School Photos

I was so happy to get the boys school photos this year!  

We chose to have them do two different poses. One with a Christmas tree in case we wanted to give it out for gifts or put them in ornament frames. It was so cute and natural of the boys.

Honestly, I don't know how they got the boys to be so great. I have an incredibly hard time getting them to sit still and smile naturally for a photo!

Aren't my they handsome! :) My little men!

Neighborhood Christmas Party

The boys had a blast at a neighborhood Christmas party. 

It was our first up-close meeting with Santa Clause and the boys both announced that they wanted bow and arrow sets for Christmas. Santa said he would get the elves working on it and they were ecstatic!

The party had so many fun activities for the kids and the boys ran from activity to activity with big 'happy-boy' grins on their faces.

The big blow up obstacle course and slide were some of the favorites.

They also had an amazing petting zoo area that the boys visited for a long while.

There were chickens, sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, rabbits and more! The animals were amazing!

The party also had an area that was supposed to be covered in fake snow. However, the fact that it was 85 degrees outside turned it into a foaming fan play area. The boys still thought the snow blower was a blast, but it was funny as an onlooker!

The boys were so gentle and wonderful with all the animals.

They also played around on the playground equipment. The park was packed with kids so they had a blast. I loved this pic that Ian took of Joaquin's 'happy birds' shoes (that is what Joaquin calls them).

:)

Right before everything began to close down, we got in line for the Christmas train ride. We had been in the line earlier in the afternoon but it moved so slow the kids got tired of waiting and ran to the playground instead. We noticed that as everything was closing down the line had gotten a lot shorter so we ran over before the driver called for the 'last ride of the day'.  The boys chose the caboose and we had fun riding around the park while daddy chased us around and took photos! :)

Overall, the day was a blast and it was a fantastic way to kick off the holiday season!

Unexpected Sight

I was driving home from taking the boys to Montessori school one morning when I gasped at the sight of a big hot-air balloon in our neighborhood. I could see it in the sky above our neighborhood but the closer I drove to our house, the larger the balloon appeared. Soon, I realized it must have touched down somewhere in our neighborhood.

Sure enough, it was just a street over from our house.

I drove over to take a better look and caught a quick shot of someone lifting off the ground, having been picked up by the hot air balloon right out in front of his house!  What a way to get around! I only wish the boys had been there to see it!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

My best friend, Melissa, told me about the Elf on the Shelf fun Christmas tradition. She and her family have had their Elf, Criddle, for a while now and so we decided to head to Barnes and Noble to get our own little fella.

However, I didn't realize there were boy elves and girl elves. Half way on our way home Elijah started complaining that we had a girl elf instead of a boy elf. I honestly thought he was joking, but after looking into it, sure enough, our elf had earrings.  We drove all the way back, had to stand in the return line, and left happily with our boy elf they later named Snowflake.

It has been fun to start a new family tradition with our Elf on the Shelf.

The boys had been begging us for a while to get the Christmas tree out of the attic and up in the living room. So, finally, we got down all the ornaments and began putting together our tree. However, a tall tree, always has the issue of getting the star on straight. We didn't do so hot with our tree-topper this year. :)

Our advent calendar for the month of December has daily family activities, one of which is to build a family gingerbread house. 

However, the hardest part about making the gingerbread house so early in the season, is trying to keep the boys from eating it all the other days leading up to Christmas. 

The boys were surprised to find that our Elf on the Shelf, Snowflake, had eaten a bite out of our gingerbread Christmas tree and got icing all over his face one evening after returning home from the North Pole.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has been a fun time to get the boys into the holidays.

We picked up this little homemade scarecrow at the goodwill the other day and the boys have had fun putting her all over the house and on the bench on the front patio. She is now one of our family Thanksgiving decorations.

The boys had a sweet little Thanksgiving party at their Montessori school. They performed what they called the 'Turkey dance' and wore their Indian headbands. 

On Thanksgiving day we drove up to mom and dad's in Moody to celebrate together with MiMi, Papaw, Uncle John, Grandaddy Bill, Namama and Aunt Kellye.

Going to MiMi and Papaw's house is like a visit to Disney Land for the boys. Elijah says they live in a "castle" so to them, the fun of exploring and running around the 7000 square feet of home is overwhelming.

Ian and I tried to dress up like Pilgrims and Indians. I made hats for Ian and I and the boys had their Indian head-dresses that they had previously made at school.

I also put together a leather loin cloth for the boys to wear.

Elijah was the only one brave enough to put on his Indian outfit.

Complete with chest hair! (Although the hair didn't last long).  Elijah shared the whole Thanksgiving story to the whole family during our special meal together. He said that his costume made him look like Squanto (the original Thanksgiving meal Indian that taught the pilgrims to plant corn!) 

My little smarties! :)

Guess who has pink hair?

