Day at the Farm

We had a particularly nice weekend this weekend.  It was much busier than the usual Filleman pace, but tonight Mark and I both commented that it was just a nice weekend.  Saturday, while I threw a baby shower, the boys got to spend the entire day with Mark's extended family - center of attention - their fave!  Saturday night we had more cousin fun at Eli's birthday dinner and today we had a really pleasant afternoon with family and friends at an outdoor wedding.  In any other circumstance, a wedding with all three boys would probably never have been described as "pleasant" but an outdoor wedding, on a beautiful day, surrounded by wonderful people, with hay rides and tractors to entertain the boys made for a really great afternoon.  Davis was actually interested in the "wedding" part.  During the ceremony he was full of questions:  "Why is her white dress so puffy? THAT is what Eli wants to do?? (haha) Who will go next, do we all have to go up there to get married? Why did Grayson just eat your make-up puff?  (uh huh, awesome!)"

I don't always see it - but Grayson's expression and chubby little face in this picture looks a lot like my baby pictures to me.

Hooray for Soccer

This will be my last soccer post for a while - promise :)  The last game was last week and the team had a party at PPP afterward.  The boys had the best soccer coach.  He didn't even have a kid on the team and he did such a great job of giving the boys some skills and primarily helping them to learn to enjoy the sport together.  Davis loved all the different game style drills at practice.  At the award ceremony they received a trophy but he also made special certificates for each kid, with a team nickname and their best attribute on the field.  I know each kid felt special and each of the awards was so appropriate.

One funny (somewhat soccer related) story:  After one of the games in the car . . . 

D:  "Great news Mom, I think Coach Travis knows God"

Me:  "You do, Why do you think that?"

D:  "Well, he was talking about Him."

Me: "Oh, (in my head, hmmmmm) what did he say?"

D:  "He said, God made dirt and dirt is okay" - pretty sure that is D's version of the cliche "dirt don't hurt" :)

I tried not to laugh!

Davis was so proud of his trophy.  His award says:  Davis "Mr. Competitive" (hmmm, yet appropriate) and his award was for "most coachable player" - I'm very proud!  Coach Travis said that when they would tell Davis to do something on the field he would always do it.  

All three boys with their awards . . . great season!  Come on Johnsons, play in the spring :)

Happy Birthday Eli

My oldest nephew Eli turned six-years-old last week.  I love all my nieces and nephews tremendously and I have especially memorable memories of the day Eli was born.  There was quite a heard of us gathered in the hall waiting to meet my sister's first baby.  I was working at an office close by and would often bring my lunch to Liss' house to hang with baby E for a while on my lunch break.  I appreciate tons of things about Eli, but to name a few . . . in true first-born fashion, he does a great job of caring for all the little guys and he sets a great example for them, he is super sweet to Grayson, at a very young age he has a really great understanding of God's Word and applies it (SO super encouraging to me as a parent to watch God work in his heart) and he is always good for an awesome camera pose!!  Recent, "so Eli" story:  I was at my mom's while she had all the kids and she was trying to round up all the Filleman and Johnson boys for dinner in the kitchen, moments after sitting down Eli is out of his seat and in the kitchen.  My mom says, "E come get in your seat".  Eli says, "but I was just trying to serve you and aunt shell, you guys don't have any water and all the kids have water" - precious boy - "just trying to serve you" - cracks me up!

birthday lunch at PPP

who is that super cute blonde kid? :)

opening presents

sweet buddies

  

State Fair

Family fun at the State Fair!  Yes it is dirty and the same price as a ticket to Disneyland - but the kids had a really fun time.  We got to see lots of animals - Grayson of course loves seeing and petting animals - and we rode a couple of rides.  Our friends the Moores met us downtown.  It was fun to get to do something together with their family. 
This is the crazy slide ride that both the boys rode.  They thought it was great fun - I was glad Mark was willing to go twice because it was a little too high for me.  The kids would have been happy to ride this thing all night long.

Grayson got to ride a bumblebee ride and all the boys enjoyed corn dogs.  Those things kind of gross me out, but Grayson thought it was pretty wonderful.  

