Mini-vacation

On Thursday we headed over to Ft. Worth. Our first stop was the zoo . . .

. . . then we headed to the Embassy Suites in downtown Ft. Worth. The whole time we were at the zoo, Luke kept asking when we were going to the hotel. I'd definitely say that they both had the best time in the hotel. Luke watched TV, and Noah just wandered around, picking up empty Coke bottles (Gary lives like a rock star in a hotel room), knocking on the door, and leaning on the sofa. It was a hoot! After dinner we went swimming; Luke thought the pool was really cool because it was inside.

Here's Noah enjoying a Jamba Juice in his favorite spot in the hotel room.

On Friday morning we went to the Stockyards to see the cattle drive.

Stampede!

Pathway to Easter

Our church had a new Easter event this year called Pathway to Easter. There were five different stations that each represented the last days of Christ. They children did an activity at each of the stations. It was a wonderful event, especially because it was held in our brand new building.

Before the kids went to the stations, they got a cupcake that they decorated with icing and jelly beans. This was, by far, Noah's favorite part of the event.
At the first station, Palm Sunday, the kids make a palm leaf.This is our friend Jason dressed up like a disciple at the second station, the Last Supper. We washed each other's hands and had juice, crackers, and grapes.
The third station was the Garden of Gesthamene where the children made prayer pots. They wrote "family", "church", "community", "praise", and "people who need help" on a craft stick, decorated it with a flower, and put it in a pot. We choose one to pray for each day.
At the fourth station, the crucifixion, the children wrote the word "sin" on a piece of paper, taped it to a bouncy ball, and threw it. This symbolized us being able to throw our sins away because of Jesus' death and resurrection.

The fifth station was the resurrection where we made an Easter wreath.

Noah's second favorite part was carrying this pink balloon around. He actually wanted a different pink balloon that another baby was holding, but we persuaded him to take this one instead.

Oh, my

Let me explain . . . Luke's clothes were completely covered in chalk earlier in the day so I asked him to take them off. This was right before his rest time, so he opted not to put any more clothes back on. He wanted to go outside while I was cooking dinner, so I let him go in the back yard. He had the good sense to put shoes on, but, as you can see, he's still mostly nekkid. I don't know if you can see his hair, but he decided he wanted me to gel his hair, so he's also rockin' a "faux-hawk". While Luke was swinging, Noah was busy playing by the trash cans in the muddiest corner of our yard. It was pretty white trash around here yesterday.

Easter party

It's hard to believe it's already time for Easter parties, especially considering the Valentine's party was just a month ago!

They made these cute buckets for the egg hunt.
Luke & Kate
Each kiddo got to smash a confetti egg on one of their teachers.
On the hunt for eggs
Luke's loot

Morning, noon, and night

Here are a few funny things Luke said yesterday:

-Luke woke up around 7:15 and came into my bedroom. Because of the time change, it was still dark. He looked at me and said, "Mommy, is this the 7 when you go to bed or the 7 when you wake up?" I assured him it was morning, and he said, "But it's so dark outside!" How funny to wake up and not know if it's morning or night!
-Luke loves American Idol, and I usually let him watch a few singers on Tuesday night. During one performance he said, "Every time we see Carly Smithson sing, we'll see that thing on her arm." Carly Smithson was indeed singing, and he was talking about her tattoo. He is such a TV addict, just like his Mommy.
-This is the conversation we had right before bed (about our trip to Ft. Worth next week):
LUKE: When we go to see the giraffes and all that stuff . . .
ME: You mean the zoo?
LUKE: Yeah, when we go to the zoo, Noah's going to stay here, right?
ME: No, sweetheart, Noah's coming with us.
LUKE: But we can get someone to watch him and take care of him.
ME: It's a family vacation, so Noah's coming with us.
LUKE: Is he coming on that long car ride?
ME: It's only an hour and a half, so yes, he's coming with us.

More snow pictures

Here are some pictures from out second snowfall this week. We got another 2 inches yesterday. Some areas just to our west and north got hit with over 6 inches, so we were lucky to just get 2. I'm really over snow now - come on spring!


This is Gary's version of shoveling the sidewalk.

Winter blast, part 2

It's snowing . . . again . . . for the second time this week.

Unplugged

Yesterday Luke had a very bad, terrible, no-good, horrible afternoon. As a consequence, we took away the computer, video games, and TV for the entire day today. I must admit that it was a struggle for me to uphold this decision. It's so easy to let him get on the computer or watch TV when he's driving me nuts, but I was determined not to give in. He just went to bed, so it looks like we survived. Overall, it was actually a pretty good day; we played lots of games and read several books. Maybe being unplugged isn't so bad.

Where did spring go?

It was 74 yesterday. As of 7:31 p.m., it's 32 and snowing. That darn groundhog!

Noah pictures

Just pictures of Noah's prayer hands before lunch today and his big ol' top teeth . . .

