Portrait time

I took the boys last week for their bi-annual portraits. I, as usual, left with a bunch of prints so hopefully I'll be good and get some in the mail to everyone soon. Here are a few of the cute ones. I haven't cropped them, but you get the idea.

Happy Birthday times 2

I logged in today to upload the pictures I had taken at the studio recently for their birthdays and saw that I never posted all the pictures I uploaded from their party and their actual birthdays. It was just sitting in the drafts section. Sorry folks! Here's the post about their birthdays.

Frosting, cake batter, more frosting, cupcake batter and MORE frosting. That is the story of the past few days. Carter's birthday was on the 8th, but he celebrated at school on the 7th. They honor the birthdays for the week at chapel on Thursdays and it turns out Carter was the only one that day so he didn't have to share the spotlight with anyone. Here he is in his crown as the other classes sing to him. That is the director standing next to him.

Brian, Mom and I went up there that morning to watch. It was fun to see what his chapel is like. They have a quick lesson and sing some songs. Everyone was singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" when all of a sudden you hear a distinct voice in the background. Cole starts trying to sing - it was so cute. All the teachers were smiling at my sweet little Cole.

The next day was Carter's actual birthday and Mom got him a cake with Dora and Diego on it. I had planned on baking him one, but after making 36 balloon cupcakes with homemade icing that afternoon for the party the next day I'd had enough of a mess on my hands.

Here is Dad showing Carter how to use his new golf clubs. He got a set of Walter Hogan clubs with a putter, iron and wood. It came with a walking bag that looks like Grandpa's - "very awesome" as Carter says.


And this starts the pictures of the boys party the next day (the 9th). You can see some of the balloons in this pic - but I had at least 75 more. A good old fashion birthday party - balloons and cake and lots of it. We had to take the coffee table out of the living room so the kiddos could use the long balloons to hit around the little ones. We still have some balloons in the house that my boys are playing with.

Here are some of my cupcakes. I heard they were tasty - I actually never ate one.

We sang to Cole first. Actually we sang to him twice. My friend Julie took some video of us singing but didn't realize I had already pressed "record" for her, so she pressed it again and stopped it. No biggie, for us at least. Cole got mad and just wanted to eat cake.

And then he got really mad when I realized I hadn't put on his birthday hat. It quickly came off.

Now it was Carter's turn.

This is Annie, my friend Phoebe's daughter. All the commotion kinda wore her out. Or it could be the passing around of her. Everyone wanted to snuggle with the baby girl. Though Mom took her and hid in the other room and had her to herself :)

We tried to get a family photo, but Cole was WAY too tired to last.

Carter is sandwiched between two of his girlfriends, Emma and Awbrey. The crocodile rocker was a birthday gift to the boys from Brian and I.

Dad stuck a big balloon down Carter's pajamas that evening. They thought it was hilarious.


Then on the 13th, we celebrated Cole's birthday. Except it started out at the pediatricians office. I scheduled the boys' annual checkups for that day. Cole had to get 5 shots and Carter came away scott free. Since Cole was one he could finally face forward in the car seat. I really didn't want to switch him yet since it's safer the other way, but he was really starting to hate the car seat. He likes this way much better. Here they are in their matching t-shirts that Phoebe gave them and their matching car seats. Cole's arrived just in time.

Here's the after shot - we went to lunch and did some shopping after their appointment. Long day :)

Cole took a good nap, but Carter woke up after I took him out of the car seat. So he helped me make Cole a cake. He's licking the bowl BEFORE I took the icing out. Little turkey.

Here we are singing Happy Birthday to Cole. Carter blew out the candle for him.

We went to Pappasito's for dinner to celebrate with Mom, poor Dad was sick. Here's Cole wearing the traditional sombrero while the staff sang him Happy Birthday.

And the concludes the birthday celebrations for awhile. Thankfully - I'm caked out.

Merry Christmas

What a week! We had a wonderful and merry Christmas in our house, and hope all our friends and family did as well. Brian took almost the entire week off leading up to Christmas and my birthday. Matthew and Allison came in from Denver and spent over a week in town (they leave today, bummer) and Grandma spent a couple nights with us as well. We had lots of fun family time.

We made and decorated cookies and rice krispy treats. As well as a gingerbread house, which by the way would be condemned by the housing authority if they ever saw it. We looked at Christmas lights and played games, including Brian's new Band/Guitar Hero setup that Mom & Dad gave him for Christmas.

We did some last minute shopping at the mall, and I got absolutely nothing done. Carter played in the play area, rode on the carousel, rode the miniature train and jumped on the bungee trampoline. Check out the video ...

