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Cuz we do! 10 whole pounds of them!

Eli's 4th Birthday!

For Eli's birthday this year we were originally going to celebrate at the pool. But last minute I realized that there was a Summerwood swim meet scheduled that day and I had to rethink my plans. Eli decided he wanted to have a Mickey Mouse party at the house. We invited 13 kids this year because it is summer time and usually we invite that many and end up with maybe 4. This year we had 12 show up! So fun for Eli and the other kids... total pandemonium for me!! I do not wish twelve 3 & 4 year old's on my worst enemy! ;)

Once again my friend Hyde pulls through with an amazing cake! So cute... and yummy too!

The big FOUR year old!

The kids feasting!

Opening presents was a nightmare. Every kid wanted to open up their own present they brought... and of course Eli wanted to open some too! :) Lots of tears on every one's part!

I had many different party games planned. But after hot potato and pin the nose on Mickey... I decided to stop trying to fight the chaos and started to embrace it! I called off all games and we let the kids run wild taking turns playing inside and out!

The majority of my pre-party prep time (probably a good 4 hours) was spent making these cute Mickey and Minnie Mouse ears for each of kids. Then I forgot to hand them out until the very end... and never got any of the kids pictured in them! :( The Minnie Mouse ones were darling (if I do say so myself)! Here is Eli wearing his ears after the party was over. All in all... I am thinking it is a safe bet to say that Eli probably won't have another party for 10 years! :)

At age four Eli is a stinker! :) He loves to sneak food, make messes and tease both his brothers. However, he always is willing to share the blame with Dallin once he is caught! :) Eli has a classic case of being the "middle child". He can not decide if he wants to be big like Connor, or a baby like Dallin.

Eli is our affectionate child and he loves to randomly come up to you and tell you he "wubs you" and plant a wet slobbery kiss on your lips (but only for his Mom! Somehow he has decided he won't kiss Daddy or the brothers on the lips... but is still more than happy to share kisses with them on the cheek). When Eli gets in trouble he will ask through tears, "You wub me still?". No one can stay mad at him when he does it... and I am quite certain he knows it! :) Eli loves to snuggle together under blankets.

Elijah has a very contagious little laugh that I love dearly. At four years old he is a very handsome little boy, tall and thin. Eli is fun loving and seems to make friends easily. Eli seems to have caught the McKeehan gene (and like Connor) is very competitive by nature.

Eli is still the "quirky" one of the bunch and we love him because of it! You are never sure what he is going to do or how he will react to things. Eli still loves anything pink and princess and we still don't know quite what to think of it! :) Monsters play a huge role in Eli's life right now and he refuses to walk into any room that does not already have a light on in it.

Thanks for being our miracle baby, Eli. We love you! Happy Four! XOXO.

Connor's 8th Birthday!

For Connor's 8th birthday he wanted to have a baseball party and celebrate it at the batting cages. Since that means pretty much someone other than me is doing all the work... we invited 20 kids! :) Seventeen of those kids showed up! I think every single kid had a blast.

This party was extra special for Connor because Uncle Sean had a work trip in Austin, TX that week. So after flying all day to get to Austin, he and Aunt Candace hopped in a car and drove 3+ hours just to be there for it! Is that a great Aunt and Uncle, or what!?!

I wish I could take credit for this awesome cake, but it was made with love by my more talented and gifted friend, Hyde.

Eli and Connor all geared up and ready to get this baseball party started!

The batting line up! They divided the boys up into two teams and played a mini baseball game with a Nerf bat and ball for about an hour. The boys loved it and even the kids who I didn't think would enjoy it seemed to have a great time!

Clearly they were VERY into it! :)

Then it was time to go upstairs to the party room for pizza, cake and presents.

With almost twenty 7,8, and 9 year-old boys we saw a lot of this...

and this...

and some more of this!

Connor is the only child I know that does not care for cake. So we put his candle in some chocolate ice cream!

Present Time!

