Merry Christmas!

Here is Jed's rendition of Jingle Bells as well as a mash-up version of Jingle Bells and Nanny Nanny Boo Boo. Listen closely!


And this is Eli singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Did you know Rudolph has a smiley nose?


Here are the pictures from our Christmas card along with some others we took. John's co-worker's girlfriend took them for us, and we did them in our backyard. We decided to do a cheesy one with Christmas sweaters and even some with our chickens, just to be goofy. I don't think the sweaters were cheesy enough, though. Maybe I'll find some cheesier ones for next year. We had a good time taking those!
The first three pictures were the ones that were in our Christmas card.

Christmas with Family

Last weekend, we got to celebrate Christmas with my family in Dallas a week early. We had Christmas with my mom (Mammy)on Saturday, and then spent Sunday with my Dad and Cindy (Grandpa and Gramma Ninny) along with my aunt and uncle and my cousin and her family, and of course my sister, Brynn, and her family both days. We had fun doing presents and eating good food, but the best part was just hanging out and being together. I am thankful that I like hanging out with my family. We laugh, relax, and just have a good time. Thanks for being my family!

One highlight was when Mammy made Christmas cookies with all four of her grandsons. It's been a tradition since I was little to make cookies with my mom. We do it all, from rolling out the dough and cutting out shapes to decorating with the icing and sprinkles. I like the decorating, but my favorite part is giving them out to friends...well eating them is fun too! I took some of the undecorated cookies home and the boys and I decorated them and passed them out to our neighbors and friends here. Fun for everyone!

Eli's Christmas program

Eli's preschool put on a Christmas program, and it was the cutest thing I've ever seen! The kids did a great job. They had so many songs to sing for us!

John and I got there late (b/c we were waiting for Eli to put on his shoes, but that's a whole different story!), so we had to sit in the back row. They performed in the sanctuary of the church, and it was packed! I ended up standing on the side in the front against the wall so that I could get some good pictures.

First, the four year-olds sang, then the three year-olds came out and then the two year-olds came out to sing. Some of the two year-olds looked smaller than Jed. So cute! I'm sure we'll get to see Jed do a Christmas program at Faith Preschool in the future!

The kids all had glittery hats that they helped make, which made the performance even cuter. After the program, everyone got to enjoy punch and cookies and a visit from Santa in their classroom. We also got to see Eli's artwork displayed on the walls.

As you can see in the picture where the boys are in Santa's lap, Eli is not happy. When we were waiting in line to see Santa, Eli thought it was his turn to go, but there was a kid in front of him who went up there the same time Eli did. Eli got embarrassed b/c the kid's mom told him it wasn't his turn yet (in a nice way). Eli tends to get mad and cry when he's embarrassed. So, that's the story behind the grumpy face with Santa.

























The program started with the kids singing Go Tell It on the Mountain as they walked in. Eli walks in at the beginning of the video. He's wearing a black shirt, right next to his friend, James, who is wearing a green shirt. He's walking right in front of his teacher, Mrs. Bass, the lady in the red shirt. Sorry, the videos are pretty wobbly. That's probably b/c I was standing and waving to Eli while holding the camera.


This is one of the songs that Eli's class did. Each class took turns standing in the front to sing some songs.


Here are some other songs all the kids sang. They had a lot of cute ones, but I'm sure you'll recognize these. Eli is toward the left. Again, sorry for the wobbly camera work.






And I just like this song. Did you notice the girl sitting in front of Eli to the right? So cute! I think Eli's getting a little bored in this one...ha!

Our Christmas Tree

Here's us decorating the tree. We did that the weekend after Christmas, but I'm just now getting around to some posts. I love our tree this year because it's filled with ornaments that I had and made when I was a kid and now some that Eli and Jed have made. The boys enjoyed helping hang the ornaments this year. I only had to move a few around so that they weren't all at the bottom of the tree. I love our little Charlie Brown tree.

Thanksgiving

We went to Ft. Worth this year and stayed with Grama and Grandad (John's parents) for 5 days. It was nice to see them. We hadn't seen them since last spring! It was also nice to stay in one place rather than traveling to Dallas and trying to see all of my family...way less stress! John's sister Courtney and her family were there in Ft. Worth, too. It's always good to see them, especially now since they are moving to Virginia. Courtney brought some cookie dough for the kids to help make cookies. Yum! She also made an amazing turkey carcass soup, much better than it sounds!




















This was taken at the Science Musem. The boys loved the kids area...cool place!
















