One and One...

We squeezed a fun "guy night" in to celebrate Tyler's 11th birthday this year. They went out on Friday night the 9th right before his birthday on the 10th, which was scheduled to be the day Brady had his party in the morning, and the day we were leaving for Littlefield in the afternoon! He invited 4 guy buddies to go out to eat pizza and to a movie with him. He really wanted to have JUST he and his friends go to eat - we compromised with him and let them eat away from parents and brothers at the restaurant instead of WITH us! ha! Donny took the 5 boys to see Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, and they loved it. When they came back, we had cookie cake waiting for them, and Tyler opened the presents they gave him. Such a different kind of "party" than we are used to....big boys don't need a big fuss, lots of attention - they just want to do cool things all by themselves, apparently. I'm thankful for Tyler's sweet guy buddies....they are a blessing to him for sure!

Joseph, Adam, Austin and John are all very special to our big man!

I went to have lunch with Tyler at school on that Friday, and had a fun time hanging out with him and some buddies at a table. I took cupcakes and left them for the end of the day....for some reason it doesn't seem to quite as "cool" for mom's to bring treats up and stay at the end of the school day when you are in 5th grade. Sigh...

Tale of Three Trees...

The Hills at Southlake had a spring musical called "Tale of the Three Trees" that Kindergarteners through 5th graders performed in. Tyler was very excited to be a part of a musical again, and had fun being the "host" and Roman soldier in the show. We loved watching our boy and his friends share the love of God for His people. Sweet, sweet.

 Our boy did a GREAT job introducing the show - we sure were proud!

 The trees are waking up....

 Dancing trees

 The Woodcutter (aka Nino Elliot) came to the forest to find some trees to chop down

 Loved the rappin' trees and my boys have not stopped requesting to hear the woodcutter song!

 How much wood would a woodcutter cut if a woodcutter could cut wood??

 One tree became the manger that Jesus was laid in when he was born, one was the ship the disciples were fishing from when Jesus called them to follow him, and one was used to make the cross that Jesus was crucified on.

Tyler and his buddy, Adam (we call them mutt and Jeff ) did a great job as Roman soldiers.

Basketball boys...

Tyler and Colby both played basketball through the YMCA this winter. Both had Donny as their head coach, which they LOVED! My sweet husband is a FANTASTIC coach...not just because he teaches kids good fundamentals of playing ball, but because he is encouraging, fair, builds character, and makes kids feel valued and important. Kids and parents LOVE him! I actually am beginning to understand the game a little bit better (I've never been a fan at ALL until my kids started playing!), and it sure was fun to watch them improve dramatically over one season.

Colby's team was named TCU, and they appropriately had purple, white and black uniforms. He had several school buddies on the team: Cade and Tyler Keen, and Korey Sayre were all on his team last year and joined him again this year.










Tyler's team was named The Stormers and had uniforms identical to Colby's. Pretty much we just all wore purple and black every week and we were good! Brady even had a "mascot" jersey...one player on Colby's team backed out since she would have been the only girl on the team, so there was an extra jersey. Brady enjoyed having a "uniform" to wear like his brothers every week!









Both teams had a great season and had lots of wins. In Colby's league they don't keep score and don't have an end of season tournament, but Colby said they tied twice and won the rest (?). Tyler's team had 2 losses, and the rest wins. They lost their first game in the tournament by 2 points and the guys were all very disappointed, but recovered well. We were proud of all our boys for how they played and improved! Fun season!

And now he is 9...

Time just won't stay still apparently, and my middle man is still growing. 9 years old. That is so very dangerously close to double digits.

The Friday before his birthday on Sunday, I took cookies up to school for his class and was a part of a VERY special time celebrating him. Sweet Ms. Barnett had Colby and I pass out the cookies, then he stood at the front of the room, his classmates sang "Happy Birthday" to him, then one by one they paid him a compliment. They all told him things about him that they admire, enjoy and love. I heard things like, "You are a great athlete", "You always include me in games", "You are always kind to me", "You have a lot of integrity", "You are my very best friend". I've never heard a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds come up with such amazing comments about a peer before in my life. I was in tears by the time they were done, and Colby loved every minute of it. It was precious to see the expression on his face the whole time they were complimenting him.





Colby chose to take a few close friends to Tornado Terry's, which is a family video game place. The boys were in heaven and it was the easiest party we have ever had for sure! Just show up, let them play, call them in for cake, send them back to play some more, and DONE. We invited other family and our friends to join us at Pizza Inn for supper afterwards to celebrate our little man, and had a blast. I sure am thankful for Colby David Vaughn.

This game brought back some memories for me for sure...best.game.ever.