Five!

I don't know how it's possible that my baby boy turned five on Tuesday.  This past weekend we celebrated with an outer space birthday party for him at our house.  It was a blast!  (ha, ha, puny!)

Huston under his birthday balloon wreath that I made for his Up! party last year.  He wore his space shuttle shirt in keeping with the space theme.

I hot glued little flag signs identifying the food to toy astronauts we already had.  We had planet cookies that I made and iced using my mom's recipe, outer space goldfish, "Sun" chips (get it?), "Flying Saucers" aka Bagel Bites, "Asteroids" aka Chick-fil-a nuggets, grapes (which were unlabeled, but in my mind they were the alien heads, though Clarke thought that was gross and they should be the dwarf planets), cheese cut in the shape of stars with crackers, and "Rocket Fuel" - apple and fruit juice.

My mom made this great cake for Huston with all of the planets in their orbits and the sun on the left side.  He loved it.  In fact, he had a great time at the party until I decided we should sing him happy birthday.  And then he hid under the table and ran to his room.  Oh well.  He eventually forgave me and came back out to have a piece of his cake.

I'm pretty sure his eyes are crossed in this family picture.  He loves to cross his eyes.

We ordered all different sizes and colors of paper lanterns to represent the planets.  Clarke and Huston both insisted on as much accuracy as possible, so Mercury was a tiny 3 inch paper lantern, while Jupiter was over 22 inches.  Clarke and Huston painted the bands on Jupiter and made sure to include the Great Red Spot, and I made rings of aluminum foil for Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.  We actually found an Earth paper lantern on Oriental Trading, so that worked out perfectly.

Sweet friends, Caroline and Wyatt enjoying some grub.

I also ordered some cool planet sticker sheets from Oriental Trading for the kids to do - of course Huston perfectly lined up every planet on the correct orbit, while every other kid just slapped the stickers on the sheet.  I love his obsession with the planets.

We watched our traditional video montage of Huston's year.  I love this tradition!  I think it's so fun to look back over the year in pictures, and Huston and Arden always love watching their videos.

Huston's favorite part of his birthday, by far, was opening his presents.  This was the first year that he has been the one to ask to open his presents, and then actually be excited about it.  Other years he either hasn't cared, or has been too embarrassed to open them with people watching him.  But this year, he was beyond excited and he loved everything!  He got tons of awesome presents - including space books, a space puzzle, two handsome outfits, an awesome telescope, a cactus toy, cactus bank, and cactus books (his other obsession besides planets), an airplane, astronauts and shuttles, and lots of other things.

Clarke and I got him a book called The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot, which he had seen at his friend Gibson's house, and he was really excited about that.  We also got him a box of 64 crayons for his artistic side, a couple of planets books and stickers, and a set of Magna-Tiles, which are really fun to play and build with.  They were a bit on the expensive side, but totally worth it, I think.  I would highly recommend them if you're looking for a fun and creative gift.

He loved, loved, loved everything he got and it was so very fun to see him enjoying everything about his party (except for the singing bit).

I used some of his many pieces of planet artwork to decorate the bulletin board in our front entry.  Party favors were little bags with a glow in the dark slinky, glow in the dark planet and star stickers, and some glow sticks.

 I can't wait to see what fun obsession he'll have next year to plan his party around!  :)  Happy fifth birthday, Huston!

Poser

Would you look at this little girl?  How gorgeous is she?  Arden let me take some pictures of her on our bed this morning and I just think she's the most beautiful girl on the planet.  I love my sweet baby.

Lazy Summer Days

The kids and I have been enjoying these last few weeks of summer before preschool and Bible study start again.  This past Sunday some sweet friends from law school came over after church and we had lunch and went swimming together.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a single picture!  Last week the kids and I went with some other friends to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs at an afternoon movie for kids.  It was a really cute movie and we had so much fun!

Other than that, we've been hanging out at home.  Here's a collection of some random pictures.

Almost everyday I put Arden down for nap, she reads and talks for awhile, then I go in to rock her to sleep (or she would stay awake forever).  It is such a sweet time, and I really look forward to cuddling and rocking her.  She looks so big in her crib these days - we're going to move her to a big girl bed just as soon as I can pick one out.  It seems impossible that she'll be three in November.

 Huston helped me bake some cookies last weekend.  He was such a good helper and really loved turning on and off the mixer.  He picked up this dough hook that was sitting on the counter and said, "Look, Mommy!  It looks like a mystery!"  I like how he connected question mark to mystery.  :)

Last week we found out that Clarke's sister, Emily, and her husband are having a baby boy!  We're so excited to have a new nephew and can't wait to meet little Austin Brooks.

Huston and Arden have been having the best time with our couch lately.  They pretend it's their car, they build forts and houses with it, and Arden is always tucked behind the cushions reading books.  It's so fun to listen to their creative dramatic play.  They say the funniest things - if only I could remember and record it all...

Our friends, Josh and Heidi, were visiting from Chicago this summer and just had to go back.  The kids ran around like crazy playing together (Huston is super sweaty in this picture) and I was only able to take a picture of all of them when we put a movie on (which is why they're all staring straight ahead).

So thankful for summer days and good friends.

Reunited

Huston's beloved Dinah had been missing since before Clarke and I left for Puerto Rico - about 2 weeks now.  We looked all over for her but could not find her.  We checked everywhere we could in the house, outside, in our car, in Mimi's car - everywhere we could think of.  Huston tried to be brave, but would mention from time to time that he missed Dinah, and last night as I was tucking him into bed, he started crying and saying how much he missed her.  It broke my heart!  We prayed together that God would help us find Dinah.  Then I called Melinda and cried because I was so sad for him, and she prayed for us, too.

Today my whole mission was to find that dinosaur.  I was vacuuming, dusting, emptying boxes, moving furniture, looking under cushions, and praying the whole time.  As I got around to Huston's room, my eye caught this little custom night light box that my dad made for Huston when he was 2.  We call it his "H" light, because it has an "H" cut out of it, and a light switch and doorbells, and... at the bottom, two little doors that can be opened and closed.  I think it is completely miraculous that I saw the light and opened the little door at the bottom.  Sweet Dinah was inside!  

I know that by myself I could have searched the whole house and never found her.  And I thank God that he heard our prayers for something as silly as finding a toy dinosaur.  Huston was so happy to be reunited, and it was sweet to pray together and thank God for hearing our prayers.