Zachary's First Sleepover

Zachary had his first sleepover on Friday night. One of his best buds, Bryson, came over for the evening and most of the day Saturday. We waited until Thursday to give him the exciting news. Once he found out, though, that is all we heard about until he came over on Friday. Here's a photo of their excitement when we first picked Bryson up.

On Friday night, they boys could not contain their excitement. It was after 8:30 that we got to the house, so we let them play for about an hour then they headed to bed. Zachary was nice enough to let Bryson sleep in his new bed tent while Zachary slept on the air mattress. It was a nice treat for both boys. Saturday morning, Bryson said that he wanted a tent for his bed at his house.

Speaking of Saturday morning... We were up at 6:58am. Bryson made sure that we didn't waste any part of our day. Even the early part. Here's a picture of the playroom at 7:10.

Here's a picture of the playroom at 7:15.

The boys played for much of the morning with all of Zachary's toys. And yes, we mean all of them. Every toy got touched at least once.After a few hours of playing, we all got dressed and went out to start our day. We wanted Zachary's first sleepover to be extra special. We went to Bogan Park for about two hours. The boys played on the playground and rode the swings until they were starving for lunch. From Bogan Park, we went to McDonalds for a delicious lunch. As adults, McDonalds is not our first choice for lunch, but at five and four years old, it is at the top of the list of choices. After the boys cleaned their plates, they spent close to an hour playing on the playground. It was great - and air conditioned.

From the park, we decided to make sure that Bryson got a taste of just how redneck we really are. We all trucked over to Marty's parents' house to play in their huge yard for a while. Within 15 minutes, the boys had found the riding lawn mowers. Marty's parents are probably the only people in Gwinnett County with three riding lawn mowers. Two of them got put to good use. Bryson had never ridden a lawn mower before, so it took him a minute to get used to the idea. Then, here's the face we saw for the next half hour.

He was so focused on driving. It was too funny. The boys got to take turns riding each of the mowers. Here's a picture of Bryson on the other mower with Marty.When they got used to the idea of driving the mowers, they began chasing each other. Not sure who was the more excited one of the two. They laughed and giggled for the longest time. Of course, a couple of pictures to go with that as well.Zachary hated to see Bryson have to go home. He cried two or three times last night wanting him to come back. The only way to get him to agree to go to bed last night was to let him sleep on the air mattress one more night. He was worn out, though. He slept until almost 9:30 this morning. 13 hours of sleep. Wow. Needless to say, we didn't make it to church.

It was such a special day that Zachary will not soon forget. Now that we've been broken in on sleepovers, we're ready for the next one.

What's the Good Word?

Only Two More Days...

Birthday Party Highlights

Sorry for the delay. It has been one of those weeks. Here's some of the best moments from Zachary's party over the weekend as promised. He is so ready for his next party so all of his buddies can come over and play again. Not so sure we will wait a full year to have friends over. We are so glad he had a great day.

Zachary took a few minutes to wear the basketball net. He and McKinney seemed to take turns wearing it. The kids had a huge beach ball fight with Cathy and I think the kids won. She was worn out at the end of the battle. BUT everyone involved laughed and laughed. Fun!

The cake took several kids to blow out. Sam's must have sent a trick candle home with us. Eli, McKinney, Zachary, David, Ian and Andrew huffed and huffed. Finally they blew the candle out.

Zachary has been asking for a new backpack. Grandma got him the bag that he picked out so he was very excited to finally receive it. On Monday, he marched right into school and immediately bragged to Ms. Janet that he got the perfect backpack. We were afraid that the backpack was forgotten about during all of the chaos of opening the gifts, but little Zachary knew exactly what he was getting and that it was what he wanted. Good choice, Grandma.

Our resident fish of the day was Zachary's buddy Ian from school. Ian is the only four year old I have ever seen that can do a back flip into the pool. Amazing. We sat back in awe watching this little boy as he entered the pool over and over again like an old pro. Maybe we need to sign Marty up to take swim lessons from Ian next summer...

Zachary, we hope your day was special. You are a very special little boy. We can't wait to see the man you grow into. You make us so proud to be your parents.

Happy Birthday, Bug!

Today, our baby turned 5 years old. He bounced out of bed bright and early this morning proudly announcing that he was now 5 and he could play on the big playground at school. Oh, the things that are important to a child...

His party is on Saturday, but we did get a cake for Zachary to take to school to share with his friends today. Here's a picture of the cake. It is an Army tank that is also a Transformer. I didn't even know the tank transformed until we were cleaning it up this evening after school.

When we got home this afternoon, we went ahead and gave Zachary his gifts from us. Won't bore you with the details, but his favorite gift was this firetruck bed tent. Zachary has dreamed of camping for about six months now and is constantly asking for a tent so he can camp. I don't think that he fully understands that camping requires quite a bit more than just a tent. But - I found this tent from the Lillian Vernon website and knew it would be perfect.

Zachary spent the evening saying that he can't wait to go to bed. Never heard that before. Probably won't ever again. He was thrilled to go to bed in his new tent. We'll see how the night goes. I fear that when he wakes up in the middle of the night to potty, we will have drama then. We're keeping our hopes up.

Zachary, we love you. Happy Birthday! Five is a big milestone. Guess the next one is 10 - double digits. You're halfway there. We thanked God at dinner tonight for all of the special memories we have as a family. I pray for many, many more to come. You are our favorite kid - and always will be.

We'll have more pictures on Saturday when we have Zachary's birthday party. Can't wait!!

A Way Cool Video

I just saw this Casting Crowns video on YouTube. Unfortunately, I am not web savvy enough to embed the video, so I just have to give you the link. It is very powerful. Please check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT7x3VnrqbA

The Great Escape

We just got home from a super fun week in Daytona Beach. We had a great time. This is our sixth or seventh year going to this beach. Each year is more fun than the last. Here is a few pictures of our week.

One of the biggest highlights of the week for Zachary was renting a golf cart and driving up and down the beach for a few hours. This year he got to sit in Daddy's lap and drive. What a thrill!

Oh, I forgot to mention that we saw Santa working on his tan as well. Zachary wouldn't get anywhere near him. He thought that Santa was out of his mind going on vacation without his reindeer. He didn't understand that they don't allow pets on the beach.

This year, we took a day to drive to Orlando to go to Universal Studios. We try to hit a different park every year. In case anyone out there wants to know- four, almost five, is too young for Universal. Don't get me wrong. We had a great time, but most of the rides were a little too intense for ol' Zachary. He only really enjoyed two or three rides the entire day. The rest were a little too adult for him. He had more fun checking out every single gift shop inside the park. We spent half the day dragging him out of them. At the end of the day he was thrilled with his souvenirs and was begging to go back. The day was a success...