It's MY Mom!

Sawyer's Kindergarten class has a 'Mystery Reader' (parent's or grandparents) that come in on Fridays to read to the class. The reader is kept a secret until the day of and then clues about them are read and the class has the chance to guess who it is! Friday was my turn and it was SO fun to peek in and watch Sawyer's reaction after each clue was read~His two little fists would shoot up in the air and he would quietly go, "YES!" Here were my clues:

1. I don't work in an office, I work at home.

2. My favorite drink is a Coke with four limes in it.

3. I love watching, "The Amazing Race".

4. I used to live on a ship and sailed around the world for two years.

5. I am from Brazil.

As soon as she read, "I am from Brazil", Sawyer leaps out of his chair and yells, "That's MY Mom!" he was SO excited! It was so fun to see how proud he was and important he felt as he introduced me and showed me where to sit. I chose to read, "Miss Nelson is Missing" which was one my favorite books when I was their age and the kids LOVED it. They were just bursting with questions when I was done, not about the book, but about my time on the ship. They were so curious and it was fun retelling some of my adventures. I love every opportunity I get to be in the classroom with Sawyer and with this time being a surprise, it was awesome*

Mr. Into-Everything is still.....into everything. Big brother is getting very good at dragging him away from all his naughty temptations: TV remotes, storage baskets full of Day Care diapers, trash cans, Mommy's underwear basket, and the dog's food dishes. He was keeping my company as I was putting laundry away the other day and after a few minutes I heard him squawking like a seagull. I rush into the bathroom to find him COMPLETELY wedged in between the toilet and the wall! 

Our good friends, John and Ashton and their adorable son Jackson were in town last weekend and as always, we like to soak up as much time with them as we can. The boys are just eight days apart but Jackson is walking (rather I should say running!) all over the place and Raylan doesn't even stand up on his own. They spent a good part of the evening fighting over this empty plastic bottle......grabbing it away from each other, bonking each other over the head with it-Ya' know, just being boys!

Oh Sawyer....what a goofball. He is really into telling jokes right now, which would be great except for the fact that he only knows two jokes. His favorite one, he got from his friend Liam goes like this: 

When is a car not a car?........When it turns into a parking lot! 

Then re erupts in hysterical laughter. It is funny-the first 10 times you hear it. Someone please send this kid a joke book!

Cha-Cha-Cha

Sawyer made his first musical debut last week! The Kindergarten Classes performed thirteen very bouncy, up-beat, alphabet themed songs for our enjoyment. Bill and I knew this could go either way, being as how music is Sawyer's least favorite class.....but nevertheless, he was VERY excited about it! 

I starred in many musicals, assemblies and theatrical productions growing up and totally loved it! Bill, on the other hand, wasn't as drawn to the lime light as I was.....being the center of attention and God-forbid doing any sort of movement with people watching just about sends Bill over the edge! In this area, Sawyer is a perfect mix of Bill and I. As he was performing, you could tell he liked the music and as soon as he would start really getting into it, he would remember we were watching and get super embarrassed! He would stop doing the motions and start smiling and cover his mouth with his hands....

.....and being the ever appropriate mother that I am, start laughing and cannot contain myself. It was like a runaway train. You know when you start laughing somewhere or sometime that's completely inappropriate and you just can't stop? For some reason it just keeps getting funnier and funnier and no matter how hard you try to stop, you just can't? Yea, that was totally me. 

He was soooo cute though and we LOVED every minute of it! 

We went out and afterwards to celebrate his stellar performance! Thank you Nana, Papa, Alex, Grandpa Rick & Grandma Joan and Uncle Jeff for coming to watch him! 

Timber!

Tried out a new place Friday night for dinner called 7M Grill and it was D-lish! Really fun atmosphere and the food was excellent! If you live in Omaha, you should definitely check it out! Highly recommend it! 

