My Artist

Ben has always loved drawing.  He loved art in elementary school.  He always chose art as an elective in middle school.  He was pretty excited last year when he went to enroll for his 9th grade classes and found out that he was recommended for AP Honors Art. 

Ben worked hard in art all year long, but it was slightly disappointing that all of his work was kept at school all year long.  We finally got to get a glimpse of some of Ben's work at an art show downtown.

 Not surprising that Ben's artwork included Coke and trombones!  His two loves!

 

 I love this piece of work!  The mosaic is really cool!  Ben was slightly irritated because this was hung upside down.  I flipped it the right way here.

Ben's tomatoes are bright and cheery.  This just might get framed and hung in the kitchen. (:

I am so proud of Ben and his artwork and am looking forward to what he accomplishes in AP Art next year!

Birthday/Mother's Day

It's a double whammy for Jon and the kids.  My birthday and Mother's Day tend to fall within a few days of each other.  Every few years they fall on the same day.  That was the case this year.   If you know me, you know that I love my birthday and I like for my family to make a big deal about it.  (Yes, I set myself up for disappointment every year.)  

Unfortunately, Jon doesn't have much free time on his hands these days and he's not much into planning ahead.  Fortunately, that worked out in my favor this year.  Jon asked me to make myself scarce for the majority of the day the day before my birthday so that he and the kids could get some things done without me around.  Oh darn!  Go spend time out of the house with a girlfriend?  OK!

 

I got to spend the day in Tulsa with my amazing friend, Heather.  We had the best day!  We went shoe shopping, laughed a lot, went to lunch at Qdoba (where we scored free birthday lunch!), did some clothes shopping (where I made her pick out things for me to try on!) did lots more laughing and topped it all of with 1/2 priced frappuccinos at Starbucks.  What could be better?!?!  We had so much fun together!!  I love my Heather!  Thank you, Heather, for spending your day with me!  It made my birthday very special!

My family made me feel very special on Sunday, my birthday and Mother's Day.  My day started out with being banished to my bedroom so that my breakfast could be made.

 Ben made me an amazing omelette!  YUM!

I was finally able to come out!  (It was driving Luke crazy that I couldn't come out and see what was waiting for me!  He was probably about to burst from having to keep secrets!)

 And this is what I found.  A special breakfast with balloons and lots of presents!  (:  They went all out!

 The gifts I received were extremely thoughtful!  The plants and flowers were my Mother's Day gifts.  The framed picture is my birthday gift from Abby.  The picture was taken on Easter and we both love it so much!  I love that she had it printed and framed for me!  The pepper mill is from Ben and Luke.  I have wanted a pepper mill for a long time, so I was very excited to finally get one.  And it is a very nice one!  Jon got me an Otter Box for my iPod that he got me for Christmas.  WOW!  I felt so special!!  The gifts from my family were so perfect!!

Jon planned for us to spend the day in Tulsa.  We would go to lunch at Ted's, our favorite Mexican restaurant, and then go to a Tulsa Drillers baseball game.  I loved the idea, but felt like it was just wrong for us to spend the day in Tulsa and just be sitting at a game when Jon and Abby had a ton of homework to do at home.  

I have no idea why this picture looks like this!  I still think it's adorable!

We still went to Tulsa and had lunch at Ted's, but we skipped the game. 

Instead, we browsed around Target...

 

...took advantage of half-priced frappuccinos at Starbucks...

...and went to the Tulsa Rose Gardens.

 The last time we visited the rose gardens, it was late summer and the roses were all dead and dried up.  I was hoping that going earlier in the season would yield beautiful, live roses.  We definitely weren't disappointed this time!

 Can you spot the frogs on this picture?

 Be still, my heart!  How adorable are they?!  My heart is melting!

 Of course, they can't be serious all the time!

I love this man!!  I am proud of this man!  He has been working so hard for the past year, not only doing the best job he can do at work, but also going to school.  It is hard!  He hates it!  But he is doing it and I am so proud of him!

The day was beautiful and we could have spent all day outside, but there was homework to be done, so we had to head home.

Of course, the day wouldn't be complete without birthday cake!  Abby made this one all by herself!  I am so proud!

My birthday and Mother's Day were fantastic!!  I loved every minute of it!  I am so blessed to have an amazing husband and kiddos that took the time to do all of this for me!

