Great Father’s Day weekend.  Saturday evening we took David to Benihana.  He has always loved it.  Davey loves it too.  He thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment and the food!

We made special Father’s Day cupcakes for David.  Pinterest of course was the source, although I found them through my friend Carol.   We decorated the cupcakes with lawnmowers sitting on half-mowed grass.  Not that David, in a million years, would leave the lawn half-mowed.

I will say that his first guess was that these were wagons.  I can see it.

We used Wilton melted chocolate disks as the “glue” which was a little messy. Those lawnmower handles were very tricky, but overall, they looked pretty cute.  I also made David a key lime pie.  I’d take a picture but it was GONE too fast to be photographed. It was a great recipe.  It called for plain Greek yogurt, and it was a reduced fat pie.  It was the best recipe ever as you’d never guess that it was a “healthier version.”  I’d like to say that Davey discovered that he loves key lime pie and that he really laid into that pie.  But that ain’t so – it was all David and me.

We had a nice Father’s Day afternoon as well.  David and Davey played with the playdoh outside.   They were probably having a discussion about Harry Potter here.  It’s always a safe guess these days.

And the picture of the day may be this:

Davey, as always, loves a celebration.  We had a nice one.

We are in the process of selling our house.  We have had the “good” problem of quite a few showings so far.  We love that there is interest in the house, but it’s tough to be in out and out of it pretty frequently. It has been nice though having a constantly very clean uncluttered house – that’s a definite plus (although not easy to maintain!).

We had to leave today for several hours.  David, Davey, Buster and I piled into the truck and off we went.  There are lots of nice parks around here, so Davey and David went to the playground while I walked Buster up to the dog park.  He has an incredibly fun time there playing with other dogs.

We went to lunch (killing time involves meals, snacks and lots of frozen yogurt visits).

(Also last weekend, we went to the library and one afternoon I stayed outside with Buster while Davey and David went to the indoor waterpark at the rec center.)

After lunch today, we came back to the park by our house to read in the shade for abit.  David, Davey and I have started reading Harry Potter.  It’s our first book together without pictures!  Davey was not too interested in books without pictures yet, but then he started playing Lego Harry Potter on the Wii, and it has gotten him very interested in the story of Harry Potter.

He does not like for me to say Voldemort.  We have to call him “You-Know-Who”.  He frequently refers to Ron Weasly as “Juan Weasley”.  He tells me he prefers “Juan” to “Ron”.  He frequently declares Harry as “The Boy Who Lived!”

While he knows that Dudley Dursley is not very nice, he still did not approve of Hagrid giving Dudley a pig’s tail.  He thought that Hagrid went a little too far.  Davey was worried about the Dursleys not really celebrating Harry’s birthday, and he’s very happy that Harry is getting ready to go to Hogwart’s.

It’s a lot of fun reading it with him. I edit a little as we go, and I’m a little worried that the end might be too intense (I can’t remember exactly how the battle goes), but we can always put it away for awhile.  He’s having a lot of fun with the beginning part of the book, and I know he will enjoy Harry’s arrival to Hogwart’s.

The nicest part of trying to sell the house is lots of together time!

We went to Davey’s  Pre-K graduation this morning.

Davey had decorated his hat with fireworks.  He told us exactly how he wanted to paint them.  We helped him, but he did most of the work.

They held the graduation outdoors at the Broomfield Commons.  It was a beautiful day for it.

Davey and Daddy.

Pre-graduation festivities included a bounce slide.  Here Davey was sliding down with his friend.

He grinned all the way down.

After the children had marched in and were seated, the parents were encouraged to come take pictures.  Unfortunately, the sun was beaming right into the kids’ faces, so there was no avoiding the squint!

I love watching Davey have conversations with other kids.  When I took the picture, I was wondering what they were talking about.  When I got home and downloaded the pictures, I realized that Davey’s hat was off.  Looks like they were discussing the hat.

Davey walked up and received his diploma from his teachers Ms. Jenny and Ms. Karen. They were awesome.

The diplomas were good for bopping each other.  They had a fun time with this as they waited for their classmates to receive their diplomas.

Afterwards we had fun post-graduation festivities.

They played on the playground.

Next we had a picnic.

So pretty outside, and we had a nice view.

