Impressive...

**Disclaimer: This is one of those My Kid is so Brilliant posts. I try not to post too many of these, but I was truly impressed with what Dane did the other day.

First of all, Dane wanted to write his friend Kellen a thank you note for letting him come to his birthday party. How cute is that?

Secondly, he did the below ALL BY HIMSELF! All I did was give him the paper and pen.

If you're having trouble reading his inventive spelling it says From Dane - To Kellen.

Here's the final product. He stamped all the other images.


I was pretty impressed with my sweet 4 year old, but then again, I am his Mommy and that's my job. ;)

Happy Birthday to my sweet Auntie Jenna!

I hit the jackpot 22 years ago in the friend department! Jen and I had just pledged Kappa Kappa Gamma and we both felt a little out of place for the first few weeks as we were one of the few "older" girls to pledge. We were sophomores while nearly every one else were freshman. It was this simple similarity that connected us and I am so glad it did!

I was so blessed to have met this sweet girl all those years ago! (This picture was taken right after we met.)

I knew almost immediately after meeting Jen that we were destined to be best friends. She is without a doubt the most loving and caring person I know. She'd drop anything for you and come to your rescue. She is an amazing listener and always knows what to say when I'm blue. She's a blast to hang out with and from the instant I met her I could always be myself 100%.

We've been through so much together and she's always been there for me. My life is so much more complete by having her friendship. And even though we don't live next door to each other like we said we would in college, our friendship has not suffered in the least. In fact, it's even stronger. We have such a wonderful sisterly bond that no matter how many miles separate us we're only a phone call away. And despite the craziness of our lives, we still manage to talk at least once or twice a week.

So in honor of Auntie Jenna's 40th birthday, here's a little walk down memory lane.

One of many formals together in college.

Halloween 1993?

A classic picture from one of many college socials.

River rafting down the American River after college.

Jen and I went to Telluride, Colorado after college for a summer trip and we wound up living there for 4 years! It was an amazing experience and one that deeply solidified our life long friendship.

Camping in Telluride.

I'm sure our parents were relieved when we finally decided to move back from Telluride and decided it was time to get serious. Jen got her nursing degree and I got my teaching certificate.

We each finally met "the one" and stood up for each other in our weddings. I had to include this picture because Jen gave the most memorable speech for our wedding. She was so nervous and then blew the crowd away with her wit and amazing speaking skills.

Babies came next. Here Jenna is pregnant with her first baby, Ella.

And here's Jen 7 months pregnant with her second baby, Eli, holding Dane. She traveled all the way up to Alaska to meet Dane and help out with my new journey of Mommyhood.

Here she is with Jaeger Ray. Again, leaving her own family to come help me with mine. And she was such an amazing help! She actually slept with Jaeger an entire night so I could get some sleep. I mean really, who does that except for your mom?


And here are all of our munchkins together. :)

I have so many amazing memories with Jen. We lived together for over 10 years, went on countless road trips, attended a zillion concerts (Shawn Colvin being our top favorite and most times attended!), ran marathons together, hosted lots of game nights and awesome New Year's Eve bashes in our awesome beach apartment in Carlsbad, played cards until the wee hours of the night instead of writing papers or doing homework, drank endless Mochas at the Steaming Bean and Vinaka Cafe, and shared endless stories, tears and laughter throughout the years.

I'm slightly saddened that blogging and digital cameras weren't around in my twenties as it would have been a great to preserve all we've actually done together, but the most important thing is that my heart is filled with happiness when I think of my dear friend Jen.

Jen, you are true best friend and I'm proud to call you mine.

Happy 40th birthday Auntie Jenna. I love you more than 1,000,000 naked biscuits running down the hallway. :)

Busted!

The boys have recently begun actually playing together and it's so sweet to watch them become friends. I love hearing their sweet giggles when they're having fun together (as opposed to the screeches over a stolen toy!)

The other night the boys were a little too quiet in their room and this is what I found when I went in to check on them!

Yep, they took every last diaper out of a huge Costco size box of diapers. If you look closely you can see the plastic bag that the diapers came in behind Dane and the box thrown into Jaeger's crib. What you can't see are the other 3 plastic bags that were torn into as well. They managed to somehow open 4 bags of diapers that came in that box.


Things went from bad to worse in a matter of seconds. *Note to self - Don't leave a roll of paper towels in their bedroom anymore!


Clean up was extra time consuming that night, but fun was had by all! It's hard to get too mad, when they're having a blast. :)

Sun + Daddy having the day off = a perfect Saturday!

Two weekends ago we had the most beautiful Saturday and Daddy had the ENTIRE day off! What an amazing treat. So we decided that everyone would be able to choose one thing they'd like to do for the day.

Daddy choose a trip to the glacier for some bear viewing. Sadly, we didn't see any bears, but we had fun watching the salmon spawning.

Can you guess what Jaeger choose? (Okay, let's be honest -- Daddy suggested this and everyone gave an overwhelming YEA!!! All my boys have a definite soft spot for doughnuts.)

Mommy choose a walk on the Flume Trail downtown. As you can see in this picture, Jaeger is IN LOVE with his Daddy. It's so sweet. He gets so excited when Daddy comes home from work. He'll drop whatever he's doing and run to the door. :)

Can you guess what Dane choose?

Yep, another trip to the fire station. (Thankfully we were downtown so we didn't have to bother the Glacier Fire Station one more time. ;) )

Just like all the other trips to the fire station (except the one where the firefighter told Daddy & Dane that they could watch him scrub the toilet if they wanted - I think that firefighter may have woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning) this trip did not disappoint. Firefighter Jenkins was amazing. He actually let Dane try on his mask. Oh we had one little excited boy! Dane's been fascinated with the masks recently and the real thing was so much better than the cup he uses at home. Firefighter Jenkins also let Dane squirt a fire extinguisher!!! Don't worry it's filled with water, but Dane thought that was so cool. Here you can see Dane in action. Thankfully, we had Dane's airtank and helmet in the car so he was fully equipped!

