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. 

Tradition

Now that I am finally catching up on the blog and am up at least in the current month, I figured I'd start posting some things about Christmas. It's kinda fun to have such young kids and think about what traditions Ty and I would like to establish in our own little family. The kids have no expectations at this point, so we can pretty much center Christmas around whatever we would like. The past few years, we have decided to solely honor the birth of our Savior at this time of the year (aka: we don't celebrate Santa). We also try to instill in our kids the value of service and giving, which we have many opportunities to practice each winter.

This year we started a new tradition that I am hoping will also help us get into the better habit of reading more often. At the end of November, I wrapped 25 books in wrapping paper. Each day one of the boys would get to unwrap one book and we would read it! Each book had something to do with Jesus's birth or the winter season. It was kind of a challenge to find books that weren't all about Santa but focused on the reason for the season :)

Here's our list for this year:
I purchased the following books from Garden Ridge over the past 2 years -
Erik's Christmas Gift Exchange
Christmas Cookies - yes, we baked Gingerbread cookies out of this recipe book
The Perfect Snowflake - we made paper snowflakes
10 Minutes to Showtime - a cute book about the angels perspective of Jesus' birth
Waiting for Christmas - a book about advent- we read this on Dec. 1 and made a paper chain with 25 links to tear one off each day as we countdown to Jesus' birthday
The Stable where Jesus was Born- we went to a living nativity this night
Angela and the Baby Jesus- Angela steals baby Jesus from the nativity manger b/c she thinks he's cold
I Spy Christmas
Christmas Around the World- talks about the traditions of different countries - we had an apple snack like they do in Germany
Merry Christmas Strega Nona
Book of Christmas Carols - we were supposed to go carolling this night, but it got cancelled
Eight Wild Nights - about Haunikka
Pablo's Christmas- references Mexican traditions
Gifts at Christmas

From the library:
Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree
The Small One - we watched the Disney short film by the same title - a boy sells his donkey to Jospeh to carry Mary to Bethlehem
Why Christmas Trees aren't Perfect

From Scholastic Book Fair:
The Story of Jesus -blends Jesus' birth with his life

Last year, Ty's mom gave us a Jesse Tree. This year, we have continued that tradition by reading a daily Bible story relating to one of Jesus' ancestors, then hanging a corresponding handmade ornament on the tree. It's a great daily reminder for us during this season of Advent.

The last several years, I have particularly enjoyed participating in the Angel Tree at our church. We "adopt" a family and give them gifts. I enjoy getting outside of myself to think about what other people may enjoy and to know that we can bring smiles to some kid's faces and perhaps relief to a parent who was stressed out over gifts. This year, we took the kids with us to Kohls to purchase gifts. We had been talking about the kids we were buying for, Luke and Aria, for a few days prior. Before we arrived at the store, we reminded the kids that this trip was to get gifts for others, not ourselves. But, as soon as we stepped foot in the store, they were oohing and ahhing over all of the toys. We chose gifts for Luke and Aria, but had quite a few learning opportunities along the way to put back the toys the boys had also chosen for themselves. Colt ended up having a really difficult time with this and had to be carried out of the store, kicking and screaming. But, like I said, its a learning opportunity. And denying ourselves is very hard in our culture (thus the mess our economy is in), so we'll just have to keep working on this :)

This year we are hosting Christmas at our house for the first time. We are hoping to begin a new family tradition of service on the morning of Dec. 25th. Instead of waking up and focusing only on ourselves and our gifts (which will only be more and more tempting for our kids as they grow older), we will be heading downtown to serve breakfast to some of our homeless neighbors in Austin. Then we will return home to have our own breakfast and family time and celebration of God's miraculous gift in our lives.

Well, some of my other favorite traditions revolve around FOOD, but since I've been typing forever, will call it quits on this post. Maybe I'll go snack on a warm Dr. Pendergrass cupcake my sister just made :)

November

I win the award for the biggest slacker mom in November! It started off when I accidentally deleted our Halloween photos off my camera before downloading them. And apparently these are the only pictures I took of my kids the entire month of November!! I had a few photo shoots that kept me busy and a trip to Chicago, so I guess documenting our lives went by the wayside.    

Here are the kids on the train they created. The boys are really into trains and enjoy making pretend ones out of ALL the pillows in our bedroom lined up on the living room floor, plus ALL of the couch cushions, plus ice chests, toys and whatever else they can imagine! 

Levi enjoys pulling down his bottom eyelids to reveal the nerves in his eyeballs. The kids laugh and laugh when he does it. Boys. 

Also in November, we enjoyed Thanksgiving with the Dishman side of the family in Marble Falls. It was fun getting together with everyone, lots of good food (with a few vegan options this year for Chez!), a round of golf for Ty and his brothers and fun shopping on Black Friday with the girls! We are loving that we live less than an hour away so we can come back home to sleep in our cozy beds (and I can get up early to hit the Black Friday sales in Austin) before heading back out to Marble Falls on Friday, although this does mean we miss out on Uncle Doug's big breakfast. The kids loved feeding the deer with Nana, playing golf and playing football with their uncles while at the lake this year. 

 We have so much to be Thankful for! 

Punkin'

We love autumn!

See the knees on her jeans? This is pretty much what her pants look like every single day. I'm afraid I won't have any pants to pass down to someone someday. Tatum still refuses to walk, but is so active and Loves the outdoors, so she ends up dirtying up her knees every day. 

This is Tatum's favorite toy - the cookie jar shape sorter. It sings songs and she likes putting the shapes in and taking them out of the cookie jar (through the hole in the top, not through the proper shape hole. Hmm... maybe we should work on that.) 

Also, we recently had a garden planted in our backyard. I bought another groupon which had some really awesome folks from Revolution Gardens come out and build/plant it for us! 

We've been watering it almost every day and now it is a vibrant garden. Last week, we took our first harvest and had a delicious salad at our Dishman family Christmas dinner. Planted in this winter's garden is broccoli, swiss chard, spinach, radishes and carrots. I am NOT known for having a green thumb, so we shall see how this adventure turns out. However, so far so good. Plus, it's a fun project to do with the kids. They love helping water it and dump our compost bin into the compost pile. They are learning which foods can be composted (banana peels, celery, egg shells) and what can't (dairy and meat). Healthy and educational... two of my favorite things ;)