Jed really enjoyed playing with the Busy Town toy set during our visit. It's old school! John used to play with it as a kid, which is cool. A tried and true toy!















We went to Decatur to see Nana, as usual, on Thanksgiving day. She was great with the boys and enjoyed chatting with them and taking interest in the toys that Jed kept showing her. Doesn't she look great at 94?
























Special time with Grama and Grandad and cousin Vivian.

Fun November stuff

Only one post in November? How did that happen? I guess nothing extra special was going on, just the usual boys being boys! So here are some pictures for you to enjoy!
Here are some of Eli's last soccer game. Uncle Steve and Aunt Laura came, and I regret that we didn't get a picture of them with Eli. Eli's team had a little medal ceremony after the game, too.

















Jed loves my headbands















It's Boone!
























Those last ones are of the boys at the park...I got some good ones! And we also decorated the tree after we got back from Thanksgiving. The boys really got into decorating this year.

Camping Trip

The day before Halloween, we went with several friends to Bastrop State Park to go camping. We got there Saturday afternoon and left Sunday morning, so it was a short and sweet time there. I think it was the only available time back when we were booking the camp sites over the summer. I'm not too keen on camping, but I thought it would be a fun time to hang out with friends. I have a feeling I'm going to have to learn to like camping more since I live with three males! We all had fun and the weather was perfect...sunny, nice and cool during the day and cold at night. The boys did great sleeping in the tent, too. It helped that they were extremely tired from playing with their friends all day. I don't think we'll try and fit in a camping trip right before Halloween again, though. Too much going on in a short amount of time! Lots of memories made, nonetheless!

Halloween Festivites

We had an eventful and fun Halloween! Halloween with kids is fun because of all the festivals and things and seeing all the kids dressed up in cute Halloween costumes. I'm not a fan of the scary, gory part of Halloween. Anyway, our festivities started last Saturday when we went to the Halloween Howl at the Austin Nature and Science Center. There are fun exhibits for the kids, like seeing a real owl and bat. John and Eli got to paddle boat there, I mean, they got to search for treasure on their pirate ship. Jed didn't get to go in the boat b/c he wouldn't wear the life vest, but I managed to get a picture of him wearing it. The boys also got to roast some marshmallows. I like Halloween Howl because there is no candy given out. The only thing we came home with were some real animal bones. Much cooler than candy in my opinion!

During the week, we (John) carved our pumpkin and made some Monster Mouths, which were apples cut to look like mouths with slivered almonds stuck in them for the teeth. Eli's pre-school had a Halloween Festival on Friday. They had a jumpy house and different games for the kids to do, and there was no candy once again. Thanks, school! The kids sang Halloween songs at the end of the festival. I've included some of those videos. Eli was singing, but with a straight face. He didn't want to smile or act like he was having fun. I don't know why he does that. My video work was not the best because my camera started running out of memory. Perfect timing again. Just look for Eli's pirate hat in the videos. He's toward the front on the right side.




And finally, on Halloween Sunday, we went to church in costume because we were planning on going trick-or-treating afterwards with friends from church who live near there. It was a short, casual service and all the kids wore costumes and did pumpkin activities there. John and I, however, were the only adults who were dressed up at church. It wasn't a big deal...kinda funny though. We weren't planning on dressing up until at the last minute, I had the idea that John could wear his old Baylor basketball uniform and I could wear some overalls that I had in college and dress up as a farmer. John was John of the past and I was Farmer John of the present. I thought it was clever!

Trick-or-treating was fun. We had quite a large crew with all the kids and parents! Eli was leading all the kids to each house while Jed was the last one in the pack. Jed waited until they all got their candy and cleared out of the way and then he would walk up to get his. Very patient! After we got to our house, we went to a few more houses to see our neighbors, and then we were done!

Our Truck!

We now are the owners of a Ford F-150 pick-up truck! The males of this household couldn't be happier! As most of you know, we have had one vehicle for about 4 years now. It's been more and more inconvenient lately just having one vehicle, so we decided it's time for two again. Of course Eli wanted us to get a truck and had specified criteria that he wanted. John has secretly wanted a truck all his life (it must be something that is ingrained in most guys). So, with the justification that he wouldn't drive it all that much (still carpooling to work) and would use it for his landscaping business, John and I agreed it was a good choice for our second car. After truck hunting for weeks and weeks, John finally found a truck that met all his and Eli's criteria. AND it was a great deal price wise, too!