Making Memories

My grandma often tells me that our family is making memories to remember. Yesterday was a memory that I don't think I will forget. It was my birthday and I think I have to write down what happened so I don't forget.

It started with Brian surprising me with my favorite treat...coke in the bottle...(Sat he did surprise me with my next favorite treat...doughnuts!) I think hearing Samuel say "Happy Birthday Momma" when he woke up was another treat too but the best times came that night.

After a dinner of burritos and tacos from a new place we tried called Chicken Fiesta (which if you haven't been you should...yum yum), it was time to open presents. Samuel, my sweet sensitive boy, had decided some time back he wanted to get me a necklace. The necklace was beautiful...a sterling silver cross with blue stones. He definitely has a sense of style. Most precious was his comment..." It looks pretty on you!" He was also proud of the way he had tricked me but putting some magnet tape in the box to make it so heavy I wouldn't have guessed it was jewelry. He is going to make a wonderful husband one day.

My wonderful husband (and Gracie) gave me a beautiful dress. He thought "it looks just like you." and I would say it does. But I first will need to lose some weight and get a tan so that I can look as sexy in it as he imagines.

But by far the sweetest reaction was from my sweet little Bub. He had been waiting patiently for me to open his gift. His smile was priceless and by far one of the biggest I had ever seen. I knew what he must be thinking but doesn't have the words to say. As I opened his gift he could barely stand it...he was squirming, and moving and smiling with delight. There in the box were some blue sweatpants. How did he know that is what I really needed and wanted? Brian said once he saw the clothes in the store he knew he wanted pants and didn't waiver from that decision. I had been thinking that I should use some birthday money to get some new "comfy" pants. They were perfect. Exactly what I would have picked. How does my Bub somehow know what I am thinking...he is special like that. And although I miss hearing his sweet voice most times...I think I know what he is thinking just by looking at that most beautiful smile of his.


My wonderful night ended with a beautiful rendition of Happy Birthday. Even Gracie sang along in just her very own way...

Yep...Grandma was right...we are just making memories.

Proud to be a Mommy

So mommy has had some proud to be a mommy moments recently. First...I cannot begin to tell everyone just how proud Bub has made me at school. His teachers tell me how he has a group of four friends he plays with every day. And most importantly he is bringing home work with smiley faces and E's every day. He amazes me daily with how God is working in his life.

Well...sorry girls but Samuel won't be getting married any time soon! According to him he will never be getting married. Or at least not too any little girls...he says he is going to marry me! How innocent and sweet is that! One day he might wish I wouldn't tell him (or his fiance) that but for now it makes me feel pretty special!

Oh and Gracie...she has had her share of moments lately too. What a little girl she is. She and I have so much fun shopping, playing kitchen and baby, and doing "girlie" things. She amazes me every day with how independent she is. She wants so badly to be as big as the boys. I think her biggest new task has been taking her shirt off by herself. Too bad it was her PJ top in the crib one morning...guess we have to move on to the zipper PJs. :)

Christmas Pictures

Here's a bunch of photos from our Christmas Fun!

Family Fun

The day after Christmas we headed to Savannah to visit my family. It was so much fun to see family we haven't seen in a long time. The boys especially loved seeing their cousin. Their aunt and uncle planned a special trip for the kids to go to Build A Bear. I wasn't sure how it would go over but according to Samuel "that was the best part of his trip." At Build A Bear Samuel chose to make a dinosaur he named "Rex." Gracie made a kitty that her cousin Savannah named "Princess" for her. The cutest thing was Benjamin's reaction to all of this. I wasn't sure that he was really that in to the stuffed animal thing since he has never really acted like he cared so much about stuffed animals. But...he was dead set on getting an elephant and proudly chose to name it "Paul" after his beloved uncle(Brian's brother). I think that the biggest shocker has been how attached he is to that elephant. I think we now have a 6 member of our household. Paul rides in the car with us, eats with us, plays with us. I think in some ways the elephant reminds Bub of the uncle he wished lived here in Richmond with us. I feel certain that the novelty will soon wear off, but for now it is really sweet.

Much fun was had in Savannah, not only did we see our Granddaddy and Nana but we were able to see our great grandmommy ("Granny). Spending time with family always makes us long to live a little closer to home.

When we got home from Savannah we had some more fun awaiting us. Brian's mom and dad came to see us from Memphis and spend New Year's with us. This is always lots of fun. I think the boys would be happy if Grandmommy would come and live with them and play with them every day. The highlight of their trip was the light show. It was beautiful and although it was quite cold the lights were enough to holds every one's attention. Even Gracie was entertained enough to sit in her stroller for almost thirty minutes which is a record for her. Samuel's favorite part was the spiders. He took a look from up high when Brian lifted him up. Brian heard a quiet " oh cool" as he picked him up to look at them. We were all sad to see Grandmommy and Granddaddy go. The boys asked about them quite a bit for a while until things returned to normal.

We feel incredibly blessed to have such wonderful family that loves us so much. Maybe one day we can live closer.

Christmas Time is Here...

Wow...so it has been a while since my last post. But...we have been busy with holiday happenings. The month seems to have flown by so quickly that I should have written down all the fun things we did everyday so I wouldn't forget but I will try to recap just a few here.

Our Christmas Eve was spent for the third time with some very close friends of ours. We always share some good gumbo together and then have a birthday party for Jesus with the kids. I would say that is a highlight for the boys. Samuel especially has become an expert at telling the first Christmas story and thankfully seems to understand the real reason behind why we celebrate Christmas. Our time with them is always fun but this year seemed to be even more fun for Brian and I because it seemed to have marked one of the first times that all three kids stayed entertained enough for us to have some sort of conversation with adults.