Connor made out like a bandit this year when it came to presents. Every single person spoiled him rotten, if you ask me! He came home with Legos galore, Bionicles, a Super Soaker, clothes, gift cards, cash, action figures, etc. I could not believe it! Sean made a comment about how it was probably because Connor is such a good kid and so well liked by everyone. It made me feel good to think that. :)

But I am quite certain Connor's favorite present of the year was this Astros jersey given to him by Sean and Candace. He wore it the rest of the day... and has worn it pretty much every day since! :) He told me a couple days ago he was going to pass the jersey on to his first born son! HA!

After presents we passed out party bags and gave each kid a token to go hit some balls in the batting cages.

Berkman (er I mean Connor!) hitting some balls...

But Ju-Ju was the cutest batter of them all!

And since Candace was the photographer at the party... I never got a picture of her until later. Thanks for coming Sean and Candace... you made Connor's birthday SO special!

Happy Birthday Bear! At 8 years old we love everything about you... for good and bad! :) We love your sense of humor and desire to make those around you happy. We love how helpful you are to your little brothers and the great example you set for them. We love your competitive spirit and don't hold you accountable for it one bit (since we know where you get it)! We love your big, sensitive heart. We even love your dramatic side and the nonstop chatter that seems to come out of you. At 8 years old... you are a pleasure and a blessing to have in our family! XO!

THANK YOU NANA AND POPPY!!

For the grand-children's birthdays in our family Nana and Poppy normally send the kids the amount of dollars as years old they are in their birthday card. However, turning 8 is a special birthday in our family because it is the year we get baptised. So for Connor turning 8... Nana and Poppy sent Connor $50! $5 for tithing, $8 to spend as he pleased, and $37 to go in the bank to start his mission fund. What a great idea, thanks Nana and Poppy!

Pool Scare

Today I had a bit of a scare at the pool. We were gathered together with a couple of other families to celebrate a birthday. It was a fairly crowded day at the pool.

After cake the kids all went back into the water. I was sitting at the table chatting with a couple of other ladies. I had looked and saw Seth was in the kid play area with Dallin and Eli. Connor asked me if he could head over into the deep pool (4.5 feet). I said yes. He is a strong swimmer (not to mention he can touch on his tip-toes.)

What Seth and I did not know was that Eli saw Connor go over and decided to follow him into that pool. What Seth and I did not know was that after we had cake... we both had forgotten to put Eli's life jacket back on. What ELI did not know... was that he cannot swim without that life jacket on.

Apparently Eli walked right into that deep water... and no one knew. Not Connor. Not Seth. Not me. Not even the lifeguards. A lady suntanning next to the pool saw him fighting to stay above water and jumped in to grab him.

He ran to me screaming. The poor kid was scared to death. I had the sickest feeling in my stomach as I sat there and held him. I have not been able to shake the awful feeling since.

I have felt this feeling once before when I lost Connor when he was only two. Not lost like I turned the next shopping aisle over and found him. But lost- LOST. As in we found him several STREETS over from where we were. He found an open door at my in-laws house and just wandered off... and fast! Anyone could have hit him. Anyone could have taken him. It still makes me sick to think about it.

I could have lost my baby today. I was not paying attention like I should have. It scares me to death to think of how other outcomes could have unfolded.

It makes me feel inadequate as a mother.

It makes my stomach turn.

It makes me hug each of my kids a little tighter.

It makes me thank the Lord it did not turn out differently.

It makes me pray it never happens again!

It only takes a few seconds.

And it only takes once.

So please, watch your babies... big or small... in the pool!

Connor the Comedian

Connor: "Mom, listen to this joke I just made up!"

Me: "K, what?"

Connor: "Why was the toilet paper rolling down the hill?"

Me: "I don't know, why?"

Connor: "To get to the BOTTOM! BAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!"

I don't know why, but this actually struck me as really funny! I laughed pretty hard. Maybe because it is his first joke that has ever made any sense, or maybe because it is such an 8 year old boy thing. What I do know, is that I love my Bear, and I love that he makes me laugh!

