Kolby's Post

So, this week Kolby said he’d like to write our blog post for us, and I’m just going to type what he says:

I love my manta (blanket). And I love preschool. I like church because I love Jesus. I love my toys. My favorite toys are my cars, and my favorite car is my new car from Christmas. It is my favorite because I like it, because it makes noise. My other favorite toys are my trains. Making a train track is fun.

I’m going to write what our family did this week. On Monday we didn’t go to school because it was a holiday. On Tuesday it was Isaac’s doctor’s appointment, and Mommy’s doctor’s appointment. And Camden was sick that day. On tv we watched the parade for the new president. On Wednesday we went to the temple open house. The temple made me feel good, it was quiet and beautiful. My favorite part of the temple was the room with the baptismal font. Later we went to my piano lesson. I played three songs on the piano. And then on Thursday it was Eli’s birthday party. Before the party we decorated the house with balloons and ribbons. People came to Eli’s birthday party. Kaitlyn and Nikki, Chelsie and Emily, Paige, and my cousins, Jaden and Kyler, and aunt Mel and aunt Annette all came. When people came, we got out cars to play with. I played in a box too. After we played, we sang “Happy Birthday” to Eli and ate cake. It was a car cake. After everyone else left, Jaden stayed for a sleep-over. We played together and then we went to sleep. The next day we played and colored together. On Saturday I helped Mommy get some food out of the food storage. And I helped Daddy move the clothes because my brothers and I moved bedrooms. Today was Sunday. We hade stake conference at church, it was a special meeting where we listened to people talk. And that’s what we did this week.

Eli's 4th Birthday Party

So, we had Eli’s birthday party on Thursday (he will turn 4 on January 31st). I made a Lightning McQueen car birthday cake which turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. The boys were excited to help me curl ribbons and hang them from the ceiling, and to blow up balloons too. Since it was a Cars themed party, we got out the boys’ box of matchbox cars for all the kids to play with. We also got out several little boxes that the boys like to play with like they are garages for their cars, and a large box that we happened to have from the dishwasher that had to be replaced earlier this week. The kids enjoyed climbing in and out of that big box until it finally collapsed at the end of the night. Eli liked his cake and ice cream, and enjoyed the treat of drinking soda (we usually only get soda for birthday parties). And of course he had fun opening a few gifts from his friends, which he has been carrying around and having fun with the last couple of days since the party. Although it was a traditional Bradshaw family kid’s birthday party [lots of loud kids running around for the entire evening], the kids had fun and it was nice to see the parents and get to say hi to them too. You can tell from the pictures and video clips that Eli enjoyed the night – he has a big smile in every photo.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Eli's Invitation

So, I’ve been thinking about planning Eli’s 4th birthday party lately – especially since his birthday is on January 31st and my due date is February 9th, so I thought it would be wise to plan his party a little early just in case. I usually don’t do too much for the kids’ birthday parties (I think that organized games and activities for children this small isn’t really necessary yet, since they usually just end up running around and playing together anyways), but two things that I always do for their parties is make a cute little invitation and decorate a cake. I always let them pick a theme for the invitation and cake – usually a character from their favorite Disney movie or sometimes they pick their favorite thing at the time, like puppies, trucks, or trains. So, I asked Eli what he wanted for this birthday party, and he said Tarzan (which is an interesting pick, because we have that movie, but he hasn’t asked to watch it in quite a few months now). The thought of trying to create Tarzan out of frosting on a cake didn’t really appeal to me, so I asked him if he had any other ideas. He said, in his cute little kid voice, “Ite-neen Ma-deen” (Lightning McQueen), which is the red racecar from the Disney movie, Cars. I thought that would be a little easier for decorating a cake, so Lightning McQueen it was. So I designed these invitations that evening. Whenever I do birthday invitations for the boys I print two extra invitations – one to put in their baby book and one that they can have to play with. So, Eli has carried his invitation around for the last few days, and yesterday I noticed that it was getting a little worn out. It had been folded up and one end was a little wet (he had probably sucked on it), and when I noticed him using the hole punch to put holes in the invitation, I just let him know that that was the only invitation I had for him to play with, so if he wanted to keep it he shouldn’t ruin it. He looked up at me, a little concerned, and asked, “Can I still have a birthday?” So I reassured him that he could. I also asked him ona different day if there was anything special he would like for his birthday, and his answer was, “A cake.” Pretty cute!

2009 Family Goals

For family home evening yesterday we decided to make a few New Year’s resolutions as a family, type them up and print them, and hang them up on the wall. I tried to explain the idea of making goals to the boys, and I gave them an example – that we (the parents and kids) would all try harder not to yell at each other, and we talked about how we could remind each other about this goal and try to do better. Michael came up with the goal to not only read the illustrated scripture stories books with the boys, but to also read the scriptures together as a family each day. And Michael also wanted to include having a family trip sometime this year on the list, which sounded good to me. So, we asked the boys if they had any ideas for family goals. Kolby promptly answered, “Don’t go under cars.” And then he added, “And don’t walk in the middle of the street.” He even insisted that I write those goals on our paper. Eli’s idea of a goal was that he could play the piano with Kolby next time he was practicing (maybe a 3-year-old isn’t quite old enough to grasp the idea of New Year’s resolutions). But then Kolby came up with a great one by himself without any prompting from us: Be reverent in church. I liked that one. The last one we added to our list is something we’ve been working on a lot lately, and the boys are doing quite well with most of the time. It is that they need to ask what they can help with, and continue to ask and help until the job is done. It’s pretty cute – even Camden now has started to come up to me when I am getting lunch ready and say, “Mommy, what can I do to help?” And I’ll have him get out the milk or set bowls on the table. The boys really are good helpers. Anyways, those are our 2009 family goals. We’ve done pretty well with them so far (for the last day and a half).

Pictures from this Week

I took these pictures on Friday. I had to get a shot of Camden’s haircut before I fixed it.

Here is Eli when he fell asleep on the bathroom floor after being sick that morning.

And Kolby was so excited when Grandma found these little boxes and cut doors in them to created garages for his toy cars. He kept asking Grandma and me for the rest of the day if we could think of any other boxes we might have somewhere that could be used to make more garages.

And these adorable shots are of Isaac playing Peek-a-Boo with me underneath the kitchen table, and showing off his cute little two front teeth.

I took these last two of Camden this morning, to show how his hair turned out after I trimmed it the second time (He sure looks different with the different haircuts, huh?)