senior parachutist

With Dishman and White.

The bling that stings...
(They pound it into your skin.)

Finally... 30 jumps!

Sean earned the Senior Parachutist badge a few weeks ago. The Parachutist badge with a star. He actually earned his Parachutist badge the week before our wedding almost 9 years ago. It was the only badge he had at the time. :) Here's what he had to have to earn his Senior Parachutist badge....

Participated in a minimum of 30 jumps to include 15 jumps with combat equipment; two night jumps, one of which is as jumpmaster of a stick; two mass tactical jumps which culminate in an airborne assault problem; graduated from the Jumpmaster Course; and served on jump status with an airborne unit or other organization authorized parachutists for a total of at least 24 months.

preschool Christmas Program

Before we headed off to the program.

The class performed a simple Nativity.

The 3 Wise Men.

Singing

Cullen's class

Cullen's class was so cute this afternoon at their program! Cullen insisted on wearing his suit (someone gave it to us this summer). He was so proud wearing it. :)

Cullen is 5!

Signing Happy Birthday to Cullen.

Cullen was on cloud 9 yesterday, celebrating his birthday! We had a busy day... We dropped Finn off at hourly care in the morning, then I took Cullen out to eat before preschool. Of course, he choose McDonald's. :) I helped in Cullen's classroom and he was leader. After school, we drove back to Fort Carson, to pick up Finn. We picked up the ice cream cake, and finally headed home. I let Cullen choose what he wanted for dinner- mac n cheese. He could hardly wait for Sean to get home to eat the cake and open presents!

He loved all his presents!! He ended up playing in his room all night and was still up after 10pm, when I went to bed. Both last night and this morning he said "I just love all my presents, I'm going to give everyone a hug that gave me a present!"

Battalion Christmas Party

a picture of a picture...
The boys enjoyed visiting with Santa.

They both got their face painted, but Finn touched my camera
lens when I tried to get his picture. It didn't turn out.

Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds

Sean and I drove to Denver Thursday night for the Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds concert. We were so excited, we hadn't seen Dave and Tim perform since 2003, when they played at West Point. Sean is a member of The Warehouse, DMB's fan club, so he was able to get VIP tickets for us. We had incredible seats, the best we've ever had, 9 rows back, center stage. (Although our Vegas seats were a close 2nd, considering the venue.) They played for over 3 hours! He played one of the two songs I really wanted to hear- Oh. Sean was able to name the song after the first chord and loved hearing Spoon, Funny the Way It Is, Dancing Nancies, and All Along the Watchtower. There were no cameras allowed at all, but Sean was able to get a few decent pictures on his phone. Although, he was told 3 times by security to put it away!

As always, it was fun to hear what Dave would talk about in between songs... He joked about how the altitude always gets him when he's here in Colorado. After one Miller Light, he's sh*tfaced. How dry it is here, and how he can only take one step at a time... He talked about his son loving Michael Jackson, how he does the thriller dance and loves to sing Beat It. (just like our boys...) He also talked about homeless people and those less fortunate, and how your feelings change when you look them in the eye.

We had so much fun, I can't wait until the next one...

SETLIST:
Still Water
Don’t Drink the Water
Stay or Leave
Squirm
Old Dirt Hill
Save Me
One Sweet World
Grace Is Gone
Funny The Way It Is
Help Myself
Crush
Unknown (Tim Solo)
Alligator Pie
Eh Hee
#41
Dive In
Lie In Our Graves
Oh
So Damn Lucky
Kundalini Bonfire (Tim Solo)
Out of My Hands (Dave on piano)
You And Me
Spoon
Tripping Billies
Dancing Nancies

Encore:
Some Devil (Dave solo)
Baby Blue
All Along The Watchtower

reindeer cookies

Finn's job was to press the cookie cutter into the dough.

Cullen is about to sneak a chocolate chip...

Cullen's job was to decorate the reindeer.

This morning the boys helped me make reindeer cookies. (I made the 7 layer cookies and pecan sandies later. By myself.) Can I just say, wow. It's hard to manage my knuckleheads around food. Let alone food I want to keep sanitary to give to neighbors and friends!

Finn wanted to eat the cookie dough (I can't blame him), and all the reindeer toppings... really he was the difficult one. Cullen took his job real serious, and only snuck a few chocolate chips and m&ms. :) He was really precise, alternating between brown and red noses. I didn't manage to get any pictures of the finished product, but they turned out really cute.

