it's done!

jeffrey re-finished our kitchen table and chairs! i'm so excited. don't they look great! he put in a lot of hard work.


here is a before picture. (this was taken nearly 2 years ago when we were in new york.)

and once again, the after picture.

i'm a happy girl. :) thank you jeffrey.

first grade

my mom always had a tradition of taking a picture of us outside our front door on the first day of school, so we are keeping up the tradition.

he was so excited. he didn't seem nervous at all! it is neat to see him grow up. i was surprised though at the emotions that seemed to flood out of me after he got on the bus. i never thought i would be one of those moms to cry. i didn't when he went to preschool or kindergarten. it just felt different this time though. sending him all day, 7 hrs!

he has the same bus driver this year as he did last year. he also got to sit by his best friend dominic on the way to and home from school. he was happy about that, especially since they are not in the same class. he said his favorite part of the day was the 3 recesses. i love it. he also said he didn't get any homework because his teacher is so nice. i tried to remind him that when she does give him homework, she'll still be a nice teacher. :)

way to go elliot! you learned to read and write last year. you found out that you love science, math, and magic. you loved making new friends. we can't wait to see what you learn and discover this year!

30!

we celebrated jeffrey's 30th birthday a little over a week ago. we had a great time! we started celebrating a few days before his actual birthday. the boys bought jeffrey some candy with their own money, so we stopped by his work to take it to him. the next morning we took some balloons and 30 donuts to his work for him to share with his co-workers. it was really fun.

on saturday we went to a nearby town to eat lunch. the decor in this restaurant was clowns, everywhere. it was pretty funny. the burgers and fries were pretty good. i love this picture of jeffrey and sam.


that night i surprised jeffrey and took him out to dinner where some of our friends met up with us. the pizza was awesome and the ice cream was great. we really had a good time. we were lucky the weather was so nice too.

the next afternoon, after church, we passed out the presents.

here is a before and after picture.


we did pretty good. he was very happy with his gifts. thank you to both of our parents who sent jeffrey presents as well.

i attempted to make pies with a top crust for the first time. it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. it was actually pretty fun. jeffrey really wanted birthday pie instead of birthday cake. if was nice to do something different.

before being baked

all ready to eat. yum, they were good.

the last present i gave him was the one i had been working on the longest. jeffrey has this new love of glass bottled, sugar sodas (not high fructose corn syrup and pure cane sugar is even better than just sugar). it took a little searching around, but i found 30 different varieties of sodas, one for each year of his life. it was fun to do. i wrote up 30 memories and taped one on each bottle. he loved it. you never know if your present is going to be liked or loved and this time i got it right. i was happy the hard work paid off.

all in all we had a lot of fun celebrating jeffrey's 30th birthday. it seemed like a big deal, so we tried to make it memorable. the boys had a lot of fun as well. i forgot to mention that they bought him a remote control jeep with their own money. they do chores and slowly earn money so that they have a little spending money. it was cool to see them happily use their own money to get something for their dad.

we love you jeffrey.