3rd grade "fine dining" event.

Ok, this is the only Thanksgiving picture I have! Whoops. The 3rd grade at Patterson has a this cute tradition of "Fine Dining" the day before Thanksgiving. The kids (and parents) are supposed to dress up fancy, and the cafeteria is dimly lit with candles and cute tablecloths and place settings. The kids are supposed to use their utmost manners, and we dine on turkey, mashed potatoes, salad, rolls, and sweet potato casserole. It was such fun day! I love love loved it. And Brayden was a perfect gentleman. I look forward to getting special treatment from Kosty when he's in 3rd grade..... (?)

halloween. (seriously!?)

Ohhh this seems like years ago! But had to put them in here. I realized this year that my kids never pick easy come-in-a-plastic-pouch-with-a-hanger costumes! Its always a big ordeal that involves several trips to various stores, every thrift store, and online searches that I don't have time to wait for shipping for...luckily the piñata lego head I made broke only through the bottom and even luckier...Kosty had already decided he wanted to be a Lego head for Halloween. Thankful about that, I was stressed about the thought of having to make another lego head. So, thank you party kids, for your gentle piñata blows!

Brayden decided to be Ash Ketchum, Pokemon trainer. So when I spotted the walmart in a bag version, I quickly snatched it up, in the biggest size, smiling to myself about my easy costumes this year. Too bad when he tried it on, it was so tight, so polyester, so body hugging in all the wrong places....it had to go back. Not to mention the large plastic mask with plastic hat and hair attached. Scary. But my thinking was that he would wear the outfit and we could find a hat somewhere else. Too bad. So back to the drawing board...I needed to find gloves, hat, black spray paint, and the blue top with yellow buttons and zippers. Eeesh. No easy task. I ended up buying a blue soccer shirt at the thrift store and painted the yellow details, and after searching high and low for a simple red trucker hat, decided to get a plain red hat at the dollar tree and paint the front white & add the green design. Jer is always ZERO help when it comes to costumes and is always so delightfully surprised when I pull it together. But, there are things I do, and things I don't do. Carving pumpkins is always on my don't list. Jer is the carver and that will not be changing. The kids loved the angry bird.

brayden turns 9.

We really outdid ourselves this year (grrr), promising each kid a friend party on top of their real birthday celebration, which always turns into a big family party anyway when all the grandparents live close. But...we did it for Kosty, had to make it fair with Brayden. On his real birthday, he woke up and opened a couple gifts from us and then went to school as usual. I was able to bring his class goodies and then after school we went straight to the park so he could ride his new toy, the Land Shark. Afterwards, we met up with his 3 grandmas and a grandpa and aunt and uncle at his choice, Texas Roadhouse. Watching Brayden open gifts is always a real treat, he is SO overly but genuinely gracious and thankful...heartwarming is the only word I have for it.

A few days later (and we (me + jer) were SO over the birthday thing at this point!) Brayden had his friend party. He has been talking about getting a cooler of snowballs from Bahama Bucks for so long, and that's what he wanted to do at his party. So I put Jer in charge(figured I paid my dues at the lego party)and he had them playing all sorts of fun games that I had never heard of, they threw snowballs at the park and had pizza and cake. They finished off the party with a round of "how fast can you beat the first level of original mario"..and that was quite the competition for this video game loving group. I didn't want to embarrass anybody, but I would have totally beat them all. I can play that game with my eyes closed ;)

