Pilgrim Hats and Spiderman

Yesterday was Micah's last day of preschool before Thanksgiving. It is also the school's 25th anniversary as a licensed daycare facility. What better reasons to celebrate?!


The kids have been working on a few turkey/Thanksgiving songs. They started our celebration out by sharing those. The pre-K classes were Indians, and the younger classes were pilgrims. They were soooo cute.


Micah marched out with his hat falling over his eyes. He was doing his best to hold his head up so that he could see under it. It was so cute! :)

Doesn't this little smile just say, "Look at me. I'm so proud of myself, and I'm trying not to show it!"

Mrs. Summer did finally help him out with the hat just before they started singing...just for it to slide down again a few seconds later. :) And on a side note -- in that retro-ish little striped shirt and with his blonde hair covered up, I thought Micah looked so much like my brother at that age, it was just uncanny!

Joey was the perfect little brother. He clapped just as hard as the best of 'em after each song!

Each child could have only two guests. Bret was not able to come. :( But that opened up a spot for Aunt Jodi! We are so glad that she was able to come with us! (Especially since that meant that I was not corralling kids and dishing up plates in an extremely crowded room by myself!)

Here's Micah in his pilgrim hat. He was so ready to get that thing off, and he was not happy that I was insisiting on five more seconds with it on so that I could get a picture!

Micah had also made an "I'm thankful for..." necklace in class. Most of the other kids were thankful for things like their moms and dads or something sweet like that. Not Micah. He is thankful for spiderman. :) (He wouldn't look at the camera again after I had tortured him with the few extra seconds of the hat for the sake of the camera...)

I also just have to say that we're thankful to call these two front-and-center little pilgrim boys friends. Caden and Ryan did a great job, too. (And yes Ryan -- I think you knew every song! :)

Lunch was good -- Micah couldn't get enough of the ham, Joey couldn't get enough of the tea, and I'm proud to say that we didn't spill anything!!

Micah, I'm so thankful that you are getting the opportunity to be in Mrs. Summer's class this year. I'm proud of you and everything that you are learning. Thanks for being "my best, best, best three-and-a-half-year-old in the whole wide world!" I love you! Jodi, thanks for sharing with us!

T-E-X-A-S Spells Blessed

I had an idea last week -- a way to teach our kids a little bit of Bible, as well as some reaching out to others. Excited about it, I sent all the Christ Journey folks an email and posted it on Facebook:

The story of "David Plays His Harp for King Saul" found in 1 Samuel 16:14-23 has been on my heart the past couple of days. It's a good Old Testament story that tells about the power of music to encourage.

Bret and I plan to share this story with our family tomorrow morning (Sunday) at breakfast. I would encourage you to do the same. (We'll be using a little more kid friendly version of the story than what's found in the NIV.)

We plan to bring a related color and activity sheet for our kids to work on during the sermon tomorrow -- CJ folks, I'll bring enough to share! :)

Then sometime during the week next week we -- and again, I encourage you to do the same -- will look for an opportunity to encourage someone through music. Specifically, we plan to encourage our kids to do this for a friend or neighbor. Sing a song for them, play an instrument for them, send them a link to a song/music video you think they would like, request a song for them at the radio station and then tell them to make sure and tune in, ask a friend who plays an instrument to play a song for you...the possibilities are endless. Be creative! And then include the rest of us in your journey and share your story!

I'm looking forward to sharing this journey with you!

~Rachel

I was really excited about this, with beautiful visions of hugs and tears and heavenly music sweeping Burleson over the next week.

...then on Monday I realized that I -- reserved and un-musical me -- had gone and opened my mouth, and I was going to have to actually do this with the kids. What was I going to do?!

I spent all day Monday and Tuesday racking my brain, trying to talk to the (unreceptive) boys about it, trying to not to nag Bret, trying to put together a beautifully perfect project that we could do for a hurting non-Christian that we knew, pressuring myself to shape the ideal story to share.