After the dinner we headed to church for the Christmas Eve service. We knew Gracie would not make it very far and decided to swap off watching her in the foryer while the other one of us sat with the boys. Gracie was glad for that decision and found a little playmate in the hall who had her fascination for Elmo...but since Gracie does not yet understand sharing we spent most of the night reminding her that it was NOT "her Elmo." I am pretty sure the boys were not very excited about sitting through a long church service, but sat quietly for the most part. Except for Samuel's comments every now and again that he was bored and didn't really know what to do. Communion for Samuel did bring some excitement (as well as confusion). He was baffled that bread really looks like crackers, and really could not begin to understand how all this is Jesus' body. But..we know that even for us this is something that only through the grace of God we can begin to understand.

Christmas Eve night for us was exciting. Benjamin and Samuel have been counting down the days until Santa comes for the entire month so knowing he was coming that night was pretty exhilirating for them. We put out the cookies and candy. Samuel (the sensitive little guy that he is) was mainly concerned that Santa would hurt himself when he fell on the logs in the fireplace and he might get a tummy ache if he ate some sort of cookies and candy at each house. He also wonders how Santa really has time to get to everyone's house in just one night. But...since I figure that we might not have that many more years that Samuel really believes I try to savor every minute of his innonence and play along with the story as much as I can. They really went to bed easier than I expected but I have a feeling they both were trying to listen for the sound of jingling bells on the rooftop.

Our first Thanksgiving...

here in Richmond. Yes, this year we decided not to travel for Thanksgiving. It was a bittersweet decision. Although we enjoy the time we spend with our families, we were looking forward to spending some quiet time at home. During the weeks leading up to the big day, Samuel was filled with excitement again over yet another holiday. He never was really quite sure what you did on Thanksgiving. He said he just couldn't remember exactly what we did last year. I tried to make it sound as exciting as I could...you eat turkey and watch football and most importantly DAD is off for FOUR whole days. Samuel was most excited about that. He kept reminding Bubby religiously that Dad was going to be off for FOUR days! He was so excited about it all that I hoped it wouldn't be let down for him. He looked forward to the food he would eat but said he wasn't quite sure what turkey tasted like (although he has eaten it many times in the past!) Bubby wasn't as excited about the day. I think that idea that Dad would be home was exciting but the whole eating thing wasn't much to anticipate unless we would eat at Chick Fil A for Thanksgiving. Now I think this was the first year that the boys really got the story of the Pilgrims and the Indians (or Native Americans to be PC). Samuel really wanted to be an Indian and have a shield and teepee. Benjamin studied the story at school and was able to point to various pictures that described the story. He proudly wore his Indian hat home from school...which I might add was the cutest thing to see getting off that bus.

Well..the day arrived. I cooked a lot of food with Brian's help (He's wonderful!). Samuel patiently waited to see just what all the fuss was about. We watched the parade. (Which was interesting to the kids when they saw the characters they recognized!) Even Gracie got excited when she saw ELMO! Then the time came to eat. Gracie had been recovering from some virus and honestly I don't think she ate one thing! ( Bless her heart...she was really not feeling well all weekend and was really clingy and fussy.) We made some chicken and french fries for the Bubster and of course the fries and chicken were too mushy so he didn't really eat! Well by this time Mom was too frustrated with the eating antics of these picky eaters to really enjoy eating any of her food. BUT...thankfully Dad enjoyed every bite of his meal (both first and second helpings!) and Samuel was pleasantly surprised that the food was good and that this Thanksgiving day just might turn out okay!

We spent the rest of the holiday weekend eating, watching movies, playing, watching football, doing yardwork and even took a trip down to the James River to walk around on the trails (and take our Christmas pictures). It was a very quiet uneventful weekend. Gracie finally started feeling better on Sunday night. Samuel got some quality "dad" time with watching LOTS of football and Bubby had fun just hanging out without having school! SO all in all I think it turned out okay and hopefully we will get the chance again one year.

Halloween

So...we made it through another exciting Halloween in the Kaman house. The boys (especially Samuel) look forward to Halloween almost as much as Christmas. They start deciding on costumes sometime in September and we try to make them wait until almost Halloween to officially decide on one. Benjamin decided he would be Spiderman early on and never once waivered. (I think he thinks he IS Spiderman sometimes.) As for Samuel he went from a Ninja Turtle to a basketball player but settled on the blue Power Ranger. It seems he is learning about these superheroes from his buddy in preschool. We personally don't let him watch those because they are a little too old for him but he likes the costume all the same. Blue is his favorite color so it makes sense he would choose that. As for Gracie...mom had some crazy idea that she would dress my first and only daughter in a totally girlie costume. So I set out to make her a fairy. I felt such a sense of pride that I was able to create a relatively cheap costume (wings, halo and wand) that would look great. If only she would have worn it....The only part of the costume that stayed on was the skirt. So...my "fairy" became my "ballerina" in about 10 seconds. Oh well...at least I still have the pieces for next year!

We did enjoy the night. We started at a fall festival. The boys loved the bounce house, games and train ride. Gracie had her first taste of lollipops and cotton candy. After the festival we came home to trick or treat to a few neighbors and then come home and examine our loot. Samuel loves the chocolate. Gracie has had her sample of candy ...BUT Benjamin STILL finds no interest in eating his candy! (Guess I can't complain too much about that!)

So...we enjoyed yet another fun filled Halloween here in our house...only to hear Samuel ask when we returned back home from our fun..."How many more days until Halloween?"