Out of their mouths . . .

Parker was walking with my mother-in-law the other night and Parker was saying something about being scared:

Billie:  Parker, we don't have to be scared, Jesus is with us.

P: NO he is not Grammie.

Billie:  Well yes he is (you can just hear her voice - totally unsure why my son seems so adamantly opposed to the idea)

P:  No he is not with us, because he has to come back someday, so he can't already be here!

As I mentioned before, Davis has been really trying to get his mind around the idea of Jesus coming back someday.  Parker has never even engaged in the conversations at all . . . guess he is listening :)  Of course we pray like crazy that when Jesus does come back, our little boys' hearts are ready!

This is just another classic way God is using my children to complete a work in me . . .  This past Saturday my attitude was less than Christ-like (and by "less than" I mean MUCH "less than" . . as you will see . . . 

In the midst of my grumbling in my head, Davis brings me his Bible and says, "Mom will you help me?".  Already realizing I need this more than he does, "Sure buddy, what do you need?"  Davis says, "I'm just looking and looking in here for a verse about happy hearts so I can show it to you . . . can you find one?"  Yes, good idea indeed.  I wish that I would have been modeling a better attitude but I am grateful he could tell my b.a. was in contrast to God's Word . . . looking on the bright side here folks!

And finally, Davis' introduction to the kindergarten we might send him to . . . We went to Eli's school for a jog-a-thon and Davis was super excited about cheering for him.  He was asking 100 questions per minute on the way there about how fast the race would be, would there be a finish line, would they blow a horn, would E win a trophy . . the list goes on.  Anyway, when we are on the sidelines before they start the race, Davis yells, "You HAVE to win Eli - just shove down all the kids that are in your way!!!!"  Awesome!  A proud moment indeed - maybe a good time to go meet the one and only kindergarten teacher . . and maybe I'll just save that intro for another time :)

Halloween 2009

We had a great time celebrating Halloween.  We carved pumpkins at my mom's annual pumpkin carving party, trick-or-treated with cousins and friends and then spent time walking around in our own neighborhood.  Random Halloween shots:

Davis with Papa

Getting some candy 

Logan and Parker - looked so cute together!

The clan before heading out to trick-or-treat

My super cute cheetah

the boys dressed up

a cousin picture - all the boys plus cousin Dillon as James the train

Mark carving his huge pumpkin - sadly the only picture we took together at Halloween . . or in a while for that matter . . oops!

Halloween through the Years

I am copying my friend's very cute post - partly because I loved looking at her blog and really wanted to go through my pictures and see my little boys in the past Halloweens.  I was reminded of three sad things:  I have aged 10 years in only five (so sad), I picked some notoriously horrible costumes for Davis the first two years, and I was a bad "third child" 

mom to G and he didn't even dress up for his first Halloween.  So sad . . how did that happen?  Anyway, enjoy!

Halloween 2005 - Davis (10 mo) is a Care Bear

Halloween 2006 - Davis (1 yr) is a lion (or Tina Turner according to my family)

Halloween 2007 - Parker (9 mo) is a monkey, Davis (2) is Spiderman

Halloween 2008 - Davis (3) is Bob the Builder, Parker (1) is Swiper

Halloween 2008 - G's first Halloween (2 mo) - he is a trick-or-treating baby in pj's :)

Halloween 2009 - Parker (2) Buzz Lightyear, Grayson (1) Cheetah, Davis (4) Luke Skywalker pilot

Blast from the Past

When looking through my old photos for my previous post, I came across these pictures and I couldn't resist . . . 

Matt and Nicci 2007 carving pumpkins and below is Matt and Nicci 2009 dressed up - we are very glad she is still around - our family hasn't scared her off yet . . shocker :)  Couldn't believe this picture was in my 2007 album - crazy how fast time flies!

When this picture came up, both Davis and Parker said, oh what a cute picture of G . . I don't always think that Davis and Grayson look as alike as other people do but I think this particular picture looks A LOT like Grayson.  Davis is almost 2 here, but his build and everything looks just like G right now! (even his crazy little wispy hairs:)