So here is how the story goes...

I did a family Christmas photo shoot for a lady who is a hairdresser. We had agreed to give her a discount and she agreed to barter some haircuts for us.  So, time went by and we hadn't taken her up on the haircuts she had bartered with us for a discount on her photo shoot. So, Ian and I were talking one day and I said, "OK, we have to use these haircuts. Is there anything you have always wanted your hair to look like or some way you have always wanted to cut your hair? Because now is the time!" Ian turned around in his office chair and said, "You know, I've always wanted to have pink hair." I thought he was kidding at first, but he wasn't. Despite all my crazy hair-do's over the years, Ian hadn't tried anything out of the ordinary.  So we decided then and there that we would try some fun pink hair color.

My hair has a fushia layer underneath the top blonde highlights. I actually love it.

Ian bleached his out and has pink on the top tips of his hair.  So fun!

We have had frivolous fun being the 'pinkies' for the holiday season. I mean, we both work at home, so, why not, right?

:)

Life is supposed to be fun!

Getting Colder

One thing I love about Texas is that the weather changes. Not major threatening seasons, but you can at least feel the changes. By the time summer is coming to an end, I start looking forward to something new. The sky clears and the we get out our sweaters and firewood. 

Here is a pic of the boys watching the sunset outside our front yard. Daddy let them sit on top of the hood of the car and we laid back and tried to count the stars.

Saturday morning lego creations by the fire has become another fun tradition. The boys always run into our bed and ask for a fire in the fireplace. Daddy let's them turn on the gas and help haul the logs into the fireplace. Mommy's job is to make a nice Saturday morning breakfast of something like waffles, eggs, pancakes or omelets while the boys see who can make the coolest lego design.

The air was so crisp and there wasn't a cloud in the sky so we decided to take a family picnic out to the park. We bundled up in our cold-weather clothes and headed to the park playground.

Elijah and Joaquin (but especially Elijah) have been wearing their superman / hero capes everywhere they go. We even brought our swords to the picnic to protect against any wild animals that might be roaming the park. (In Elijah's words)  :)

I love this photo of the boys all cuddled up in front of the fire before bed.  We had taken a warm bath and gotten our jammies on. The boys requested that we do our usual bedtime story in front of the fire in the fireplace, so we had a fun cuddle and read time before we headed to bed.

I had to put these pictures in here too. The boys are so cute with their little golf clubs that Papaw gave them. They have a special carpet they roll out on the back patio and then plug in their hole-in-one practice hole.

This has become one of our favorite dreary afternoon activities since we can stay on the patio and play. (Pay no attention to the dying plants in the background. Winter has roared its weary head on our plants.)

Halloween

The boys had a blast this Halloween!  The older they get, the more fun it is during the various holiday seasons. Elijah finally settled on being a cowboy and Joaquin chose a pirate. We had various pieces of all these costumes, so Mommy just put together little outfits for each of the boys. 

They had a blast. 

Here are some pics from all the activities.

Elijah's cowboy costume consisted of Mommy's suede cowboy hat (apparently we have exactly the same size head). The fancy suede sherif vest was Uncle John's when he was a little kid and MiMi passed it on for the occasion. The only purchased part of the outfit was the silver, decorated, pop-cap gun. I sewed some pleather chaps and decorative elements on some pants and added a holster for his gun. Once his handkerchief was in place, he was ready to rock and roll.

If you can't tell, he took it very seriously.

Joaquin was excited to dress up like a pirate. The boys have been into pirates for a while now and we had lots of pirate paraphernalia too.  Gamma and Gampa got the boys a pirate hat last Christmas and daddy had a fake knife that came with his 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' Halloween costume from a few years back. So all mommy had to do was cut up and white t-shirt and sew some black pirate knickers. :)  Unfortunately, a cold front came in and the Joaquin had to wear a thermal under his costume so it didn't quite look so authentic. But, he was happy, and could have care'd less about the whole ordeal.

Here the boys are posing before heading out to a costume party.

Look at that smiling face!  Elijah had a blast helping daddy carve the family pumpkin this year. Joaquin wouldn't dare go near the pumpkin guts, but Elijah reached in there and grabbed a hand-full of gooey sludge.

This was the final result of our family pumpkin. The boys requested a 'robot face' this year, so daddy created this design.

Here was Elijah's own personal pumpkin. He did a fabulous job poking out eye holes and teeth.

This is my attempt to get them to smile right before we headed out onto the street for trick or treating. As you can see, they were pretty amped already and didn't really want to sit still for mommy's photo op. :)

The boys had a blast trick or treating around the neighborhood. We walked around for a couple hours and we only stopped because the boys pumpkins carrying all their candy got too heavy and they could no longer hold them! 

We had an all out candy craze fest when we got home and it continued throughout the next week...