Jesus' birthday party

Our friends Kellie and Kevin invited us to a birthday party for Jesus at their house this year. We had fun eating dinner together and spending time with friends. We also read the story of Jesus's birth and had a birthday cake for Jesus! The kids each brought a toy to donate to the benevolence ministry at our church. We were surprised when Levi selected his large Buzz Lightyear doll. We explained to him what he was doing and that he would never get it back, but he continued to be excited to share that toy with someone who wasn't able to have a Buzz Lightyear doll. What a sweet kid!

Kellie presenting the cake. 

Party hats? Check!

Ah, friends and cake.

Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Christmas

This year we celebrated Christmas at home which was such a nice treat! Dad and Jennifer were in the process of preparing their home for a semester abroad, so it would have been a hassle to stop their preparations to host everyone for Christmas. Plus, our location in Central Texas seemed convenient to everyone. Ty always says that we should play the "we have kids" card and stay home, well this year, he got his wish.

I love the ambiance from the lights on our Christmas tree. I pretty much keep that sucker on the whole month of December. 

They are very excited to open one gift on Christmas Eve. 

Grandma got them the new books from Hallmark - you read the book and a stuffed animal that comes with it will talk/respond to you. It was so cool and the kids love them!

Colt got Bigsby (a soft monster) and Levi has Cooper (a soft bear)!

Christmas morning gift exchange

Our "white-trash" wine glasses - they are mason jars with lids on top! 

Grant and Stephen and Aunt Debbie and Uncle Don also came over, as well as Aunt Alethea, Uncle Andrew and Aunt Amy, but I didn't get any pictures of them. Sorry! We had lots of delicious food, went to a Christmas Eve service at a new church down the street, and fed breakfast to some people without homes in downtown Austin on Christmas morning -all traditions I'd love to continue! I want to make it a priority to put the gifts on the back burner and realize that Jesus is the best gift we will ever be given. 

We also had Christmas celebration at our house the week before with the Dishman side of the family. 

Aunt Chez made the kids some cute pj pants! 

Eliza is happy to be here. 

Sweet Tatum

The boys in their pjs from Nana (and Uncle Dusty's OU colored hat). We love the month of December and the chance to spend time with our fun family!

Documenting December

For Christmas, Nana gave the kids some cute outfits. But they were short sleeved, so I took advantage of a warm day to go take their pictures at the park across the street. Little did I know, we were to have many more warm days this winter! The kids have gotten good use out of their outfits and spring has yet to begin. Thanks, Nana! 

The kids weren't eager to sit still on a bench at the park, so they picked on their little sister instead by (gently) pulling what little hair she has. 

Didn't seem to phase her though!

This is Colt a week prior to his haircut. Boy do I miss his long locks. 

Peek-a-boo, we see you. 

To Learn, Love and Grow

In July, I read a blog by a woman who creates goals for her children every 6 months. It made total sense to me to do this as well. I mean, my job as a stay at home mom is the most important in the world as I am raising my kids into men and women of character who will lead and influence their generation. I need to set a vision for my children's future and be able to guide them there, challenging them along the way, to develop into boys and girls who love Christ and seek to honor Him with their lives. As they learn, love and grow we will be creating goals for our kids every 6 months. We are addressing character issues, developmental milestones, spiritual formation, etc. I found during this first round that it was helpful to have them written down where I can see them daily and focus my efforts in these areas b/c I am totally not perfect and need a daily reminder as to what the whole purpose of me staying at home is (like yesterday when we spent the majority of the morning watching tv until I snapped out of it and started doing some intentional parenting!). Also, my "goals" are really vague - while reflecting on them I had difficulty remembering exactly where we came from. Next time around I'll be more specific.

Colt (from July-Dec 2011)

• anger management - we taught him some breathing exercises and to clap his hands together instead of hit his brother. He also randomly started flexing his arm muscles in an Incredible Hulk kinda way. Hmm... 
• frustration management - he was throwing things and shutting down, but now (while still shutting down at times) will growl mutter angrily and indicate that he needs help. Still working on asking for help! 
• reading - I think I meant that we should work toward reading readiness. I'm proud to announce that Colt is definitely ready to take some major steps in this area. In fact, he read his first book tonight!! It's a Bob book for beginning readers and he was so proud (as was I)! Colt knows all the sounds of each letter and is working on sounding out each letter sound in a word, then snapping them together to create a word. I used a rubber band recently to illustrate this concept to him (stretch it out while sounding out the sounds, then snapping it back together to create a word) and I think it seemed to click with him - or at least it made for a fun game!
• respect when others say "no!" - mmm... still gotta work on this, especially with his brother
• develop a prayer life - Colt typically prays for "silly" things like his toys or objects around the room, but occasionally he'll pray for someone we've been talking about who needs prayer. 
• understand the importance of the Bible - we talk about scripture throughout the day, but I don't think he understands the relevancy of the Bible and WHY we put such value in what the scriptures say. This may be too advanced of a concept for a 4 year old (any thoughts from anybody on this?), so I didn't really address it too much. 
• art skills - One of the skills ALL 4 years olds should have (according to some guru's ideas on the blogosphere) is to draw stick figures. We'll I've never worked with Colt on drawing stick figures, so thought my kid would definitely be on the fast track to creativity suicide, but when I asked him to draw one, he did it with relative ease. I guess he just doesn't like to draw very much. Anyway, I need to still work with him in the art arena, even if he doesn't necessarily enjoy it. 
• staying in bed - Colt was in a bad habit of getting out of bed 5+ times each night. But we've been working on it and he's doing MUCH better! It makes my evenings much less stressful. We've been shortening his naptimes which makes him more tired in the evenings. Also, we changed up some things about our bedtime ritual which messed up his pattern coming out for water (oh, wait, we filled up his cup BEFORE bed), needing to go potty (oopsie, we did that one already too!), etc. With no more excuses, he was resigned to stay in bed. I'm fortunate that he responds well to changes in behavior if we take the time to explain the new rules a day or two before they are to take place. 
• fear "I'm scared!" - This is another reason why he would get out of bed. We let the dog sleep in his room for a bit which helped him not be scared. We also talked about how God is his protector. 
• honesty - He began a lying habit that we quickly nipped in the bud. We watched Pinocchio and told him his nose would grow really long! Plus, we pardoned him a consequence a few times because he told the truth. Now, he'll tell the truth when he's in trouble just to attempt getting out of a consequence! He also stole a 59cent candy from the Whole Foods check out line, so Ty took him back to the store to pay for it and speak with the manager. I think that was a good experience for everyone. 
• be able to write his name - check
• more service opportunities - we've really been focusing on the homeless. We'll give canned food, made fudge/cookies for them at Christmas/New Years, serve breakfast etc. I think serving the homeless flying their signs is easier for me because we can have a conversation in the privacy of our own car without the risk of the kids embarrassing me with their questions directly infront of the person we are serving. Ha!
• reading independently time - this hasn't been going over so well. He'd rather play with toys than look at books. Maybe I should try letting him read on the computer instead? At this point, Colt doesn't seem to love reading, so we'll definitely have to work on developing this trait. Maybe when he's able to read alone. 

Levi 

• patience - WAY better! He used to ask a question over and over again until he got the answer he wanted. For example, every morning, he'd ask for his favorite (applesauce, yogurt and vanilla.... gross, I know) over and over and OVER again until I rolled myself out of the bed, prepared it and had it sitting in front of him with a spoon. Talk about annoying. This is much better now. Also, we've been trying to teach him to not interrupt Ty or myself while we are talking with someone else. He's learning to put his hand on our arm so we know that he's there, then to wait until we acknowledge him at a convenient point in our conversation to ask his question. Good job, little guy!
• use a napkin to wipe his mouth vs. a shirt - Levi ruined a number of shirts this way. But has definitely got the hang of the napkin down now. 
• potty train -check. Except his still wears a pullup at naps and night.
• respect Bible reading during family worship - he loves to goof off and play and be a distraction during this time. This really hasn't gotten any better. We are hesitant to discipline for this behavior because we don't want him to dread family worship time. Any ideas anyone? Anyone?!
• no hitting - nope. No progress at all. Hmm... 
• recognize his name when written - check
• respect when others say "no!"- don't think he is any better in this area. He may not be developmentally able? I know he's in a really self-absorbed stage now. 
• reading independently time- Levi seems to enjoy reading and is doing better at this, but there is still room to work. 

Anyway, that's where we are right now. We'll see how things progress in 6 more months. If you have any suggestions for us, please share. Or maybe you'll even see something that you think could work for you and your kid! 

iPhone photo purge

Thought I'd empty the photos off my phone. This really is quite a random assortment.... 

Levi is getting his face painted at his pre-school's back-to-school open house. Colt never wants to get his face painted or use temporary tattoos, so he opted out. 

Hanging out at Waterloo Ice House's playground with some friends. 

Ty fixed the boys hair like this one day... and now they always ask to get their hair fixed like roosters. 

