I'll Let the Pictures Talk For Themselves

A Sweet Happy Birthday to a Sweet Happy Boy

Deacon turned 6 today.  SIX! I can hardly stand it.  My sweet boy just keeps getting older and bigger. I guess most kids tend to do that, huh? To celebrate Deacon's birthday we didn't do too much out of the ordinary really.

 

Last night my dad and Karen came over for dinner and we sang and had cupcakes and opened presents. We had a lot of fun and it was nice seeing my dad as today is his birthday too.

 

Today started with Deacon and Zeke putting together (again) the puzzle Deacon got last night.  Then we had some breakfast then he put together the Lego Hero Factory guy he got last night. Then it was off to the playground because someone - either me or Deacon - was going to lose their mind if we didn't get outside and burn up some energy. After the playground we came home, watched a VeggieTale of Deacon's choice then went over to Ryan's house to swim and hang out for a little bit.

 

When we got to Ryan's, Grace (of the tiger story) came out of her house with a plate of chocolate covered strawberries she had made for Deacon for his birthday.  I'm telling you, the smiles on both of their faces in that moment were so. stinkin. cute I almost couldn't stand it.  I'm sort of sad now I didn't take pictures or video or something.

 

But after Ryan's we went home from some lunch and some naps. When Deacon got up from his nap he wanted to open his present from us and so he did - another Lego Hero Factory guy, which he then immediately put together.

 

 

He's such a sweet boy that he let Zeke help him put together both of his new birthday guys.  They alternated steps and it was hilarious and sweet listening to them work together.  Had it been my birthday I'm pretty sure I would've been all, "You need to back up off me cuz this is my day and my gift and I'm doing it myself." Clearly I need to work on being more graceful.

 

Anyhoo...as soon as this guy was put together it was off to pick up Deacon's special birthday dinner: McDonald's.  Oh yeah. It's actually been quite awhile since we've had any McDs so it was kind of a nice treat. On our way home from McDs we stopped back at Ryan's for a second because she was so sweet and made some dirt cake for Deacon for his birthday today.  He was so excited by it, as you can clearly see in my favorite picture from the day:

 

 

It was really good too. Remember that pot that his serving of cake is in. If things go like I plan tomorrow, you'll be seeing it again.

 

And that was my sweet boy's sweet birthday.  Happy birthday Deacon! We love you and are so proud of you.

Mudders

The Saturday before Father's Day was the annual Down and Dirty Mud Run on post. My friend, Ryan, put a little bit of pressure on me to sign up, pressure which I in turn put on Josh, and that's how Josh, Zeke and Deacon, along with Ryan's husband Matt, wound up getting REALLY dirty that beautiful Saturday morning. They all had a GREAT time, and Josh said he couldn't have asked for a better Father's Day present. Get ready for a bunch of pictures, starting with this one of everyone still clean and ready to go:

 

The "race" started with a run around the lazy river at the waterpark - against the current:

Next they had to run back down to the pool and jump from the edge onto the giant alligator float. Since our boys were kind of small to make that jump, Matt went first, then Josh threw the boys to Matt:

Well, he threw Zeke, then jumped while holding Deacon.  I'm not convinced that was a good idea, but it worked, so onwards! From the alligator they jumped onto another raft:

Josh just had to be...different? ridiculous? silly? I'll let you pick your adjective.  After they made it to this raft they had to swim to the tubes, which wound up being Matt and Josh each walking across the pool while holding one of the boys. When they got to the tubes they had to crawl across them, bringing them to the end of the waterpark portion of the run.

Once they left the waterpark it was down one wet "slip n slide" and up a soapy one:

To help remove some of the soap, the course then took the runners through the fire truck spray:

After the fire truck they were off onto the mud portion of the mud run.  I didn't go along side them for this part, so I don't know exactly what all went on out there but there was talk of climbing walls and mud pits and the like.  We caught back up with the guys at the end when their final "hurdle" was this:

And that's how they all wound up looking like this at the end:

For those wondering about Finn, he ran around with me while I took pictures. He was a really good sport himself that morning.  I think having this around helped:

It really was a super fun morning for all of the guys, who can't wait for next year. Anyone want to join them?

