"She had a beard....And it felt weird"

It really is true that I can pretty much knit anything!  If you thought my wig was cool, this is even better!  Maybe I'll combine the 2 for next Halloween!!!

I have this special friend Forrest who really wants me to knit him up a pair of chaps.  However, I don't really feel like knitting up an adult sized pair of pants and if you know Forrest, you know he probably wouldn't be wearing anything underneath his chaps and well I'm just not sure I can subject my knitted art (or his wife Amy) to something like that!  So, when he put in an order for a knitted beard, I knew that was something I could do for him. 

This beard, I think, is extra special because it comes with interchangeable mustaches!
Option 1 :

Option 2 :

And my personal favorite, option 3 :

Garbage Can Woes

Sometimes I hate Kansas...today is one of those days.

We are having sustained winds of 40 - 45 mph.  I am watching my fence rock back and forth, knowing one of these days the wind is going to get the best of it and knock it over - guess I need cement walls! And the noise of all that wind - I feel totally overstimulated with noise and want to walk around with ear plugs in - but I suppose my children's cry for help or food or water wouldn't be a good thing to ignore. 

I just went out in the backyard to water the flowers and the garden.  Sadly, half my garden plants are dead because the weather decided to take a turn and almost freeze at the night for the last week,  Boo.   And with the wind today, I might as well have been driving down the road with my head sticking out the windows.  Why even have hair in Kansas, it's just going to have to be in a pony tail, because with these winds, it doesn't just blow it across your face, it gets swirled around, so it pretty much just blows straight up off your head and then swirls back around to get you with just the ends in your face.   Stupid.

Then, me and my entourage ventured to the front of the house to water the flowers there.  The garbage man had come and gone and our garbage can was literally blowing down the street, so I went to retrieve it.  I reach the garbage can, grab the handle to wrench it back up on it's wheels, I can hardly see because my hair is blowing across my eyes and, unfortunately, our garbage picker upper didn't secure the lid strap back down, so while I am getting the garbage can up, the stupid wind grabs ahold of the lid and blows it up (at approx 500mph) and hits me right in the face.  I would of been dying laughing had I just watched it happen to someone else, but since it happened to me, I wasn't really laughing, but Jayden was. cracking. up.  "Oh man, mom!  That thing SMACKED you right in the face!!!"   Glad I could cheer someone up.

Today, I don't like it here.

Being 5

In Jayden's mind, turning 5 was going to be a big deal. He'd say to me, "I'll buckle my own seat belt...when I'm five", "I'll wipe my own bottom...when I'm five", "You can take the training wheels off my bike...when I'm five" (Thank goodness, he didn't stick to his rules for everything and I managed to get him to try something - like wiping his own rear-end - before then) :)

Jayden's had a couple REALLY loose teeth for awhile now and he won't let me near them for fear I'll pluck them out. He kept telling me that when his teeth were ready they would come out on their own. I guess his teeth were waiting until he was five too, because today at lunch, his sandwich took out one of his teeth!

Today was Jayden's snack day at school and since it was his birthday snack day, we carried on the dinosaur theme.
Green dinosaur rice krispy treats (which by the way, I had to buy a container of 50 cookie cutters in order to obtain these dinosaur cutters, so if anybody needs any sort of animal cookie cutter....odds are I have it now...feel free to come over and borrow)

And blue dino-pops!

(don't worry, I included apples to go with, so they get at least something healthy - however I didn't have time to figure out how to cut the apples into dinosaur shapes, so I just said it's dino-food :) )

It's pretty darn good being 5!

Happy Easter-Birthday!

It has been a busy weekend around here!  Royal's parents arrived Friday afternoon and we've been getting ready for our Easter-Birthday Weekend ever since.

We dyed Easter eggs.

I baked and cooked and decorated for Jayden's 5th birthday!  Once again, he wanted dinosaurs, so dinosaur is what I did.
A few dinosaurs in this corner :

A Happy Birthday banner, with an egg garland, and a few more dinosaurs over here...

A new dinosaur birthday crown - at the birthday boy's request.

I even made some special napkins for the day - Easter on one side and Happy Birthday on the other!

We got up this morning and went to church and then came home to do an Easter egg hunt.

Then played outside with some bubble guns.

Finally, it was time to open presents!

Look!  I'm alive!!!!

 

 Jayden and grandma did some digging for fossils.

I made Jayden a blue dinosaur cake this year.

Happy Birthday to you!  Happy Birthday to you!  Happy Birthday dear Jayden!

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday, Jayden!!!

Happy Birthday to my big 5 year old!!!!  I'm so lucky to get to be your mom!

Jayden came into my room this morning and said, "I'm 5 today!  And I'm pretty sure that I'm too big for these pajamas now!  I grew a TON last night!"

School Egg Hunt

Today, Jayden had an egg hunt with his class at school.  Willow and I tagged along for fun, and Willow was even allowed to hunt for some eggs with everybody else.

After the egg hunt,  Jayden's class had snacks back in the classroom and Willow got what she's been wanting this whole year....the chance to sit at the tables with the big kids and be part of their class!

Happy Feet :: Victory Dance

Today,  Jayden's blue squad squared off against the yellow team.  I'm pretty sure we lost today's game, but Jayden swears that the score was 14-11 in their favor, but whose counting?  :)

Jayden has really started doing some sweet victory dances when his team scores a goal.
After Max scored a goal :

After Jayden scored a goal :

After Cooper scored his first goal of the season.  I wish I would of been paying more attention and got more of Cooper and their coach in the picture.  Their are all super excited because Cooper kicked the goal from mid-field.  :)

This picture is likely to be Jayden's favorite that I took this time, because his feet aren't touching the ground.  Jayden often runs as fast as he can down the field and kinda looks down and behind himself to see if he's got dust clouds or if his feet are no longer touching the field.

And here's a couple of Willow, just because she does so well on the sidelines with us, when what she really wants to do is run on the field and play with Jayden.

Bathrobe Buddies

Jayden and Willow have taken to wearing their bathrobes around (and outside) the house in the morning.  I think it's the cutest thing ever!

Little Black Butterfly

We found this little guy in our grass today.  I think there might be something wrong with one of his wings because he won't fly off.  But we got him moved to a safer location, so that the kids, or the dog, or the garden hose wouldn't squish him.

Jayden is VERY concerned about him, since he can't fly.  And I wish I carried my video camera around in my pocket because as Jayden stood and watched him, he sang him a song about how much he loved him and would teach him how to fly.  :)

Happy Feet :: Speed Power

Jayden had another soccer game today against the orange team!  We won 10-5, with Jayden scoring a goal, but whose counting, right???  Other than Jayden of course, and another kid Max who's on his team.... :)

Jayden saw the the pictures I posted last week and he said, "Where are my fast pictures?" Your what?  "You know, my speed power pictures, where I'm running really, really fast!"  So, I promised to try and get some pictures that showed just how fast he runs around out there.  What he really wants are pictures of the dust he thinks is flying behind him when he runs, kinda like the poof of dust the road runner makes.  I'm not sure I captured it this week, I'll just have to wait and see what he thinks of them.

Does this look fast?

Or this?

What about this?

Jayden's teammate, Max, is a goal scoring machine, so their coach had Max work on passing to his teammates.  Here is Max passing the ball to Jayden.

And Jayden taking it all the way in!