We wish you a Merry Christmas!

We will have to post more pictures over the next few days...
but I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS...

it has been crazy and fun... and i need sleep!!! but we will post more soon!

Pizza night!

Since Uncle Bug (aka Jon) has been here, we've had a well documented December. Bug is enjoying using my wonderful DSLR... and as long as he leaves it here when he flies away, I am glad to share... here's a great example... pizza night with the Clardy brothers!!!

Shredding cheese in our fabulous kitchenaide!!!

Uncle Thad.. cutting the sausage for the manly meat pizzas

Mr. Corbin... Uncle Thad's brother who moved here a few months ago!
We sure are glad he doesn't mind the chaos that is the Darden house!

Riley... making his pizza (the boys and I can't have real cheese... so we make our own pizzas!)

Daddy & Riley workin' on the pizzas!

General post-pizza-making-silliness!

Makin'.... COOKIES!

When it rains, it pours... and when i finally take time to blog, i might as well do as much as humanly possible!

This weekend we made and decorated sugar cookies...

Carter, Momma, & Riley cutting out cookies

Riley shows off one of his masterpieces

Brian and the "casualty"
He dropped this cookie on the plate and BROKE it!!!

The fam!

Uncle Bug joins in the fun!!!

Don't be fooled by the primary colors... those are CHRISTMAS cookies!

Daddy's 1st 5k!

Last weekend Brian ran his first 5k down in Fountain with a group of students from his school. The boys and I went to cheer him on!The boys bounced while we waited... if you know Carter, you know that he once broke both arms within 3 weeks... needless to say, my prayer for the day was "Please Lord, no broken bones"

Waiting for Daddy!

our RUNNER!!!!

it must be LOVE...

I recently took a course in deciphering kindergarten "love notes" and already it is paying off! (ok, not really... there is no such course ... it was supposed to be funny). For the last 2 days, Riley has come home with notes from Summer. Yes, the same Summer that wrote the super cute note I am supposed to keep until Riley gets married! But there are some significant differences between note #1 and the latest additions to Riley's "special things" box.


First, observe Note #2...

the outside... check out the extensive sticker decoration! Kindergarten girls do not part with their sticker collections easily (if I remember correctly - no jokes required - we all know it's been a long time since I was in kindergarten).


the inside... LARGE heart with both names... c'mon ladies we ALL know what that means.
And don't be fooled... I know I didn't crop these well... it's all for a purpose! If you look at this note, you will see that it is not folded to the perfection of the first note... which causes me to wonder... do Summer's parents even know about these letters??? or is she hiding out in her room writing letters to my son without the knowledge of her parents.... makes ya think, doesn't it???

So... the next note is the 3rd received but he received it just one day after the 2nd note... Summer is steppin' it up a notch and cornering the "Rily" market :)

Not so many stickers this time... what could this mean, you ask??
It is one of 2 things:
A) She is not so sure about how she is feeling about him at this point...
B) She used up every last sticker in her collection on the previous card and must ration her younger sister's few remaining stickers until she can restock at Christmas!

Don't be confused by this (as Brian was - until I helped him decipher the inside of this card)... it does NOT say "I love mom" as an untrained eye would believe. No, my friends, it says... "Rily, I love You"... and yes... those little stickers are lips... LIPS... what???? a five year old uses LIPS on a love note... that shouldn't be allowed until they are at least 25!!!
and now to the perplexing part... Summer, MOM, Rily... i'm out of ideas, i have nothin' left!

We hope you enjoy these cute notes as much as we have...
i can't make any promises but i think you will see more of these in the near future :)

ahhh... the Pilgrim girl

So... I found this among the papers that Riley brought home this week. If you are not a grandparent of Riley, you probably won't care... but this is for the grandparents... It's pretty darn cute!
The sentence is supposed to say "This is the face of a pilgrim girl"...
Grandad - please note that he writes "Riley Paul Darden" on most of his papers :)

A chip off the old block!

