Home Improvments

We finally had it with our dining room carpet. It had a big yellow spot from the Manny chewing up yellow food dye on it and then last weekend, orange paint ended up on it. We've wanted to replace the carpet for a while so the orange paint made the decision for us. Joel has been working so hard on it and its almost done. He finished grouting today and it should be completed tomorrow. The boys were anxious to help and fortunately Joel is an extremely patient man. I'll have pictures up soon of the finished project.

We're now working on the kitchen, so I'll post the pics when we are completely done. The dining room is now a mess due to the fact that we had to pull most things out of the kitchen. (Love how I use the word "we" when it should be "Joel"). The work has been non-stop and I'm amazed at how much he's done already and with zero help. I think I did maybe 30 minutes one day and I felt like an old woman when I got up. He's been putting 6-8 hours on it every day. Staying up to midnight or later and not complaining about it at all. He is truly an amazing man.

Sleepover

We allowed Ty to invite one of his friends over for a sleepover. He really wanted four boys to sleepover. Ethan and Cale from daycare and Connor and Jakob whom we've all seen on this blog in the past. He was very torn when we told him he had to chose one. Mom didnt' know if she could handle more than three boys. He ended up chosing Ethan because Connor and Jakob have been to his house before and Ethan never has was his reasoning. It went so well. Ethan was very well behaved and listend beautifully. Also very polite. Always said thank you and was really good with Deacon. I'll admit that was my big fear was that those two wouldn't want Deke to play with them, but that fear was misplaced. Ethan has a younger brother as well that is almost the same age as Deke and he was always really good with him. At one point in the evening, they all got dressed up. Ethan was batman as you can tell, Ty was superman and Deke was of course Scooby Doo.
Bedtime went way better than expected. Ty and Deke are sharing a room right now because they want to. Joel and I decided to let Deke sleep in the same room as Ethan and Tyler and see what happens. It went better than it does with just Ty and Deke. They were all three asleep before 8:30 and normally I consider it a good night if Deke goes to sleep before 9.
Hopefully, we can have Ethan over again.

Presents

Ticket Blaster. At Chuck E. Cheese the birthday boy gets to get inside this tube that shoots these tickets all over. You catch as many as you can. He got one that was worth 200 tickets which basically gets you a toy that you could go the $ store and buy :)

Ty opening up his presents. His friends were very generous and he got a lot of very cool toys for him to play with. They all know him very well too as he got gifts that were monster trucks or trucks in general and a spider man book. He was very excited about them all.

Today, we got home and Joel was going to go get the mail when I reminded him that today was President's day so no mail. Ty started asking me about where the presents were. I didn't know what he was talking about thinking he meant his birthday presents. Joel finally figured out that he thought we had said it was Presents Day. I kind of like the idea of a day devoted to presents.

Cake!

So good! I love Deacon's face. He went to town on that cake.

Happy Birthday Tyler

He dressed himself and came out and told me "I wanted to look handsome today." I think he always looks so handsome.

Ty's had a ton of fun at his birthday. I love his face in the last picture. He was making a wish before he blew out the candle. I asked him what he wished for today and he told me that he wished that when I get sick that he hopes I feel better. I'm not sure how true that is, but he's stuck to the story so far. He had a friend spend the night last night and it went so much better than I had anticipated. I was expecting it to be a little chaotic, but it never was. In fact, bedtime went way better than I expected. Even better than it goes normally. I think Ethan had a postive effect on our bedtime experience.

It is so hard to believe that it has been 5 years. The time is flying by way too fast and I sometimes wish that I could slow it down just a little or that I would appreciate this time a little more. I try to remind myself to treasure these moments. The moments when he throws his arms around me, when he kisses my cheek, when he tells me that he loves me and that I'm the best mom ever. I know that these moments are very short-lived. All too soon, it won't be cool to be seen with his mom, much less show her that he cares. It can be easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle and not slow down and listen to his stories or to stop and play when he asks me too. It takes a lot of reminding that he won't always be this young, that he won't always want to spend time with me. I'm sure the next 5 years are going to go by even faster than these first five.

This is the better one. He's on the bunny hill and Joel is following behind him. You can see at the end he almost fell, but caught himself. He's already better than either Joel or I.

Ty's first time skiing

Ty did awesome! It's hard to see in this one, I do have a better one, but that little tiny black dot going down that big hill is Tyler. Our good friend, Bob, went down with him seeing as neither Joel nor I were qualified. Bob was so good with him and so patient. Joel and I skied too, but were just not good enough to get him on and off the lift. We were out there from 2-7 and Ty never wanted to come in. We had to force him in for dinner and he wanted to go right back out as soon as he was done. After the last run, he asked if Santa could bring him skis next year for Christmas. It's a shame this is such an expensive sport. Hopefully I can get a group together next year to this again. It's just such a good deal with the group rate.