Another School Year Finished

Not only was Friday the first day of summer, it was also the last day of school. Both Ezekiel and Deacon did really well this year and we are super proud of both of them. Now we're all looking forward to some much needed time off from...well, from everything. Yay for summer vacation! Before we get to summer vaca though, here's a little wrap-up of the end of the school year.

Two Fridays ago, the 14th, Deacon had his kindergarten graduation. Much like Zeke's graduation last year, the kids sang some songs (First Grade, First Grade teared me up again), did a little play about bears, and were awarded a superlative along with their diplomas. Deacon recieved the "Busiest Worker" award and was quite pleased with himself for doing so.  When his name was called to get his award, Zeke's speech teacher leaned over and said with a big smile, "Oh! So you have 2 good, hard working boys?" Yes. Yes I do. Big smiles back at ya Mrs. H. Also, that's his WONDERFUL teacher in the top picture, handing him his stuff.

The following Tuesday, the school had an awards ceremony for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders.  (Zeke's teacher told me that the 4th and 5th graders get a million awards and it takes almost 2 hours to get through them all so they have their own ceremony on a different day. We really like her too.) Ezekiel got the "Excellence in Reading" award, for reading a minimum of 20 minutes a day almost every day of the school year. I love that my boy loves to read, and that he was so pumped to get an award for reading. The first pic is Zeke's SUPER great teacher, and the second one is him being super excited about his award.

 

All in all, a great end to a great school year!

He's So Romantic

Yesterday, a friend came over with her kids, and her daughter, Grace, left her stuffed tiger here. Now, Grace is the sweetest 3rd grade girl I know and so it's not surprising that Deacon has a little bit of a crush on her. During t-ball Grace would be the only girl Deacon would pay any attention to or even talk to.  When her family went on vacation, Deacon asked for her all the time. After all, she IS adorable:

Back to the tiger.  Deacon got home from school yesterday, saw the tiger and asked whose it was.  I told him it was Grace's and he asked if he could give it back to her.  We meant to do it yesterday after Zeke got home from school, but we forgot.  So this morning Deacon saw the tiger again and said, "Mom, we didn't bring Grace her tiger!" I said, "Oh yeah. It's okay. I'm going to see Ms Ryan today and she can give Grace back her tiger." To which Deacon made a kind of sad and thoughtful face so I said, "Unless you'd like to give it to her yourself?" He cheered up and said he'd like to do that, so I said I'd bring it with me when I picked him up from school and we'd take it back then.

It's raining today.  It was sort of lightly raining when I left the house to pick up Deacon from school.  In the 3 minutes it took to get him, it started pouring. I mean, really pouring.  I asked him if he still wanted to go then or if we could wait until later in the day to see if the rain calmed down, but he insisted we go right there and then to bring his lady back her tiger.

Deacon is my shyest and most introverted child.  He's incredibly sweet (obviously) but he's very shy and doesn't like to do many things that require talking to others - especially on his own.  But when he pulled up to Grace's house, he said he wanted to go on his own to bring her tiger back, that I could wait in the car with Finn. And wouldn't you know it, he went up to her door on his own, rang the bell, and waited so patiently for someone to answer the door. He gave her the tiger and then stood there grinning like a fool as Grace (and her mom) thanked him for being such a sweet gentleman for bringing back her tiger to her. He was still grinning in the car, but sadly my camera was wet and all of the pictures I took of him came out blurry.  You'll just have to trust me when I say, it was absolutely adorable. Oh, and the rain slowed back down almost as soon as we got back home afterward.

And that's the story of how my sweet prince of a boy braved the pouring rain and overcame his shyness to bring his lady back her stuffed tiger. He's so romantic.

Really, Birds?

So, this guy:

and his mate, made this nest:

in this wreath on my neighbor's front door:

That's a bold choice, buddy. A really bold choice.