Happy Birthday Christopher!

Today Christopher turns 6 !  Why does that sound light years older than 5 ?  Something about this birthday makes me feel like I have a big boy now instead of my little baby.  It doesn't seem like we have lived here in New Jersey for almost 7 years now and yet, we have.  All of our children have been born here and I hate to say it, but I think some of them even have little "jersey" accent. :(   But here we are at Christopher's 6th birthday and he is ready to PARTY!!  He has been so excited for weeks now and has been counting down the days.  I'm surprised he was able to go to sleep last night.  Christopher has grown and changed so much this year.  Going to school has really helped him overcome some of his fears and it's been fun to watch him be such a good friend to his classmates.  He doesn't discriminate and is just friends with everyone.  Here are some little facts about Christopher.

Christopher is a great big brother.

Christopher is a loyal friend and is really good with younger kids.

Christopher can be a real goofy kid sometimes. :)

Christopher loves anything sweet. (But he'll also eat his vegetables...he's a good kid)

Christopher looks forward to being a missionary and practices tracking with Michael and giving discussions.

Christopher is really good at puzzles.

Christopher is the greatest 6 year old I know.  WE LOVE YOU CHRISTOPHER!

Father's are Great!

We love our dad!  Jeff is a wonderful husband and father and yesterday was such a fun day.  Generally, we don't prefer afternoon church, but on special days it's nice to be able to relax and spend time together in the mornings.  We made Jeff breakfast in bed and the kids enjoyed helping him open his presents.  Hopefully the boys will get better at buying presents as they get older because they both bought him balls, which is more a present for them than dad. :)  Church was wonderful and we had a fun dinner in the evening.  The best part of the day for me was that Jeff let ME take a long nap and did the dishes while I was sleeping.  It felt more like Mother's Day to me.  What a blessing our dad is to us.  Love you honey!!!

Same Size

These two little bugs now where the same size diapers.  Crazy!!!  They are 2 years apart and I just moved Jacob up to a size 3 which is the same as Annie.  They are kind of big on Jacob, but honestly, they are big on Annie too.  (I know, I should potty train her....and she could do it...but doesn't want to yet, so I don't push it until they are ready).  Before we know it, Jacob is going to get bigger than Annie and people are going to think he's older than her.  :)

Kindergarten Play

What fun!  The play was called "Rollin' Through the Decades" and they had narrative, songs and dance from the 1920's through today.  Luckily they tape it and you can buy a DVD because our video camera went on the fritz right at the beginning.  I got Christopher's part on the digital camera though, so enjoy!  He's the disco kid on the very left.

Clarendon art show and story blocks

Clarendon school did their year end art show this week.  They said that each student would be represented so we wanted to go see what Christopher had done.  Honestly, I wasn't expecting anything huge.  Boy, was I surprised and totally impressed.  One thing I like about our school is they have "specials" or teachers devoted to certain subjects.  They go to art, music and gym with other teachers (I think the older kids do science also).   Well, the art show turned out to be three huge halls of art displayed so nicely.  Each student had at least 3 pieces of art displayed.  That is a lot of work to keep that all filed away for each student all year.  The art from the older grades was really great and it seemed that all grades learned so many techniques: sculpture, water color, oils, drawings on perspective, shading, body form, etc.  I was just so impressed with the work they put into it.

Michael trying out the kindergarten chairs and eating his refreshments.

Christopher's pottery

Christopher's class did this.  It was really cool and could probably sell for lots of $$

Our friends Wendy and Elliana were at the school playing when we got there so they came to the art show with us.  Christopher loves little kids.  This picture is not posed, they were really running around like this. :)

Bike riding

 We were kind of slow in teaching our kids to ride bikes without training wheels.  Maybe it's because living in such a congested area you can't just go out and practice in the street or the bumpy, awful sidewalks. :)  Or maybe because we thought it would be harder and take a long time.  Well, we finally taught Christopher and it was so easy.  We went over to the school where there are big open areas and in about 10 minutes he was riding all by himself.  It was so fun to see how much he loved it and to hear him say, "Let go dad!"  Kids really need those confidence building experiences.  Jeff commented that it was actually an emotional experience for him to teach him and watch him learn.  Christopher caught on so quick that we went home and got the smaller bike for Michael.  He wasn't quite as excited and so he didn't want to do it for very long, but we think he'll pick it up pretty quick once he gets over his hesitancy.

Jeff and the Harley

I wanted to post this so Jeff could show it to some people. He loved riding this bike. :) Please don't pay any attention to me though...could I be more ghetto riding a motorcycle with no shoes on. Yikes!!

Kentucky trip

We went to Kentucky over Memorial Day weekend to visit family.  Since we don't live close to any family we sometimes forget how nice it is to just be with them and sit and talk and let the kids play and just enjoy each other.  Karen and Rhett were such good hosts and the kids loved their cousins so much.   All the big kids had fun sleeping in the basement at night and Christopher and Michael loved riding Henry's scooters.  Jeff and I even got to take a ride on Rhett's Harley which was SO much fun for Jeff.  He rode bikes a lot when he was younger and I think this stirred up his desire to get a bike again. ;)  I loved watching Sage and Annie have fun together even though Sage is 5 years older that her.  It was like she had a big sister and they kept calling each other "girl buddies".  It was so cute!  Now that we are home all the kids talk about is going back to Sage, Henry and Wilford's house.  We should do it more often because the drive wasn't really that bad and Kentucky was so quiet and beautiful.

 Chillin in the car                                                            

The neighbors friendly dog 



Wilford's yoga poses



The Harley                                                              

Girl Buddies