2015 Valentine's Boxes!

Once again the kiddos made Valentines boxes to take to our local homeschool group's Valentine's skating party.  They thought long and hard and really came up with their own ideas this year.  Annie of course wanted to make a Doc McStuffin's doctors bag.  Check her out modeling it!

I told her she could pose anyway she wanted and that is what she came up with!  ha ha!

Noah was crazy stressed for a month trying to decide what to make so when he came up with the Cypress TKD building I knew I had to agree just to save my sanity!  It was one of the more challenging boxes we have ever made!  He was so excited that he won for most creative box in his age group for the 2nd year in a row!  It might be hard to tell, but that is him and Wyatt in the windows on the front with their teacher Mr. Dillon on the side.  So cute!

Wyatt made the most amazing duck blind ever!  Notice how he even wore his Duck Dynsasty shirt to the party!  No coincidence, no sir!  He planned every last detail.  This boy did this entire box by himself!  All I did was print out his photo for him.  He was so, so proud of it and absolutely heartbroken that he did not win.  I was pretty heartbroken for him, too, since I knew how many hours he spent finding the perfect leaves and moss and gluing it all on.  He really thought about all aspects of the design - he insisted on painting the water paper so it looked muddy like a real swamp.  And then carefully glued on each duck.  He was thrilled when we spotted those in the dollhouse section at Hobby Lobby!

Wish I had Owen in the pic but he was already strapped into his car seat and I wasn't gonna go through that whole madness again!  Can't wait for next year!

2014 Ornaments

We thought we were going to have a tough time picking out ornaments for the boys this year but to my surprise Hobby Lobby had just what we needed!  What taekwondo loving boy wouldn't be ecstatic over a hippo with a black belt?  None that I know!

And of course Rosie girl got ballet slippers!  Sadly we didn't get a pic of Owen's ornament.  He got this adorable blue pacifier but it was missing the day we passed them out.

Gingerbread day!

 Gingerbread day is so long awaited in our family!  At least as far as the kids go.  It is one of the few cookies that they all agree on.  And they are perfectly dense and filling for a snack or occasional breakfast treat.  Maybe the best part is that Josh and I are not in the least tempted by them! 

They were so cute all crowded around the tiny counter taking turns dropping it all into the mixer.  And then of course were thrilled with their own time to roll it out themselves. 

And for the first time ever asked me to ice them!  You can see Noah's are very minimalist and Wyatt gave his a baby bib and baby booties.  Later on he got a sharpie and wrote "Owen" with an arrow pointing to it on the parchment paper.  :)  Wyatt was really into the icing part this year.

And of course there had to be a headless gingerbread man fight.  :)  And lots and lots of eating!  Let's hope this batch lasts us till Christmas!

Pumpkin Patch for six!

Our first trip to the pumpkin patch as a family of six!  Craziness!!

I honestly wasn't quite prepared this year - usually have cute outfits and such but Owen has thrown us for a loop quite honestly.  We waited until the last minute and then scoured our closets for something decent to wear and here it is, folks!  This is as good as it gets at this point!

They had the CUTEST setup for new babies.  Don't you just love it?

Had to get a pic of all the grandsons together.  Joseph was tickled that Owen held his finger!

And we were able to snatch one picture of all the grandkids.  Sounds easier than it is! :)

I tried to get a nice picture with Owen Reid.  He would not wake up!  Well, until he did. You can see how well little boy cooperated!  He was not cool with it. 

 They also had a new setup with a huge ruler.  It was fun to measure them all!

Annie ran around hugging all her favorite pumpkin characters.  She was so sweet!  It kind of made me sad that the boys are so old and didn't have that same excitement anymore.  I'm happy to have one more little boy to love on through those adorable toddler years!

And of course Grandma and Grandpa bought everybody a pumpkin.  Here they are with their special chosen pumpkins!  They were out of teeny pumpkins so Owen had to settle for a teeny acorn squash.  Ha!

Owen kind of thought the whole thing was rather unexciting and did what he does best!!  :)

The last gift of Christmas!

So I saw this great idea on some random blog about giving one last Christmas gift on New Years Day.  Each year this mom wrapped up a calendar (that she got on clearance after Christmas) and thrilled the kids by giving them one last gift to open.  I decided to steal the idea as soon as I saw these calendars at Wal-Mart super cheap this year.  Sadly I was unable to hold on to them till New Years Day and let the kiddos open them about 45 minutes till midnight on New Years Eve.  It kinda worked out perfectly cause it gave us something to do after the Aggie game was over and people were starting to melt down!

Noah loved his bucks!

And Wyatt is thrilled with his wolves.

And Annie can't stop oohing and aaahing over the cute baby cats!!

It was so nice to have Joshua home this year for New Years!  We had our annual "bean feast" with my parents, did fireworks,  watched the Aggie bowl game, played a few rounds of Hedbanz and Sleeping Queens, and the kids ate as much puppy chow as they could!  They were incredibly hyped up by the time midnight hit!

 We ran outside at midnight and watched all the explosions filling the sky together for the first time since the kids have been born!  Such fun!!!  And I loved giving calendars cause it makes me think of the calendar I got each year from my Grandma.  I couldn't tell you a single other thing they she ever bought me for Christmas, but I looked so forward to seeing the teddy bear calendar she got me each year.  Can't wait to see what kinds of calendars I can pick each kiddo next year!