We ended the day with dinner and a bonfire with our good friends, Dennis and Natasha. All of the kids ate their weight in S'more's and we all crashed hard once we got home.

What a perfect day!

Sweet one on one time

With Dane in school three days a week, I get a lot more one on one time with this little guy -


and I'm absolutely loving it. Admittedly, sometimes poor Jaeger Ray plays second fiddle to his more vocal brother so it's so nice being able to spend time with just him.

So far we've spent a lot of time outside as he is definitely our outdoors man. One morning we went to the glacier to throw rocks and look who walked right in front of us!


And here's Jaeger helping me make Snickerdoodles to surprise Dane with on his first day of preschool.


When I taught 3rd grade in California, one of my all time favorite students was named Simon. He was such an amazing kid. And his mom was even more amazing! She made it a priority to take each of her kids (she has 3) out of school once a year to have a date with just them. The year I taught Simon, she took him out of school for a few hours to take him to lunch. I thought that was such a wonderful idea and one that I'm sure Simon will remember and look fondly on for his entire life. Since that time, I've always thought once I have children I'm definitely going to take my kids out one on one to make some special memories. And I'm looking forward to making lots more memories with just my sweet Jaeger Ray.
(And, of course, with my sweet Firefighter Paul - aka Dane.)

First Day of Preschool

Our little guy is growing up.

For someone that really didn't want to graduate to the 4 year old preschool class and seemed to dread it all summer long, he was really excited once the actual day came. And this is coming from the kid that didn't want to turn 4 either. After we beat that obstacle and he realized that 4 really isn't all that bad (especially if said 4 year old has a new fire suit that fits him --thanks Grandma Heidi!) there didn't seem to be a concern about graduating to the 4 year old class. These pictures are a true reflection on how he felt about going!

And I'm happy to report that each morning since he's excitedly asked, "is it a pre-school day?" It's a good feeling to know he loves school so much.

Birthday Celebration - Part 2

**Disclaimer - This post is LONG! I really wanted to document the whole story. Feel free to skip ahead to the pictures and be forewarned - there are lots of those too!

Besides our small family party, we did have another birthday party for our little firefighter. When I asked Dane who he would like to have at his birthday party he said, "Kellen and the firefighters!" My first thought was how in the world am I going to get some firefighters to his birthday party and my second thought was it was going to be a tiny birthday party with just Kellen here. So I started down his list of friends and he quickly vetoed any other friends being at his party. He said, "I want a small birthday party and I just want Kellen, Natasha (Kellen's mom), Jenny (Kellen's sister) Mommy, Daddy and Jaeger to be there." I asked him for a few days and his answer was always the same. Our little firefighter knows what he wants! (Honestly, I think that Jaeger's birthday party was just too overwhelming for Dane and he knew that he wanted just a few people here. )

My first task in planning his party was to try to get some firefighters to come to his birthday party. And since Firefighter Unk Tim probably wouldn't be able to fly in from New Mexico, I decided to just call the Glacier Fire Station. The woman that answered said no, we don't do that type of thing. Strike 1. So then I had to start thinking about who I knew that was a firefighter and that might be able to make this happen. I had a first grade student a few years ago whose mom is a firefighter, so I emailed her this ridiculously long email with links to my blog showing just how dedicated of a firefighter we had on our hands and her response was it might be possible! Zip a Dee Doo Dah! And as you can see below, it was possible!!

So, now that I knew the firefighters might actually be coming to Dane's birthday party, I thought I should try again to get Dane to invite a few more friends. If the firefighters were making a special trip to our house, I didn't want them to be disappointed to see just 2 kids. So, I pulled out Dane's preschool composite and we looked through the kids in his class last year. I figured with school starting the next week that it might be a good idea to have a few friends come over to help ease Dane in to going back to school. Once he looked at their pictures he saw 2 friends that he wanted to come to his birthday party. Yea - now we had a party!

Thankfully, our guests arrived promptly because the firefighters arrived right as the party was starting. I was not expecting them to be here so quickly! All the kids jumped on the couch to see the fire truck pull up to our house and then we all ran outside. We got so lucky that the day of Dane's party was absolutely gorgeous! It was the first sunny day we'd had in probably a week and a half. Firefighters Keith and Marilyn were amazing. Firefighter Marilyn walked the boys around the truck and showed them everything and gave each of them a turn at holding something - an ax, a mask, an air tank..... Then, Firefighter Marilyn put on her turn out gear and the kids thought that was pretty awesome. Lastly, they let everyone have a turn sitting in the fire truck. They were here for probably 45 minutes - it was incredible!

Finally, you made it to the pictures!

Our signal to the firefighters to let them know they had the right house.

Checking out the fire engine.

Firefighter Marilyn talking to the kids.


Firefighter Marilyn in her turnout gear. (This was definitely a highlight!)


Oskar, Kellen and Johan taking it all in.

The birthday boy getting his turn in the fire truck.

After the firefighters left, we went inside to have pizza and play firefighter! So, of course, everyone needed their own fire equipment: fire helmet, mask, hose and, of course, a milk jug air tank!

And here's Jenny in action!

The fire truck cake and fire truck chocolates for the guests to take home.



We pulled out a few fire trucks and fire fighters for the kids to play with.


And here are a few signs we had around the house.


**If you read this entire blog post you deserve a gold star!!! Sorry it was so long.