Noah’s Spiderman Party!

For this year’s party, Noah requested a “Pidah-mem Birfday” (aka Spiderman Birthday). His party was today, and despite the weather being pretty yucky, we had a really great time. First on the planning list was invitations, which I made in Publisher.



When Noah saw the invites, the first thing he said was “PIDAH-MEM!” The second thing he said, true to his form, was “I’m not wearing THAT shirt to my party!” He said he would be wearing an Aggie shirt – big surprise. I made him a Spiderman shirt, instead, in the hopes of getting him to agree to a color other than maroon.



It must have passed muster because he wore it without complaint on party day!



Decorations were pretty minimal. I picked up a set of Spiderman table decorations…



…and added these little “spider pops”.



This larger-than-human sized balloon watched over the party from a high corner in the pavilion. Slightly creepy – but the kids loved him.



Noah was blessed to have most of his favorite people in attendance, and they wore themselves out on the playground.



Rylan was in town, so he stopped by (along with the rest of the Collins crew).



Ben was thrilled to see Tanner and introduced him to one of his new buddies from church, Jake.



Gracie enjoyed some quality time with Grandad.



Then she moved on to a yummy spider pop snack.



Emily is another of Ben’s favorites (and Jake’s big sister). I can neither confirm nor deny that he declared his love to her in a Valentine’s Day card last month.



Love these ladies! Fraunt Jen, Baby Brecken, and Emily’s mommy – Sara – holding Baby Abby.



Lunch was hot dogs, chips, cheese (Noah’s favorite) and fruit. (He specifically requested strawberries and we added in some grapes.)



I think the birthday boy approved – judging by his ketchup/berry/cheetoh smeared face. :)



After lunch it was piñata time.



Noah took the first couple of swings…



…and then politely handed the baton off to the next friend in line. Noah Lambert (or “Other Noah”, as my Noah calls him) was up second.



Each kiddo got 1 turn before Ben went last and smashed our little crepe paper Spidey to pieces. Cole, Michael, and Rylan all had some pretty noteworthy swings!



Then it was a candy free for all.



My little guys immediately dug into their candy bags. They fight like cats and dogs, but when the weekend was over and Michael went home, Noah kept asking about “Mitoll”.



Noah showed off his candy loot to Paw Paw & Dee Dee.



Before the party ended, we sang to Noah and cut his Spiderman cake.



I love how his cake came out. My favorite part was the clock showing 6:15 – the time my Noah bug was born THREE WHOLE YEARS AGO!!!



My crazy guy – I apparently wasn’t cutting cake fast enough.



He makes the best faces!



We had such a great time! Noah gave each of his friends a Spiderman punch balloon as they left…



…and we had enough helium ballons for everyone to have one of those, too.



As soon as we got home, all the kids needed a good scrubbing. I think that’s the mark of a successful party. :)



Happy Happy Birthday to our Noah Bug and thank you to all of our sweet friends who celebrated with us!

Boone Doggie

We have a new family member! All five of us are completely smitten with a four legged, velvety eared, smoosh faced boy that came to make his home with us this past Friday! We would like to officially introduce Mr. Boone Doggie Scrumbles Barrick.

It’s been almost two years since our sweet Army Dog passed away. About a year ago, we decided that it was time to have a pup around the house again. We went back and forth over different breeds. We wanted a big dog for sure, but we wanted one that was calm and mellow like Army was. That’s how we decided on a Mastiff. From there we began to research breeders here in Texas and that google search introduced us to the American Mastiff and, specifically, Five B Ranch in Terrell, Texas. One visit to the website and we were convinced that we had to have one of these dogs!

We spoke to Lisa on the phone, filled out the application, and were placed on the waiting list in March of 2013. Then we waited and waited and waited while harassing chatting with Lisa monthly to get updates on the Five B crew. In October, we visited the ranch and met with Lisa and all of her beautiful doggies. Now we were even MORE excited to get a puppy!

