Preston Turns 5!

I can't believe it! My baby boy is 5! The time has certainly flown by, just as everyone says it will! This year Preston really wanted a sledding party at Diego's house (cause he has the coolest sledding hill at his house) and he wanted it to be Star Wars theme. So, we got busy planning, and had a great party!

Here is Preston with his homemade Jedi cake (making cakes fancy and pretty is not my speacialty....but it sure tasted good)!

Darron made Jedi robes for all the kids and I might Ligh Sabers. They earned their robes and became Jedi's after passing the "Jedi Training Course" of a light saber battle, pod racing (sledding), shooting the bad guys, and learning to use light sabers by keeping a balloon in the air. After earning their robes, they were surprise attacked by Darth Vader....but boy did they take him down...and down....and down! He didn't have a chance!

While we were in Texas, Preston and his Maggie (my mom) had a great time making him his own Jedi robe, complete with a hood!

Here is a great picture of Jedi Master Darron putting the kids through the training course of learning to shoot the bad guys!
I'm not sure who had more fun, Darron or the kids!

I love my Preston! He is funny, easy going, sensitive, happy, talkative, playful, kind, and outgoing. He is comfortable in new situations, and enjoys making new friends and being a helper. He is thrivin in Preschool this year and looks forward to learning and playing everyday. He absolutely loves his baby brother Parker and puts up with Payton pretty well. He is still a snuggler, but it's on his own terms. His cousins, Brookelynn and Max, are his favorite people and he never gets tired of playing with them. He loves Sunday School class and singing and he's doing a great job trying to understand about Jesus and Heaven. Preston brings joy to our lives. He is easy, and fun, and loving, and my boy! I'm so glad God chose ME to be his momma! Happy 5th birthday my big boy!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving time together with family this year. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures! Confession time: I LOVE having pictures, but I don't really enjoy being responsible to take them. And Darron doesn't either. So it's not uncommon for us to forget our cameras and end up without pictures! Maybe this should be a New Year's Resolution for me!!

My family and T/Scott's family went up to Grandma's on Wednesday night. We had a quick dinner and let the kids play for awhile. Then we made pallets on the floor and got the kids settled in to bed for the night. The guys had rented a chick flick for us, and it was terrible! But we still enjoyed just relaxing together.

Thursday morning was very relaxing and we started making the food for the feast! About mid-day Chris' family and Suzie's family arrived, along with two family friends that celebrate with us. The day was complete with a huge dinner, sledding, movies for the kids, and just relaxing and playing. Darron and Scott headed to Scott's house to sleep a little before they started their 3 a.m. shopping. The rest of us slept at Grandma's. The older cousins (Tressa, Richard, and Randall) babysat the rest of our 6 kids so us girls could do our annual shopping. We were out from 4 a.m. until about 5 pm (we did sneak away to lunch and a movie during that time as well). We all had a wonderful day, including the kids. Darron and Scott took the three teens to dinner and a movie as a thank-you for keeping our kids. And Chris, T, and I (and the kids) spent one more night up at Grandma's....just for fun since the guys were out anyways.

We slowly woke up Saturday morning, had coffee and a late breakfast, played with the kids, and finally headed home for nap time.

This was the first major Holiday without Darron's dad. We all missed him greatly, and shared some fun memories of him. Darron's family is always positive and remained that way, even when missing Keith.

Although it's been a tough year enduring the sickness and loss of Grandpa Keith, we still feel very blessed in this life, and even more so in the tight family that makes up the Rizer's. We hope you had a great day celebrating and being thankful for blessings as well.

Halloween 2010

I'm back! I've been gone from the blog world for awhile. Lots going on, and then you throw my laziness into the picture, and I end up MIA from blogging. But, I know I'll regret not having more in my printed blog books to look back on, and since I'm even worse at scrapbooking than I am blogging, I guess I better attempt to get caught up!

We had a great time "celebrating" Halloween. To be honest, I'm not a huge Halloween fan. I grew up wearing costumes, decorating the house, and trick-or-treating. And while I have nothing against dressing up and getting free candy :), I just don't like all the dark and scarey undertones of Halloween. So I like to think of it more as celebrating Fall and we decorate with lots of pumpkins and scarecrows...although I give in and let Darron put out a few of his Halloween-y decorations too.

Since our church didn't have a Fall Festival this year, we improvised. Several of our friends and their kids came to our house. There were 10 adults and 8 kids total....ages 5 to 4 months. We had dinner together and let the kids play for awhile. Then we suited up (it was COLD) and headed out for some trick-or-treating.

Here is Payton, the Pirate Princess. :)Our friend Brad planned some very fun games for adults and kids to play together. This is Marquel, gracefully wearing a stocking and trying to beat my time in knocking over bottles. I won! :)


Preston, Payton and I had fun digging out our pumpkins and getting them ready for Darron to carve. I think I've almost perfected my roasting seeds recipe...they were YUMMY!

After the kids were tired and winding down, we put on a movie in the other room and let them have some down time. Then the adult fun began! Brad divided us into two teams and gave us a bag full of random supplies. We had 20 minutes to dress one team member in a costume. The kids voted on the costume they liked the most. I think it was a tie! :)

Darron and Brad sported some great looks!

And here is my Parker boy! He was a clown! :) He and I stayed home during the trick-or-treating and enjoyed visiting with Kimi and Marta as they stayed to keep us company. Parker seemed to love all of the attention he got that night with so many friends holding him!

Becca sporting the hose and trying her best to beat my time! Nope Becca, that title is ALL MINE BABY!! :)

Payton getting in on the games too!

I can't believe I didn't take any more pictures than this! I was so busy having fun and taking care of kids, I just didn't get many pictures. Kimi got a great picture of all the kids in their costumes before trick-or-treating. I'll have to get a copy. And poor Preston didn't even make the pictures! He was a cute little Iron Man, plastic mask and all! :)