That post title might be a bit of an exaggeration, but Mike and I drove past our lot yesterday and found out they started digging the hole for our house. I literally did a happy dance outside my car. (thankfully no one saw me) Here is a picture of the lovely dugout.
I know a hole isn't a lot to get excited about, but we weren't expecting them to start for another week or so. Hopefully this means they'll finish early. (wishful thinking, but there's a slim chance it could happen)
Last Saturday we got to celebrate six wonderful years with our little Dude.
For our kids birthdays we let them choose what we eat throughout the day. For breakfast he chose pancakes shaped in the letter S. We also let them be "in charge" for the day, which is something Steven let go straight to his head. He was quick to remind us that he was in charge so we had to do what he said. :) Lucky for us all of his requests were reasonable.
I let Steven pick his theme for his party and he went with Minecraft, his new favorite game. I showed him some party ideas I'd found online and he decided we needed ALL of them.
Steven the Creeper and Mike the Steve
Here are some of the decorations.
We chose food that fit in with the theme. Instead of a traditional cake Steven wanted one that we saw online made from rice crispy treats (my first time ever making them) and brownies Sarah and her friends made without my help.
The goodie section with gold, diamonds, redstone and TNT
Green slime, yellow apples, carrots, torches, bread and cole
Goodie bags w/homemade pickaxes
For games we made a Creeper bean bag toss game and after playing outside they all took turns playing Minecraft. I tried to say no electronics, but it wasn't my party AND Steven was in charge so I had no say in the matter. :)
The boys zoned out
Next we sang Happy Birthday and opened presents. Steven was in Lego and boy toy heaven.
Here are the kids singing Happy Birthday. The lovely, loud voice singing is Sarah's friend singing in French. :)
This Nerf gun was one of his favorite gifts
Steven is an absolute joy. He's really funny and has a perpetual smile on his face. (unless you find a way to upset him)
He has a vivid imagination and after he tells a story we have to ask him if it was real or fake, because he's a definite one upper in the story department. At bedtime I've started a game where I let him tell me a real and fake story and I guess the real one.
He loves Legos and we've been really impressed with his ability to put complex sets together. He has a great sense of spatial orientation and sometimes we find that he's right and we're wrong when it comes to putting sets together.
He's a great brother. He doesn't get the chance to play with his sister as much as he'd like, but he takes great care of Adam. Now that Adam is older they can do a lot more together and Steven has shown him how to build all sorts of weapons with their various building sets. :)
We love our Dude and are grateful for every energy packed day we get to spend with him.
The kids decided they wanted to play basketball this year. Sarah was on the fence until she found out you get free tickets to a Jazz game for participating.
As I was writing this post I realized I didn't take enough pictures of them playing. They both played with kids their own age.
We arrived promptly at 9 AM for Steven's last game only to find out that it had started at 8 AM. (there goes this years "Mother of the Year" award!) Thankfully we caught Steven's coach on his way out so we could get his trophy and pictures.
Thankfully we made it to Sarah's game. Sarah was a timid player, but she worked really hard on her dribbling throughout the season and had a lot of fun playing.
On March 10th we all get to the Jazz game together. Mike still can't get the kids to sit down and watch a game on TV, but we'll work on it. :)