THANK YOU, JON, BEN, ABBY & LUKE!!  YOU GUYS MADE MY DAY THE BEST IT COULD BE!  I LOVE YOU!!!

HaPpY 5Th BiRtHdAy, LuCaS!!!

Mister Lukey could not wait for his birthday!  I mean could. not. wait.  The big day just couldn't come fast enough.  It was fun to listen to him be so excited.  On the other hand, it got slightly old answering the constant stream of questions of, "Is it my birthday yet?", "Is my birthday tomorrow?", "How many more days until my birthday?".

Fortunately, Luke was able to take birthday treats to school the day before his birthday.  That made him happy.  It made him feel like it was his birthday, even though it wasn't.  (:  Who doesn't love a prolonged birthday???

 

Aren't these birthday treats adorable?  They would make me happy!   (I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I made these fun birthday treats and I was pretty proud of them.)

Getting Grammy's present in the mail the day before his birthday made Luke's day!  Not only did he get to have birthday treats at school, but he also got to open a present!  Score!

Thank you, Grammy!

The big birthday day was finally almost here!  The excitement and anticipation that Luke had was super fun to watch!

 MY 5 YEAR OLD BIRTHDAY BOY!!

There was way too much on the calendar for May 9th!  Not so much during the day, but the evening was insane.  Because of this, I had to find some fun ways to distract Luke from opening presents and make sure he had a super fun day.  

First stop:  lunch!  I told Luke we could go to lunch anywhere he wanted. He, of course, chose...

McDonalds.  Silly boy!

YAY!!  Another package came to distract Luke from having to wait for Daddy, Ben and Abby to be home to open presents!

 

Thank you, Aunt Kris, Uncle Scott, Lexy, Kortney, Reilly and Erin!!

As you saw here, Pathfinder is one of our new favorite things.  It was a gorgeous day outside, so I asked Luke if he would like to go for a walk on the Pathfinder.  He had no idea what I was talking about.  I asked him if he would like to go to "the forest" and he jumped up and down for joy and shouted "YES"!  

 Not only is Pathfinder a great place to go for a walk, it has some great places for photo ops!

One of Luke's favorite things on our walk was this cactus.  It was pretty cool.  He didn't want to get too close and was proud that he didn't get poked by the "pokey things".  (:

Another one of Luke's favorite things about Pathfinder is this tunnel.  We didn't walk the direction of the tunnel, but we had to go just far enough for him to walk to the other side.  I also gave in and let him climb up to the top.  Ugh...It was his birthday, after all.  And I get so tired of saying no.  Again, one happy boy!

After Pathfinder, I'm pretty certain that time seemed to pass extremely slow for Luke.  Remember I said that we had a crazy busy agenda for the night?  Well, I told Luke that he couldn't open presents or eat cake until Daddy, Ben and Abby were all home.  What he didn't quite realize is that Daddy was meeting us downtown for an art show that Ben was a part of.  Then we were off to Abby's band concert.  (More on those events later.)  After that we would finally be able to go to Frank & Lola's (his birthday dinner of choice) for dinner.  It was late.  We were all starving.  But it was great!

Our sweet waiter decorated Luke's cup of milk.  (:

FINALLY...

Time to open presents!!!

 And eat cake!!!

What a great day Luke's birthday turned out to be!  It was busy, but so much fun!  I am thankful that Luke and I had the first half of the day to hang out and have fun together.  I just can't believe that my little guy is 5 years old!  I just can't figure out how this happened so fast!

I love you so much, Lucas James!  I love that you love Jesus!  I love that you are growing up to be a sweet, loving, happy, outdoor loving, silly, fun boy.  I hope you had a super fabuloso 5th birthday!  

We Love Pathfinder! (AKA, The Forest)

 No words necessary...

 

I LOVE THESE KIDDOS!!!

AWANA Awards Night

This was Luke's first year in AWANA.  He was in Cubbies.  He LOVED it!  This little guy was a bible verse memorizing machine!  He learned so much this year!  It was so fun to work through his lessons with him and talk about what we learned.  He wasn't the only one that learned some new things. (:  It was just a really neat time. 

At Awards Night, Luke said the Cubbies key verse.  "God loved us and sent his son. I John 4:10"

Luke worked SO hard.  He finished one book and made it just over half way through his second book!  WOW!  I am so proud of him!  

Luke loves Miss Emily!

Luke is disappointed that the AWANA year is over.  However, he is already looking forward to next year when he will be a Spark!