Brayden at nine years old! What a sweet boy he continues to be. Things I want to remember about him: He still wakes up early every day to have some "Brayden" time after he eats and gets ready for school. He enjoys playing a new computer game called Minecraft. He is as responsible as ever, and sometimes Jer and I feel he is the parent, and we are the immature children. He takes the high road whenever Kosty teases him, he never hits back or seeks revenge with words or actions. I DON'T KNOW HOW HE DOES THAT! Even when I tell him to use blocking tecqniques(that will hurt kosty a little...he won't). He is so tall! And the other night I had to lift him from the couch to his bed and I got sad to think it was probably the last time. He is heavy and growing by the minute. He loves his teacher this year and loves writing in his school journal, memorizing math facts, and going to piano on Thursdays. He is so loving and loyal to his momma, and he is always worried about my feelings and looking out for me. He notices my clothes and hair and sweetly gives compliments that I swear no other boys his age would notice. He is very observant and clever. Loves reading and can't put a (good) book down until he's read it all the way through. He loves grilled cheese sandwiches and would eat them for every meal, every day if I allowed it. He is becoming so independent that I feel a little too comfortable leaving him home here and there, and the real kicker is when he asks, what should I do with dinner? He is so used to me having him pull things out of the oven when the timer beeps, turning up heat or down heat on burners, bringing water to a boil, etc etc. Jer was horrified when he overheard me telling him to go ahead and make his own macaroni one day. He didn't realize how independent he has become. He is a good friend. I love watching him around his friends, he is cute and funny and considerate. He has this new crazy thing with bedtime. He stresses out majorly if he notices it is past bedtime. He is a rule follower and is always concerned about what is healthy for his body. He recently went through a little stage where he refused to eat any sugar. And every snack consisted of fruits and vegetables. I gotta say, it drove me nuts. I even threatened to ground him one day when he wanted a chocolate cupcake but refused to eat it because it was not good for him! I'm happy that he wants to eat healthy, but I want him to enjoy life's sweet stuff too. His grandpa gave him this book called "eat this, not that" all about food choices. So, that's where it started. Luckily, its worn off a little and he is finally eating dessert with us again. :)

He is so very special! He has so much self discipline and strives to do whats right. He is very polite and makes people feel good. He brings so much JOY into our home, and he's an example to all of us. We really feel like the world's luckiest parents to have him be ours. We LOVE YOU Bray!

more from way back in October...

(... 6 weeks ago), we did our traditional pumpkin patch, Vertuccio's Farm. Besides it causing an athsma/allergy attack every year, I really like the place. As always, we failed at the corn maze about 20 minutes in, we all give up. I wonder if one of these years we will actually stick it out and find our way. The kids missed the tractor bikes which were replaced with inflatable ponies (?) they laughed pretty hard on those though. Oh, and the kettle korn is the best EVER. I'm sure we are quite the sight when the four of us get a fresh bag--there is no stopping to chew, we like to inhale the stuff. Or at least me and the kids do, Jer was a little freaked out.

halloween bunco.

 When it comes to dress up, its my favorite. But since I don't like to spend $ on a costume for myself, I always scrounge something up from my closet and if that doesn't pan out, like this year, I resorted to the kids costume box. So what if Brayden wore this Mario costume when he was 6, so what if I had no boots to cover up my not supposed to be seen ankles, so what if I had to drive (and get lost) for an hour in overalls pulled so tightly in the worst places that I could barely stand it. I won first place :) Yes I am covering the giant wedgie with my leg--you don't need to see that. And the backside was even worse, trust me.

-Brayden got a pogo stick from Nana and spent 2 straight days on the thing, even in his pj's

-Kosty got the gold piggy bank he requested for his b-day from his aunt mindy & he spent a solid 10 minutes polishing it with care

-Kosty buried in his paper airplane book (all.the.time.)

I've got tons to catch up on, but we'll start here...

Six.

"I'm Finally SIX."

So we had his friend party 4 days before his real birthday, and so it seemed he got extra spoiled because of it. He woke up to a few presents on the table and got to request his most favorite breakfast in the whole wide world. He chose two mini loaves of homeade white bread. Thats Kosty for ya, Mr. Particular.

holy legos! (and only one set was from us. He sure got his fill.)

His real birthday was during Fall Break, so we had no school & a full day of pampering the Birthday King to fill. After breakfast, he wanted to build some of his new lego sets, so we did that for about 3 hours. Then he requested to go to Grandma's and swim. Being October and all, I told him it was too cold, but he insisted. Then we went to Krispy Kreme and walked around Toys R Us. His dinner of choice was ChickFila, and lots of family came to join. He got even more legos. Then we went home and he said he didn't want a cake because he was full. I felt a little bad about not singing to him and doing the whole thing on his real birthday but I was wiped and agreed. Right as he was getting ready for bed, he mentioned something about him waking up and wishing he would have had a birthday cake/candle thing. I started to feel bad about it too, but didn't want to make a cake, so I whipped up a pizza cookie. We sang and he blew out his candles, and it felt more complete. Ok so I see that we spoil these kids on their birthdays,(and not in the gift sense) but I always think to myself, "it only comes along once a year..." 