Our car is VERY full these days! 

Little miss doesn't like me to hold her when we go to the park, so she ends up covered in dirt, especially during this year's dry summer. 

Speaking of dirt... Levi decided to cover himself in the stuff during one of Colt's t-ball games this year. Guess he got kinda bored. 

Bed time reading

Colt still naps on an almost daily basis at the age of 4.5. He takes a 2+ hour nap! He's been asking to play for a few minutes before naptime, and has been falling asleep like this quite often!

Levi, on the other hand, just falls asleep standing up. He was actually sleeping on the couch, then rolled off into this position and stayed for 30 minutes. This is a pre-school day where he got a short nap at school, then fell asleep at home afterwards after a grouch-fest. This is a big reason why I took my kids out of pre-school this year... but more on that later! We start homeschool preschool in 2 weeks! 

Another day, I fell asleep at nap time too. When I woke up, this is what I found...

Ty and I on a night out on the town. Only my 2nd time in a limo :)

(Ok, I'm coming back in to edit this part b/c saying "only my 2nd time in a limo" sounds a bit pretentious. Just a note that both of our limo rides have been fully paid for by someone else. Our first limo trip was in Vegas for Ty's work and a client puked all over. It was disgusting. And I was pregnant at the time. I'm surprised I didn't spew as well from the nausea this guy gave me! Our latest limo ride was definitely more pleasant than that. Just a nice tour of a fun city with some friends.) 

We try to go to at least one UT football game each year. This years tickets came with passes to the 200 Club which was way nicer than the EndZone club we usually go to. It was nice and air conditioned and had free popcorn :) We were lucky to get the tickets when one of Ty's clients failed to claim them. 

Goofing off during a time out. 

The horns lost, but it was a great game where Case McCoy regained his starting status.

After the game, we hitched a ride with a pedi-cab. The guy took us about 15 blocks out of the way to avoid the hills, then dropped us off because he got tired of pedaling. He put us about 3 blocks closer to our car and out about $20 for the ride :(

During our Annual Girl's Black Friday shopping trip in Marble Falls, I saw this t-shirt that I love! It was quite expensive, so I thought maybe one of these days I'll attempt to make my own version for a fraction of the cost. 

Here we are at Ty's work Christmas party. 

Holla!

It was snowing in Austin!!! Or at least it appeared so. I had a photoshoot at the Galleria last weekend where some workmen were blowing ice chips to create a winter wonderland. 

Tatum is our little monkey. She climbed up on the table to finish her brother's dinner. 

At least somebody liked the chili. 

Some of my sweet huddle girls! We had a fun dinner and shopping night last week! Love yall :)

We built a tall block Christmas tree for the boys to wake up to Christmas morning. It was their first gift to see. They had been trying on Christmas Eve to make a tower taller than my sister, Alethea, but didn't have enough blocks to do so. Now, they obviously do! 

Hope you enjoyed my random upload of iPhone pics! Gotta start getting these off of my phone more frequently. 

Merry Christmas

Take Me Out to the Tball Game

This fall Colt played in his first season of t-ball. I was a little bit against putting him in organized sports at such a young age, but he had been asking to play and loves to play baseball around the house, so we went ahead and signed him up. 

Colt learned some things this season mostly about the way the game is structured (the direction of first base, where to stand in the outfield, how to step and throw, how to step and hit, etc.) He was really cute when running the bases - he'd jog really slow for some reason, then when he got to each base, he'd stop, bend down and draw/play in the dirt. 

His coach's name was Karras (in the red shirt above), pronounced just like Charis. How crazy is that!? I think it confused Colt a little bit at first. Whenever people would ask what team he was on, he'd say "Coach Karras." We had to teach him that this season he was a Cubbie. 

I took this picture simply to show the number of parents out on the field each inning. Our team seemed to always have more parents on the field than the team we were playing, but I guess it's a good thing that everyone was so involved! 

When Ty or I weren't out on the field, we would be with the other 2 kids. Tatum loves hanging out with her Daddy!

Tatum Loves throwing a baseball! She's pretty good too :)

Tatum is such a Daddy's Girl that she would see him in the outfield with Colt and start screaming at the top of her lungs for him. Ty was a good sport and would bring her on the field with him. 

Levi monkeying around trying to watch his brother play first base. First base, by the way, was Colt's all-time favorite position to play. He loved that his teammates threw him the ball each play. When he didn't play a position where the ball came frequently, he would get pretty upset that he didn't get to catch or throw the ball. His coach put a good spin on that and said it was good that he had such a desire to be involved in the game.