Dear Mr. 5 Year old

Happy birthday! This letter is a couple of weeks past your birthday but I have not had a good quiet moment to sit down and write this. In fact it is not quiet right now, but I decided I just need to do it. Especially since you are being an extremely ornery boy today....I need to be reminded of the fun, irresistible you.So your five year old self is pretty awesome. You are still really good at basketball. The other day in the car you asked me, "why do only boys really like to fight?" I believe you meant play fight because you sure love to play fight. You love being any super hero.You love to play computer games and watch movies and would do those two things ALL DAY LONG if I let you. In fact that is where most of our arguments come in...when you have to get off or be told no when you want to do one of those things. You can do really well on the computer and have figured most things out on your own. You have a new bed that is up high with a ladder and you like it. You like it. You love going up and down the ladder. You love it so much you do it all night:) Okay, okay you don't do it all night. Just for the first hour or so after you go to bed. You love to be silly and be tickled. You love to watch funny videos with your dad on the computer. You like to help me cook. You like to pour your own drinks. You don't like to wipe your own bum (which I decided a five your old can do).

Your name suits you because you are very strong willed. You will stay in time out for an hour before you will choose to calm down or be nice, if you don't want to. When you don't want to do something, you won't. I am trying to teach you that having a good attitude can make all the difference. Hopefully you will learn that soon. I feel bad because I know that you should probably be in school of some sort. You love to play with Gracie, but sometimes she is happy to play with her little figurines all by herself and you get frustrated. You need to be able to PLAY with kids your age and I wish you were in something. I did not put you in anything because I thought we would be moved by now. Oh well, hopefully you will be in something soon.

Five year old favorites:

Color - "orange is my still favorite color."

Animal - Cow, tiger, and jaguar

Song - "My special song" (I will by the Beatles)

Movie - Little Einsteins (this changes weekly)

Food - Macaroni and cheese

Toy - Star Wars action figures

Sounds good to me

I am planning on getting our family pictures taken this month, it is that time of year again:) I love family pictures...a lot. I am not sure why. Probably because I love my family so much and I like to look at pictures. So there you go, pictures of things I love. Anyway the girl I have asked to do our pictures just posted this on her blog:And not just school age kids! I am so glad my kids will be going to school when I will have options like this. I hate school pictures.

Click on this to go to her blog

Anyway, it sounds like a good idea to me.

Picnic Party in the Park

For Williams party this year I decided not to go overboard as I have done in the past. A simple picnic in the park. Because kids really just want to play. The only thing I did was make a cake (my friend Samantha made the cupcakes for me:) the picnic lunches and the insulated, monogrammed lunch bags for all the kids.
Different ones for boys and girls. All the fabric was purchased at a second hand store for a dollar a pound which means it was realllllly cheap.They did take time, but I could do it all pre-party and then I was not stressed at the party. It would have also been less time if Will didn't have so many cousins and friends, but we love all his cousins and friends so it was worth it.
Enjoying the picnic
They played for a long time.

Gracie decided that should could go down the slides and that she liked it.

William pushing his buddy CharlieThen we had cake, cup cakes, and ice cream

William requested a cake with sprinklers and sugar on it. No problem.ReadyBlow!He did it!

Here my kids show you what they think the most important part of a cupcake is. In fact I don't think either of them actually ate the cupcake.

Now time for presents. When we asked him what he wanted for his birthday he said...."presents!" He did eventually tell us he wanted a lot of star wars action figures. Here he is after he opened a set my mom got him. It had everything he wanted, except it had an old OB WAN instead of the young one, but he didn't mind.

He got some moon sand, pretty neat stuffA basket ball to go with his new basketball hoop (not pictured) Unfortunately we left the ball outside and it is gone so we need to replace it.And what could this present be?A cow! When William saw what it was he said, "what?" He was pretty surprised.Then after he was done opening all the presents my dad pulled a little toy calf out of his pocket. They went perfectly together.Here is my mom doing what she does best, holding my friends baby.

And here is Gracie playing with my brother Ryan. She sure likes him.
She also likes buckling car seats and strollers. She never leaves one undone if she can help it.

What a cute little rag-a-muffin

It was a beautiful day and I was glad to see all that came to celebrate our little boy turning five. Not so little anymore;)

Halloween 2009!

The morning of Halloween we made it over to Trader Joe's for their petting zoo. Little Bo Peep was pretty excited. It took so much to get her in that costume and to be happy about it, little stinker. That costume, by the way, was made mostly by my mother and kinda by me. I spent a whole day at her house and I would cut and she would sew. It was great! The only sewing I did was the dots on the skirt and the chest piece of the dress.

She liked petting all the animals

William watched from the outside. He didn't want to go in because he was mad there was not a baby cow (we were under the impression there would be one).

After Trader Joe's we went to the park to have Williams birthday picnic in the park but I will do pictures of that later. Then we made a quick run to a house that we had looked at before so Russ could have a second look with a better attitude (because I loved it and he didn't) and so Connie could come and see it and tell me if I was being weird for loving it. It turns out I am not weird for loving it because she did too and now Russ loves it and we should be putting an offer on it today!

After that we went home and got ready for the ward Trunk-or-Treat.

Here is Woody putting on Bo Peeps bonnet.

And here he is putting it on again after she took it off and that was the last time we did that. We decided she would just be bonnet-less.
Look at the cuties!

The whole Toy Story gang. William spent the whole night running around with his little mummy buddy, Noah.

And Gracie just charmed everyone with her cuteness...well that is after she ate. Before that she was not being so cute.

Here she is getting some candy. She was so cute when she would say trick-or-treat. Halloween is so fun.

After that was done we went home and put the kids to bed and stepped out into our front yard to an awesome adult only party my sis in-law and neighbor put on. There was good food and good company so we had lots of fun. I wish I had pictures.

Carving Pumpkins

One night when we probably should have been getting the kids ready for bed, we decided to carve pumpkins. It was one of those, if-we-don't-get-it-done-now-it-will-never-get-done, kinda things. When I told the kids what we were going to do I was surprised when they went outside and carried their pumpkins inside to me.

I mean, they are kinda heavy and Gracie is really small.Then they both made really funny faces while carrying their pumpkins, without being asked. They are good kids.

All ready to go!It took a lot of convincing to get William to put his hand inside the pumpkin and pull out the guts.But once he did it, he loved it and started making typical gross boy noises.Gracie thought it was cool, but what she thought was really cool was... Lighting them. She wanted to stick her face right in the top of the jack-o-lantern
Like this. She sat looking at these guys for a long time.And here is the man carving the pumpkins...with a drill:)Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween. More on that to come.