Clay's Baptism

Clay turned eight back in March. I know that was like... six whole months ago, ahem... but better late than never, right? Anyway, Clay decided to get baptized when he turned eight and we were all very proud of him. Here's a little photo shoot we had beforehand.

Here's a couple of pictures of that day. I wish now that I had gotten more but that morning went by so fast. It was such a great day with all of our friends and family. The only thing that would have made it better is if my family could have been there too.

After the baptism, we ordered a couple of huge 5-ft. subs from Subway and had a little luncheon. And of course, all of the little cousins and friends chased each other around the gym. In fact, Clay was running a little too hard and had a tooth fall out. I hope it is a day that he will always remember.

A Birthday fit for a Jedi

Several months ago, Clay started to plan his seventh birthday party. He told me that it had to be a Star Wars party. He even made a list of what food he wanted to be served. For weeks, I got little reminders from Clay to make sure I wouldn't forget the things he had planned.

Here is the invite that we sent out.

I downloaded and used a free font from this website.  We already had the Obi Wan costume on hand from a few Halloweens ago.  Clay's friends were really excited about the party when they got their invites.  Although, I think a few of them were concerned about the last paragraph!

Mike had been out of town for days leading up to the party.  He got home from Oklahoma the day before, went to work until 11:30, and then together we stayed up until 3:00 getting things ready for the party.  I spent a lot of my time working on the Jedi robes that I had made for each of the kids.

 

As the kids arrived, we had them make up their new Jedi name. 

Clay and I printed out a list of Jedi sounding parts of names (like walker, light, fett, obi, solo, kin, wan, ana...) and cut them into strips. 

We gave each of the kids a name tag and told them to:

1) write the first 3 letters of their first name

2) draw a strip out of the cup and write it down as the ending of their first name

3) write the first 3 letters of their last name

4) draw another slip and do the same thing as the first name  

The next step was for the kids to make their own light sabers.  To make the light sabers, I took a dowel stick (found in the craft section at Walmart) and hot glued inside of some pipe insulation (found at Home Depot in the plumbing section).  This made the foam insulation a lot stronger and hurt more during a fight.  Then, I had mike cut some pieces of pvc pipe for the handles of the light sabers.  The pipe insulation/dowel fit really snug in the pvc pipe. All of this was done before the party.  I bought blue, purple, red and green duct tape (found at Hobby Lobby) for the kids to wrap around the foam.  The rebel jedis picked red.  Then they wrapped the handle with black electrical tape.

Mike made a great Jedi trainer.  He came up with a few exercises for the kids to do to help master their Jedi skills. 

Mike took a bag of balls that came from a ball pit and had the kids block them with their light sabers.  This was by far the favorite of all the kids.  They could've spent all day doing that exercise.  Another exercise was to take a balloon and try to balance it on their light sabers.  We were all impressed with "P" and his balancing skills, until we realized he taped his balloon to the saber! 

Near the end of training, they got a surprise visit from Darth Vader.  

They were shocked.

My favorite part was when all of the kids chased Vader all the way to his Civic.

After all that training, it was time for a break.  So they ate Wookie Cookies (no-bakes), Yoda Soda (Sprite with lime sherbet), and birthday cake.

The Yoda Soda was a huge hit. 

Here's all of the group minus "J" who broke his arm the day before during a bike accident (which happened to be in front of my house, yikes).  He was taking a break on the couch at the time. :)

Milestones

This past week has been full of good byes.

• Clay has gone back to school to start the first grade
• We've ditched the diapers and now Jack is potty trained!
• Clay has lost his first tooth!

We were at dinner last night with the Eldredges, and Clay came running in to tell me how he was swinging so high that his tooth flew out of his mouth. This tooth had been hanging by a teeny tiny thread for days but Clay had been too nervous to pull it out.

He came home from school today wearing this sticker. He was so excited to finally lose a tooth just like all of his friends had at school.

His new toothless grin... except there isn't much of a gap! His new tooth has been hiding behind the baby one for weeks now, just waiting to take over!

I made this cute little tooth bag for him to stick under his pillow that night (even though didn't buy the idea of the Tooth Fairy for a single minute). You can find the tutorial here.

Preschool Grad

On Clay's last day of preschool, his teacher invited the families to attend an end of the year party. It is always so much fun to see Clay interacting with all of his little preschool friends and to watch how excited Jack is when he is around them. He likes to act like he's one of the "big" kids.

After eating all the pizza that we could, we went outside to a cooler full of water balloons. Each preschooler had earned the right to throw a water balloon at the teacher.

It was hilarious to watch. If one of them threw it too softly, she would catch the water balloon and throw it right back at them! She truly is the coolest preschool teacher in the world!

