Happy Birthday my Baby Boy!

Four???? I have a 4 year old? weird.... My little 8 lb 13 ounce bundle of joy that made me a mommy 4 years ago is all grown up. Super excited to go bowling tonight with the family and can't wait to be 5...
At 4 years old he weighs 36 pounds. Loves Transformers (which has lasted a whole year) is getting into Batman and bad guys. Still loves the color blue, hates wearing jeans, still crawls in bed with his mom at about 3 am. Wears a size 8 shoe, is almost the shortest in his class, but definitely has a BIG personality. Loves the gym, but not class, likes his break dancing class for now, loves his cousins, and LIFE cereal. Chocolate milk and candy, candy, candy. Thinks the world revolves around him and loves his little sister... sometimes.... I love you my Baby Beck!

Beck's #4 Birthday party

My son, the almost Birthday Boy. In 2 days, 4 years ago my son and first child was born. 4 years, really? I really can't even fathom it. This little stretch me to my limits ball of fire, changed my life forever, in the best way possible.

He really has had the hardest time the past two days. I think that I heard, "can I please, puh-lease open my presents... just one, I will open the big ones later, puh-lease, I won't tell anyone, just one... PLEASE!" I heard it at least 30-40 times a day if not in one hour. The party started about 2:30, with family and a few friends arriving all within the next hour. Most of the Ashtons (Prunedas) were there and the Nelsons, Jenks, and Gilberts. Cousin Carsten and Aunt Debbie also have birthdays in February and this was the Sunday Birthday Dinner for the Ashton family.

SURPRISE!!! visit from Grandpa Bobby Boy the missionary! Beck kept asking him how he got here?? Did he fly here?

This picture is pretty much a scene from the whole party, fast track and full blur....

We sent him on a scavenger hunt for his big present from us; a "cabin" with little people and farm animals and horse and buggy. He saw it at Ranch and Home a month or two ago and has been talking about it ever since. He also wanted it to "rain gumballs" (off of a movie he saw) for his birthday, I think that his cousin Hanna got that one stuck in his head.

Lots of Transformers, a Batman plane, socks, Batman shirt, airplanes, a Pixar activity book, and Pixar activity/sticker pad.....

and... CANDY!!! from the pinata!

The birthday bunch with a very unenthused Beck..... Cartsen, Debbie, and Beck

Carsten let Beck blow out the candles...

Then he had to blow them out again..... Happy Birthday my Baby boy.... I love you!

Everyone around me is sick. Stephen is just getting over it, I feel it coming on. Kids are dropping like flies down at the school and gymnastics center. My kids have boogie noses.... So even with a cute smile like that on Pais's face as she eats one of her favorite snacks, I can't help but cringe at the sight of the boogie nose. Not that it's nasty (although it is) but that fact of "is it coming?" The real sickies, the barf, the bum, the swollen eyes, the fitless sleep filled with fevers and sweats and chills? Oh man, I sure hope it skips my kids.... But while daddy spends days in bed we made blueberry pancakes, a favorite of beck's, and went to school, and about our lives as Stephen laid in bed miserable. Happy to know that he is back on his feet and crossing my fingers that it skips the rest of the family....

At school today we had a special speaker "Mr. Carlos" aka Chuck. He build houses and he came and talked to the kids and let them drill screws into a board and gave them all their own ear plugs. It was so fun and the kids were super into it. Me and Mindy needed that because man, this past week, bless their hearts, it has not been easy. It's like they can feel the Spring in their bones and they run and jump and scream and fight because all they wanna do is be set free. Which reminds of a quick story.

I have a hard time at school if some of the kids don't wanna stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I understand that they are only 3 and 4 years old, but I want them to learn how to respect the flag and what it stands for. So I have been trying to teach them what it stands for. Today I had been asking them what they like to do? "ride bikes, eat food, play with friends." Were typical answers, so I was explaining that those are freedoms and we get to choose what we want to do, what we want to eat, who we want to play with and we owe that to soldiers and people who have stood up for us and sometimes not been able to return home to their families, so that we can have these freedoms. So anyways on the way to Warden to switch my sis-in-law for my Paisley and her Ashton, Ashton finished his nachos and he says, "Here Korbi, I finished my nachos because this is America and I can!" LOL Seriously, if it were all that easy.... And ladies and gentlemen, it is "all about the Climb...."

Mr. Story Teller

When I was in High School I loved being involved with the drama program. I was pretty good at a certain competition group called Story Telling. You would draw a story out of a hat, have 2 minutes to prepare and then retell that story in your own way, trying hard not to stray from the actual story line, but put your own spin on it as well. Acting out characters, crawling on the floor, and making big facial expressions and voices. Yeah, right up my alley. Point of this story about my long ago past is that my little Beck seems to be headed down the same road. I was taking him and his cousin Ashton to the Dollar Store to pick up some birthday supplies for his birthday in a bit and I told the boys they could for sure pick out a prize. This is what I heard.... Beck: "If we can get a real reindeer, we can go in the sled and go way up in the sky and go to Heaven and talk to Jesus and say, "Hey Jesus!"

Beck and Break dancing

So, I know my Beck is only 3, he will be 4 in two weeks, but I have been starting to think about what activities to put him in. I'd really like him to choose just one thing, but do I really have to put him in everything to find out what that one thing is? I loved all the things that I did growing up, for posterity sake: dancing, gymnastics here and there, drama, speech, Business Professionals, 4-H, violin... but I don't wanna run him everywhere and drop him off and eat in the car so much, I want him home for dinner when he's big, is there any hope? He used to kind of like gymnastics, but lately has not been wanting to come to class at all while I teach Hot Shots. Chalk it up to me being the teacher and him just being there at the gym/school too much. He has always been a dancer, we dance in the kitchen, we play freeze dance. The kids hear Miley Cyrus from my blog and they start shaking it! A break dancing group started teaching classes down at the gym like 2 weeks ago and I decided to put Beck in it. Just to see. Well, for the first week; he likes it, a lot.... I was teaching gym during the last bit of it, so I missed his free style, but the other ladies in there said Beck was rocking it! We'll see how long it lasts, but for the time being it is pretty darn cute!

wow... I have learned a lot in the last few days! Don't try and copy thousands of pictures, even if they do all make it to the DVD. I spent hours yesterday trying to organize them on my computer and about half of them have faint green lines going through them. I am guessing the machine got tired of all the pictures I was trying to scan. I got about 2500 done and I still need to do 1/4 of a box and 2 other whole boxes, but I am going to hold off on those 2 boxes, I have been ignoring my family too much the last few days and frankly, I am just sick of standing at Wal-Mart feeding pictures through a machine! Ha! I am going to go back and do the 1/4 of the box, so then I will know that that box is all done. I am hoping it is only about 500 pics...
I have also learned this week that stain over the top of paint takes FOREVER to dry! Last week I painted my kitchen table and stools and benches, well, Tiffanni ad Stephen did most of it, while I painted a cabinet turquoise, but anyways we had people over on Friday and some had to sit on the floor in the living room because my table and benches and stools aren't dry yet!!!