Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2010

So today is the last day of 2010 and I'm finally getting the gumption to post!

On Wednesday for Christmas I get a call from Dad saying he was definitely coming for Christmas. Dad and Bev met us at my in laws house for Christmas eve dinner and festivities.


















Dad, Bev, Ian and Travis

















Nana and Logan

















Travis

















Logan


















Nana holding Ian back (this makes me laugh every time I see it)

















Ian with his view finder

















Papa Ted with all the boys

















This is probably the most work Papa has done on Christmas eve in many, many years! Dad is sitting here, but he and Mike were quite busy putting that train set together!
It was wonderful having some of my family around this holiday!



















Lauren Christmas morning

































All the boys with their train table

















Ian with one of three grocery carts (dang I'm glad I asked for three)

















Dad and Bev trying to get the webcam to work

















Happy New Year....My final blog post of 2010 is complete....I'm sipping on a margarita and it's time for a refresh!

It's starting to look like Christmas

The tree and decorations are up


















notice the gate isn't as long this year....hopefully next year we won't be needing a gate.


This is an ornament that didn't make it past day 3 of the tree being up. It was a glass ornament glued to a ice cream cone. Apparently Ian got hungry.



















The stockings aren't hung since one of the stocking holders fell off and hit Ian right on the bridge of the nose. No picture of that..although I might be wise to start a "scab album".

The kids have had their picture taken with Santa

























The gingerbread house is completed. I bought a Wilton house already made...next year we are going to make it from scratch - ok we will just have to wait and see how Mamma feels about that next year.


















And like all the other Christmases here in Texas...less than one week before Christmas we are wearing SHORTS!! No picture of me in shorts - you would need to wear sunglasses to view the pics!

Travis

















Logan

























Ian

















Lauren was taking a nap while we were outside...Thank goodness because Ian went inside and locked the storm door on us. I previously learned not to go outside to get the mail without a key..now we just learned that we can't leave the house to play with out a key. Thanks Ian!

It's been rumored that we will be having a couple guests with us this Christmas. How exciting!! It's been 7 years since I've spent Christmas Day with my Dad!!

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!!

Never too old for...

a snuggle with your Nana.

Thanksgiving 2010

Wow! 2 weeks after Thanksgiving and here is my post! I have so many posts that I want to share...but time is not on my side any more!

The boys are getting bigger and are so much fun. We spend a lot of our day playing, running after each other, whining, and looking in the pantry for food.

This year Aunt Kathy came to visit us for Thanksgiving along with Aunt Brenda. What a treat (for me). It was extremely nice to have both my sisters for the holiday. The last time I saw Kathy for any type of holiday was 2005 - so it was time.

Aunt Brenda hanging out with the boys

















Cousin Brenna with the boys

















Katie with Ian

















Brenda with Aiden (cousin)

















Lauren with Ava

























Not sure what is going on here (but a little disappointed I missed it)

















Logan (apparently not liking his food) with Ava

















What do you do after stuffing yourself (Travis and Logan watching tv with a tree on his head)

















The Skinners and the Scotts

















Lauren and her Aunt Katie


















**a side note, keep Mr. Aiden (he's pictured with Brenda above) and his family in your thoughts. He's having to go through some testing to obtain a diagnosis and a treatment plan!

A couple more pics from ...

I promised a better picture of Lauren at Halloween (did you really think I was ready to post about Thanksgiving??) and here it is.






















and I found this one on my SIL's page...there are so many pictures that I don't even know were taken at Halloween. Mr. Logan hanging out with some cuties!




















It's only been a few days since my house guests have left and I'm trying to get back on track. I'm sure there will be a Thanksgiving post coming soon...hopefully before Christmas gets here (but don't hold your breath).

Halloween 2010

Another Halloween has come and gone. I can say this year was probably the easiest with the boys and I think Ian "got" it this year. He was going up to houses without his bag...all he needed is his hands and that cute little smile.

We had a crew with us tonight, there were 21 of us; but only 8 kids. Of course, I never to get to take pictures on occasions like this, but we got a few and I think our neighbor got better ones earlier in the evening so I'm going to check with her very soon.

The boys and Lauren made a haul of candy AND we didn't have many trick or treaters after we returned so we still have half of the candy that I bought.

An attempt at a group shot!


















Travis

























Ian
























Logan


























Lauren before she had her hat on...but I'll find a picture and post later.


















The boys in action (they really didn't appreciate the costume on this nice lady)

















Ian as Cat in the Hat but without the hat with naked barbies

























I worked on the boys' hair all day today. I didn't want to buy any special "mega hold" type gel just for today. All I did was start putting gel in their hair this morning and when they woke up from their nap this afternoon, I just continued to spike their hair every few hours. It worked....My plans never seem to work so I'm surprised!

We redecorated Lauren's bedroom over the weekend...stay tuned for pictures of that!

Happy Halloween!

Test run

It's almost Halloween and I realized that perhaps I should try out the costumes before Sunday night!! (go figure).

Yesterday I used some gel and hairspray to work on Thing 1/ Thing 2 hair. The boys thought it was cool to have their hair standing up and eventually sprayed blue!



Logan sporting his new look.
















We will need to use just a bit more gel and hairspray to keep it up and out. I'm not looking for perfection....I'll be happy if everyone wears their costume and doesn't demand that the M&M's that they get be opened immediately on someone's door step.

THE pumpkin patch with cousin Ava

We finally made it to THE pumpkin patch (In my opinion) yesterday. The weather looked very iffy and both Tiffany and I decided to go for it and hope we could get our fun in before the bad weather came.

We arrived very early...ok not as early at Tiff, Justin, Ava and Papaw did. They got there right at 9 a.m., we followed a short time later. We have come to this pumpkin patch since Lauren was 2. There is always a fun time to be had...and Fletchers Corn Dogs too!

Here's Logan getting a pumpkin painted on his hand.

















Here's Ava, Ian,Logan, and Travis after getting their hands/faces painted.

















Here are the boys checking out a large tortoise in the dog house.

















Lauren helping out with a run a way (yup...Ian you guessed it)

















There's my Lauren!


















Travis in the patch

















Logan in the patch

















Logan and Travis shopping for a pumpkin

















Ian just can't decide.....



















I'm sure this will be the scene in about 14 years!




























After the pumpkin patch we went out to lunch...yeah there are no pictures from that place. It's all we can do to keep up with feeding these boys and no extra time/energy for pics! Perhaps next time.