It's been a few weeks already since Clay finished preschool but I still can't believe it's really over! It is crazy to imagine that I will have a Kindergartner who will be at school all day, five days a week!

bugs, grass & boys

Recently, Clayton has suddenly developed this new fear of all bugs. For a while, he couldn't even set one foot outside without being extremely paranoid that he would get attacked! It started to be a huge pain, so to show him that not all bugs were bad, I picked up a "potato bug" (as I like to call them) and showed him how they curl into balls. He was sold! He even made a little house for him in a Mason jar.

And here Jack is, immitating the way he sees his dad mow the lawn. It was really cute how he pushed the toy mower back and forth over the whole yard.

Well, I'm off to bed now that Mike is finally home from work!

Bluebonnet Boys

This weekend, we dressed the boys up in their Easter Sunday church clothes, and took some bluebonnet pictures.

They were just being so cute and sweet with each other. Giving hugs and kisses, holding hands...








But then I started to get pictures like these...







and I knew we were DONE!

Five

This week Clay had a birthday. I cannot believe that I am old enough to have a five year old. Yesterday I asked Clay how old he thought I was and he said, "fifty". So apparently, I am.

Today, Mike had an interview with a company and was offered the job. It will be a cut in pay, but will work great with Mike's school schedule and won't require him to work on Sundays. He will start training next week. We are extremely grateful to everyone for being so caring and thoughtful towards our family. It has been an eye-opening experience to me and has inspired me to be a better person and friend.

Clayton's on the look-out!

I don't have much to say (big surprise, huh) about these pictures. Clay likes to carry his toy binoculars around with him when he's outside and explore our overgrown yard. It's a jungle out there!

Funny boy

I just wanted to list a few cute things that Clay has said in the past few weeks.

• I made some hair bows and headbands for my niece and was commenting at dinner how I hoped to have a little girl of my own someday. Clay said "Hey Mom, maybe when I'm a daddy my woman will have a baby girl."
• Clay was coloring and asked me "Mom, will you write 'burp' on this paper?" I thought that was a little weird, but typical of a little boy. I did as he requested, and then he asked "Mom, now can you write Ernie... you know like Burp and Ernie?"
• He really has a hard time making the J sound and so he refers to Jack as Aackie Poo.
• I was telling Clay how one day, when he is a daddy, he will have his own house without Mom and Dad or Jack. He got a really concerned and sad look on his face and then said,"But Mom, I won't know how to find my house".
• Clay likes to watch American Idol with me. During the commercial breaks, he stands on the fireplace and pretends he is a contestant. He says, "The next person on AmericDal Ido is Dayton Micho Edwedge" and then he'll make up some silly song about what he did that day.
• I found a timer in a box with all of my old cosmetology stuff. I thought that it would be a great thing to use for time-outs and to limit t.v. watching. So, yesterday I was working on a project and Clay kept asking me to get a toy down for him. I kept saying, "just a minute. Let me finish what I'm doing first." He ran and got the timer, set it on the table I was working at and said,"Mom, you've got ten minutes."
  
  

Brothers

Clayton's on strike!

I have been following poor Clay around, snapping shots of him all day long. There is so much to learn about using my camera. Well, I guess I finally pushed Clay over the edge. He started to hide his face from me, in true celebrity fashion, even using his toys as a shield, and started to say "Stop taking pictures of me, Mom!"

Here's one that I got before he had reached his limit. Isn't he cute?

I was looking through the archives,

and I found some pictures from over two years ago right after we bought our camera (which I am still totally in love with). Well, I played around with them on Photoshop and thought that they were just too cute not to share!
An action shot. I love this one! It really captures the playful bond that Clay and his dad have.



Patiently waiting for Mom to take the picture.

Clay with stick in hand. What is it with little boys and sticks, anyway?

T-Ball

Clayton had his first t-ball lesson this morning. I call it a lesson because there wasn't really any game playing this week. Today they focused on getting familiar with the bases. It was so much fun to watch! I think my favorite part was how Clay's little friend, Stevie, would just casually walk to each base like there was no rush!

Beanstalk

Last Sunday, Clay's Sunbeam teacher (who also happens to be his Granny) gave the kids these cute little pots. Clay has been taking very good care of his little plant and was so excited when he saw it starting to sprout. He woke up the next morning and found that it had grown quite a bit during the night. He thought that maybe it would grow to be a beanstalk. I don't have the heart to tell him that it is just a radish.

Did you hear...

Okay, so that was the front page headline from four years ago. Another huge event from that day was the birth of my beautiful baby, Clayton. It was definately a day that I will never forget.



And look at him now. He's learning to read, loving his baby brother, telling silly jokes, and of course...pretending to save the world.



Here he is enjoying some birthday pancakes from this morning (birthday cake is on hold until Saturday for the party). HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CLAY!! We sure do love you!