The lights!

 The lights are pretty cute, huh?  I loved that we walked through it all so we could really enjoy it.  Now if it had been cold I'm sure I would have felt differently!  It was right along the water, so when you rounded the corner out into the open the wind was crazy strong.  I've never been near the beach at night really and it was super beautiful with the lights reflecting into the water.  I was super shocked that they actually told the story of Jesus!  I have NEVER seen that at anything Christmas related that wasn't at a church.  It was so nice!  That's the town of Bethlehem in the picture above - it was really beautiful!

We stopped a bit of the way in and had snacks - you can see Annie enjoyed the cookie!

And then there was a lot of sadness.  Do you see that little sad face?  They have this paddleboat that docks and leaves from the path we were walking along.  When that boat took off and we weren't on it Wyatt was heartbroken!  I mean, he was seriously down in the dumps.  I had to promise him that we would come back and ride the boat another day.  That was not good enough to cure his blues, so then I had to promise my parents would come with us.  That did the trick!  :)  Now I just have to convince my parents to join us!

And at the end they have an area where you can get snacks and roast marshmallows, and they had this amazing guy doing all sorts of tricks.  Needless to say the kids were way impressed!  We sat and watched till the end of the show and he was super nice and talked to the kids.  Noah asked him how he learned to do it all and he said when he was a teenager he just started teaching himself how to juggle.  Now Noah is telling us that when he is a teenager he is going to do the same thing.  :) 

Moody Gardens Festival of Lights

So we had never been to see the Moody Gardens lights before!  I don't know why, but they just seemed kind of lame to me.  But I saw that they had buy 1 get 1 free tickets if you brought food to donate on Friday nights, so I figured for $12.00 we should give it a try.  We drove through HORRIBLE traffic to get down there, but it was worth it.  Although an hour into the drive and all the "are we almost there?"  we might have said differently!  :)

They also have half off tickets to the exhibits after 5:00, and since they are crazy expensive to get into normally we decided to go to the aquarium pyramid too. 

We went here years ago when I was pregnant with Wyatt, so it was new to everyone.  Annie loved that she could get down and touch all the aquariums.  They also had this cute Shark Passport thing the boys did where you got this paper to stamp with all the different kinds of sharks we saw. 

Everyone's favorite part was the tunnel you can walk through and the shark cage!  Annie was super tickled by it.

Annie cried to get out of her stroller and sit on the floor in the tunnel.  But that wasn't enough... to get the full affect she had to lay down.  I think she had the right idea!

It was a little hard to get good pics of stuff cause they turned off a bunch of lights in the exhibits cause it aws night time.  And since this is long enough already I'll share the rest of the pics later!

St. Nicholas Day stockings!

Ack!  I am so behind posting all our Christmas stuff!  These are from way back on the sixth, but worthy of sharing anyways.  :)  Of course we celebrated St. Nicholas day again this year and the boys were once again surprised.  The sixth is so early in the month it comes out of nowhere!  Once again they were placed under the tree cause putting them on the foot of their beds was too risky! 

Besides candy, nuts and fruit, they also got a few toys to play with.  They have been wanting these camo covers for years now, so they were super excited they could play some backyard safari stuff.  Annie rose sleeps so much later than the rest of us she got to open hers all by herself later on in the morning.  She was adorable cause she was super excited about it, which surprised me.  She finally likes gifts! 

She got the cutest little bathtub teapot set that she loves!  She is just too cute pouring water into the tiny cups and offering all of us a drink.  She is so surprising me with her interest in doing stuff like that - the boys at her age would have just thrown it down and poured water everywhere. She really wants to do stuff the right way - it cracks me up!  You can see Wyatt was pretty into it as well!

Co-op Christmas Party!

