A SUPER 5th Birthday

Lightning Landon here to save this party!

In June our oldest, Landon, turned 5. He had been planning his party for a complete year. No kidding here, he loves to socialize and had been planning out the perfect party. His theme changed several times, but he finally landed on Super Heroes. Which was just right for him. He is always in costume as some character and telling me what kind of powers he has. We have always tried to steer away from so much of the newer superhero stuff that has come out and stuck to the classics. So when I saw this party. I knew I had found the perfect inspiration. Here are the pics from our rendition.

We loved the cake from Piece of Cake bakery.

Here is Landon with his fellow supers.

Helping Landon keep his secret identity, secret.

He was excited to be old enough for a "real" remote control car.

Jumping over buildings in a single bound.

Getting ready to play pass the kryptonite (a green glow stick).

Landon,
Mommy can hardly believe you are 5 years old. We feel so blessed that God chose us to parent you. You live life to the fullest. From the moment your eyes open in the morning to when they finally close at night, you make the most of the time you are given. You have reached an age that sometimes when I look at you I see a teenager begging for the car keys, but then I blink and I remember you toddling around looking for something to climb. God has given you the courage to stand up for what you believe is right. When you heard a song talk about friends telling you the Truth is a lie, you said, "Those aren't good friends." I pray you keep those convictions as you navigate through the years ahead of you. You are teaching me to believe the impossible, learn something new everyday, and love others with your whole life. Daddy and I always prayed you would follow God passionately, and I think He has given you the courage to do just that.

Love,
Mommy

Whooo Turned 3?

Elaine turned three right before the flood. She had such a sweet party. In fact it was a hoot! I had just started seeing all the cute owl decor and thought it would be such a sweet theme for her party. I used my Cricut to make the invitations and ordered the paper goods from Celebrate Express. I got the idea for the cupcakes cake from Family Fun Magazine. It has been almost 3 and 1/2 months since the party but I wanted to share a few pictures and memories.

This is the only picture I got of the front of the super cute pinata!

She had been eying a princess scooter for awhile.

She was very excited about all those "lipsticks".

Elaine,
 You are just want mommy needed. You are so sweet with your baby brother. Caring for him when I need to attend to something. You have a natural gift for snuggles, putting just enough food on a baby spoon, and watching for dangers Levi might encounter. You love to share Mommy's makeup and perfume. Such a girly girl...but then you have just enough spunk to hang with your big brother too. You want to win the race, swing just as high, cross the monkey bars, and jump from high places. Then you turn around and light up when you get to ballet class where you learn to sit and move like a princess. You are teaching me patience, humility, and fully trusting in God. You are His creation, and He never makes mistakes. I look forward to see how he uses you to bravely go where ever he calls you.

Love,
Momma

3 Months

Well it is a little over three months since the flood and my last blog post. I have missed blogging about our lives. I have several events I want to post about before I jump into some kind of routine for the blog again. I miss having a record of what happens in our day to day. For now I want to make sure I remember how God has blessed us during our "crisis". I know having a flooded basement is small compared to so much of life's hardships but it really has turned our lives a little upside down. We did most of our day to day living down there.

Here is what the basement looked like when we moved into our house.

Here it is after all the work we had done since moving...I guess since we spent so much time down here I never took an all together picture of how it turned out! So this will have to do.

Please look past the super hero pirates to see the freshly painted walls and new carpet.

You can see pictures of the finished office/learning room here.

Here it is during the "flood".

This is a picture of all our basement stuff moved up into our first floor.

Here is a peek at it now.

As you can tell we still have a long way to go, but I want to count the many blessings we have experienced. The outpouring of love as our friends became the hands and feet of Jesus and helped us move all our belongings to dry ground, deconstruct the basement, and then help with reconstruction. Amidst their own very full lives. We were also blessed to have a dry house to move belongings to, and we had belongings to move.

Well I will keep you updated on the basement progress, but in the mean time I have two birthdays, updates from the super smiley 10 month old, and preparations for the upcoming school year to share.  So make sure you check back.

What have you been up to?