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.