On Wednesday morning, we were out of toothpaste and cheese and chocolate syrup for the milk, and dangerously low on toilet paper and diapers. A WalMart run had become a must.

Somewhere around the green beans I realized that this could be a great time to share some music. But I still didn't know what to do. We had gotten to the point that all of the groceries we had gotten so far did not fit in the basket with both the boys anymore. Micah was trailing farther behind me than I was comfortable with, and Joey was squirming around in my arms trying to keep himself from falling asleep. I was stressed with making sure that I was staying within the grocery budget, I was sweating, and my arms felt like they were going to fall off.

Then I realized that Micah was singing. It was a goofy little song, one that Conner had learned at school and shared with us, about Texas to the tune of "B-I-N-G-O." But Micah was singing it over and over again. And then I realized that everyone we passed suddenly came out of their own grocery-shopping-at-WalMart-and-not-happy-about-it daze and watched him, a smile creeping onto their faces. Some of them even stopped to point him out to someone next to them.

This was it. Micah was doing it. It wasn't according to a grand plan that I had devised, and it wasn't blessing anyone that we knew, but we were blessing the lives of others, forming a little community on each aisle that we went down.

So I stopped for a moment and reminded Micah of David and King Saul. I applauded him for blessing others with his song, telling him that he was just like David. That made him even more proud, and he sang even louder -- now noticing that he was making others smile -- which made him smile and sing even louder -- which made them smile even more -- and then I found even myself coming out of my Walmart-induced grumpiness.

He continued that for literally, about 15 minutes. We didn't talk to anyone except for the checkout clerk (who also got a rendition of the Backyardigans' pirate song), but I think we did it. I truly think that we might have turned the day around for some of those folks. I know my own day had been blessed.

Thank you Micah, for reminding me how much more we can do when we set aside our own grand plans and live in the moment God has put us in.

Gwe Gwe

Monday it was one month ago that my Gwe Gwe (Dad's mom) passed away. It was all very sudden. I got the call from Mom at about 12:30 on Friday morning, 10/9, that Gwe Gwe had gotten sick, called 911, had made it to the hospital, but was currently on life support. They would wait until Mom and Dad got there before they turned the machines off. It had been an aneurism/stroke-type of brain bleed. Gwe Gwe had known that there was something that just wasn't quite right for awhile now, and had been seeing a series of different doctors in an attempt to figure it out. They just weren't quite fast enough, though...

This hit especially hard because we hadn't seen Gwe Gwe since last Christmas, and Mom and I had been planning to take the boys to spend the day with her on Saturday. We were so close...

Gwe Gwe lived alone in Brenham. Her husband had died over 30 years ago. That meant that it was up to Dad and his brother and sister to take care of everything. And because it was all so sudden, there was a great deal of hunting for certain paperwork and things (and often following one odd little handwritten note to another), as well as figuring out what to do with an empty house and unused car until things could be figured out more and there was time to take care of them.

...and this all just six weeks after MeeMaw died, leaving Mom and her brother to take care of everything. What a load.

Knowing that there was not much I could do to help with this since my lovely little crew of helpers would be along (and Bret would not be able to come until after our worship gathering on Sunday), we took the opportunity to go to Gammie's house (which is near Brenham) and spent some time with Gammie, Poppy, Aggie, Uncle Kevin, and Cousin Kaleb.

After reuniting with Kaleb Saturday morning,a fun pasture party on Saturday night (I SO wish I had taken my camera!), and worship with Gammie and Poppy on Sunday morning, we were off to Brenham. We met up with our family at Gwe Gwe's. It was probably the last time I'll ever go to that house...at least with it still looking the way it's looked for the past thirty years...

The visitation was Sunday evening. Bret had met up with my brother and brothers-in-law (my sisters were already there), and they made it just in time. We saw a lot of family that we hadn't seen in a long time. Some of them were even meeting some or all of the boys in person for the first time.

Conner and Micah were still very interested in seeing Gwe Gwe's body. But after they had done their looking and touching, they were satisfied and spent most of the rest of the time playing with their daddy and aunts and uncles.