Bright and early Saturday morning we headed over to our friends, Brandon and Laney's house to cut down some trees in their backyard....now originally this had started out as a girls only project. Laney had planned for us to sip on our mimosas, fire up the chainsaw (that none of us had used before), get our lumberjack on and go to town on these trees! Sounds like a rock solid plan to me! Now our husbands on the other hand were very skeptical and decided to stick around to supervise.  

In true Laney fashion, she had a beautiful spread and got us all matching protective eye wear!

 If I had a dollar for every time someone yelled at Sawyer ad Nolan to get out of the yard and back onto the patio, I could have gone into retirement next week.....

Bill was soooo nervous about us sawing our legs off! We cut off a bunch of branches without a hitch but when it came time to actually do the trunk of the tree we hit a couple of bumps in the road. The chain was old and needed to be replaced but once that got taken care of, everything moved along quite quickly!

TIMBER!!!! As you can see, by the end, the boys hijacked our project. They just couldn't help themselves. But in the end, the trees were gone, the weather was gorgeous, a good time was had by all and no one died. Success. 

Later that afternoon Sawyer had his first soccer game of the season! Being half Brazilian, this kid better play soccer! I mean, the natural talent has got to be coursing through his veins, right? He played last year and loved it and this year looks to be even better! Quite a few of his little friends from Kindergarten are on his team this year too which adds an even bigger fun element! 

He did SO well! He was a little bit reserved at first, but he scored a goal a few minutes in and that was all it took to get him all jazzed up! He was hustling up and down that field, passing back and forth, stealing the ball from the other team and making fast breaks down the field! The Brazilian beast has awakened! Watch out!

Earlier that morning when we were cutting the trees down, the weather was just perfect~but the moment we sat down on the soccer field, it dropped like 30 degrees! It was FREEZING! Just cloudy, cold and windy...yuck. But loyal Nana and Papa braved the cold to cheer him on!

Did they win? Of course they did :)

Some of the parents wanted to make a human tunnel for the kids to run through at the end, and to be quite honest, I was thinking, "Oh geesh....I soooooo don't wanna do this. The kids aren't gonna even like it." Hmmmmmm boy was I wrong! They charged through that tunnel like they had just won the World Cup! 

I really hope that his love for the game will stick and that we'll spend many afternoons cheering him on! 

Later that evening Brandon and Laney had everyone back over to enjoy the fruits of our labor and have a bonfire! The kids made s'mores and we are all still trying to get the stench of smoke out of our hair!

Aaahhhhh....I just love weekends*

We've got a Beaver Problem...

Nice huh? NOT! I went into get Raylan up a few mornings ago and noticed he had made a little bite mark on his crib. Thought to myself, "Geesh, I need to figure out something to do before this gets worse." The next morning, went in and found this!!!! Now that he has six little chompers in his mouth, he just went to town on this wood! UUUUUGGGGGHHHH! 

So, in a frantic panic, I called on two of my good friends that know how to sew and we figured out a plan. I can't sew a lick....my mother in-law had given me a sewing machine for Christmas and I haven't had the courage to take it out and give it a try, but the little pile of saw dust accumulating on Raylan's floor somehow pushed me over the edge into the sewing world. My sweet friend Melody, came over right away and then off we went to the fabric store to get everything we needed. We cut and ironed and sewed and stuffed and......

TAAAAA-DAAAAAAAAAA:

We got fabric to match his current bedding set and it came out SO cute! This was my very first sewing project ever and I think it turned out pretty darn good! (If I do say so myself!) Thank you Melody, Arliss and Liz for being such patient teachers! I managed to not sew any of my limbs into the machine but for the LIFE OF ME cannot stop saying string instead of thread. It's called thread....thread...thread...THREAD!

Last night was the first night we had the teething guard on and when I came in to get him this morning, he was standing up in his crib with his head laying down in the puffy fabric! So sweet :)

I know this is TOTALLY picture overload, but he's so darn cute that I just can't help myself.

Hopefully it will be a while before he learns how to untie the knots! 

When that happens, we'll have to resort to a muzzle....totally kidding!

