November 2014

Joshua really enjoys helping me in the kitchen, especially when I'm making a sweet treat. When I told him we needed to make a dessert for his school Thanksgiving Feast, he was happy to help me cut out and sprinkle the sugar cookies.

 You know how there's always "that one kid" who goes out to the middle of the gym during chapel and all of the parents laugh? Well, Joshua was that kid this time, but thankfully chapel hadn't REALLY started yet.

 Such a big boy!

 Tomball has a holiday parade every year and I thought it would be fun to take the kids--even with the threat of rain. We were planning to meet our friend, Rachel and her family, but were surprised to see our other friends, Lauren, Brett and Mila there too! It was great to have extra hands getting the kids settled in to watch the parade.

 This HEB float was Joshua's favorite because HEBuddy was on it!

 This was Eli and Micah's favorite float because of the "American flag cross."

 Later that day, G'pa and G'ma Cheney came over to play. Eli and Micah transformed themselves into pirates and put on a play for us. They created these costumes themselves.

 They also made themselves swords and a ship with a plank so they could shout, "Walk the plank!" It was hilarious!

 Nana and Papa came to visit during Thanksgiving break. Papa put together the basketball goal they got for Eli and Micah for Christmas. Of course, the boys had to test it out right away.

 Joshua got to open his birthday presents from Nana and Papa

 and Grandma C.

 All of the boys got Christmas ornaments to open, too.

 Paul and Papa got the Christmas boxes out of the attic and the boys were thrilled to start decorating the tree.

 

When the decorating was done inside, we went outside to play then hang up a few lights and ornaments. Luke enjoyed playing with the "ball!" on our pine tree outside. (He actually asked to touch it every time we came home in December.)

Luke is 1!

How can it be that our little baby is already a big 1 year old?!?! With the pumpkin obsession in our house, we just had to have a pumpkin party for our little punkin.

Luke loves to scream, talk and laugh.

 Nothing makes him laugh more than a game of peek-a-boo.

 What started as Luke pointing to the sky looking for airplanes turned in to him showing everyone that he is now "1."

 Sweet, sweet boy and his two little teeth.

  Luke's party day was really fun and I had a great time thinking of snacks we could have.

We ended up with apple cider, roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin hummus with apple slices, Cutie pumpkins (made by G'ma Cheney) and popcorn with "add-ins."

 Joshua's painted pumpkins served as our centerpiece. Joshua was glad to contribute.

 Luke was so curious about the pumpkins on the floor for a ring toss game.

 His favorite part of the party were these "pumpkin" balloons!

 Luke wasn't the only one who loved the balloons.

 Our sweet friend, Mila, just loves Luke!

 We had a little snack before the cake.

 Singing to the birthday boy!

 

 Momma and Luke waiting for the cake to come back.

 Luke's first cake.

 Our little family.

 Luke with his friend, Mila, and Godmother, Lauren.

 Luke and our friends, Rachel and Reid.

 After cake, we took advantage of the beautiful day and played outside.

 We were blessed to have our Sister-in-Law, Rebecca, and our niece, Britton, join us for Luke's birthday party.

Luke, you are sweet and curious. You laugh easily and often--and make us laugh, too! You pull up to standing and cruise on everything you can. You try to climb EVERYTHING--and are sometimes successful. As independent as you are, you love to be held and carried--as long as we are moving. You love splashing in water, playing ball and being with your big brothers. We are so blessed to have you in our family and we look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you! We love you, Momma and Daddy

Halloween 2014

Halloween is always fun for our boys--even though I swore we weren't going to make a big deal of it when we had kids. Ha!

We didn't realize it at the time, but a friend and I took our boys to the zoo when they had all of the halloween fun out--including painting pumpkins and inflatables to jump in. Joshua had a really good time with all of it--even if it doesn't look like it in this picture. 

(As a side note, this is also the last day Luke wanted to nurse. He gave it up after this trip to the zoo.)

 Eli and Micah brought home information about their school library holding a pumpkin decorating contest. The only stipulation is that the pumpkin had to be a book character. I didn't really want to enter the contest, but the boys were so excited about it! It was fun to let them be creative and figure out a way to make their pumpkins look like the characters they chose. While the big boys worked, Joshua wanted to paint, too, of course!

 Micah wanted to make Otis the tractor from Otis and the Tornado. We decided the best way to do that was to paint three small pumpkins black for the tractor wheels.

 I cut out the cardboard pieces for the tractor body, Micah painted them and Paul drew the face.

 Eli wanted to paint a pumpkin green, so he went for a Yoda pumpkin. This first shade of green wasn't what he was looking for, so when it dried, we found another green he liked better and he got to paint it again.

 Eli had the idea to glue cotton on for Yoda's hair and Paul drew the face.

 We also carved pumpkins again this year.

 The boys scooped out the seeds for roasting.

 Paul is amazing and carved the pumpkins in the the characters the boys requested.

Do you know who chose which character?

 After much deliberation and getting down to the last minute for a homemade costume, Joshua finally decided to be Bob the Tomato for Halloween. This actually worked out great, since we already had that costume from when Micah wore it at 2 years. Joshua got to wear it to school for the "Let's Pretend" parade.

We went to our church's trunk or treat event again this year and the boys all loved being in costume!

Eli- Luigi, Micah-tornado, Joshua-Bob, Luke-pumpkin