Here’s a picture of me with the little graduate.

Davey finished things up by rolling down a hill with two of his friends.  They found this to be the greatest of fun.

Happy Pre-K graduation Davey!

On Thursday, I went to Davey’s pre-k to go to “Muffins with Moms”.  It was a lot of fun. They had worked on several songs which they sang to the moms.

They were a little shy singing in front of everyone.  They were very proud of their songs though.

They decorated the tabletops with pictures they made.  Davey drew this lovely flower.

Then they brought us muffins and juice.  Davey was very careful transporting my muffin and then he brought me some tea.

They made us great little gifts too.  One of the gifts was a portfolio of their work.  It included artwork from the year, but it also had a page where they had written their name and had drawn a picture of themselves on the first day of the school.  Then their teachers had them repeat this on the last day of school.  It was really neat to see how his handwriting progressed and how his self portrait was drawn differently too.  It’s a treasure.

I took a picture of Davey with his gift, but he was more interested in getting back to his chocolate chip muffin!

Special day at pre-k.

I also had a couple of pictures from his half-birthday party.  He had had a lot of fun decorating the cookies.

I love this one of him blowing out his candle.

Davey had his half birthday yesterday.  We don’t celebrate hugely, but we did get him a couple of things and we made some cookies.  Our day got away from us so we didn’t get to decorate the cookies yesterday.  That’s the plan for this afternoon.

Davey has been majorly into Batman Lego so we got him some batman lego things.  He also likes the game on the Wii and has been playing that some.  Just set the timer to bring an end to this play session!

Here’s the 5 and 1/2 year old!

This morning we had soccer.  He had a great day.  He’d been a little discouraged with soccer because several of the other boys have gotten really into it and have become pretty competitive.  He really wasn’t ready to charge in after the ball.  He likes to check on his friends and follow along.  He always hustled, but he didn’t want to jump into the fray.  Today though, he really began to focus and was all of a sudden ready to jump in and get the ball.  He made a beautiful goal where he ran the ball down the field and did a great kick!  He was so proud, and David might have been even more excited than Davey.  🙂

Fun day with the 5.5 year old.  Now to close out of Batman Lego, and we are off to decorate his birthday cookies!

We lost our Koko Puff last Friday.  I’ve wanted to write about her, but I have had trouble figuring out just what to say.

She was born around 2-14-96 (that’s the date we determined based on the vet’s estimate of her age).  We thought Valentine’s Day sounded nice.  When we adopted her, she was a 4 month old ball of fluff.  I’ve got to find those pictures.  She joined our family in the pre-digital era, and so I have actual pictures somewhere.

Here she is at 17.

Koko was such an interesting dog.  I think it’s because she really did not believe she was a dog.  When David brought her home, I picked her up; I was ready for lots of puppy kisses.  Koko was not a kisser.  She kept turning her head.  I remember finding this so odd, but that was Koko.  She liked pats though, and she’d paw you if you stopped before she was ready for you to.

Koko was pretty much in charge around here.  I used to joke (but it really wasn’t a joke) that the hierarchy went:  Koko, David, me and then Timber.  Timber and I were kind of tied at the bottom.

Koko was the most stubborn dog in the history of dogs.  If you put her behind a gate or a door, she’d make it her mission to try to escape – even if this meant totally destroying the door trim or the top of the inside of her crate.   She was stubborn until the day she died, and I’m pretty sure that it was that stubborn streak that kept her alive so long.

She was also very very loyal.  She finally stopped barking and protecting us in the last few years, but prior to that she kept a close watch on us.

In her lifetime, Koko broke her leg, and she also had a couple of bouts with an inner ear problem which caused her to spin around and around in circles.  We thought that would be the end of her, but she recovered again.  For the last few years, she’s suffered from arthritis and I’m pretty sure some doggy dementia.

She’s at peace now.  Davey has been sad about her going, but he explained some things to me.  He said, “Mommy, you know heart and heaven sound kinda the same.”  I said that yes I guess so!  They both start with “h-e-a”.  He then said, “I think heaven is in our hearts because when someone dies, their spirit stays in our hearts.”  I liked that.

He also told me that “God is happy that Koko is in heaven.” and then, “Mama, he might be a little mad at us for keeping her for so long.”

We will miss the puff.