Now that I have tackled my first sewing project, I feel like I can sew anything! (Complete disillusionment, I know!) Custom curtains? Gonna nail it. Pinterest projects? Totally. Table cloth for my weird shaped kitchen table? No problem. A four piece suit for Bill to wear to work? Challenge accepted!

Sad wittle beaver......

Pasta, Guns and Fighting

Friday evening we jam packed ourselves into Caraba's Italian Restaurant along with most all of Omaha to celebrate our friend Erin's birthday! She hates parties for herself so every year we have to surprise her so she'll actually show up to her own party :)  

Saturday morning I headed out to a craft fair with some girls from our Journey Group (aka Bible Study Group) and then we all left the sights and sounds of the city and headed for the country life! Our friends, Kevin and Vanessa live on this wonderful farm in Iowa and invited us all out to spend the day. 

The boys were SO excited about having land that they could shoot their guns on! Between all of them, they pretty much had a full artillery. They shot their way though hundreds of dollars worth of ammo and loved every minute of it!  

What a stud! If only we lived in the good ole' days when men wore guns all the time...... whoa almost started treading into some political waters there for a minute!

Speaking of studs-even though he is shy around the ladies now, I'm sure he's gonna be beating them off with a stick in a few years!

OK, so I have to share this. As soon as we found out that Raylan was a boy, the first thing that popped into my head was: Oh man, they are gonna fiiiiiiight! But because of the five year age gap, there hasn't been any resentment, jealousy or hard feelings between them (Knock on wood!) And fighting? Forget it! But this little interaction that I was somehow able to get on camera, was the first little taste of brotherly squabbling!

 Sawyer was playing on his Ipod and Raylan just thought, "Hey, that looks like fun. Lemme have it!" He would reach for it. Sawyer pulled away. Reach for it again, this time a little more aggressively with a little squawk added in. "Raaaaaaaylan, stop it!". Raylan just laughs, pulls Sawyer's ear and squawks louder just so that Sawyer realizes he's serious. He pulls on his sweatshirt and squawks some more. Sawyer is such a good sport about it and just keeps inching away....but then pulls out his trump card: getting up and walking away....something Raylan hasn't mastered yet.

And as you can tell, he wasn't happy about it.  

So it wasn't a huge fight at all but it was the first somewhat brotherly annoyance that we had seen between the two of them. There will be tons more to come but it was fun that Bill and I had front row seat to their first.

Raylan said, "Screw that. What's in this basket?"

The guys talking about manly things.....while sipping on sparkling punch!

The group (Minus Three-We missed your Jared, Bethany and Amelia ) that we have grown to trust, like and love! 

Thanks for a GREAT day guys!

Easter 2013

I know Easter was like weeks ago, but life goes on and it's hard catching up! I hope your Easter was as pleasant as ours was! Church was excellent as always~the worship was especially great. Afterwards, we headed over to Nana Kathy and Papa Steve's house for Easter lunch. In the past we have stuck to the traditional ham, but decided to mix things up a bit this year and do steaks on the grill instead! And what a good choice that was!

Sawyer could not have eaten his lunch fast enough-he was just aching to get outside and hunt some eggs! As Bill and Sawyer tore off into the yard, Raylan had a little more stealthy approach: stay close to the house and look low. Don't know how well that worked considering this orange one was pretty much the only one he got......

But now shaking his basket and letting the little green Easter grass fly all over the place? That took the cake! 

Sorting the loot...

It's always fun that Nana Kathy puts gift cards in the eggs too for those of us who are trying to steer clear of sugary overloads.....

Gotcha Ya'!

We got out the box of Resurrection eggs and worked our way through the Easter story. I know I've said it before and this probably won't be the last, but it's amazing to hear the progress in Sawyer's reading! Resurrection? Crussifiction? Those are hard words!!

Meanwhile Raylan is being naughty while Sawyer is reading the Easter story....

It was a wonderful day to spend with family, celebrating one of the most life changing events for those of us who call Jesus our Lord. Jesus' death on the cross as a payment for our sins and his ressurection from the dead three days later is what makes life have purpose and meaning. 

He is RISEN! 

He is RISEN INDEED!