I will be the first to admit I was not happy when I learned the Christmas Party for our co-op was going to be at the ice skating rink.  I just KNEW the kids wouldn't be able to do it and would whine and complain the entire time.  And my "the kids" I mean Noah!  :)  But once I realized it was on a Thursday and Joshua would be home to help I decided to give it a shot.  And really, the kids have been missing Friday School.  Which is super surprising to me, cause you know they don't really love going.  I think Noah has actually turned the corner as far as that is concerned and can't wait for the new semester to start.  Wy and Annie will still need a little convincing!  Anyways, the party was a smashing success!

Noah wanted skates right away, and was super excited to give it a shot.  He wanted me or Josh to go with him, so Josh got suckered into it.  Josh is HORRIBLE at any type of skating, so this was a big deal!  That's how you know he loves this boy, cause for nobody else in the world would he be willing to get onto the ice. 

Josh only made it about 20 feet or so, holding onto the wall.  He promptly hopped off the ice and removed those skates!  Luckily, that was all Noah needed to get his courage up to do it alone. Then we took a break and had pizza and cookies....

You can see Annie loves pizza! She was such a trooper and hardly cried or complained!  Which was a nice surprise cause at Santa's Wonderland earlier this week she was quite a handful. 

Wyatt was certain he did not want to skate until his friends started putting their skates on.  Then we convinced him just to get the skates and walk around on them without getting onto the ice.  Pretty sneaky of me, huh?  I just knew once he had them on he would want to give it a shot.  He only went a few feet and then was DONE!  A bit later on we realized they could rent these metal "walker" things to help them, which he loved.

He was really super brave - I know he had the walker but I was still quite impressed.  When he came off the ice he was quite adorable cause he sat on the walker bar to take a little break...

This was when he squealed with excitement cause he got to look at all of the ice shavings stuck to the front of the blade.  He screamed, "Wooooaaaah!  Look at all those icebergs on my skis!!"  Meanwhile Noah just took off and had tons of fun.  He was cracking us up cause he didn't skate properly - instead he skated just like he rides his skateboard.  Like kept one foot down the whole time and pushed repeatedly with the other foot.  It was too funny!  And of course he took the time to help Wyatt every time he fell over and needed help.  I love it!

We had so much fun!!  Noah was already talking about how he can't wait till next Christmas to have this party again.  And my heart was so happy cause he was thrilled to be around his friends.  We have a few friends we see consistently, but he really loves spending time with other children.  I was happy to see he actually had some friendships with kids that I didn't even know about!  First Class has really been such a blessing to us this semester.  I am so glad we came back! 

Daddy's helper!

 Do you remember way back when, three years ago when I said Noah loves to mow the yard with his daddy?  Well he still does!  I went outside a couple of weeks ago and he was just too cute following behind with that same exact lawn mower.  He gets the same accessories as Josh on - glasses, hat, etc.  It's so cute cause he normally never wears those things.

 I stood there and reminisced about how much he has grown and how I miss the sweet babe that he was.  So I figured it might be time to kick up his helping daddy routine a notch.  I suggested to Josh that he let Noah push the mower for a few feet with his help.  Well, a few feet turned into the whole yard.  He LOVED it!  I was so completely surprised that he could really do it!  He was a bit wild with getting into the neighbors yards, but he still did a  great job. 

Now we have had to tell him he can't do it every time, which of course breaks his heart.  We told him to wait a few more years till he can really do it all by himself, which I'm sure he won't even want to do at that point! 

Crazy Hair Day!

Our last day of Friday School was also crazy hair day!  The boys were super excited, but I was sad for myself cause I was so bad at making crazy hair!  I went through all the hair products in my bathroom (which isn't a lot - you know me) and seriously owned nothing that would make their hair stiff!  All of it said "soft, touchable, etc".  Well, a mohawk isn't supposed to be soft and touchable!  :)  The boys still loved it anyways!  Noah's only lasted a couple of hours and Wyatt's fell into the cutest mass of curls ever.  I had no idea if I put product in his hair it would be so curly!  I have been saying they need haircuts for weeks now, but I'm kinda falling in love with their crazy shaggy look lately.