So, Gram & Grandad came to visit! They arrived the day after Thanksgiving and left this morning (Monday). I will post more pictures in a little bit but I thought these should be first! Grandad, being a retired engineer, has always wanted to share his knowledge of helicopters with the boys. In the past, they would enjoy it, but this time Riley really got into it!


I believe they were talking about the main rotor and the stabilizer (see, even I picked up some of the terminology).

and the test begins... Riley had to tell Grandad all the parts

There was also conversations about the importance of each of the parts... I don't remember details!



Thanks Grandad! We've known for a long time that we had a little engineer... once again it has been confirmed!

What in the....

So... this post is gonna take some explaining! It seems that our oldest son Riley has two "best friends" or in his writing "best freds" -- Grace and Summer... did you catch that... our son has 2 girls as best friends. Not that I have a problem with him being friends with girls... it's just that I think each of these sweet girls thinks that they are "the" best friend.

So, last weekend Riley wrote them each a "letter." Each of the letters was the same, except the name.
"You are my best friend (insert either name)." Summer received hers on Monday but Grace was absent that day - so she got hers on Tuesday.

Another piece of important information - Summer has told her Daddy that she "likes" Riley because he has a cute smile.... yeah, this has already started in KINDERGARTEN!!!!

Then.... today.... Riley came home with this:this is the front of the card.

And here is the inside:
now, my guess is that Summer got help writing the first part... but the part that almost caused me to fall over "You love me".... WOW!!!! what can we say to that????

Makin' mama proud!

Riley is LOVING school! He recently received an award for 1st quarter. He is crazy about reading! He has completed the Kindergarten list of words they must be able to read on sight and is now working to master the 1st grade list (his goal is to start the 2nd grade list in February and I have no doubt he will!


So... his school is doing this breakfast thing for all the kids and their families... they did a power point presentation...
and this is the picture they had of him...

I'm not sure what kind of look this is but surely they didn't say "smile"... it must have gone something like "show me every one of your teeth or no recess for you for a MONTH!"

It's pretty amazing to watch what he is learning!

While at the school for breakfast, there was a paper he had written on the wall outside the classroom. The assignment was "I am proud of me because..." and I cried when I read his.
Riley wrote that he was proud of himself because he crosses the street by himself (disclaimer: I have started letting him cross at the crosswalk by himself while i stare down any car that comes within a mile of my sweet baby!)

He then wrote about asking a friend to not push him down... i think we have a writer... everyone else wrote a sentence and Riley had 3 or 4 sentences explaining how he handled the situation.

I feel like everyday I have to remind myself that it is our job to prepare him for the world and not to protect him from the world.
Right now, I'm pretty darn proud of how he is handling himself in his world!

New things at the Darden House

It's been an interesting month or so... to say the least... we have a couple new additions to the house. Most recently:

TA-DA!!!! Just what everyone wants to purchase right before the holidays! The fridge DIED and we had to replace it... so fun!!
On a positive note, Brian hooked up the water supply (with a little help from our favorite local uncle... Thanks Uncle Jim)!!

and... approximately a month earlier we got these:

OOOOOOOOOh, Awwwwwwwww... i know.. amazing...
and yet another expense we were SO excited about!
if you notice - the manuals are still on the washer and dryer... you need a degree in engineering or something to work these suckers!

Ok, enough complaining...
we have much to be thankful for... eventhough we didn't want to spend the moolah!

Halloween - part 2!

We were invited to Trick or Treat with Grace's family and their neighbors and other friends... we've never been a part of such hard core trick or treating... the kids got more candy than anyone needs... and boy did we have fun!

all of the kiddos... i think :)

the princesses...


the sheer volume of kids was a little overwhelming to people answering the doors...

I kept saying "If this was my house, I'd be turning out the front light... these kids have to be wiping out their candy supplies"

my FAVORITE pic of the night... the angel and dino comparing who has more candy!

Halloween... party numero uno!

a not-so-patient spider!

The Darden & Harmon boys! Noah the Gorilla, Riley the spider, Nick the Whoopie Cushion, Carter the fireman!

Still waiting for the party to start...

Grace (Riley's best friend from school) & Riley!

The party... i didn't count how many kids were here... for a reason! It was SO much fun!!!