December Fun

Making cinnamon ornaments for teacher gifts. Jordon had a hard time with the concept of not eating the "cookies".

Our first snow last weekend. We went sledding at a big hill nearby. Brandon went down by himself on the saucer (background) a couple times. On the third time he crashed and rolled off. At that point we realized that he never put his gloves on and was totally frozen. Gideon and I had just arrived at the hill (it was a bit of a walk from the car) so I went down twice with Jordon and Gids and then we came back home. We definitely spent more time getting dressed and packed up in the car than we did outside, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted!

Halloween!

Gideon was the cutest little fire fighter!

Brandon as Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribean.

And Jordon, so proud to be "Spiderman" and really that just meant he wanted to wear his Spiderman shirt, which he wears everyday unless we tell him it's a day that he can't.

We went to a Trunk or Treat and there were some creative "trunks". Here's Gideon sitting on a old fire truck. They were letting all "fire fighters" ring the bell. He wasn't sure what that was all about, but loved picking out the candy!

One of the other "trunks" was a huge sailboat. Since Brandon was a pirate he got to climb on board and get his picture taken with the other pirates. So cute. However, we are in need of a new camera and so it's so sad to me that this is the best of all the pirate pix that I took. So I'm posting this as a plea for a new camera!!

We went to this family fun park on a Sunday afternoon. It was a lot of fun to play putt-putt, go-karts, bumper boats, eat ice cream, etc. Look at Jordon on his tippy toes trying to be tall enough for some of the big kid games!!

We went to Turkey Run State Park for a day. We had amazing fall weather and hiked a couple trails (not on purpose, we got a little distracted and lost our path). The boys did amazingly well considering how long we were on trails. Jordon endured a crazy fall off some stairs. His little legs were tired, I'm sure, but he never complained. That was a fun adventrue for all of us!

If this doesn't make you laugh, then go see a doctor! This is just so Gideon. He likes to make people laugh, but he likes to do it in more subtle ways.

September Highlights

For whatever reason I'm having some difficulty add text to these posts. So just know that I'm doing my best to update what I've missed the last few months. These next posts will all be out of order, but it's the best I can do.

I got to spend a few hours with some girls that I used to live with at Purdue. What fun! Tania, Sarah, Anne and Kara. This was a fun night, but it was kinda sad to realize how bad I am at staying in touch with some of the neatest girls. I wish I were better at it. What a blessing to have such neat people in my life. Too bad we are so spread out over the US. At least we were able to all get together and share three hours together at a cute little place in Crawfordsville, IN of all places!!

After Labor Day Jordon started going to a pre school program on Wednesday morning. He was about as thrilled as he looks in this picture! Actually, he loves it and is always so proud to show me what he made and to look through his papers.

This is how I found Gideon one day. I must have been doing laundry because, yes, those are underpants around his neck and a colander on his head. He was just walking through the whole downstairs like this singing/yelling. It was so hilarious!

You just gotta wonder what he's thinking about...

Kelsay Dairy Farm

We spent a Saturday at a dairy farm and had a blast. There was a corn maze, a corn box (instead of a sand box). We petted calves, saw momma cows being milked, had a milkshake, went on a hayride, pooped our pants (or at least one of us did...) It was a fun day. Who's the short plaid-shirted boy at the top of the hay tower? Yep, that's our fearless Gideon!!

Jordon's 3rd Birthday!

Here are some cake pictures from Jordon's birthday. He wanted a camo cake! He had a great time and several family members were able to celebrate with him!

Brandon's First Day of Kindergarten

Here are the troops right before we loaded up and sent Brandon off for his first day at school. He was so excited-not the least bit nervous!

He's on the far right going down the hall with the other "yellow shirts". I told him to make sure he was always next to kids with other yellow shirts today. He seemed just a little bit nervous as he walked away from me, but that didn't last for long. He did totally fine.

And here he is at pick up (behind the teacher). He seemed to have a fine day. He told me that he already knew everything she talked about, including how to use the sink! I thought that was pretty funny. Once he got home though he started getting mad that he has to go EVERYDAY. So she must have emphasised that. He said he was going to miss us all so much and he said he started to forget what our house looked like.

After being home for an hour or so he started not to be grumpy about it anymore and got excited about tomorrow being red day! So we'll see how this year goes.

Brandon said he stuck with Carter most of the day. I asked him if he met any new friends and he said, "No way!". He's decided he's never going to meet new friends because he's afraid they might trick him and be a bully to him. So that's great he feels so safe with Carter, but we might need to have some more conversations about the importance of meeting new people even if they do turn out to trick him. Too cute. I just love these kind of conversations with him.

Go Hawks!

We signed Brandon up for soccer. The season had already started and missed a few practices and a game. But this Saturday he had his first game. Too cute. He didn't get his uniform yet and was slightly embarrassed because of it, but he proudly wore his orange shirt that happen to have a hawk (eagle) on it.

Watch the opponant score!

Kicking the ball to start. He really liked this part of the game.

Coming off the field after another goal. He scored 4 that day if you can believe that! He's off to a good start. His team consists of 4 and 5 year olds. Can't wait to see what next Saturday has in store.

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Today we tried a fun little experiment/craft project. We put shaving cream on a plate and added some food coloring. Then we swirled it around, trying to not to stir too much.

Then we pressed our paper onto the shaving cream. And we carefully pulled it out of the shaving cream and let it sit for 5 minutes or so.

Then I wiped all the extra shaving cream off and let it dry in the sun for a bit.

Everyone got their own pieces of papers with their special swirl. It kinda made a tie-dye look.

Summer of Fun

I know I haven't updated in awhile. Summer has been very full of craziness as always. I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures from that last month or so. They may or may not be in order..

but we'll start with the most important!

Happy 10th anniversary us!!

This actually turned out to be a miserable trip to Steak & Shake. We event ended up leaving without getting steaks or shakes, which was quite traumatic. But I'll save the drama for another day. The picture sure is cute!

Cousin Ben came to visit for about 45 minutes. He's looking good and is funny as always!!

Nothing says summer like ice cream!

We went out with Aunt Katie when she came for a visit. She's still trying to make sure she has the status of "favorite aunt". I think ice cream is a good strategy to seal the deal!

Our first fire in our completed fireplace.

This is just the ultimate Pete picture.

Minus the unfinished house in the background!

(notice the escaping mostly-naked Gideon)

Kacy and friends from small group. We surprised a friend and took her out to lunch for her birthday. What crazy fun a bunch of moms can pull together in order to get an ounce of sanity in the middle of the day. It was great to spend some time with these girls and actually finish a conversation that is started and not eat peanut butter and jelly together!

This day we attempted a fun little craft project. We were going to decorate our own shirts. Brandon was super excited about it; however, he was not willing to use one of his shirts as our tester. And since we are good at starting things and not really good at finishing things, Jordon's is the only shirt that we ended up doing. Oh well. It was a lot of fun and just as easy as I've heard.

We picked this shirt because it had a funny little stain on it and so I thought we could try to cover that up with our creativity. First we chose our design. Jordon liked this fighter jet image.

I printed it out on freezer paper and then exactoed (I know that's not a real word.) it out to create a stencil. We ironed it on the shirt so that it would stay put. Then everyone took turns painting. We had to be so patient and let it dry. But thankfully the hair dryer really hurried the process.

Here's the proud owner of his "new" shirt. You may notice that the design didn't end up covering the stain. So my great idea didn't really work, but alas it was fun and we have a successful finished product. And now we've experimented on Jordon's shirt so Brandon might be ready to do one of his shirts soon!