Happy Birthday to Me!

How does an exciting gal like myself spend her 32nd birthday, you wonder? I took Jack for his 4 year old check up. Exciting, huh? He is now 41.5 inches and 38.2 pounds and he passed his hearing and vision tests, so we're doing pretty good! He had to get four shots, but he did really well with them and he should be done for a while now.

Waiting for his shots...

...and giving up on looking dramatic when it took a while for the tech to come back.

Afterwards he got to go to McDonald's (where we scored the tiger toy--just the snake and panda to go!) and then he got to get Dippin Dots from the machine outside the grocery store. This was an expensive mess, but he enjoyed it.
For dinner we went out (of course I didn't take any pictures of that!) and then I went for a walk after Jack went to bed and watched a little Ironside with Jay. That's about how birthdays go around here, so maybe tomorrow's post will be a little more interesting!

This One's For You

Here is a post just for my friend, Denise, who is tired of seeing the dentist visit at the top of the page. Hope you enjoy it, Denise! : )

We have been to just about every McDonald's in the area trying to get all of the Kung-Fu Panda toys. Jack has become obsessed with these, and all he is only missing the snake, the panda, and the tiger. We are debating whether or not we should take him to see the movie; we're a little concerned he might have a stroke or something.

We've also been doing dinosaur activities from our dinosaur box. This week Jack got some dinosaur stampers and a book about one of his favorites, the triceratops.

Jack has gotten back into knights and dragons this week. This is how he wanted to go to sleep the other night. (Yes, it's often still light out when he goes to bed. I'm a mean mom. Perhaps if he stops getting up as soon as the sun begins to come up we can negotiate. Until then, he's not going to see the moon.)

Jack spent some time on his slip and slide--and has actually gotten a little better at the concept of sliding down it. Of course, not in this picture.

Friday night we had our end of the year banquet for MOMS Club. (See us down there at the end, Denise?) This is the only picture on my camera that I'm in, so enjoy this close-up of my friends Christy and Vilona!

Saturday we went to the Blue Bell factory for their summer shindig. It has a name, but I can't think of it right now. The kids all got some tattoos from the police. And they're barefoot because they're in line for the bouncer, not just because they're poor little Okie kids with neglectful mothers.

Does it get much better than a giant ice cream bouncer? I think we all know the answer to that one.

On Thursday, Jay went to close on the land we bought. We spent the weekend looking at model homes to try to get some ideas of things we like/don't like in a house. This is a door we both like.

Today we had some cakes for an early birthday dinner for me!

So that's all the stuff I have been doing instead of blogging! I have several posts rolling around my head, so hopefully I will get some of them done this week. In the mean time, I hope you liked this one, Denise! ; )

Visiting the Dentist

This morning Jack went for his first visit to the dentist. He was pretty positive about it going in.

He actually did really well through the whole thing. He seemed to think the little sucker was neat.

Cleaning time!

He thought it was pretty funny when the hygienist told him to kiss the sucker.

Flossing his teeth--or as he calls it, "threading."

Showing his teeth to the dentist.

I am hoping he does this well at his yearly check up next week!

Major Change

About three weeks ago (have I mentioned how behind I am with blogging??), Jay had his promotion ceremony where he became a major. There is probably a more formal name for it, and it could be major with a capital M, but after six years of active duty life I still have not figured these things out. And since we've only got one more year, it's not like I'm really trying to figure these things out anymore, either. At least I'm not still looking around for the other person with the same last name when someone addresses him by rank. It only took me three years to stop doing that.

The reason I am just now posting pictures is below. Jack had our camera and was taking pictures like crazy. He's just about the perfect height for making you look terrible in pictures. Not that I'm Kate Moss or anything, but I am pretty sure I don't look as bad as some of the ones he takes. It's gotta be the angle. Surely. Anyway, he had taken a lovely picture of me and when I tried to delete it I ended up deleting all of the pictures he had taken, so I had to get these from the nurse that works with Jay. I still don't regret deleting them, though. That picture was bad.

I think this is called "pinning," but since he was wearing his blues it was really more like "sliding."

Taking his oath again--for the last time!

Look at these pros!

Congratulations!

Happy Summer!

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer...
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Horsin' Around

Today we took a little trip out to see some Clydesdales. This is Emmitt, the second largest horse they have. Apparently he is a little nicer than the largest one, so he's the one they bring out.
Getting up close for a kiss!