Fast forward to January 7th, 2014, when we found out that Bindi had a huge litter of TWELVE Bosco puppies! A short time after that, we learned that we would be bringing home Mr. Blue! (There he is, sleeping upside down by his Mama’s feet. Fun fact, at 9 weeks, that remains his preferred sleeping position.)

We told Lisa that she would know which one was the Barrick puppy by his laziness. She sent us this pic and said, “I found your pup!” (Asleep in his food bowl. Priceless.)

We really loved watching him grow in the picture updates our (wonderful, amazing, thoughtful) breeder would post.

Lisa posted these two pics of Bosco and the puppies on the same day (Boone is all the way at the end of the line), so I had to make them into a meme for her. I think Bos is mentally adding up the costs of puppy college.

Here is our chunky monkey – looking so big – just a few days before we went to pick him up.

Brian and I drove up to Terrell on Friday and then turned around and drove our little guy home.

He was a perfect angel on the drive (which ended up taking SEVEN hours thanks to Spring Break traffic.) With the exception of a couple potty breaks, he pretty much just slept the whole time.

The kids are completely obsessed with him and are doing their best to become good little puppy trainers.

It’s been really yucky and rainy, but the sun finally came out today! It was a great afternoon for some outdoor play time and a drive with the top down, wouldn’t you agree?

His first vet appointment was this morning and Dr. Carriker was very impressed with how he looked (“He’s perfect!” he said), and with his gentle and calm demeanor. He is exactly 9 weeks old and 25 pounds even.

As Lisa promised, he spends a good bit of time doing this. (Still flat on his back – same as he was on Day 1.)

We are so in love with our new family member. He is the sweetest puppy and cute as he could possibly be! We are so grateful for Lisa and her family and their wonderful program at Five B, and we know that Mr. Boone will make Mama Bindi and Daddy Bosco proud!

A New Deck!

The deck that Brian built at our last house was one of our favorite features, so building a new one at this house has been pretty high on our wish list.

Brian did a lot of research and went through the permit and inspection process with this one since it was much bigger and higher off the ground than our last one. It was a HUGE project that took a ton of work. We were thankfully able to enlist the help of my dad, Brian’s dad, the guys in our church small group (who will work for pizza!) and even the kids. The hardest laborer through all of this was Brian, though. I know it tired him out to try to find time to complete it between his regular job, overtime, and other family events we had scheduled. It didn’t help that he would find a free afternoon to work and it would end up raining!

After many many months of starting and stopping, Brian was able to put the last boards down, attach the railing, and sign up for his final inspection. He passed with flying colors. (In fact, the engineer that he was working with praised him, saying that it was one of the sturdiest decks he’d seen in 40 years on the job!)

Here she is all done. We’ll have to furnish it eventually, but for now we are enjoying the extra functional space out the back door and looking forward to having our new puppy play on it with us!

I think it’s time for a deck warming party!

Disciple Now

We had so much fun hosting for the Abbott Conference that we decided to do it again during Disciple Now a few weeks later. This time, instead of having 3 college girls, we had THIRTEEN 11th grade girls!

Suffice it to say, the house took a bit of a beating.

Explosion aside, we had a great time. Brian grilled hamburgers and we ate out on the (now finished) deck.

 

The kids bonded with the girls. Gracie gave a very dramatic performance of Elsa’s “Let it Go” and everyone showed off their moves playing “Little Sally Walker.”

We are enjoying getting more involved in our new church. This was a fun and lively way to serve the high school students. :)

Rodeo Time!

It’s February and that means it’s time for our annual trip to visit the Rodeo. We hit up all our regular spots and had a great time!

First the kids each got a quick lesson in calf ropin’.

Then it was on to the free samples for an afternoon snack!

Once our bellies were full we made our way over to the petting zoo.

We finished our day with dinner (dollar hot dogs!) and rides at the fair.

Noah did plenty of rides, but he was a little peeved about getting left out of a few of them. Here he is trying to argue his case for meeting the height requirement. :)

I have a goal to take the kids to see the actual rodeo and one of the shows next year… I love this annual tradition! :)