Happy Birthday Merry Christmas

To those of you who didn't notice, thanks to my insomnia, this is the third post this morning, so you may want to back check.



My baby turned one this month (sigh) and apparently he does not adore frosting like his siblings. I don't care for blue treats either, but he just played with his cupcake, and wouldn't wear the party hat (pooh!). I wanted to buy him a swing to hang from the porch, but apparently that is a SEASONAL item, even in Texas where my house hovered at the temperature at which my AC is supposed to kick on only a couple of days before Christmas. SO I had to order it online, but I got free shipping (yea!) so the only real downside was that he only got it a few days before Christmas.



Here are a few other highlights of the month:


Lots of help raking the yard.



Little Red Riding Hood (thanks to after Halloween sales!)



Awesome!!




Tired mommy and daddy the day after Christmas. Between "Some assembly required," a five year old that can't wait until sunrise, and a teething baby it was kind of a rough weekend.

Whirlwind Family Tour

I could cry that I didn't take hardly any pictures on our trip, but I am afraid that is what kind of picture mom I am (deja vu)... I think we got to see just about everybody, even though Casey had to come home after a week and missed a few, but here are the ones I DO have.



Tamron's bunch, minus baby who came like 36 hours after we went home!!!


Don't even know who took this. Typical Ryan, riding the leaf blower...

Pirate Ryan. That's what he picked at the Dollar Tree to entertain himself while we were in Cedar.

Evie didn't even wait for Grandma Jill to get to her tummy before she went into hysterics. Nice new floor Jill!

Funny how kids seem drawn to childless couples. Cass And Becky are getting their kid fix for sure though!I am pretty sure this is the 6th time those kids watched Madagascar II in a three day period.

I really wish Grandma and Grandpa were in this picture with them! Ryan insisted that she leave his tower up until he came back. Uh-huh, sure. And to think that those are the same homemade blocks I played with 25 years ago...

For those of you were are wondering along with me what my Evie would look like with hair, here is a sneak peek, thanks to Aunt Camree's anime convention wig.

And one more of my dear daddy reading to my kids. How cute is that?? You can tell by their faces that my kids don't like books.

Who is that man???

You may be able to tell by the look on his face, but my husband is really excited to have his picture taken. For those of you who are beard-phobic (mother) have no fear. It is gone. I think he just wanted to prove to his brothers that he could actually grow a beard so he kept it until after we went to Utah for his vacation week. No one could believe how much he looked like his dad. We got family pictures that week too, so it is immortalized (Sorry Mom), but since the only family shots that the photographer saved also had Shandon and Aubrey's child (dog) Bruno in them as well(Ryan insisted we have him in a few), they may not get circulated as much anyway. :)

Here are a couple of the most fabulous....

to recap:

I know I promised a post after Ryan's birthday, but I didn't take any pictures!!! I am a bad picture mom in case any of you didn't know. I will try to keep up a little better in the future, but here is a short but sweet version of the last couple of months.


So, I am a really bad birthday mom, and that pitiful blueberry muffin snack cake is all Ryan got for his real birthday AND I totally didn't take any pictures of his birthday party a few days later.... but I really do love him! I threw the stupid party! Which went pretty well for the most part. He got to blow out candles on a real cupcake that time (both times he picked the trick candles and we all had a great time watching him blow them out ten times), we busted the pinata he made, and everybody had fun with all the super hero stuff. AND his mama was glad it was over :)



This is what 30 candles looks like on a 5" homemade oreo cookie. A little bit scary, but I had a fire extinguisher on hand. Can't wait till mine! (insert sarcasm here)Happy Birthday Casey!




Miss Evie had a tea party for her birthday (but no candle! doh!) with pinkalicious cupcakes and even tea (spiced apple cider mix) in her pink tea pot. Please notice the satin tablecloth....




A couple of weeks after her birthday I finally got around to her pinata. Its a bad pic, but the other one was worse. It held up pretty well (every kid got a turn this time) especially considering that I had to tape it back together TWICE before we even got to hit it due to some run-ins with a couple of crazy boys. In case you didn't catch the before pics on my previous post, it used to look like a sparkly pink and purple Easter egg.



Of course I have to post a few Halloweenie pics too! My kids had to dress up for the trunk-or-treat, school, and Halloween itself (even though we didn't go out), so they got to try out more than one costume. Unfortunately, I was the photographer so you don't get to see either of my awesome costumes! I know you are devastated.


Thanks for the suckers Gramdma Jill!

Iron Man, The Drama Fairy, and Mini Spidey

Iron Man and the pink hairless princess are mine

This isn't actually what they wore to the trunk-or-treat, but you get the idea. Evie had a shirt and sometights, and I made them both little booties and Ryan had a hat with a red feather. Since I am, as stated, a bad picture mom, you will have to use your imagination!
Peter Pan and Tinkerbell

silly kids

I decided to keep Ryan home one more year instead of sending him to kindergarten( we will see if that proves a mistake), so we have been trying to keep ourselves busy so we don't all go crazy. And since Rachael wants me to post so her rump is not front and center on my blog anymore, I am posting some random pics of a few of our escapades. I have NOT forgotten to post my home tour video, it is just 10 minutes long and I haven't been able to get it to load.... I plan to clean my house in the near future and make a shorter one :)0

Evie loves to "help" me with her little brother. I think they have the same amount of hair.



This was actually much funnier to watch. She was carefully grooming herself with the sponge.



I made us an urban sandbox out of paver sand and a plastic storage tub to keep on our back porch. I think my kids have played with it every day since (except Sundays when they aren't allowed). Some days it's all day. A dollar store bag of seashells, some formula scoops and a plastic dump truck and they are in heaven. Well worth it for any of you that don't have space or tolerance for a permanent cat box in your yard. This one has a lid, cost less than $10, and can disappear when you are done with it.




You will be seeing these fabulous pinatas again when I post Ryan's Super Hero Birthday Party in a couple of weeks. I found it interesting that my daughter could last for the whole paper mache episode and my son could not, but I think they turned out rather fab. We'll see how many smacks they can take.



Family Fun had a project where you made sand dough for a keepable castle, but at the time I couldn't find sand, and I didn't really want them hanging around my house, so we made this instead. Daddy actually helped with this one (we will put him in as a co-designer) but opted out of the photo shoot.You will notice the stone-like grooved design on the sides... We also had to mould the clay around a plastic storage container to get it to stand up, but still a lot of fun.

Aunt Rachie's Visit

Rachael graced us with her presence for a week (thanks Uncle Zane for giving her up for a few days) and we tried to document anything mildly noteworthy (NOT including staying up too late giggling)

We let the kids help water the lawn....

Did some sewin'

And turned my kids into aliens

Pigs Fly

Thanks to my sister Rachael ( and a lot of pressure from all of you :) ) We now have a blog. Yea! I can only promise to TRY, but you get what you get.