Jack found another Jack!

I think Jack liked the dogs best of all. This dog is named Lucky.

Quite possibly the most spoiled barn cat I've seen in my life

They even had a zebra there!

Jack as a stagecoach driver

He really got into it--he kept taking off his hat and yelling, "Howdy!"

Back in the saddle

A horse made of horseshoes. Too cool.

Eight Years

Eight years ago tonight, Jay and I got married. What did we do tonight, you ask? Romantic dinner? Movie? Ummm....No. For some reason we have never really celebrated our wedding anniversary. In fact, let me give you the skinny on anniversaries past:

• Year 1: Jay was in Ohio; I was in Oklahoma.
• Year 2: I think we went to get the last place setting for our nice dishes, but I'm not sure.
• Year 3: I have no clue.
• Year 4: I thought I was hot stuff because I cooked a nice dinner at home--the first time I'd done that since Jack was born six days earlier.
• Year 5: Jay was in McCook, NE; I was in Omaha--5 hours away, just in case you aren't up on your Nebraska geography.
• Year 6: Again, no clue. None at all.
• Year 7: We went to a kid's birthday party and to the aquarium with my parents. We also went to Best Buy to pick up "Serenity."

So you can see that we're really into the anniversary thing around here. I have never really felt bad about not doing anything fancy, but I did feel like we should do something for it. Enter Dawn's blog. (At least I'm pretty sure this is where I saw it. If not, check it out anyway because she has lots of neat ideas and yummy looking snacks.) Somewhere in the last year she had a post about celebrating their anniversary as the birthday of their family. I don't really remember any more details than that, and heaven forbid I should actually hunt for the post, so we just threw ourselves a little family birthday party and called it good. Jack and I picked up an ice cream cake this afternoon and after dinner we lit the candles and sang to ourselves. There was a little confusion as to whether we needed to change the lyrics to suit the occasion, but in the end it sounded pretty nice.

Happy Anniversary! Nothing Can Change This Love.

Happy Father's Day

We took it easy this Father's Day weekend and stayed home--the first weekend we've done that in the month since Jay came home. Saturday we went to a nature walk at the museum and had lunch and today we stayed around the house together. One of Jack's favorite things to do with Jay is go through his CDs and pick out some dancing music, so they did that this afternoon.

A few of my favorites of my boys together...

June 13, 2004: The first morning after bringing Jack home

McCook, Nebraska, 2005: Visiting Jay on his rural rotation

2005: Reading together

2005: Learning to drink from a hose

2006: Checking out a grasshopper

2007: Playing chess

Happy Father's Day to the best dad in the world (tied with my dad, of course!)!

The Fire Station

This morning we went on a field trip to the fire station. Jack did this once before, but since he was about 18 months old at the time he has no memory of it. He was pretty curious about what we would see.

They got to sit on the truck...

...and in the truck.

They raised the big ladder...

...and the kids watched...

...as one of the firemen climbed all the way to the top!

Party Time (Again)

Today was Jack's first time to have a birthday party with kids. In the past we have had one big party with family and invited a couple of friends to that, but this year we split the party so that people would not have to drive so far. Heather had asked me if I was going to post about the party plans beforehand and my answer was, "If I have time." Which I clearly didn't. So here is a combined post about Jack's party and the planning! : )

Jack wanted a dragon theme, so Jay drew up these invitations.

The invitations ready to go. I had to do them up like scrolls to cover the fact that it was too late to mail them like normal invitations. Some day this birthday is not going to sneak up on me like it always seems to do. Really. I promise.

Jack helped make gift bags for his friends. I wrote out the names and set out the stamps and he did a pretty good job of getting the names right and decorating them.

We started the party off by making shields.

The kids had to go through an obstacle course of different knightly tasks. First they had to ride their horses through ye olde sports cones.

Next came some catapult practice, aka basketball.

The king called on his trusty knights to help him get rid of his beard.

Jumping the moat can be tricky, but a good knight can do it!

A little jousting practice

Feeding the dragon

We made the same cake he had for his family party, but this time the dragon was orange.

Opening presents

So the partying is done, and not a moment too soon! We are all a little partied out, I think, and next week we will hopefully start a more relaxed routine--after I catch up on all the blog posts I need to do!