Christmas morning in the house was run as smoothly as can be expected with 2 little ones and 7 adults. Carter enjoyed passing out the gifts. He wanted to know who it came from and who it went to every time. We had a lot of gifts, but savored opening them all. I think the last present was opened sometime around 1:00 that afternoon, after starting at around 7:30. Actually, I ended up putting a couple presents back in my closet to pull out for their birthdays which are in a week and a half. Santa brought Carter exactly what he asked for "an airplane with people inside." And Cole got an electronic rocker that turns into a riding toy. They also got several other fun toys, a wooden parking garage, trash truck, books, nice play food and several other things that have now caused me to purge, store and donate old and unused toys from our playroom. I've got a bit of the spring cleaning bug.

Here is Cole climbing on the presents, surprisingly it was one of his :)


Carter is showing off his reindeer antlers we made from foam cutouts.

The condemned gingerbread house. We weren't even done decorating it when the walls started caving in.

Cole now has two teeth on bottom and they are really bothering him. Popsicles seem to work, especially when he sees that Carter has one :) This child wants everything that Carter has.

Carter had his Christmas party at school and I went and helped set up ahead of time. He's sitting by Kassie, his absolute best friend at school.

Here he is hugging Mrs. Hewitt goodbye.

The cookies that we decorated on my birthday. They were covered in sprinkles.

Daddy's rice krispy treats were a hit and also fun to decorate.

Here is Cole on his toy from Santa. Please ignore the half decorated tree. I stopped putting the ribbon and ornaments back on after the two boys and cat kept taking them off.

Carter just saw his airplane from Santa.

Here he is opening his trash truck from Nan and PeePaw. The next morning our trash pile was enormous. Fortunately our trash came the next day and Carter took his truck out to show the trash man.

Carter and his circular saw.

Cole playing with his musical jungle. He loves anything where he can put balls in and watch them go around and come out.

Cole got his first monogrammed towel, it's an alligator. It was from Grandmama who gave Carter a monkey and dog towel over the last two years.

We all seem to have caught a cold. The boys had a minor one two weeks ago, but over the last couple days something else has hit the entire family. Grandma, my mom, Matthew and all four of us are battling a variety of yucky cold symptoms. I'm hoping we get over quickly.

I never got a family photo. Maybe I'll try and do that this coming weekend for New Years, or on their birthdays.

"I want to talk about Jesus"

Every night after Brian reads Carter some books and tucks him into bed, he always asks me to come in and sing him "one song". It's never just "one song" but that's okay. After our songs, I snuggle up with him and we talk about what he/we did that day and what we'll do tomorrow. Tonight I was telling him we were going to his Christmas party at school tomorrow. It was going to be a birthday party for Jesus. He said "I want to talk about Jesus." So I started telling him the story of how/when Jesus was born. I told him Jesus was born a long time ago and when he was born 3 wise men came to visit him and they brought him gifts. That's why we give gifts to each other at Christmas. He then said, "Did they buy their presents at Target?"

Oh I just about choked on my tongue. I tried so hard not to laugh. My face hurt so bad from smiling so big. It was the funniest, yet most endearing conversation we've had recently. I did get to finish the story. He wanted to know what presents Jesus got for his birthday. I told him Frankincense, Myrrh, and Gold. He said "I want to talk about Gold." And so our conversation took another turn.

We have little conversations like this all time. People say that the 3's are a rough stage, and while yes, he does utilize his free will, we are having so much fun talking and sharing together. He is such a sweet sweet little boy.

Snow and Santa

I'm sure you've all heard by now that Houston got some snow yesterday. It was our earliest snowfall since they've been recording weather. It was funny; Nan was in town on business and hung around a couple extra days and experienced her first snowfall of the season here instead of in Indiana. Here are some pictures of the snowfall. I have video, but I haven't watched any of yet. When I have some time I'll cut some of it and post it up here.

Cole was confined to his exersaucer outside. He's kinda over being in that thing now that he can crawl everywhere and pull up and cruise. But I didn't want the wet snow getting on his pants and feet, he'd freeze! He does enjoy the cold weather though. You can't see any snow falling in this picture. It had just started and was still pretty wet.

This was about 4:00 in the afternoon. We had two pretty decent downfalls during the day.

Brian and Carter made some snowballs and threw them at each other.

After we came inside, Carter found Daddy's after-ski-boots and my scarf. SO CUTE!

Today we went and visited Santa at Memorial City Mall. We got there at 9 only to find out Santa doesn't arrive until 10. So we shopped around until it was time to see Santa. Unfortunately during that time a line started and we ended up not getting out of there until 10:45. Cole was terrified of the white bearded man.

But Carter hung around to tell Santa "I want an airplane with people inside." We'll see if St. Nick obliges the little guy.