We talked a lot about the past. Gwe Gwe was German, and often called us "britzelpater" (I have no idea how that German word it actually spelled) as children. I had always thought that was pickled canteloupe. (Yes, it's just as disgusting as it sounds!) But apparently, she was not calling us melons -- it's just a German word to lovingly call a child a mischief-maker.

We talked about the time we got to spend with her during the summers when we were younger -- the trips to the movies and McDonald's, the Blue Bell creamery and the monastery with miniature horses, the trips to the grocery store where we each got to pick our very own six pack of cokes and box of cereal. We talked about how she would save her dimes in baby food jars.

There were a lot of people who were really still in shock. I lost track of how many people I heard say over and over, "But she always looked so good." And she did. She was an 80+ year old woman, and had her list of aches and pains, but mostly she was doing really good. Everyone had been surprised.

The funeral the next morning. It was good to have the family together -- the first time in a very long time that we had all been together. I was a pall bearer. That was a first for me. Bret has done it several times, but in the past it's always been the guys who do this job. Well, this time around, she had asked that the grandsons and grandsons-in-law take this job...but only four of them were available. So my sisters and I got to join in. Thankfully, the church's preschool/daycare was gracious enough to let the Wellsbrothers hang out with them during the service so that I could participate in this honor. (That's why they're not in the picture above.)

This all took place at Gwe Gwe's Lutheran church. It's very different from the good ol' Church of Christ I grew up with, and I remember how cool it was when as a little girl I got to pull the padded bars down so that we could kneel and read our part of the "script." I was glad to get to go back there one more time. However, because this worship felt so different from what I am accustomed to, the funeral just wasn't highly emotional for me. I felt very detached and a little awkward. It was definitely a funeral, and it was definitely my grandmother that we were remembering...the service just lacked the personalized touch that I guess I have grown to expect.

The hardest part of it all was at the end, when the seven grandchildren (me and Bret, Ira, Lydia and Chris, Jodi and Robert) together lifted Gwe Gwe's casket and carried it to the waiting vehicle. It was heavy, and we were carrying it down some stairs -- difficult and requiring a lot of teamwork. It was very strange, this feeling of the weight my grandmother in her casket, entrusted to my siblings and I alone, on her last exit of the church she had been so faithful to. I have never experienced anything quite like it.

After a brief refreshment and time of visitation, we were whisked away to our vehicles. The burial was to be at the VA Cemetery in Houston (where Dad's dad was buried), about an hour away. I'm sure you in Texas remember how cold and rainy and cloudy and just down right dreary most of October was. October 12th was no exception. It wasn't raining hard, but we definitely ran to the van to keep from getting too wet and cold. I was dreading the graveside service.

However, as we drove to Houston, we started seeing a break in the clouds. And then the sun started peeking through. And by the time we got to the cemetery, the rain had stopped, the sun was shining, and it had begun to warm up. Perfect timing.

Now, I don't know if you've ever been to a graveside service at a VA Cemetery, but once again, it was not what I was used to. It wasn't even actually a graveside service. Instead, there was a little chapel, and my siblings and I carried the casket into the building one last time. There was a song and another few prayers, and we were done. When the last of the friends and family had exited the building, the cemetery's workers loaded the casket onto a little cart, and drove it to the burial plot. Honestly, I felt a bit cheated. Outside, our family decided that we would like to go see the headstone. None of us had ever seen where Dad's dad had been buried, except Dad -- and that had been the day he was buried, 36 years ago. You see, his death had been extremely sudden as well. And it happened before my mother was even on the scene. So, for whatever reason, no one ever talked about him. Growing up, we knew a few of the circumstances surrounding his death, but we never really learned much about him. We talked about him so little that we had never even given him a "grandparent" name, he had always just been "Dad's dad."

