Emerson's Lego Party

This past weekend we celebrated Emerson's birthday with his little buddies.  He had been begging for this party theme for months now so I did my best to pull it off.  Honestly it was pretty simple to do since we have so many of these small, primary colored, plastic pieces floating around our home.

I ordered edible fondant Lego men off of Etsy and they were a big hit with the boys!  Most of the party items were found at Oriental Trading company and Emerson really liked the gummy Lego's.

I found these small building sets on Amazon and used them as an activity as well as their party favor.

We were all excited to celebrate with this sweet boy.

To start the party, each boy was given two sets of some kind of vehicle to make (a car and helicopter).

After that, we moved on to pin the head on the Lego man.

The last activity was to scoop up Lego pieces in a big spoon, then walk to the end of the hall without dropping any...they all did really good.

Happy Birthday Emerson Clark!  We loved celebrating with you and seeing your Lego party come to fruition.  We love you with all our hearts and are so grateful you are ours!!

Celebrating Emerson

Monday we celebrated Emerson's birthday, he has now been apart of our family for 6 whole years.   I still vividly remember the whirl wind story of his birth which consisted of me being in the hospital, Adam being at our house with packers and movers in the middle of the 2011 snow-pocalypse as we prepared to move to Birmingham with a two week old baby.  It was a truly crazy time of our life as I look back on it, but in the midst of it all, I simply enjoyed holding my red headed bundle of joy and having family around to help me with my 4 year old, 2 year old and my sweet baby boy.

Our Emerson Clark is growing to be such a kind young boy who laughs quite a lot and who has a real zeal for life.  Every morning he wakes up with a smile and a, "good morning Mom", spoken in his sweetest little boy voice.  Going in to wake him up each morning is a real pleasure because of how chipper he is, he truly loves each and every day.

This boy loves to have fun.  Whether its playing Lego's, having Nerf wars, playing games, watching movies or simply being with his brothers, he usually is found having a good time.

We have been so proud of him lately as he has been remembering to say "Yes Mama or No Mama" and his manners all around have been improving.  He easily memorizes scripture and enjoys the challenge of remembering several verses in a row.  (A fist bump goes a long way with him---it's the simple things in life, huh?!)  According to his teacher, he sees things differently.  There was a picture that she showed the kids in the class, everyone else said exactly what the picture was supposed to be but Emerson said that he saw something all together different.  After Mrs. Campbell re-looked at the picture, examining it for what Emerson saw, she said, "in all the years I've been teaching Kindergarten, no one has ever seen it that way, and when I inspected it myself, it certainly could've been exactly what Emerson saw."  I look forward to what God does with this little guy, he's articulate, has a depth of knowledge about God's word that is fun to see growing and hearing his perspective on things is really quite interesting.

We love our cowboy dressing, Lego making, fun-time having cute little guy.  Happy Birthday Emerson, we love you with all our hearts!!

Its a New Year...

I can hardly believe that we just rang in 2017, how can that be?  Seems unbelievable how fast life is flying by.   We had originally planned to spend NYE with our supper club but several had trouble finding sitters and several were sick so Adam and I decided to ring in the New Year with a couple of friends and their families.

We ate together while the kids watched a movie and the parents enjoyed a card game of Golf and some good laughs.  Hanging out with our ten kids and ringing in the New Year at ten o'clock...we are crazy wild around here!   It's always fun to with good friends though.  Aren't these cookies that Carol made just awesome?!  Almost too good to eat....almost!

Six days into the New Year, we experienced our first snow day of the season.  The kids were thrilled  that school was cancelled and so was I, to be honest.  We had a big breakfast and then everyone got all their many layers and we headed outside for a little fun.  We took a walk through the woods behind our house and then trekked over to the park nearby.  It honestly took longer to get their ski clothes on then we actually stayed outside, simply because it was so super de-duper cold.  But we did go outside and have a little "adventure" in the woods and of course came back in for hot chocolate and chili.  I enjoyed having the kids home, having a low key morning with them just building Lego's and playing together, was really so nice.

We experienced our first cyber school and I was a tad shocked at how much homework the kids needed to finish that day.  All three boys literally spent three hours doing homework that afternoon and there were definitely some tears to deal with.  I had to remind Lawson (and myself) that this was really a good thing, "this way you don't have to add any days and go into summer break!"  That fact did little to console him and therefore did little to help me since the whining and fusing continued.  Thankfully we made it through our whiny afternoon.

I love the start of a New Year, it feels like its a blank slate to evaluate what's worked and what hasn't, what I'd like to continue or what I'd like to push to the wayside.  There's plenty of things I'd like to see go by the wayside: my bad attitude, impatience and the bad words that bounce around in my head sometimes and even flow out of my mouth.  I'm hoping to continue memorizing two verses a month and helping the kids remember them too as well as reading through The Daily Bible.  Adam and I are also implementing something I've wanted to do for several years now.  The highlight of my Christmas holiday is receiving all the Christmas cards people send to us.   

I always keep the cards year after year and for 2017 we are committing to praying for one family each week.  By hole punching the Christmas cards and putting them on a ring, we are hoping to stay better connected with friends and also pray for them more intentionally.  I've been emailing and texting to get specific prayer requests from our friends and we are hoping that our children will get to see how they can pray specifically for others.  Getting to watch as God answers those prayers and seeing how He provides for each of the specific situations, even if it's not how we thought it would be answered or when we wanted it to happen.  I'm looking forward to this so very much and getting to see more of what God is up to.

I do hope your 2017 is off to a good start.  Ours has been fairly slow paced yet steady with random incidentals like me spending five hours in the ER last Monday with a horrible headache and a numb right hand and arm thinking I was having a stroke.  But no, after a CT scan and MRI, it was just a migraine, praise the LORD.   Unfortunately my head has continued to hurt every day since then so I'm hoping that will go away soon.  We had Ava Jane's yearly cardiology appointment and it went great.  Dr. Bornemeire was pleased at how well her Echo looked and said she seems to be doing terrific, which was really encouraging.  They are keeping a watch on her mitral valve which is still a sluggish but not bad enough to fix right now, so we are praising God for another good report.  

Lawson passed out in PE and hit the floor face first resulting in a huge egg knot on his cheek and a busted lip.  We ended up at All For Kids and determined it was just a vasovagal response after they checked his blood pressure and blood sugar levels, hopefully that won't happen again!  So welcome 2017, I look forward to what other things might be in store...I'm certain it will keep me hopping and totally dependent on the Lord for strength.