Some things I want to remember about Kosty at this stage:

 He wakes up every morning and goes out into the family room, picks up the big white fuzzy blanket and lays under it, on the carpet right under the TV watching cartoons. He asks for scrambled eggs and toast pretty much every morning. He refuses to eat with any utensil anyone touches but him. He still hates shorts, but will wear them occasionally on the weekends, but NEVER to school. He buys hot lunch everyday because he kept coming home with a full lunchbox and claimed everything "tastes like the plastic bags." He loves to do things as a family. He gets irritable when Brayden is gone, and he would rather do nothing if it means going somewhere with just me. But he loves when the 4 of us do things together. He loves paper airplanes, and he spends hours sitting with his paper airplane book, testing out different styles. He cracks me up with his precise folding and exact instruction following. He turns everything into a paper airplane: gum wrappers, money, napkins, school work, kleenex, giant posters, you name it. The other half of his free time is (of course) spent on legos. His creations are currently taking over our entire family room. He also loves to put the sprinkler under the tramp and get wet while he jumps--this is a part of his daily routine. He is the first one at the dinner table every night and he won't touch his food until a dinner prayer has been said. He also won't go to bed without family scriptures/prayers. I'm thankful for his vigilance. He always takes his plate to the sink and says, "thank you for this dinner mommy." He is a perfectionist, I know I have mentioned...but he struggles with the process of learning things like riding his bike and reading because if he can't do it perfect the first time, he gets angry at himself and gives up. This one is a toughy. He is very good with money. The first thing he does when he gets money is put it in his underwear drawer and refuse to spend it. He is a little saver, thank heavens and he totally gets the concept of delayed gratification.(Hopefully Brayden will learn from him in this area, that kid spends every cent as soon as it hits his hot little hand). He is still not big on affection, but will come to me if he's hurt, scared, or cold for some momma love. He is athletic and flexible, loves doing flips, backbends, yoga poses, and has cute knack for breakdancing, which he rarely shows anybody but its so awesome when he does. And he loves playing catch and kicking soccer balls, but refuses to sign up for any official sports. He is darn cute. His hair is so blonde that it looks like its glowing at times. Its so soft and shiny. I love when he moves his bangs over to the side to get them out of his eyes. I always dreamed of having a little girl that did this, but I'm pretty sure its even cuter to watch him do it than I ever pictured with a girl.

He is the most determined kid I know! He is bound to get what he wants from life. We sure LOVE you Kosty!

Lego Party.

Koston started talking about a Lego party about a month or so after his 5th b-day, so I was happy to make it happen this year. (especially since this was only the 2nd 'theme' party I've had to throw since I became a mom--no complaints here). We were a little worried at first, realizing he was so intense about the party details, I even dubbed him the Birthday-zilla. He wanted to talk about his birthday night and day, he made a countdown chart and asked for a paper chain, he was dead set on games they would and would not play, who would come, how it would interfere with his 'real' birthday, how many balloons he would have and what colors, what order the games we played would be, what the piñata, food, table settings, and goody bags would be like.....sheeeeeesh. Last year, he had a huge meltdown and was rude to everyone that brought him a gift, so I was rightfully nervous. BUT, this year was very different, thank the heavens. He was SO happy, so nice to his friends, funny, and most importantly, gracious.

Ok this piñata was a process of about 4 days...I was a little sad to have it beat up. 

Go ahead and laugh at my attempt to make a Lego cake. I got a good laugh over it too. Clearly, cake decorating is not a passion or talent of mine, and I'm ok with it. As soon as the first few boys arrived, they wanted to get right down to business and play games. So we did. They started with hide the yellow lego guy, guessed the legos in the jar (it was funny because all of the kids guessed 100 or less. There were actually 467 that I got to count.. and I thought I was doing myself a favor when I grabbed a 'smaller' jar). Then they went on a Lego guy scavenger hunt, played Lego collaboration, had a Lego relay race, played "Hot Lego", broke the piñata, ate pizza, had cake and ice cream, and opened presents. It was a full house and those boys were animated! When I asked Kosty what he thought of the party he said, "it was WILD." Yep, that about summed it up.