Cullen's 5th birthday party

We had Cullen's 5th birthday party this afternoon at VillaSport (our gym). We invited his preschool class and our friends (Lukey, Maggie, Grayson, Isaiah, and Keegan). The kids all enjoyed bouncing on the two bounce houses and playing basketball. I think Cullen may have a little girlfriend, Ellie. They are quite the pair and held hands a lot today. :) Ellie (and Brenna) were in his class last year too. But, Ellie and Cullen have quite the friendship. :)

Cullen got lots of great gifts and has fun playing with them this evening (he is still playing in his room now...). It was cute watching him open presents... he is a really good present opener. He shows such excitement and emotion with every present. Finn had a lot of fun at the party. And just like last year, he was the last to leave the cake and ice cream to sit around and watch his brother open gifts. Finn likes his food... Mr. Biff brought Finn's belated birthday gift, the Transformers mask and Heavyweight Championship Belt. He looked hilarious and didn't want to take it off.

It was a great afternoon! Now if I could just get them to go to sleep... We are going to Isaiah's 5th birthday party tomorrow.

getting ready

Cullen with his new ornaments.
He picked out Star Wars this year.

It didn't take Finn long to pick out his ornament this year...
He went straight for the tractor!

Helping Daddy put the top on.

The boys with the finished tree.

They just can't stay away from it. :)

We've got the house decorated for Christmas. (With only a few broken ornaments...) The boys are so excited! Belf the Elf is back, and it's cute to see Cullen and Finn excited every morning to look for Belf. Sean got the lights on the house put up just before the cold and snow moved in. :)

Indians, Summer, & drains

Cullen with his Indian hat and necklace.

Cullen is really proud of this hat he made in preschool. :) On the way home, he told me "I just love doing art at school. I think that I will make some artwork for Jesus and Santa." Ohh, Cullen. On the back of the hat he drew 2 stick people, one with a cloud over his head with a lot of rain coming down...

In other news... I posted two of the boys' favorite songs on the playlist. They LOVE to dance and sing to "Beat It" even Finn-Finn sings along. Funny my boys love it so much... I loved it as child and even named my baby doll "Beada" after the song. Finn also loves any song that has talks about tractors. :) Old MacDonald Has a Farm is a favorite book right now.

Before lunch today, Finn was playing with his pretend cell phone and was having quite the serious conversation with Summer. I asked him who Summer was and he told me his friend at the gym. He actually said "friend". He's growing up! Then of course, Cullen got another pretend phone and started talking to Summer, as well. This made Finn mad and a fight ensued. A sign of things to come, perhaps?

This afternoon, my resident plumber, aka Finn, found trouble (once again) in the bathroom. This kid gets into everything! In the Spring, he pulled the hot water handle off of the garden tub in the master bath. Water is gushing out full-force and, of course, Sean is gone. Luckily, I thought quick and turned off the water to the house and used pliers to turn it off. This Summer, Finnster somehow pulled the drain plug out of the sink and shoved Cullen's toothbrush as far as he could into the drain. My dad fixed both things for me when he was out here over Halloween. Thank you, dad!! Anyway, today (now Fall) Finn shoved a toy all the way into the hole in toilet in the master bathroom. I would have never known, but luckily Cullen caught him and told me. But it was too late... I could not see any trace of the toy. So what did I do? I asked Cullen (obviously b/c his hands are smaller) to stick his hand in there and pull it out for me, and if he did it... he could have a piece of gum. A few good tugs later and he got it out. Thank goodness! I just worry what Winter will bring with Finn....

Seems like I had more stories to share, but Finn is sitting here asking over and over- "Listen to Beat It momma, please?!?" How can I resist?

fighting Soldiers from the sky, fearless men who jump and die

Sean waiting for the 3rd lift.

Jessica and me with the boys.

Finn wandering around.

Finn talking to daddy about the Chinooks.

Those tiny 5 specks are HALO guys.
(High Altitude Low Opening)

Here they are after the chutes open up.

Coming in for a landing.

The boys watching another Chinook come in.

Finn really enjoyed watching the Chinooks.

Sean arranged a van to take us out to the range to watch him jump this morning. I knew Jessica's husband was jumping too, so I asked if her and Lukey would like to join us. Sean was going to earn a star on his jump wings today (his 30th jump). Unfortunately, it was too windy and the only people that were able to jump were the HALO guys. At least the boys were able to see some cool things... daddy in his jump gear, HALO jumpers, 2 Chinooks taking off and landing over and over, all the army trucks, etc.

I have only seen Sean jump once. Back in NC when Cullen was a tiny baby... Sean and I are trying to arrange a family day out to the range, so everyone can watch their Soldiers jump. It's such a cool experience, I hope we can swing it.

Famous Finn

Had a friend tell me today, that she saw a picture of Finn online. It was taken at Boo at the Zoo and she found it on The Gazette (our local paper) online. To see a copy of it click here.

Halloween 2010

Grandma and Papa with their
favorite Toy Story duo.

Me with my crazy boys.

Papa helping Cullen decorate his pumpkin.

Grandma helping Finn-Finn.

Finn's pumpkin

Their loot.

They enjoyed handing out the candy just
as much as they enjoyed trick or treating!