies. JD wears his boxing gloves during the entire movie, but then acts out the fight scenes along with Rocky. It's really cute.

Boxer Obsession

All of a sudden, JD has become obsessed with boxing. At his request about 2 weeks ago, I downloaded a boxing game app onto my iPhone. Since then, he has just fallen completely in love with boxing. I'm hoping it doesn't last long - that it's just another phase. He's gone through these stages of infatuation with other things like dinosaurs, monster trucks, his go-cart, etc. So I hope the boxing phase is short-lived and doesn't go anywhere. Right now, he loves it and says that he wants to be a boxer when he grows up. NOOOOOO!

So for Father's Day, we bought Bud the Rocky I and Rocky II movies. We watched the first one yesterday and I hope we get to watch the second one this weekend. JD wasn't all that interested in the movie itself, until the fight scene at the end. Then he was 100% attentive.

A couple of days ago, JD and Ryan walked into the kitchen while I was getting everything ready to leave in the morning. They had drawn tattoos on their arms. JD called them "Boxer Tattoos" because they looked like the tattoos he's seen on some of the boxers.

Snake Killer

The boys are so excited about our new kitten. Bud doesn't like cats and although I love them, I don't like having outside cats. They just don't survive very long when they live outside, and I like them too much to think about something bad happening to them. However, the snakes have been so bad this year that we finally decided to get a cat to keep the snakes away.
A guy at Beau's fire station has a cat he uses for the same reason and since getting her, he hasn't seen a snake in 4 years. So when his cat had kittens, he took them to the fire station to get rid of them. Beau took one and brought home this adorable kitten for us!!! A kitten!!! I'm such a sucker for kittens.

JD wanted to name her Super Snake Killer, but that's quite a long name for a kitten. So we named her Wrangler (after a bull rider we saw while watching bull riding on TV the night we got her). It's such a cute name for such a cute kitty. The boys absolutely love her, and despite being held on her back with one hand around her neck by Ryan, she loves the boys too.

I know his eyes are closed, but here's a picture of Ryan holding Wrangler. It's not a good picture, but it gives you an idea of how he holds the kitty. She just lays there and lets him do it. It's like she just gets him - understands that he doesn't mean any harm, he's just rough by nature.

What a sweet little kitty. After spending her first 2 nights in the garage, tonight is her first night outside on the back porch. God, please watch over Wrangler as she lives outside. Please keep her safe, and help her to understsand and perform her duties to keep us safe from snakes.

Thank you Lord. Amen

I'm Ready to Go!

That old Mervyn's commercial keeps going through my head -- the one where the shoppers are standing outside the store, with their hands help up to the store windows while peering through at merchandise-filled racks, opening and closing their fists, chanting "Open! Open! Open!"

I'm just ready for Rockin' R to "open! open! open!" so I can start my 48 hours of pure scrapbooking bliss!

Kelli, Erica and I are leaving tomorrow morning, and we cannot wait!!! We even got new matching t-shirts to wear!

JD Prays

JD loves going to church and loves Sunday School. He likes to go to Awana and learn his Bible verses. We talk about God and why His Word is important for us to know and keep in our hearts. The only thing is that he doesn't like to pray before we eat or before bed. He always says he doesn't know what to pray about. We talk about that alot and what things he can pray for, but he just doesn't want to do it. I just figure he'll come around - we just need to keep praying with him, not to be too pushy, and he'll learn.

So while that upsets me a little bit, he reassures me by doing things like this:
He showed Brooks where he can find John 3:16 in his little pocket Bible. Nothing slows Brooks down, so he must have been very interested to sit there and listen to JD --- long enough for me to even grab my camera and take a couple pictures.

And this....
The last couple of months, JD has been interested in writing short stories during church. (A kid after my own heart!!!) All of his stories have been about his interests --- baseball, insects, hunting, etc. Then he wrote this one on 5/20/12 without being prompted at all. It's my very favorite so far.

(To enlarge, just click on the photo.)

He's just learning to spell, so everything is spelled phonetically. In case you need a translation, here's what it says:

"God is Wonderful - And His People"

"God is better than everybody. When you pray to God, things go better and he is powerful, and mighty and strong. You should pray all day. When things go bad, you can pray day or night. And you can write books about Him, and when you do that kind of stuff, God will love it."

"Double Duty by JD Blair"

(Double Duty means that he is the author and illustrator. Something he learned in Kinder.)

He's told me a couple of times that he's prayed about stuff while at school. And when Ryan was sick with a stomach bug a few months ago, Ryan was laying on the couch when he started to feel bad and thought he was going to throw up again. JD dropped onto his knees and prayed out loud that God would make Ryan feel better and help him to stop throwing up. Ryan didn't throw up that time, or any more after that. He started to feel better shortly after. JD was so happy that God heard his prayers and his brother felt better.

