Happy Happy Birthday Dillon Dear...

Yesterday (the 21st ) was the birthday of my little sweetie Dillon James. I cannot believe my baby is already 4 years old. Time goes by way too fast.

A Birthday SourPuss

We celebrated first by going to Amazing Jakes's on Saturday with G&G Hunt.Well and Ben & Courtney & Noah too (of course)The boys had an AMAZING TIME! The loved the pizza and pasta buffet and all the games. 

We most enjoyed the bowling, air hockey and laser tag. Dillon like laser tag because he got to shoot little girls. Such a Romeo that one. He has been asking for a Pillow Pet every time the commercial comes on or we go to Wal-Mart and big brother came through. I treasure these brief moments of brotherly love.

They have a ride that is called the Froggy Hopper. The kids are strapped in while the ride goes up and drops them down slowly and repeats. Blair and I had the best laugh watching Dillon's face when the ride dropped. He smiled all the way up then cringed the whole way down. When he got off the ride he was laughing and kept saying "I peed my pants, I peed my pants"! I took him to the bathroom (dry) and figured that the sensation of his stomach dropping must have made the poor thing think he was peeing!


We celebrated with the Karafa family on the actual birthday. Dillon requested a store bought cake. After the "Elmo Fiasco of 2007" who could blame the kid. He also wanted chicken noodle potato soup and rolls. It was delicious. The boys and I spent our afternoon at Dollar Tree gathering supplies for hand made birthday hats. Since we celebrate Grandpa, Dillon & Daddy's birthdays all at once we wanted it  to be festive.

He looks so much like a "Mini Barry" (my Dad) here...

Fun Facts about a Four year old DILLON:

• His favorite color is orange
• His favorite thing to eat is hangabers (hamburgers)
• His favorite movie is Toy Story
• He is 33 pounds... lightweight
• His favorite toy is stuffed animals (beanies to be exact)
• He loves going to a party

Happy Birthday Pickles!!

Making Soup...

About 4 months ago (wow, they went by fast) Aunt Gill was camped out at our house watching the boys for me. One night after giving the midgets a bath I came out into the upstairs TV room to watch some TV with Gill and noticed a strange smell. Almost like when you melt a plastic spoon in the bottom of your dishwasher. I asked Gill what the smell was and she said she didn't smell anything.

All my life my Dad has teased me about my 4 S's... Super Sensitive Sense of Smell. I shrugged off the smell and went about my night. Not too much later Dad came home from work and bellowed up the stairs "Are you trying to burn down the house"?

After heading downstairs to investigate I found my old crockpot (pulled out of the garage for a yardsale) plugged in by the front door. Inside was 1 pair of little boy underwear, 1 red Mickey Mouse croc shoe and 1 baby monitor... batteries included.

When I came too after inhaling the toxic fumes (just kidding but almost) I questioned the only midget still awake, who was also the most likely culprit and he fessed up that the "Crock Pot Undie Soup" was his creation.

Have I mentioned he is awesome?

Our Family...

We had family pictures taken the other night. After the shoot we spent a while visiting with Grandma Karafa. Somehow a story about Dillon came up and Grandma mentioned I needed to write it down. It gave me the push I needed to start blogging again. It really is about keeping track of the magical moments we spend together (whether they occur at Disneyland or not) :)

It's not only the stories I have been missing, but the pictures too.

I treasure pictures of my favorite people!

So here's to regularly posting again. And to telling My little Pickles awesomely hilarious story!

Little Champ...

Saturday was the second to last game of the season. Jordan's Coach, "Coach Joe" was deployed overseas on Sunday so it was a little bit of a celebration for him and the players.

The last few months have been a whirlwind of practices, games, snack assignments and lost shin guards. I feel like after this week I will be able to breather again. I never fully understood what being a "Soccer Mom" meant. It means you eat, sleep  & breathe soccer for 3 months at a time. It is exhausting!

Jordan was really resistant to playing soccer. Blair and I are so proud of him! He put such an effort into learning the game and always played his hardest. Best of all he has had a great time doing it.

Way to go Champ! We love #6!

Celebrations...

We kicked off the holiday season this year by seeing Zoolights with the Karafa's. It's becoming a tradition that the boys love! Their facorite is the talking Giraffe who magically knows their name. Mine is the "Dancing Tree's"...

We visited with Grandma Hunt and the gang the day after Thanksgiving. The kids had a ball decorating Grandma's tree for her. Aunt Betsy had a great time (I'm sure) re-decorating the top 8 ft. of the tree left noticeably bare.

The other night the boys and I enjoyed some hot cocoa.

This was to make up for the "nasty" (in their own words) tea I had made for them the night before. It was herbal and caffeine free, and all I had in the pantry. I took my lumps though... they outed me to the home teacher for making tea. That was an awesome first visit.

Sage advice...

I really doubt that I am the only Mother that this happens to. This morning as I droppped the boys off at Grandma K's before work I left Jordan with saying "You decide how your day will be with your choice of attitude & behavior. You need to find a better attitude and a smile."

Mean Mom city, I know. Some mornings I just can't get that kid moving despite doing everything I can to have him ready for school the night before. I am almost ready to start having him sleep in school clothes. (Not really. That's gross)

On my 1.2 mile drive to work I kept hearing my statement over and over in my head and realized that I must needed to say it this morning. Not for Jordan, but for me. I like to think that my family is full of non-morning people but in reality it is just me. I am really, really not a morning person. I can't wait for my boys to be teenagers, if only to sleep until noon with them!

I made up with my little buddy at lunchtime. I felt horrible for leaving him like that. A shiny quarter and promise of buying a pencil from the machine in the office did the trick.

I also made up my mind to try a little harder in the morning to start mine and my babies days off right with MY OWN good attitude, and behavior of course.

About time...

Yeah, yeah... so I am a total blog slacker and a half.

I blame the heat. Seriously though, it's November for heaven's sake and it is still so stinkin hot around here.

It seems the end of summer has come and gone and Autumn is on our doorstep. I feel like there should be tons of things that I have missed blogging about but I just can't remember much...

Except for these:

1. Jordan is rockin the Kindergarten thing. And he has his first real girlfriend. Her name is Kelly.

2. I have ANOTHER new job. But it happens to be this working mother's ideal job... I work at Jordan's Elementary school. I am in charge of attendance, enrollment, withdraws and all sorts of student records. And I have lunch duty with the 1st graders. I am a milk carton opening pro! I seriously LOVE my job. Go Freedom Falcons!

3. Dillon sliced a hunk of his toe off last week. Its pretty nasty. I totally cornered the ER Doc in our ward on Sunday to see if it was really Dr. worthy or not (not). Thanks Dr. B!

4. My entire family minus my bro-in-law Eric came to visit a few weekends ago. We survived. All 17 of us... and the 2 dogs and 15 fish too!

5. We are halfway through the soccer season (Yeah!!)

6. My favorite Holiday (Halloween) passed. I felt like we slacked off a bit this year. We didnt even carve a pumpkin. We did however go to:

• Boo at the Zoo
• The Halloween Carnival at school
• Trunk or Treat at church
• Trick or Treating at Fry's
• Trick or Treating on our street (all 6 houses with lights on)

and all sorts of places dressed up as this:

I am declaring it a success. Jack-O-Lantern or not.

And that my friends is about it. At least I think so anyways.