School's Out! and Jenna's birthday party

Kevin's last day of school was Friday. I cannot believe that he is now a 1st grader. I can't believe that I have a child old enough for that. Since he did all day kindergarten this year, going to first grade should not be too big of a deal. Although he is already complaining about it, saying that he does not want to go to first grade because first graders have to do too much work. :)

Derek also finished all of his stuff for school on Friday. He has finished his first year of grad school. Good job Derek. One down, too many more to go. :) He was pretty worn out by the end of the week because he took three huge exams this past week that are required for continuance in the Ph.D. program. He has until the end of his third year to pass them (yes they are that difficult), and can take them twice a year every year until that point. He passed two of the five written exams last semester (he only took three of them). Once he passes all of the written ones he has to pass an oral exam. Lucky him.

Yesterday we celebrated Jenna's 4th birthday by having some neighbor kids over for a little party. Jenna's birthday isn't actually until Wednesday. We let the kids make their own pizzas. It was really fun. They pounded out their dough, spread the sauce and added toppings of their choice. Then they played while I cooked them. After we ate the pizza we had cake and ice cream. Apparently Jenna doesn't like real cake (she like ice cream cake, though). She did not even take a bite of the cake. She ate all of her ice cream, but no cake. She has decided that her favorite flavor of ice cream is Cookies and Cream. That was my favorite as a child too (and is still up there on my list of favorite ice cream flavors).

Jenna wanted a Strawberry Shortcake cake for her birthday (I made her this same cake for her first birthday). I thought it turned out pretty well.

Derek, Kevin, Jenna, and Jared making pizzas at Jenna's party.

Jared making his pizza. He had a great time playing with that dough. Funny story about him: he was really upset that I had only made a Strawberry Shortcake cake. He wanted a fire truck cake (I made him one for his birthday). It was really funny. He just couldn't understand why there was no fire truck cake.

Jenna and her cake

Jenna blowing out her candles


My fun adventure for the week was breaking my cell phone...in half. I am very clumsy. I always have been. I dropped my old cell phone too often. It had started to crack along one edge. I was going to ask Derek to try and glue it back together. On Tuesday evening I got out of the car holding my phone because I had just made a phone call. I accidentally dropped the phone on my driveway, and it broke in half. I was a little bugged. I went in to an AT&T store the next day to see how much a new one would cost. Thankfully the guy looked up my account, and reminded me that I had insurance on the phone. I made Derek get insurance on my phone when we got it, because I knew that being clumsy, I would probably break it. We had to call and order a replacement phone. They got it here quickly, which was great. My new phone came Thursday afternoon. I apologize to anyone that attempted to call or text me Tuesday evening through Thursday evening. I didn't have a working phone, so I didn't get your message.

My broken cell phone

My new cell phone (sorry the picture is blurry)


Not much else to report around here. We are hoping to stain our deck tomorrow, but now the weather forecast is predicting rain. We cleaned the deck on Friday, but had to wait two days before staining it. Now it is going to rain. Oh well.

Happy Memorial Day tomorrow!

Kevin's moments of Zen:
*A little background: Kevin's lasted thing is to try and get the word eyeball into every conversation as many times as possible. Very annoying, but what can we do? :)
After church we were talking about what the kids learned today. Jenna said she had learned about noses. Kevin said "I learned about eyeballs and my balls." Hmm...I doubt it buddy.

Yesterday Derek and the kids were outside weeding. The following conversation took place:
Kevin: "Dad, what is 'sucksing'?"
Dad: "Do you mean 'sucking'?"
Kevin: "No, 'sucksing'."
Dad: "'Sucksing'? Where did you hear that?"
Kevin: "Someone on the bus said 'She has a sucksing butt.'"
Dad: "Do you mean 'sexy'?"
Kevin: "Yeah, 'sexy'."
Dad: "It means he thinks she has an attractive butt."
Kevin: "What does attractive mean?"
Dad: "It means he thinks it looks nice. Don't ever say that."

And finally, here are some random Jenna pictures. Derek was trying to take a picture of the chocolate all over her face, but she insisted on holding a fly swatter and making funny faces. She makes the most hilarious faces. These are a very small sampling.