During all of the going through things and looking for stuff at Gwe Gwe's house, we had learned a little bit more about Dad's dad. And suddenly, it was okay to talk about him and remember him. They even found a little box of random little things that had belonged to him, and Dad told us some stories about him that we had never heard. So we decided that really, he needed a name. And we settled on "Yo Gwe." "Yo" for "Yogi," what my kids call my dad. "Gwe" for "Gwe Gwe," to whom he had been married. Yo Gwe. Strange, yes. But it made sense, and finally this mystery of a grandfather had been named.

And suddenly, we found that we were all experiencing some grief toward not only his death, but for the fact that we had never known him, or even very much about him. It seemed only appropriate that we go see the place where he was buried while our family was there together.We walked to the site -- which, thankfully was very near the chapel -- my children splashing in all of the puddles along the way. One of the things that I will always remember about Gwe Gwe's funeral is that this was when Joey learned about splashing in puddles. You see, many of the headstones are flush with the ground like this, for easy mowing. And after all of the rain from the preceding days, nearly every one of them was more a puddle than anything else -- pure joy for three little boys.

However the VA Cemetery is nothing if not efficient. Before we got there, the casket cart had beaten us. They had already put the casket in a plastic encasement and had the digger right there ready to go. They did pause as we looked, talked, took pictures. But as soon as we turned our backs, they set back to work. You can see all the machinery at the edges of the picture.We finished up our weekend of memories with lunch together. And what would appropriately complete this already eventful and crazy weekend? That's right -- Micah puked. All over the table, all over the bathroom. He wasn't eating his lunch very well, but wanted some candy at the checkout counter. So we had insisted that he eat about half of what was on his plate. So he did...and then promptly "un-ate" it. Oops. I guess he really wasn't hungry afterall... Luckily, the van was crammed with bags of clothes for everyone, and since I have learned that the kid apparently likes to do this every now and then I have also learned to keep extra towels, baby wipes, Lysol, and Clorox wipes in the van for just such occasions. It was a relatively easy fix.

As we were finally loading up into our cars to make the trip back home, we noticed that the sky had started clouding up again and the air was getting cooler. Not long into the trip home, it started raining again. It was literally like God had given us that little bit of sunshine at just the time that we needed it. What a wonderful gift -- one I will likely never forget.

Gwe Gwe, we miss you. I so wish that we could have spent that one last weekend with you. I'm doing my best to make peace with the fact that we all had the gift of anticipation. One of the things that Mom and Dad had found in Gwe Gwe's kitchen was a grocery list and a little stack of coupons, obviously for items that she had been planning to pick up for our visit on Saturday. I've got them in my purse, and plan to make that little shopping trip for her...but it's something I want to do alone, and just haven't yet brought myself to do it...

An Afternoon with Tigger

Yesterday afternoon, Conner came home with his class pet, Terrific Tigger. He was very excited...until I told him that we needed to run a few errands before we went home. Conner does not like to run errands.

But then I told him that he and Tigger could get excited again, because we were planning to eat dinner at Rosa's (Taco Tuesday -- a taco plate for $3.33, we can feed the whole the family for about $10!), and Bubba and Uncle Chris were going to meet us there! To say that he got excited again would be an understatement.

So we ran our errands, went home for a little while, and were off to Rosa's. Tigger happily sat between a couple of plants on a ledge while we ate. (And on Conner's head for a few minutes.)And then the real excitement began -- we saw Mrs. Scarpello! Conner grabbed Tigger (how crazy is it that the day that we see her was the same day that Conner had Tigger?!) and practically bolted out of the booth, ran to her, and almost knocked her over with a hug. Mr. Scarpello had been released from the outpatient rehab center on Saturday, and this was their first attempt at going out. He showed Conner the "cool" scar on his back, and Conner showed him the scar on his pinky finger.

Mr. Scarpello is doing much better, but he still needs Mrs. Scarpello to help him with pretty much everything. So, even though he's home, she's not back at school yet. But that's fine. She's doing exactly what she needs to be doing, and her class is in good hands with Mrs. Burton.

