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. 

Pumpkin patch!

PLEASE forgive me, but this is just going to be a post full of nothing but pictures and really no story!  If you have no interest in a thousand pumpkin patch pics then I apologize!  But I personally am in LOVE with these pictures.  My favorite pictures each year!  And of course this was Annie girl's first trip to the pumpkin patch.  She was pretty excited, but she was also super cold!  Josh's mom made her this cutie tutu and gave her the pumpkin outfit, so we just had to use it, no matter the temp. 

The boys didn't stay still enough for us to get good pics of them this year.  We were super excited to get to meet up with my brother's whole family for a bit, and my parents too, which the kids always look forward to.  We got this cute pic of the cousins.  Next year will be great cause Rebecca will be there to make an adorable group of five!  :)

And of course at the end of the visit Grandma and Grandpa bought them each their own HUGE pumpkin!  It was quite a decision for each of them.  You can see in the above pic Annie was pretty much over it by this point - she was cold and grumpy!

There was also an attempt at a new family pic - such a mess, but probably the best one we have of the whole gang!

She's walking!

I can hardly believe it!  But it is true, little Annie Rose took her first steps last week!  FINALLY!  I was just rooting for her to do it before that 15 month check up cause her pediatrician said we would "discuss" physical therapy if she was not walking before then.  Whew!  Like we needed one more doctors bill!  It is so strange how you raise all your kids the same way, and yet they each have their own time and methods of doing things. 

They are truly the world's tiniest little steps, and she can only go a teensy bit before falling.  She was getting up the nerve to do it every night for a week now, but she has been sick this week and won't attempt it.  Hopefully it won't be like the crawling thing - you know, crawl one time and then decide to never do it again and only booty scoot.  :)