My Baby is 9

 

Another birthday for Connor! He turned 9 on Sunday. He’s got quite the party planned for next weekend, but on his actual birthday we kept it low key.

 

We invited both sets of parents over for some cake after supper.

 

 

 

 

 

He had asked for a skateboard for his birthday which I vetoed immediately. However, it was literally the only thing he asked for. He could not come up with one other present he wanted. So, he got a skateboard. This was his reaction when he opened it……

“You said you wouldn’t buy me this!”

 

 

Because Connor doesn’t really like cake (although he’s decided he might like cupcakes) we had ice cream cake instead. Then it was time to get outside and try that skateboard out…..

 

 

 

He decided it’s a lot harder than it looks! He kept wanting to do tricks…..hard for him to understand he should learn the basics first. We will see if he keeps at it.

 

9 Thoughts About Connor:

* He has a voice! No longer is Noah deciding ALL the shots around this house. I told Noah this day would come.

 

* He still loves PB&J. He could not decide on what he wanted for this birthday supper as food is not a big deal to him. He finally decided on spaghetti.

 

* He has made huge leaps in his reading capabilities this year! At conferences his teacher praised him for his hard work!

 

* He has received two all-school awards this year for leadership. His name gets announced over the intercom, he receives a small trophy and a certificate explaining the specifics of his behavior/actions that caused him to get the award….helping others and leading others.

 

* He is a typical boy in love with video games and sports.

 

 

* His one-liners are hilarious. He is quite witty, and his sense of humor is very dry. He’s not silly, he’s serious.

 

 

* He will still snuggle and sit on my lap. Often he grabs my hand while we are walking in the parking lot or into a restaurant. I love it.

 

 

*  He does not like going out to eat, to movies, to the store. He is a total homebody.

 

 

* He is a great sleeper.

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CONNOR! 

We know our time with you being our little boy is so limited. We are proud of you and so blessed to have you.

 

Smooches ~

LB

 

 

Early Valentine’s Day

 

We elected to celebrate Valentine’s day early this year. Both boys have practice on Valentines Day (because remember men plan that stuff) and because I have so very few years left where the boys will humor me and sit down with us to celebrate, I just pushed the festivities up a day.

 

Noah had been sick all weekend. He started a fever on Saturday. I decided to keep him home from school as he still wasn’t able to eat and standing wasn’t high on his totem pole of things to do either. As I type this there isn’t much improvement so I have a feeling Mike will be home with him tomorrow.

 

I spent the whole day cooking. I made chocolate covered strawberries (stick with the melt-aways not chocolate chips), cheeseburger soup, and cupcakes. I also put together 31 bags of chocolate covered popcorn for my students which I bagged and affixed labels to.

 

I set up the table…..

 

I made the kids clink glasses……

 

We ate.

And it was over!

 

Hope you have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

LB

Twins Caravan

 

The Twins caravan breezed through Owatonna and mom and I decided to take the kids up to see the players. Even though we arrived over an hour before the event started, good ole’ Budach luck struck again and we ended up one of the last people in line. Generally we pick the wrong place to camp out and the line started at the complete opposite end of where we were in the restaurant. **Sigh**

 

 

I ended up sending mom home and Mike joined us for the duration. Noah wasn’t super thrilled and would have turned around at any time and went home (love this child) but Connor would have been disappointed had we not stayed.  So, after not being able to get served because so many people had reservations (except no one was sitting and eating) we plunked down at a random dirty table and asked some kind waiter if we could order supper. Luckily he was fine with that and we ordered food while the kids stood in an unmoving line. My headache was grateful.

 

Can you believe how young Noah looks here? You know why……because Connor is huge. He is ONE pant size behind Noah.

 

 

 

 

 

Butera (back-up catcher that played most of last year), Valencia, and Bert Blyleven were there which were pretty big names. Bigger than the guys that came last year to my school anyway.

 

It was nice to get a little taste of Florida a few weeks early.

 

Our weeks have been busy with basketball (and baseball camps), but not this weekend. We are heading to Burnsville to see Journey The Mysterious Island and look at getting a new couch.

LB

The Bar

Our bar had been in the making for quite awhile. Every time we saved up enough money to leap, something would come up that detoured us (surgery, taxes, etc).

 

But finally, nothing wrecked our plans and our basement has a much needed addition.

 

I should preface this with exactly how big of a deal this is…..

Our downstairs contains a large bedroom (instead of two smaller), bathroom, man-room (no windows so it’s always been our play room and work-out room), and a very large rectangular living room. We had placed a fireplace at one end a number of years ago and circled the furniture around that and the TV. The other side of the room was basically the boys’ soccer field, baseball diamond, and an area to play tag in. The kids had totally destroyed the baseboard in that room. I know that sounds crazy, but our builder had misled us into buying this horrible baseboard trim when we finished our basement. It was like having tin foil as baseboard. It was horrible. So, in preparation for the bar, Mike replaced all the baseboard in that living room. This was no small undertaking as it’s white and needed to be painted. While he was at it, he painted all the doors down there, and touched up the upstairs trim as well. It made such a big difference.

 

 

Here is the basement before……

 

Mike had taped off where the cabinets and counter would go. I am terrible at visualizing. I needed to see how big those were going to be on that wall. I was nervous that they would be too big. However, after the taping…..it seemed like it would be fine.

 

And here it is with the bar………

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a difference, huh? We have enjoyed having it so much. It has added so much warmth and personality to a room we avoided. We never went down there, never hung out when people were over down there, like I said, it was a place the kids just threw balls around. Well, not any more!

 

Here is the other side of the room…..

 

We got rid of a huge entertainment center, moved the TV to the corner, and positioned the furniture differently. We actually sit down here and watch games and movies now. That fireplace has never been used as much as it has since we built the bar. We still have a dream of replacing that couch sometime but for now, this will have to do.

 

A BIG THANK YOU to Richard’s Wood Products. This project was not without glitches (like cracked granite…yikes!) and it was always handled professionally and quickly. Jessica treated our smallish project like they were building us a mansion. We felt like we were her only customers. She kept us informed and in the loop the entire duration of the build. We highly recommend them if you are looking to do any additions to your home or business.

 

So, who’s coming over for happy hour?

LB