When we got home, Conner had a really cool story to write about in Tigger's journal, (including Tigger's Mrs-Scarpello-requested-visit-to-the-washing-machine!) and a picture of he and Tigger with Mrs. Scarpello. We couldn't have made up anything more exciting! :)

Mrs. Scarpello and a Kindergarten Update

About three weeks into school, Conner came home from school saying that he had a substitute that day. I didn't really think anything about it. Then he said the same thing the next day, only this time he added that she had gone to visit her husband. I still didn't really think anything about it. Until he came home the next day and said that he still had a substitute. This was a Monday, meaning that if Mrs. Scarpello was sick, this was the fifth day. If she was on a trip, this was a long trip for this close to the beginning of school for a kindergarten teacher. But whatever. I guess it's not really any of my business...

And then I found the note in Conner's backpack. Mrs. Scarpello's husband, in his early 40's, had had a series of seizures and strokes and was in neuro-ICU. The situation didn't sound good at all, and the note didn't really offer much more information. It only said that it was a day-to-day thing, and they would keep us informed as appropriate. I later learned through the mom-gossip-grapevine that it was questionable if he would live through this, and if he did, he would experience some pretty devastating physical effects.

After two weeks -- thankfully they had the same sub all of this time! -- we received a note that said that Mr. Scarpello was still in neuro-ICU, and that Mrs. Scarpello was taking a Family Medical Leave of Absence. The new, certified and experienced, long-term sub would be starting the next day, October 1st.

We have been pleased with Mrs. Burton. She has now been Conner's teacher longer than Mrs. Scarpello was, and after so much limbo so early on, we just now feel like we're really getting into a routine. In fact, it was Mrs. Burton who finally helped us figure out just what we're dealing with where Conner is concerned. She got a reading specialist in to visit with him, and we've discovered that this little kindergartener is actually on a high fourth grade reading level! (Yes, I'm bragging now. :) Mrs. Burton is working with us and the G/T teacher, trying to get Conner started on some special things to keep him busy and out of trouble. Hopefully we'll be sharing some good news about Mrs. Scarpello's return around the beginning of the year...

SnaggleMoo

It all started a little over a year ago. Micah was running down the hall one day and smacked his face into the wall. It was his front tooth that took the brunt of the blow, and it was left just a tiny bit bloody and loose. I was worried -- I just knew that it had been irreparably damaged, and would end up falling out in a few days. Afterall, this was only about three months after Conner's tooth injury that ended up leaving him with a snaggletoothed smile. (Don't get me wrong, that little smile is still one of my four favorite smiles in the world. I now think it is really cute. But, the fact doesn't change that he is still supposed to have teeth there, and probably won't for at least another year...) For Micah to lose a tooth prematurely would be about par for the way things had been going for us.

But he didn't lose it. It tightened back up most of the way, and it seemed fine -- except for the fact that every time the child fell or bumped his head, it was his tooth that got bumped! Eventually, the tooth started turning a little bit dark, and I began to wonder if it had been bumped a few too many times.

Then, a few months ago in July, a blow to Conner's head proved to be the sentencing one for Micah's sweet little tooth. When I went to untangling the crying ball of boys on the floor, I discovered that Micah's tooth was out of place. Not by a lot, but it had definitely been hit pretty hard. I pushed it back forward, the bleeding eventually stopped, and the next day I called the dentist.

Micah had some xrays done, and we discovered that his tooth had been damaged. The root had already been decaying (which is what baby teeth do when they come out naturally) for some time now, even I could tell that on the xray. We were given the option of trying to save it, but I am just not one to drop $1000 bucks into a baby tooth that will fall out in a few years anyway. Don't get me wrong, I understand that is the right thing for some people to do -- just not us, not now. So, we were told, either the tooth would eventually become loose enough that it would fall out on its own, or it would abscess (get infected) and need to be pulled. And it would probably happen before Conner's new front teeth grew in. Eventually, two of the Wellsbrothers would be missing teeth prematurely.