Ok, so now, after writing this blog entry, I guess I need to not be concerned. Even though it bothers me that he doesn't like to pray with us, after reading his story and hearing about his own unprompted prayers, I know he understands how important praying is, he thinks about it and does it when he feels it's the right time. That's probably even better than the times that prayer is expected.

She's "Ready to Pop" Baby Shower

After weeks of planning, today was the day - Stacie and I threw a "Ready to Pop" baby shower for Rosanne Lopez. We got a lot of the ideas from Pinterest. We weren't sure how everything would come together, but we were so happy with the results.

Since we were using a "POP" theme, everything we did had some pop to it. We had a Popcorn Bar with 4 different popcorn flavors, poppy chow (chocolate and peanut butter Chex), cake balls and marshmellow pops (deliciously homemade by Trina Keller) and a really cute popcorn cake from Lucy's.

On the other table, we had all kinda of "Things that Pop!" There was popcorn chicken and shrimp, jalapeno poppers, and a bunch candy - Tootsie Pops, Ring Pops, Blow Pops and Pop Rocks. There was also soda pop and "Poppin' Punch" which was a delicious and light summer punch made with limeade, pineapple juice and Sierra Mist - served in champagne glasses. Soooooo yummy!

There were also little handmade bags on this table labeled "Thanks for Popping In" - the guests could fill these bags with candy and take them on the road.

We decorated the tables with really simple tissue paper pom-poms that Stacie made, set atop glass candlestick holders from The Dollar Store. And we added little cups covered with scrapbook paper and filled with potting soil and flowers. A great take-away for our guests.

  

Here's the sign-in table, complete with a lolliPOP topiary tree. We're guessing it had about 180-185 dum-dums stuck in the topiary. It ended up being A LOT more work than we thought it would be.



I really love this framed Bible verse and sonogram picture. And the color of the flowers were really beautiful. I really really liked how the sign-in table turned out.

Here are the three of us - me, Rosanne and Stacie - after the shower. We had such a nice time and now, there's only one thing to do . . . . wait for that baby to get here. We can't wait to meet little Baby Lopez. (I'm predicting that it'll be a boy!)

A New Tradition

I feel like we don't have a lot of family traditions that we've started ourselves, and I always have great intentions to do so. However, I fail to follow through. My busy life gets in the way of that sometimes. But I'm finally starting one....

Once again, this idea was inspired by Pinterest. Even though the idea wasn't created by me, I'm still claiming it as my own tradition!

On the last day of school each year, I'm going to have the boys hold up a sign that says what they want to be when the grow up. This year, at the end of Kindergarten, JDsaid he wants to be a baseball player, and he proudly displayed the sign. So....I could have the next Mark McGwire on my hands!

However, this morning, as I was dropping him off at the sitter's, he told me that he wants to be a boxer instead. Seriously? I thought I was raising a lover, not a fighter! I need to let him watch Rocky so he can see how bad boxers get beat up, and then how they talk as a result of the brain bouncing around in their heads. Maybe that will deter him??? Maybe. Until Dad gets ahold of him and tells him something different.

Please God, I'm praying for a Mark McGwire, not a Mike Tyson!

From Kinder to 1st Grade

Gosh I can't believe it's been almost 2 months since my last blog post. Well, yes I can sort of. It's been a very busy couple of months with baseball, Awana, school, parties, work, trips, etc etc. Now that things have kinda slowed down, I hope to get back to this on a regular basis. There are so many things I need to blog about to make sure I capture those memories forever.

So I'll get started today with capturing a huge milestone in JD Blair's young life. He graduated from Kindergarten at Potranco Elementary on Wednesday, May 30th. And I must say, he was the most handsome and smartest one in the group. :-)

He passed all of his subjects and all of the topics that Kinder kids are supposed to learn about throughout the year. His favorite subject is Reading/Writing (I need to post some of the short stories he's written lately), his 2nd favorite is History, his 3rd favorite is Science and least favorite is Math. While he doesn't like Math, he's still pretty good at it, but just gets his plus and minus confused. But I think Reading and Writing are his favorite because now that he can read - and he reads soooo well - a whole new world has been opened up to him. He reads signs everywhere we go, he can read cards that have been given to him, he can read books to his brother. He even notices background signs on TV and reads those. I have no idea what he's talking about most of the time because I don't even notice the signs off in the background of whatever is on TV, so I have to slow down and look more closely. It's really awesome! I couldn't be more proud of him.

JD - shaking Principal Mr. Balderas' hand and accepting his diploma.

Proud Graduate!

JD got 2nd place in his class for Advanced Reading (AR). Derek got 1st place.

Here they are, proudly displaying their trophies.

The necklaces they are wearing are adorned with "Caught Being Good" charms. Throughout the year, each time they're caught doing something good, they are sent to the office to put their name into a bucket (for an end-of-the-year drawing) and they get a charm to put on their necklace. JD is very proud of his necklace and 9 charms.

JD and his proud parents!!! I can't believe we have a 1st Grader now.