DISCLAIMER: the comedian has now come out and told me he is NOT responsible for making this joke up. He heard it from a friend. (Phew! Good thing we have not baptized him yet. That was a close one! ;)

May Happenings...

So I may have only been posting about baseball this past month, but believe it or not, there have been other events in our lives (squeezed in between practices, games and tournaments)!

Are these the cutest kids you have ever seen, or what?!? Crashing the Summerwood Sock Hop. Best Neighbors ever!

We have been trying to beat the heat by spending almost any free time we have at the pool or splash pad!

I came SO close to adopting this dog while Seth was out of town! Our neighbors found him lost and he had no tags except for an animal shelter number. My neighbor already has four dogs and asked me if I wanted to keep him if the shelter could not find the rightful owners. If Seth had been home... it would have been a BIG FAT NO! But he wasn't... :) ...and I watched him for a little while that day while we waited to hear from the shelter... and I fell in LOVE! So I said YES! Sadly (for me), the shelter had found the owners because the dog had been returned there once before. Isn't he beautiful?!

We have been having a lot of thunder storms here and recently a house down the street from us was struck by lightening and caught on fire. It was really sad to watch. (Seth did NOT think it was appropriate that I took a picture...oops!)

Don-Don and T-Dawg. :)

Dallin quickly warmed up to Daddy-Man!

Our friends came to visit from Louisiana for Memorial Day weekend. We had fun taking them to the Imax theater, the Butterfly pavilion, going swimming, playing games, eating lots of yummy food, celebrating Connor's 8th birthday and taking them to the beach! It was the perfect weekend!

Connor blowing out the candles and opening family presents with his friends Michael and Elle! He has a birthday party planned in a week.

Poor Eli! Yes, that is a granola bar with frosting on it and candles stuck on top! :) Connor had a baseball game that night so we had to rush and open presents after Daddy got home from work, then we hurried off to Chilli's for dinner (where they served him an ice cream sundae and sang to him), and from there we left for Connor's baseball game. But we still wanted Eli to blow out some candles on his birthday, and since I did not feel like making another cake knowing that he would be getting one this weekend at his birthday party... this was the end result. :) Lucky for us, he seemed perfectly happy about it!

Padre Update

(first base coach, third base coach {Seth}, Coach Gerardo, pitcher,

Daniel, Big Isaac, Aden, Jaquori, Baylee, Gabriel aka: Bubba,

Connor, Matthew, Lil' Issac, Ryan)

The trophies may say second place... but we all know who the real first place team is!!

For all two of our faithful followers out there... I thought I would update you on the Padre season status. :) We finished out the season winning the rest of our games (Cardinals included)!

However, we lost our first place ranking because of a forfeit at the beginning of the season. The first time we played the Cardinals we only had 8 players and you have to have at least 9 to field a game. The cardinals did not seem to care and still wanted to play... and we beat them. Several weeks later the cardinals (clearly jealous of our boys' mad skills) decided to call in that forfeit causing it to count as a loss for our team... and dropping us from first place status to second. Don't worry we beat the crap out of them the second time we played them (and opted not to call the game at the 10 run lead) to thank them for their kindness... 25-4!!

With the season ending we have award ceremonies tonight. Tomorrow however, starts the playoffs for the Championship!! I fully expect our boys to take first and shove it to the Pirates who like to gloat in our faces every chance they get at the ball park that they are first place (not do to skill... because I could handle that... but because of dumb luck!). Thursday and Friday night are the big games! I am not sure who we will be playing and in what order, or exactly how many games we will actually play those nights, but I can hardly wait! :)

Although, I honestly believe we are a better team- I am still a bit nervous because the Pirates are a good team too, and they have shown that they can beat us. I know it will be a fun and nerve racking game to watch. And I have to admit this baseball season has ignited a new love for baseball in me that I did not know I had. (or at least for Little League ;)-

And as for crying... I rented 'A League of Their Own' to show Connor their was no crying allowed in baseball! :) So far it has worked. Last night another player on the team came up to me to tell me that his Dad made him watch that movie too! ;)

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PADRES!!!!!