Happenings

• Last week, we had a birthday party for Garrett. His birthday isn't until the end of the month, but it seemed like a good idea to get it out of the way before school starts. He had so much fun with all of his friends at the bounce house place. And I'm happy to have another year before I have to deal with another birthday party. (Does anyone else dread them? No? I'm a horrible mom...)


• 5 days and counting until life changes. Kindergarten. I'll blog more about that once we have a few days under our belt. Garrett says he's excited about going and learning new things. He did have a moment of being unsure and apprehensive about it, but I forced myself to be chipper and upbeat about it and that seemed to help talk him through it. I'm really trying to restrain my own apprehension and nerves.


• We never ended up getting to take a family vacation this summer, which bothers me some, but we've been looking through the school calendar to figure out when we might squeeze in a family getaway sometime soon. Garrett is starting to ask more and more about going to Disney World. We watched "Tangled" for the first time yesterday and he wants to know if Flynn Rider (or whatever the guy's name was) will be at DW if we ever go there. Maybe in another summer or two we can plan a fun trip like that. Keith and I have never been either, so we're both excited about the possibilities.


• This morning, I started reading "5 Conversations You Must Have with Your Son" by Vicki Courtney. So far it's an amazing book. It's opened my eyes to things that I know are issues today, but never really considered the impact they could have on my sons. If you're a parent of a boy, I highly recommend this book. I'm about 1/3 of the way into it and have already learned quite a bit. (She also has one for conversations with daughters. I haven't read it, of course, but I would imagine it's just as good.)


• Keith and I have become addicted to the show "Pawn Stars." We've been watching episode after episode on Netflix every night. You learn a lot about history, plus you see some crazy people on there. And Keith is a big pawn shop fan, so he enjoys the show simply based on that. I have to admit that I'm just as into the show as he is.


• This Sunday, we will start a year of teaching one of the kindergarten Sunday School classes at our church. I'm hoping that will go smoothly.


• Cooper has become Mr Polite lately. He says Yes, ma'am, Please, Thank You, etc. It's really sweet. Of course, he's also full-blown into the No phase too and that's not polite or sweet. He also is great at counting down from 10 to 1, but he has no idea how to count from 1-10. It's amazing how much they learn from older siblings. It's funny to hear him countdown like he's launching a rocket or something.