Corduroy

Dear Class,

It was so much fun visiting Cody and his family this weekend. We did a lot of exciting things.

On Saturday morning, we went to a special car show called Cars and Coffee. We saw amazing cars like Ferraris and Lamborghinis. We also checked out this cool orange Lotus.

I even got a chance to work on the engine of this awesome Corvette.

After lunch, we went to Cody's big brother's baseball game. They sure throw the ball far, and they are good at catching!

Then we had a birthday party for Cody's Aunt Tina. We made her a delicious chocolate cake with M&M's on top. I led everyone in singing "Happy Birthday" and we all helped Tina blow out her candles.

On Sunday, we went to the Arboretum. There were about a million pumpkins there!

While we were walking around enjoying all the beautiful Fall plants and flowers, a giant frog tried to eat me! I was pretty scared, but luckily, Cody was there to save me. Whew! What a relief!

Later on, Cody and I almost got lost in a hay maze, and we also saw some houses made all out of pumpkins. It was lots of fun!

Cody and his family took really good care of me and I had a great time with them.

Love,

Corduroy

(Corduroy is Cody's Kindergarten class bear. The students each get a turn to bring him home over the weekend and journal about his adventures. I just transcribed our entry from Corduroy's journal so we could have a record for ourselves.

Cody LOVES bears, of course, so he has had his eye on Corduroy since the first day of school. He was SO excited on Friday when his teacher told him there was a surprise waiting in his backpack. And Cody had so much fun taking Corduroy with him EVERYWHERE this weekend. It's a really fun project.

If you want to take a look at Jackson's weekend with Corduroy from 3 years ago, click HERE. )

Picture Day

Today is picture day for Jackson and Cody. They were pretty excited about getting dressed in a shirt with a collar, for once. And we actually brushed their hair before school today. Let's just hope they can smile better than Calvin up there. :)

Luke's ready for picture day, too.

Ok, maybe not...

Balloon Festival

Yes, this post is long overdue! We went to the Plano Balloon Festival a couple of weeks ago. It was very, very warm out, but we had a great time.

It is always so incredible seeing the balloons getting ready to launch. (Please ignore the random volunteer man standing in the way!)

Aside from the balloons, the older boys both got the arms painted (rather than their faces), thinking that their arms would get less sweaty so the paint would last longer. Nope. :P

We met up with one of Cody's best friends, Thomas, and his family.

And Thomas' mom, Jaye, took these next 2 shots.

Corn dogs, cotton candy, face arm painting, balloons...who could ask for more? Well, if we're being picky, some cooler weather might be nice next year...

Cody's Flag

Cody came home from school all fired up about doing an "I Wonder" project. These are optional projects done outside of school to expand on what they've been learning in Social Studies and Science.

Well, the Kindergarteners have been learning about the Pledge of Allegiance and our various flags (Texas/US). So Cody decided to make his own flag.

He picked the 2 things that are most important to him: Bear-Bear, and his family. So that's Bear-Bear, there in the middle, and big gold star stands for Cody. The 4 silver stars represent the rest of us. And USB? United States of Bear-Bear.

Isn't it cute?

Jack O'Bration

When we had our last Codybration, Jackson asked if there would ever be a day to celebrate him. Well, last night, Anthony and I took Jackson out for our first annual "Jack O'Bration." I thought we'd call it a "Cele-Jackson," but he renamed it perfectly.

Jackson is a big 3rd grader now, and he's very responsible and mature. We wanted to take him out to dinner to a place fancier than he'd ever been before, a place where they don't have kids' menus or high-chairs, a place where we would NOT take little guys like Cody and Lucas who just aren't quite old enough yet. So we took him to our favorite restaurant in Dallas, Al Biernat's.

We told him were taking him out, but we didn't tell him where we were going or what we were doing. So everything was a big surprise.

The waiter asked if we were celebrating anything special, and we told him Jackson had just gotten his first report card and that he'd gotten straight A's! And we let him know it was Jackson's first experience at a "grown-up" restaurant.

This guy was SO wonderful. When Jackson ordered a Dr. Pepper, the waiter asked him whether he preferred a 2010 or 2009 vintage. He poured just a little of the bottle into Jackson's glass and asked him to taste it and see if it was to his liking. And then he brought Jackson his own personal "wine bucket."

Jacks was also very proud that he got his very own steak knife.

After our delicious steaks, we ordered dessert. Look at how beautifully they decorated Jackson's plate! The restaurant owner himself, Al, came over to congratulate Jackson and say he was s0 proud of his hard work that he was buying him dessert. Wow!

After dinner, it was time for a show...

We had so much fun! I've never heard Jackson laugh like that. He got most of the jokes and loved watching the blue guys be silly. Here's some video Anthony took of the finale.

As we were walking out after the show was over, Jackson asked when we could go again. I think it was a big hit! He said he liked the giant bouncy balls the best. Oh, and "all the blue." LOL

He was so excited to get a cool T-shirt as a souvenir and can't wait to wear it to school on Monday.

It was such a great night. All 3 of us had so much fun, and I think Jacks really felt more like a grown-up and less like a little kid, so Mission: Accomplished. Happy Jack O'Bration, Buddy!

Happy Birthday to Me!

The boys helped me celebrate my 33rd birthday last weekend. Jackson brought home roses for me after a shopping trip with Anthony, and he took charge of the wonderful decorations, too (which I completely failed to get a photo of. Mom FAIL.).

We had a great dinner with Grandma and Grandad, and then we came back to the house for some of this delightful cake.

So yeah, it wasn't that easy to write with the frosting. It says '33,' though. I'm pretty sure.

Luke was very helpful when it was time to blow out the candles!

The best part of my birthday was having all my boys celebrating with me! ♥

Luke Funnies

Luke was my earliest talker and has always been extremely verbal. I'm not sure whether it's having 2 big brothers that makes him want to have his voice heard or whether he'd be a chatterbox regardless. But even though he talks like a big boy most of the time, he still busts out with some funnies when we least expect it. Here are the most recent examples:

• Guitar picks = Guitar "pokes"
• Car horns don't honk, they "hark" (a mash-up of honk and bark?)
• We were slightly taken aback when Luke asked for Michael Jackson for breakfast. After digging around in the pantry pointing at various things, we finally determined that he wanted APPLE JACKS.

:)

(PS...the picture above is a preview of his Halloween costume...isn't he the cutest Luke Skywalker ever?)