Monday Morning Encouragement: Psalm 51:10

{Monday Morning Encouragement}

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:10

Ben's 6th Birthday Party

Ben's 6th Minecraft Birthday Party

Ben and Will love playing Minecraft so when it was time for Ben to choose the theme of his birthday party he picked that over Ninjago, Ninja Turtles, Superheroes, Despicable Me Minions, Planes, and surprisingly even Lego.  Thank goodness for Pinterest!  I found all of the ideas for his party there. 

Here's Ben with the table of Minecraft food.

This is my go-to for parties with little ones.  I get out the picnic blankets and the kids have a place to eat and it doesn't matter if something gets spilled.

The adults were mostly in the other area of our yard in the shade.

The food was all under the blue canopy in the middle of the yard.

Such a sweet group of kids!  They made Ben's party fun!

I love the serious look discussing this Minecraft Lego set.  Ben had been wanting one and he got some great sets and was so happy!

Ben would not put his new Ninjago book down.  Ashley did a good job picking this one out for him.  Notice it in all of the following photos.  

Will wanted in the photos, too.  Ben is still holding his book!

Can't believe Ben is 6! 

My friend Brandi always makes the most amazing cakes for the boys.  She's made almost all of their birthday cakes and they have all been incredible.  They also taste delicious.  We bought the Minecraft characters in the toy section at Target and she decorated it based on that. Ben was adamant that the Minecraft Steve we bought was the one with diamond armor, therefore we have a Diamond Armor Steve on top of the cake.  Let me confess that the last sentence I just typed does not make sense to me at all, but it wasn't my party so I didn't have to understand it.  Also, all of the blocks on top represent something but I didn't pay enough attention to know the difference.  I may not have known what they all were but I think every single kid at the party did.  

Getting ready to sing the birthday song to Ben.  Mia is too cute.  She looks ready to sing.

Make a wish big guy! 

I think he was surprised he blew out all of the candles in one breath. 

The next two photos go together.  I had stepped inside and my friend Jourdan was helping me out by taking photos.  She told me she got some photos of Ben eating the candle wax, and I wasn't sure what she meant until I loaded the photos on the computer and then I knew what she was talking about when I saw his face.  LOL!

I think in this photo everyone knows what he's about to do and they know it's probably not going to be good to eat the wax.

This photo cracks me up!  I love how everyone else is laughing and Ben has that look of surprise and disgust on his face.  I guess candle wax doesn't taste so good after all.  Ha!!!

Ben requested ice cream cones for this party.  I had to buy the ice cream at Braum's since Blue Bell isn't ready to purchase yet.  When we were at Braum's and he saw the ice cream cones he asked for a box and I couldn't tell the birthday boy no.  You can see him with his ice cream cone here and he still has his Ninjago book, too.   

Thanks to Printabelle for the free Minecraft party decorations!

InstaMay 2015

It's June and these are photos from May, but I had to share them even though they are from last month.  

I have so many things to blog about for June already.
Here's the list:
1. Ben's kindergarten graduation
2. Will's 2nd grade awards and end of school
3. Ben's Minecraft birthday party for his 6th birthday
4. First week of summer vacation
5. Farmhouse updates

It rained and rained in May.  It was actually record setting rain.  The abundant amount of rain made the flowers beautiful.  These photos were taken at the land.  The wildflowers are very pretty.  I don't know the names of all of them, but here are some. 

As we spend more time at the land, I notice things I've never seen before.  The red oak trees have tiny snails on them.  There were about the size of my thumbnail and some are even smaller. 

We only had a few days in May dry enough to check out the foundation for the new house.  The boys are "inspecting" it here.  They were picking up big pieces of dirt and Ben was calling it "icing".

Unfortunately all of this rain has made our baseball and tee-ball seasons shorter than normal.  Even though we didn't get to play all of our games, the boys have still had a good time.  It's fun to watch them play.  Mamaw and Papaw never miss a game and are such loyal fans.

Two of my favorite flowers in my front yard are coreopsis and lamb's ear.  This was earlier in the month because my coreopsis are struggling right now because of too much rain. 

Ben playing in the backyard.

Field trips at the end of the year are fun.  This was at The Frisco RoughRiders baseball game with my teacher BFF Kacie.

Mark and I had just gotten the autograph of Joey Gallo.  He's moved up to the Rangers now.

Josh Hamilton is back!  He's back to the Rangers now.

