MOM! COME QUICK!!

 The boys burst into my room this morning at 6:50am to announce "IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Then commenced the begging to go outside and play in it, eat it, and bring some in to make snow ice cream. We ate a quick breakfast and were definitely the first ones out to enjoy the snow!

If you were a fly on our wall this morning...

(Samuel and I are unloading the dishwasher...)
Samuel: I like doing this job. It makes me feel helpful.

So sweet, right? But a little while later...

Samuel: Mom, when you leaned over, I saw, like, half of your boo-boos. I think you should go put a bra on. I'm just saying that I think you should wear a bra every day.

Curb Appeal

Our recent burst of nice weather inspired me to spruce up the front entrance. All of the houses on our street look so similar. I wanted some things to set it apart so that people could find the house easier.

1. Red star. Now I can just say, it's the one with the red star. Easy enough.
2. Red door. I really wanted a red door all along!

3. New house numbers. I didn't want to drill a bunch of new holes in the brick to attach these new house numbers. So I got the idea to use a picture frame. I covered the back with Stampin' Up! paper and then screwed the numbers into the back of the frame.

4. High gloss black paint on the mailbox. This mailbox definitely got a second life after an easy coat of spray paint.

Still to do...find a new handle for the screen door. It fell off the other day (old age). Ed put a zip tie in to use for now. Yes, that is white trash.

Still to consider...do I paint the shutters black? The railings black? The screen door black? White? I'm not sure how far to go with this. But I'm super pleased with the results so far. For comparison, here's what the house looked like not so long ago:

And here it is today:

Payneful Wrestling

Giveaway on my mom's stamping blog

Bounce on over to The Village Stamper for a Thanksgiving card giveaway and to see my mom's latest service project.

Party like a Rock Star

We had quite the birthday party today. Samuel invited ALL his friends!! Here are the kiddos:

We also hosted 7 moms and 6 dads - what a crew!

Here is the birthday boy with his birthday cake:

Posing with friends and presents:

Excited about something:

We had a fun time with all of our friends. But I think this may have been our last big birthday blowout...the house was packed to the gills! We are thankful for so many great friends that the Lord has provided. And we're super thankful for this sweet, spunky, smart 5 year old Samuel!!!

Birthday Morning

Samuel requested a rock star birthday party this year. Here he is this morning at the breakfast table with all his decorations:

Joel was so excited to join him:

Here's the boys itching to open Sam's present from Mom, Dad & Joel:

Samuel was a little excited about it:

A Disney Cars 2 set!!! Yippee!!!

Happy 5th Birthday to Samuel!

Here's the birthday boy in all his cuteness:

Ed's Favorite Part of the Vacation

Ed's favorite part of the vacation was the Rooftop Rodeo in Estes Park. He did NOT want to go when we first mentioned it. He "offered" to stay home with Joel, etc to get out of going, but we all talked him into it. He LOVED it - He says it's his favorite part! I wanted to go all in with our rodeo adventure, so I spent naptime visiting thrifts stores in town to pull together some cowboy hats and boots for us. I was able to find hats for everyone, and boots for myself and Sophia. The drive from Fort Collins up into Estes Park was A-Mazing! There were all of these cabins and campgrounds along the way too that I kept saying I wanted to stay at. Someday maybe. Here are picks from the drive to Estes Park:


And here are the best shots from the rodeo:

Poudre Canyon

We spent the rest of our vacation with our friends The Castelluccios in Fort Collins, CO. They are on staff with Athletes in Action at Northwestern U and are spending their summer on an AIA project at Colorado State. Our time with them was action packed! We tried to do a fun activity each morning and each evening. On our first day we spent the morning at the Rec Center at CSU. Then we had a picnic dinner at Poudre Canyon. It was beautiful! The kids loved it as well. Check out all our fun: