Joshua's 5th Birthday

I can't believe Josh is now officially 5 years old! In some ways it seems like only yesterday that we brought home this little 8 lb 11 oz bundle with his little squeaky cry, and in other ways it seems as though he's always been here. I can't imagine life without him, nor do I want to!

The big celebration started on Friday afternoon at school. Josh decided a couple weeks ago that he wanted to bring Icees for his friends at school for his birthday. After all, "everyone brings cupcakes, and Icees will be nice and refreshing on a hot day." (His words, not mine.)

Always the planner, Joshua informed us BEFORE his 4th birthday that his 5th birthday party would be at Peter Piper Pizza, and of course reminded us of this frequently throughout the year. So how could we do anything else! It was so great! All we had to supply was the cake (see below) and everything else was taken care of. Josh even got to make his very own pizza.

Josh had so much fun playing games with his friends and cousins. Everyone seemed to have a great time!

I don't think Trevor left this spot all day. The boy loves shooting things!

Ben just loved the pizza. Can you tell?

A while back, Joshua asked for a Super Why cake for his birthday. Super Why is a great reading themed show on PBS and both of the boys just love it. I came up with an idea to incorporate all of the show's main characters and logo. Here is a picture of the characters from the show:

And here is the cake I made:

I was SO happy with how it turned out! I've never done anything like that before, so I was happy to be able to pull it off. Joshua absolutely loved it! I also made a bunch of cupcakes (which are so much easier to serve!) and had them spell out the Super Story Answer. Can you guess what it is?

Make a wish!

After the party, the grandparents and my sister's family came back to our house to watch Josh open his presents. We somehow were even able to get the four kids together for a group photo.

Joshua said he had the greatest birthday party ever, so I guess he had a good time!

Today was his actual birthday. We made cornbread for breakfast per Joshua's specific request. Then after breakfast he opened his presents from Mommy and Daddy (that was his choice to wait until today. The kid as tremendous restraint for a 5 year old!) He was so surprised to find we had gotten him a brand new big boy bike.

After church, Josh and Daddy went to Target to spend his gift card he got from Uncle Paul and Auntie Melissa and we spent the rest of the day playing with his new toys. Then we met up with Grandpa Maple for a buffet dinner. We had a great time!

Happy birthday, Joshua! I can't believe what a big boy you've turned into. We're so proud of the person you are and can't wait to see the things you will do and learn this year. We love you more than we can ever say!

Give Me Your Ear

We finally got to harvest some of our corn last week. The kernels were sort of small (Andrew said he felt like giant eating it), but they were really tasty. Check it out!

Josh cracks me up in this one. "I pledge allegiance to the corn..."

The End of an Era

We have been so blessed to have found such a wonderful preschool/daycare for our boys. Josh has been at North Phoenix Baptist Church Preschool since he was 10 weeks old and has never known anything else. The teachers and administration have been so wonderful over the last 5 years (and very gracious when my kids have puked all over them!).

On Friday, Joshua had his official preschool graduation. It was a fun time to celebrate all the kids' accomplishments over the last 5 years. Some of the kids we have known since the baby room, and others have joined the party somewhere in between. They started out the celebration by calling each child to the the front and giving them a diploma and a gift.

Somehow they were even able to gather all the kids together for a class picture.

Joshua has made some great friends at NPBC. His main squeeze over the last 2 years has been a little cutie, Kerrigan. These two have been quite the couple. Maybe we should call them Joshigan?

His other best little friend is Trevor. These two love to get into trouble together!

After the ceremony, the kids got to stay for a "pajama party" where they ate pizza and played games. What fun!

Josh has had a great time in pre-school. I can't wait to see what Kidergarten brings next year!

Uncle Tony 1944-2010

From left to right - Catherine Sentif (Grandma), Robert Sentif (Grandpa), Uncle Tony, Aunt Ann, and Bobbie (Mom). Sending Tony off to Vietnam in early 1960.

Tony passed away last night. RIP Uncle Tony.

Breathing Easy

This last year has just been incredible, compared to the one before. Between January and April of 2009, Ben began having respiratory flareups where he couldn't take a deep breath, or really any kind of breath, without breaking into a horrible coughing fit. He was getting breathing treatments every 4 hours, had three shots of Predisone, a powerful steriod, in that short 4 month period, and nearly ended up in the hospital on at least one occassion. It was miserable for all involved. But then we got together with Kelvin Panasar, M.D., a wonderful pediatric pulmonologist. He prescribed Ben a preventative steriod that we hoped would keep his airways open so that, even if he came down with a cold or allergies (which is usually what did it for him) his airways would stay open. He also put him on Singulair to try to control the allergies to prevent flareups in the first place. I am so happy to say that in the last 12 months, Ben has only needed 3 doses of Albuterol to treat respiratory flareups, and the flareups he did have were super mild compared to those last year. I can't even remember the last time he's even had a cold! (And I'm really hoping I am not jinxing myself in saying that!)

Yesterday we went to see Dr. Panasar for his post-cold-and-flu-season checkup. What I love about Dr. Panasar is that he doesn't expect me to just shut up and listen and do what he says. He values "Dr. Mom" and wants to know what I think since I'm the one that sees it all. Since Benny's been doing so good, we together decided to take Ben all the way off of his medications and see how he does on his own. If the flareups return, we'll try putting him back on one of them, and will also allergy test him to see what he might be reacting to (not that you can really do to much about environmental allergies other than medicate).

I'm so happy that he is now set free from nightly breathing treatments, although he never seemed to mind them. He's always been so good about them, thankfully! Hopefully his little airways have grown enough to be able to handle any mild inflamation should any happen to come on. I'm just praying we can continue down this healthy road we've been traveling the last year. I like it here!

The Curse of the Grover Underpants

I don't know what it is about these little underpants. They're cute enough. I mean, who doesn't love Grover? But I tell you, these underpants are cursed. Ben could go for days, weeks, or even months without having an accident. But as soon as he dons the Grovers, it all comes to an end. We refuse to put these particular undies on him anymore. But we don't want to get rid of them, lest they transfer their powers to a different pair. Who'd have thought that cute little Grover could cause so much trouble!

Healing Arts for Children's Hearts

This last weekend I participated in a fundraiser for the Child Advocacy Healing Arts for Children's Hearts Program which sponsor's programs for children who have suffered abuse, trauma or loss. The program is based out of William T. Machan Elementary School, which is one of the schools in the district I grew up in. My friend from Jr. High was organizing the event and asked me to participate. My good friend, Jen, was kind enough to lend her voice as well.

We sang 3 songs together: I've Got You Under My Skin (Cole Porter), The Dance (Garth Brooks), and They Can't Take That Away From Me (Gershwin). Jen and I kicked the night off and had a blast singing together. Here's the videos of our songs. We were happy with how it all went.

I've Got You Under My Skin

The Dance

They Can't Take That Away From Me

There were so many other talented acts that night, it was a great event, and ended up raising $1300 for a great cause.

Say Ah!

I FINALLY took Joshua to the dentist for his very first cleaning this morning. I've been meaning to do it for the longest time and never got around to it. Thankfully, Joshua can pretty much handle anything as long as he knows what to expect, so we spent some time in the days leading up to his appointment talking about what they were going to do, so there weren't really any surprises for him. They took some x-rays (couldn't get them all because the poor guy was gagging on some of them... but he tried so hard!) and we got to see his adult teeth in there. They said he'll probably start loosing the baby teeth around his 6th birthday - he can't wait for that. Every day he asks me to check his teeth to see if they're loose yet. They also mentioned that his bottom teeth are a little crowded and probably won't allow enough room for his adult teeth. Hopefully we'll be able to bypass braces for him! But he handled the cleaning like a champ, and became the proud (read: VERY proud) owner of a little dental floss thingamajig. So thankfully the first trip to the dentist was a positive experience for him.

Ben's Claim to Fame

That's right, boys and girls. That's his tongue going up INTO his nose. I'm so proud.

Corn, Zucchini and Peas, Oh My!

I know I just posted about our garden a week or so ago, but I was so excited to see what's developed in the last week. First off, we NOW actually have some corn starting (I was mistaken last time). About mid-week last week we saw the first of the silks.

Early last week we also got our first male AND female zucchini blossoms open, and so, not trusting the bees, decided to hand pollinate it. Here is the male flower:

and here is a female:

Notice the difference in the shape of the pollen. Apparently my hand pollinating was successful, because yesterday we were able to pick this!

We also sampled one of our snap peas this weekend.

Those are some tasty peas. The boys LOVE them!

R.I.P. Soosy

It's a sad day in the Maple house. Our little red beta fish, Soosy, passed away some time last night. Soosy was Joshua's "very own pet" that he got for his 4th birthday. Betas have a life span of only about a year, and seeing how Soosy was already fully grown when we got him, and Joshua's birthday is in a few weeks, I'd say Soosy lived a long life, and that fish was loved. Although Joshua didn't always remember to feed him, he was pretty responsible about it as 4 year olds go, and he thanked God for Soosy in his bedtime prayers every night.

We had known for a little while that Soosy was probably living on borrowed time and that the end was probably near, so every time I would pass his bowl I would check to make sure he was still alive. A lot of times he would be resting in the bottom of the bowl wrapped up in his little plant.

This morning Joshua looked in Soosy's bowl and said "I think Soosy is resting." Uh-oh. But when I looked over at the bowl, I thought I saw Soosy in his plant, so I said that he likes to rest in his plant. But then Joshua said "He's not in his plant. He's at the top." Double uh-oh. Sure enough, Soosy was gone. So here we go explaining death to a 4 year old. But Joshua wasn't too broken up about it. When I told his Soosy had gone to heaven, he said "that's okay, we can just go get another fish at Pest-Mart." How soon we move on! We spent much of the rest of the morning talking about Soosy, and what we'll miss about him. R.I.P Soosy. You were a great fish!

Spring Garden 2010

At the end of March we planted our spring garden. This year we decided to go with more seeds than pre-sprouted plants. We chose corn, snap peas and zucchini, and also got a tomato and strawberry plant. Here it was then:

and here it is now:

We've already been able to enjoy a couple of the tomatoes...

And today we got our first zucchini blossom.

This flower is a male (zucchini are like other squash and have male and female flowers) but unlike my failed pumpkins last year we have plenty of healthy female blossoms that are growing and will probably open soon, so I'm confident the zucchini will fare better than the poor pumpkins did.

The peas are getting going too.

The corn has been going crazy! They are starting to grow their pollen...

and yesterday we saw some silks starting, which will hopefully turn into an ear of corn.

Can't wait to see how these home grown goodies will taste!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Every year the organization that Andrew works for reserves a couple sections at a Diamondbacks Game for Donate Life day. We took Joshua again this year. Ben was sad that he couldn't go, but we feel like he's still a little too young to try to sit through a baseball game... he can't even make it through a whole movie! Next year, buddy! But he still got to have fun with Grandma and Granddad while we were at the game. Just like last year, we rode the train to the ballpark, which is always a special treat. Joshua seemed to be a lot more into it this year than last year. It's amazing what a difference a year can make! He was clapping along with the music and sang every word to Take Me Out to the Ballgame at the top of his lungs, when last year he wouldn't participate at all. Here are some photos from our fun day.

Joshua "getting some energy" for the game.

Our free gift - an Augie Ojeda bobble head.

Finally Finished!

Three months after the big storm, and after 3 nights in a hotel, our house is FINALLY done! I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Although it doesn't really show up in the pictures, one of the other things we did was get rid of the outdated popcorn ceiling and instead have it textured and painted. It all looks so good, and we're SO happy to finally have our house back!

8 Years

On April 6th Andrew and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary (the 7th was the 11th anniversary of our first date!). We had a big weekend, sans kids, planned. Of course, when you've got little guys, things don't always go as planned. We had it all arranged that the boys would go to Grandma and Grandpa B's on Friday night to be picked up Sunday, giving us a glorious, and much needed, break for the entire weekend. Unfortunately, Joshua's tummy had other plans. Friday morning he started saying that his tummy hurt. We chalked it up to excitement about going to Grandma and Grandpas and sent him off to school. Turns out it was more than excitement. He ended up throwing up twice that day. Darn it! So we decided to keep the boys home Friday night and see where we were Saturday morning. I was pretty bummed to not get the break I so longed for, but what can you do? Thankfully, Saturday morning Joshua was totally back to normal, so we kicked them out and shipped them off, very thankful that things turned around to give us some kid-free time.

We spent the day Saturday getting caught up on some housework that is so hard to do with the kiddos around. Andrew worked on replacing the wood trim on the chimney, and I worked at doing some much needed cleaning on the inside. It may not sound like much of a party, but it just feels good to actually get something accomplished!

The real fun began later. One of our favorite musicians, Derek Webb, was playing at a church in Gilbert, so after a yummy early dinner at Chino Bandito, we went to enjoy the show. And what an amazing show it was! It was open seating and we ended up in the second row! The concert was so different than any other show I've seen. It was all acoustic, and was only his voice and his guitar, which he can do some amazing things with. He's just outstanding. Because it was an intimate setting, he pretty much just had his song book and was letting people call out requests! It was so cool and he played most of our favorite songs. It was a great night!

Although it didn't start out exactly as planned, we ended up having a great time, and a wonderful anniversary. Hard to believe it's been 8 years!

Easter 2010

It's easy to get caught up in all the fun of Easter, with the eggs, and chocolate bunnies. But this year, I felt the impact of the true meaning of Easter more than ever before. Maybe it was the incredibly joyful and powerful songs we sang at church Easter weekend (I was able to participate in 4 of the 6 services, and each time the songs touched my heart so deeply, I couldn't help but smile so big my cheeks were sore!), or the fact that we spent Good Friday watching The Passion of the Christ with our small group, really bringing to life the incredible suffering endured out of pure love, and the awesome power of the Resurrection. Whatever it was, this year I could definitely feel the Holy Spirit moving within me in pure celebration than ever before, and it was awesome!

But of course we did have lots of the traditional Easter fun as well! Our Easter festivities lasted the whole weekend long. On Saturday we colored our eggs...

... and made our annual Easter sugar cookies. The boys have gotten quite good at cookie decorating! Too bad I didn't get any pictures of them!

On Sunday afternoon Grandma and Grandpa B came over for dinner. The kids got their Easter baskets, did their Easter egg hunt and we grilled out some yummy steaks.

And of course Joshua had to round out the evening playing the Wii with Grandma! What a fun weekend! Happy Easter!