Noah news

An update on Noah's latest antics:

-A couple of days ago I noticed Noah was clasping his hands together when I put him in his chair for a snack or meal. I quickly figured out he was waiting to say the blessing. We call it prayer hands, and it is one of the cutest things I've ever seen.
-He loves to shake his head "no". He absolutely knows what it means, and does it vigorously any chance he gets.
-Noah gets very jealous when Gary or I sit with or hold Luke. He tries to push him out of our lap or just grabs onto us and cries until we pick him up. I expected Luke to be jealous, but I never thought Noah would be.
-He still likes to share, and one of his favorite things to share is his pacifier. He thinks it's very funny to put it in my or Gary's mouth and then pull it back out.
-He has finally started to enjoy reading, and I discovered today that one of his favorite books is Truck Jam. I think I read it about 10 times in a row this afternoon.
-"Uh-oh" is still his only word besides "mama" and "dada". I think he says "no", too, but I'm not sure if he's actually saying "no" or just making noise.
-Speaking of noise, he constantly makes the sound "eh". Whenever he points to something (and he points to a lot of things), he says, "Eh eh eh." When he wants something, he says, "Eh!" He gets many points across with one little syllable.
-He has a grand total of 5 teeth. He's had 3 on the bottom for a while, and the top 2 finally came in last week. It's so funny to see those big ol' top teeth when he smiles.

I'm sure there's more, but I think that's the best I can do at 9:30 at night!

Desserts with Dad

Tonight was "Desserts with Dad" at Luke's school. The kids worked hard on lots of goodies for their dads. Luke's favorite part was, of course, the cookies.
This is a laptop and a clock Luke made for Gary.
Luke also made a coin holder.
At Luke's request, he and Gary made "crazy faces".

Field trip

Luke's class went to the post office last Thursday. I must admit that I enjoyed it as much as the kids - it's amazing that mail ever gets anywhere!

The Frog class
Luke and his friend Kaylee
All the boys got on a big scale outside and weighed a whopping 285 pounds!

Silly boy

This old butter tub is in a drawer of stuff that the boys can play with in the kitchen. Noah got it out tonight, and I put it on his head. When it fell off, he fussed till I put it back on, and he walked around with in on his head for several minutes. This from the child who takes a hat off as soon as I put it on. I think he looks like a Shriner, and Luke said he looked like Abraham Lincoln.

My boys

Documenting the damage

The hail basically sheared off the texture on our shingles. This is a picture of our gutter with the shingle particles inside.

The bottom two pictures show dents in the gutter.

Holy cow!

This morning Gary and I were awakened at 6:30 to the sound of golfball-sized hail pounding our house. We've endured some pretty severe storms since we've lived here, but we've never seen hail like this. It sounded like someone was throwing rocks at the windows, and I thought at any moment we'd hear shattering glass. My van was in the garage, thank goodness, but Gary's company car has lots of dents in it. The ground was covered in hail stones, some of which hung around for several hours afterwards, even though it's almost 50 degrees outside. The crazy thing is that storms like this are common in the spring, but are quite unusual for winter. When it comes to Texas weather, you never know what you might get!

Happy heart day!

We had a lovely Valentine's day. It started with pink, heart-shaped chocolate chip pancakes which, oddly enough, Luke didn't like. He and Noah both got several Valentine's treats which they liked a lot. Mimi gave Luke some more art stuff (as we call it around here), and he couldn't wait to get started creating more fabulous projects. For dinner, I made red food for my boys: spaghetti, tomatoes & mozzarella, and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. Gary got me a beautiful arrangement of red, long-stemmed roses, and we've all enjoyed having a little candy around the house.

I love my boys! Happy Valentine's Day!

Got yogurt?

I've been letting Noah try to feed himself yogurt for the past two days. We obviously have more work to do.

Noah's makeover

Noah got his first haircut today! I was holding out as long as I could since this will be the last first haircut for me, but Noah's stringy, straggley hair won out and today was the big day. He actually did pretty well and only fussed a little. I gave him a lollipop for entertainment, and we were both very stick by the time the whole thing was over. He looks like a big boy now and not a baby (which is a little sad for me.)

The first snip!
"I would get a haircut every day if it meant getting a lollipop!"
Ewwww . . . the stickiness!!

What a handsome boy!

What a character!

Here are two funny Noah stories:

When Noah's eating, he likes to feed whomever happens to be closest to him. Yesterday we were sitting on the floor, and he was eating Cheerios. When he was done, he walked away; a few minutes later he walked back to me and put something in my mouth. At first I assumed it was a Cheerio, but as soon as he put it in my mouth, I knew it was something I didn't want to eat. When I took it out I discovered that he had just fed me a piece of dog food. Yummy! I told him I didn't want it and to give it to Molly, which he did. Then he went back to her dog food container, got two more pieces out, and tried to shove those in my mouth as well. You just never know what a day will bring around here!

Yesterday (right around the time he fed me the dog food), Noah discovered Luke's toy recorder. When he heard the noise he could make on it, he cracked up. He'd blow into it and then laugh, laugh, laugh! Sometimes he was laughing so hard that he couldn't blow on it anymore. It was so very funny!

Awwww!

Noah's latest trick is to walk up to the sofa or recliner and lay his head down so everyone will say, "Awww! What a sweet baby!" He also loves on anything soft - his blankie, t-shirts he has pulled out of a drawer, a burp cloth -again so everyone will exclaim, "That's so sweet!" It's funny how quickly they learn what gets them attention!

Hey, good lookin'!

But I get my winning personality from my mom!