Well, the dentist was right. Wednesday evening, Micah fell and hit his face on the floor. These days, every time the child falls and hits his head, I just know that this was the one that finally knocks the tooth out. But Wednesday wasn't it. He didn't hit his tooth this time, it was his lip. And as I was looking at it to see where the blood was coming from, I saw an angry looking blister on his gums above his injured tooth. It looked exactly like what the dentist had told me to be watching for.

So I called the dentist, he said yes, this was it. He said that if we wanted to, and it was loose enough, we could just try pulling it ourselves. I hung up the phone in tears and waited for Bret to come home. My Micah Moo was going to be a snaggletooth, too. (No way in the world that I was going to be able to do this!)

Long story short -- it wasn't loose enough for Bret to pull it. I sent Micah to school Thursday morning and made an appointment to take him to the dentist in Glen Rose (the one that I grew up with) as soon as his Halloween party was over. My heart broke when the school called around 11 to tell me that Micah was lying his head on his desk and complaining of a tooth ache. I went up there to give him some Tylenol, let him stay for the rest of his party, and then we were off to the dentist.

Micah couldn't have been back with the dentist for more than 6 or 7 minutes. And I could barely hold myself together when he came back into the waiting room with his softie in one hand and a ziplock containing his tooth in the other hand. A big wad of guaze was in his mouth where his tooth used to be, and his face was expression-less. He looked like he had no idea what to think about what had just happened. We had done our best to prepare him, but apparently it still was not what the poor little guy was expecting, and he was kind of in shock. I couldn't get him to say anything to me except that he didn't want the gauze in his mouth because he wanted to suck his thumb. He fell asleep in the car about ten minutes later.

Two and a half hours later, at Mom's and Dad's house, SnaggleMoo woke up, and he still wasn't talking, wasn't smiling or anything. I was getting worried. Would I ever see a glimpse of that wonderful smile that was truly one of the lights of my life? :*( What had just happened?

But gradually, as he really started waking up, the old Micah Moo came back. The missing tooth was a secret though, and he didn't want to talk about it, and certainly didn't want anyone taking any pictures. But I still managed to sneak a few...and just before we left to come home he told BooBoo and Yogi his "secret." By the time we got home, he couldn't wait to tell Daddy and Conner.

And then when he woke up this morning, he looked under his pillow where he had left his tooth last night, and discovered that the Tooth Fairy had come.

Dear Micah,

Wow. You are the bravest 3 ½ year old that I know! You were such a BIG boy at the dentist office yesterday! Thanks for leaving me your little tooth. I will add it to my tooth collection – on the shelf right next to Conner’s.

Please be careful with all those other teeth, though! I love it when I get to add teeth to my collection – but those teeth in your mouth make the most beautiful 3 ½ year old smile in the world! I don’t want them until they get loose on their own and the grown-up tooth is ready, okay?

You still have the cutest little smile though. You and Conner are definitely brothers. Keep smiling that beautiful smile, keep playing and enjoying being a little boy, but BE CAREFUL with the rest of those teeth, mister!

Here’s a dollar. I heard that you were really hoping for candy, but sorry – I’m the Tooth Fairy, and it’s against the rules for me to leave something under your pillow that’s bad for your teeth. I bet though, if you ask your mom, she’ll take you to the store and you can buy some candy with this cool dollar!

I love you, but I hope that I won’t be back to see you for 2 or 3 more years!

Love,
The Tooth Fairy

That smile right there tells me that everything really going to be okay. :)

SnaggleBrothers:

30 Rock

Bret turned 30 on Friday. That's right, the word is out, and there's quite a few folks who are surprised. I'm a cradle robber -- just by a few months -- but he's younger than me all the same.

Bless his heart, when it comes to food Bret's usually very easy to please. He'll usually eat anything that you put in front of him -- and the meatier and cheesier it is, the better. We make a good team, too. When it comes to dessert, I'll pass on seconds of the meal so that I can have seconds of the dessert. Bret however, will get seconds or thirds of the meal instead of the dessert.

