1/24/11

Friends

Jordon, Abby and Gideon. Three buds that hang out a lot when their older brothers are at school. This is one the best pictures I've ever gotten of Gideon smiling. He's tricky.
Jordon's smile for the camera. Gotta love how he puts his heart into it!
A typical "good" picture of Gideon.
Carter and Brandon are home from Kindergarten now and get to join in the fun.
Brandon said he was using his "farmer smile". It kinda looks like my jaw before I had surgery!!
The reason why I took all these portrait pix is because we got a new box of Crayola crayons and they have the coolest thing on their website where you can upload a photo and make a coloring sheet out of it. So that's what we did today. It was a lot of fun. The color sheets end up looking line pencil line drawings. It's really pretty cool. I think I'll be taking lots more interesting pictures and using up lots of paper as we create more of these fun coloring sheets. To do it, you have to enter a password that you can only get off a box of crayons. Then you have unlimited access for 6 months. After that you have to buy a new box of crayons to get a new code. Great marketing! I'll definitely be buying Crayola and not the generic until this promo is gone!!
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1/22/11

Basketball!!

Our whole family went to a Butler Bulldog basketball game last night. I think everyone had a good time (until the popcorn ran out and the diaper almost leaked through!)
I made some shirts for the boys. Jordon wasn't into wearing his nor being the picture, but these two were all about it!

For the next couple of months you will not find anyone in our home sleeping in on Saturday mornings, but instead we'll be cheering on Brandon at his 8am basketball games. Here he is taking it down the court. He is pretty good and loves being coached. In his game today he did a great job "guarding his man", they match them up by the colored wrist bands you see them wearing. The only problem was that he didn't get that when his team was on offense he doesn't need to keep guarding. He sure kept that guy from getting the ball, but I think he also missed some opportunities to have the ball passed to him. It was so fun watching him!
At the beginning of each game they play this fun music and call the players' names and they run out and high-5 their coach. It's so great. Brandon was a little disappointed at the first game because he realized that they don't keep score. But he still had a great time.
He's in gray.
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Typical Happenings

I took all the boys to Hobby Lobby (mistake) to look for some fabric for project I want to work on. I promised that if they let me look at my fun stuff then I'd let them look at their fun stuff. Well, they found these foam swords. They had a blast with them; it was quite funny to watch.

Brandon got the idea from his friend Carter to start making and selling some art. And so now Brandon has created a portfolio and draws/colors pictures of various scenes. His plan is to sell them to people in order "to make money for the family, the people and the states". These were his first two (and so far, only) pieces that have sold. I really liked them and hated to see them go, so I snapped a picture first. The top one is a circus (big tent) and there are some giraffes coming out of one of the train cars on left. The bottom picture is a picture of a house and farm. This is my favorite. I love the sun and the chimneys with smoke. He colors all the way to edge of the page on most of his drawings which I think is one thing that makes them so nice. I will take some photos of his portfolio and post them later.
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Here's a little onesie that I made for a friend. I just think it's fun and cute and thought I'd post it. The eyes are tiny little buttons. I sewed the owl on and then I printed "night owl" on iron-on transfer paper.
Now, I know this looks like a mess to most of you, but let me just say that I'm quite proud of this little project. Over Christmas break Pete and I worked pretty hard on redoing some areas of the house. Mostly parts where nobody will notice, but it has helped us out in organization quite a bit. One of these areas of change has been in the craft room. The only reason why I'm really posting this is show what great gifts I got for Christmas!
On the desk you will see (left of tissues) a large notepad. This is from Elly and is so great. It's daily notepad that has fun facts on it, but also allows me plenty of space for my t0-dos (which are many), to the left of that you will see a little coaster. Brandon made this along with Nini. He is soooo proud of this thing that he's made and he loves to see it sitting on the desk. To the left of that is a little table-top caddy that Pete got me. With changing things around in this room we switched the desk that I was using for this other one that we had. It is great, but it lacked some hidden storage that I was hoping for. This caddy helps that problem! And at the very top to the left of the plant you will see a card-holder with various papers hanging off of it. In that, there is a gift card from Betsy. Thanks to all of you. Now, I will say that I didn't plan all of these things to be in this one picture, but it sure turned out great that so many of them did. Thanks for your thoughtfulness.
Brandon lost his third tooth! And his other front one is loose too.
Jordon built this super tall tower one morning. He was pretty proud of it. I suggested that I take his picture and he wasn't so sure. He's seen me take pictures of Brandon's proud creations, but he wasn't sure he wanted to be in that category. But it turns out, he really was excited about this tower. After all, it was taller than him and had a propeller on the side (that's what he's looking at).
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Christmastime


As it turns out, I didn't take any pictures on Christmas Day. We did take some video this year, which was a lot of fun. But we can't post it on our blog, which stinks. My dad got some good shots on Christmas Morning, but the quality of his pictures is also too much for the blog to handle. So if I get around it, I'll try to find some highlights and save them in a smaller size and post them. But until then, this is all I have to share with you.
We had Christmas Eve in our basement. Our concrete walls seemed a bit bleak for such a festive celebration so we covered them various types of Christmas wrapping paper.
My cousin Julie (sweater) and Kim (red) are talking to Rob, who got to be in Indy for about 10 days. It was a great to have him for here for so long.
Jordon is absolutely cracking up at my cousin Stephen. He remains a favorite of all three boys!
Pete needed a fire on Christmas Day. Since we don't have a fireplace inside, he went to the next logical place-our outdoor fireplace. It was a great fire. I wish more of us could've enjoyed it, but we preferred the warmth of inside instead. We did get a fresh snowfall on Christmas Eve. It was so beautiful.
This little magnet doodle pad was really Jordon's gift from Uncle Keith, but Brandon drew this nativity picture that was too good to not capture. You can see a wise man on a camel and a shepherd with a sheep. That bird-ish thing in the sky is really a star.

This was taken well-past bedtime. Who looks more tired? Gideon loves it when we "let him out" late at night. He often sings/talks in his bed for at least 30 minutes or so at night. If his brothers fall asleep and we can still hear him going strong, then we get him out and let him hang out with us. He loves it...and so do we.
This is a typical seen when mom needs some quiet time or when I'm making dinner. Pete watches soccer on the computer and all the boys come around to see what dad is looking at. Gideon is usually the first one on his lap and then others soon follow.
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Days Before Christmas

This is the typical scene when they play with play-doh. It's a complete mess, but all three have so much fun with it. As you might be able to tell from their hands/arms this is also they day that they found a self-inking rubber stamp and decorated each other with it. Thankfully they kept it on their hands and arms and never went for each other's faces. It did take a few days to completely wash off.

Pete and Brandon primed some of the basement walls.
The boys building a fort and having a blast together!

We went bowling. This was a lot of fun. You can see J sporting his bowling shoes.

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