Our good friend Ashley watched the boys and Mark and I had a date to watch Pitch Perfect 2.  It was hilarious!  The first 5 minutes had me in tears.  Seriously funny!

Open House for our school is usually in March but due to bad weather it was rescheduled for May.  Will's teacher has such a cute classroom.  He's loved being a "Super Second Grader"!

Ben's gone on lots of adventures in kindergarten.  He's had a terrific year and learned so much.  Look how big he looks here and so proud!  I can't thank their teachers enough for taking such good care of our boys.  We are blessed to have wonderful, caring and kind teachers who are such gifted educators.

I'm the student government sponsor and we had an end of year dance at the junior high.  The boys attended but stayed in my classroom most of the dance.  I love the look on their faces watching the kids dance, especially Will.  

We can't wait for the Minions movie to come out this summer.

Will is a night owl and stays up late to watch the Rangers.  He and Mark love it!

No particular reason to share other than I love the look and smell of a freshly cleaned bathroom.

Just one more example of the record setting rain.  This was taken at the end of my driveway.  Mark and I have lived in our house almost 13 years and I've never seen the end of our driveway covered in this much water.  

I ate lunch with Ben on the Friday before his birthday.  I had a meeting for academic UIL on his actual birthday and wouldn't be in town so we celebrated early.  He requested Dairy Queen chicken strips and fries.  His teacher and I joked about the early lunch time at 10:45am.  She called it "kindergarten brunch" which was pretty funny and true. 

6 Years Old!

Today is Ben's 6th birthday!

It's been a big year for Ben in many ways.  

He's almost completed his first year of school.  Ben was young for his class since he has a summer birthday.  We worried that it might be an issue starting kindergarten, but after a lot of thought and discussion we knew it was best for him to start when he did.  Mark and I couldn't be more pleased with how the school year has gone.  Ben has exceeded our expectations, and we're so proud.  He has a phenomenal memory.  Ben's started to read and he likes to work on math problems.  He also likes to draw.  He's really interested in space and prehistoric animals--saber tooth tigers and woolly mammoths.  

Ben also played sports for the very first time this year (school year).  He played soccer last fall, and this spring he's playing tee-ball.

Ben is full of energy and spunk.  The evidence is that his jeans all have holes in the knees and grass stains.  He loves to make silly faces.  He thinks it's hilarious to annoy Will (he's the perfect little brother).  He likes to make jokes and make people laugh.  He doesn't like to disappoint.  He loves for me to read him books.  He has the biggest sweet tooth--he would live on sugar and candy if we let him.  He could play for hours with Legos and makes the most creative contraptions out of all of the sets we have. 

It's been such a busy day with school, tee-ball and baseball games that I had to wait until the evening to interview Ben to find out what his current favorite things are.

Ben's favorite things:

Favorite food: Pizza

Ben's favorite drink is root beer. 

Favorite fruit: apples

Favorite veggie: green beans

Favorite sport to play: Baseball

Ben's favorite sports team is the Texas Rangers. 

Favorite toys: Legos, swords, light saber

The best show on television according to Ben is Legends of Chima, Ninjago, and Odd Squad on PBS kids.

Ben's favorite thing to learn about in school is math.

Ben's favorite thing about school is play in centers because there's Legos.

If Ben could go anywhere in the world, he'd go to Arctic to see polar bears or the ocean because he wants to see sharks.

Ben's favorite color is green. 

When Ben grows up he wants to be a firefighter.

His current favorite song is "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars.  

His favorite book right now is  National Geographic Angry Birds Playground Animals. 

Favorite holiday: Christmas

Favorite animal: Saber tooth tigers and dinosaurs
Ben says, "Extinct animals are actually fun."

Ben's birthday meal, if he could choose would be Grimaldi's.

Ben really likes Minecraft, Ninjago, Ninja Turtles, Chima, iPad,  Wii, Nintendo DS, playing outside, riding bikes, going to church, and spending time with family.

We celebrated Ben's birthday early by eating lunch with him at school on Friday.  He also picked Grimaldi's pizza on Sunday after church.  He said, "Maybe we could go somewhere I like to eat like Grimaldi's where they have pizza that I like."  We will have his birthday this weekend and Ben chose a Minecraft theme.

Dear Ben,

God knew we needed you to complete our family.  You are the best little brother Will could ever ask for.  You are a sweet and kindhearted son.  You are precious to us and we love you so much!

Love,

Mom