So when it comes to birthday cakes, he'd really rather not even have one. Rarely will you ever see him eating a piece of cake with icing on it. (And if you catch him doing it, it's more than likely because he's avoiding hurting someone's feelings.) But it's his birthday for crying out loud! He's stuck with me for the rest of his life, and any time there's an excuse for a special dessert, we will have one!

So instead of traditional birthday cake, Bret has told me that he would much rather have some kind of dessert with fruit -- especially berries. (He specifically asked me not to refer to this as a "fruity dessert.") So we'll have cobbler or pie or fruit pizza or cheesecake.

This year I was trying to decide which one of these we would tackle, when I had a new idea. Dirt cake. You know those cakes that are cream cheesy goodness layered with crushed Oreos that look like dirt? It's not fruity, but it's cream cheese and Oreos -- both of which I knew Bret loves. Plus, I figured the boys would love to help make the "dirt" and add some gummy worms.

So I talked to the boys about it, got them sold on it, and took them shopping. While on the candy aisle looking for gummy worms, Conner saw some m&ms that looked like rocks. No really -- they actually could have passed for rocks. We had tried some earlier in the summer at the wedding of some geologists, and Conner and Micah were just beside themselves that we had found some, too. "Can we please get these? They can go on the cake with the worms, and then what's left can be Daddy's present." Sure. How can you say no to that?

As we got the rest of the ingredients, I started asking the boys what they wanted to get Daddy for his birthday. I threw out a few ideas, but they insisted, "But Mom, we already have his present -- rocks."

"Yes, we can give him the rocks, but what else are we going to get him?"

"Rocks. Just rocks. He'll love them."

I thought I was never going to be able to talk them into getting something else...until finally we decided on a gift card hidden at the bottom of the bowl of chocolate rocks. :)

When we got home, I told the boys that we would be making Daddy's cake the next day after school. They were very excited...but I didn't know just how excited until I picked them up the next afternoon...

Mrs. Summer said that Micah had told them all about Bret's 30th birthday, and the cake with worms in it. She was a little confused about it all, but after a brief explanation she understood. :) I was pleasantly surprised, I had no idea he was that excited.

And then a little later we went to pick up Conner. His teacher said the same thing, that Conner had told everyone that his Daddy was turning 30 the next day, and that he was going home to put worms in his cake. She was a little confused, too. Once again, a brief little explanation was all that it took. And once again, I had no idea that Conner was that excited, either.

So we got home and got straight to work curshing up the Oreos. I opened the package...and Conner immediately grabbed a handful and went and hid under the table to eat them.

Joey followed suit and grabbed a few, except I had him sitting up in a chair that he couldn't get out of. So he licked the creme out of all the middles and proceeded to paint his face and the countertop.

Micah, my star kitchen helper lately, was the only one who helped me put the Oreos into the blender.

Then we started putting the cake together, gummy worms and all.

But feeling a little guilty about not including the one thing that Bret had requested -- fruit -- I had gotten some sliced strawberries in syrup. We put a layer of strawberries in the middle of the cream cheese, and saved the dirt for the top. The boys did not disappoint. They thought this was the coolest part -- "groundhog blood!!"

"Yeah, I hope Daddy will be okay eating all this stuff," said Conner, playing along. "I hope it doesn't kill him."

"Yeah, Conner!" Micah chimed in enthusiastically. "We're gonna kill Dad!" (I calmed things down after that! :)

It turned out really cute, even if I do say so myself! (The crayon in the middle is the candle. That's all we had.)

Then the morning of Bret's birthday, the boys surprised him with cinnamon rolls and strawberries for breakfast. And Bret was appropriately "surprised" that his rocks were actually chocolate -- and that there was a gift card hidden in the bottom of them.

Bret, my dear, I wasn't able to make your birthday nearly as special as I would have liked to. And I'm truly sorry that such a large portion of your day was so crummy. Thank you for working so hard for us and unselfishly somehow making your day so enjoyable for your boys, too. I've enjoyed entering this decade of life with you, and look forward to what it has in store! (Well, I think I do anyway... :) I love you!