Christmas Traditions

Each year we love to build a Gingerbread house. This year we wised up and bought the one that was already assembled.

We love to go to Johnson City. Each year we get to see all the millions of lights they have. We also like to see the Living Nativity at the Methodist Church.

This is the only Santa my kids talk to. They know he's not the real one but that he tells Santa what they want. Tate is onto us this year about Santa. He's not quite sure there really is one and is asking a ton of questions. We might have to come clean next year....but not to Grant.

This is the year Grant is not looking at the camera when he smiles. It is kind of annoying, wait until you see the Christmas card.

Mommy's trip to the Lease

The hunting stand big enough for a family of four.Mommy's little helper in a hunting stand big enough for a family of four.

Passing the time, looking for wildlife. There were only two chairs....and four people.

Waiting for my deer

Tate's deer. Little brother had to get in the picture, too.

The boys talked me into going with them to the hunting lease on Sunday. Since AISD was out of school Monday it was a good time to go. So, we packed up Babo's truck with everything you could possibly need to shoot a deer, sleep in a camper, and entertain a three year old and a thirty three year old mom. Tate was really excited about me coming and wanted me to see everything he loves about this lease. I have actually been there many times but just for the day, I've never spent the night. We got there Sunday afternoon, unpacked our stuff and went straight to a deer blind. For the last almost 15 years David's dream had been for me to shoot a deer. Every year he begs me to go and each year I decline, not wanting to intrude on his fun, outdoorsy weekend.
About 10 minutes after we get situated in the big, low to the ground stand (I'm not climbing a tree!) we see the first doe. Tate gets so excited and wants to shoot it. And he does. I'm thinking,

Wow! That's fast! Maybe we can go home now and not have to stay out here all night." But, no. David says there is still plenty of time for me to get my shot at it. So. We, Wait, and wait, and wait. One hour later we see a group of does coming to the feeder and David tells me this is my chance. Tate is so excited and Grant is playing on the floor with a Star Wars toy, he could really care less (see, not only does he look like me, he acts like me, too.) David shows me how to line up the scope and where to shoot and I do! But then they all run off. David knows I shot her and he and Tate run off to find her. Thanks to time change it is gettting dark even though it is only 5:15. They look and look for my sweet Bambi but just can't find her. The next morning we found her, she had been a delicous dinner for a pack of coyotes. So I don't have any pictures with her but at least I finally fulfilled David's dream and felt the so called adreanline rush everyone talks about. It was fun, not sure if I will do it again but who knows?

All in all we had a good time. It was great to spend some time with all three of my boys!

Clownin' Around

Happy Clown

Sad Clown

Halloween 2010

Pumpkin Patch Fun

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY CHLOE!!! WE LOVE YOU AND CAN'T WAIT FOR YOUR FANCY NANCY BIRTHDAY PARTY!

Two Runaways

This week we had two incidents with runaways. One didn't come back and one did. Last weekend David decided to take our dog of 12 years, Maggie, hunting in South Texas with him. He rarely takes her as she is deaf and very old and really not a great bird dog. However, he took her this time and when he let her out of the truck she started running and running and never came back. He really thought she would return and there were about thirty hunters on this ranch who he thought would spot her but none did. We will miss her but we hope she finds a nice farmer who will take her in and treat her well. The boys aren't really all that sad, surprisingly. Tate is now in the market for rabbits. We'll see if he gets his wish but for now this family is officially pet free and we are actually enjoying it....for now. I tried to post a picture of Maggie but blogger didn't like my scanned pic that I had. We will miss you Maggie, you were a good dog and we hope you find some other little boys who will ride you like a bull and pull you around the neigborhood for fun.

The second runaway happened Monday evening. Tate was sent to his room for fighting with Grant and when I came upstairs to get him he was packing a (small) bag and said "I''m running away!" I proceeded to tell him it was raining and that we would miss him but if he wanted to go he should go. He didn't care about the rain. He made it to the middle of the culdesac and came back. It was pouring and he was wearing flip flops. I guess he decided he would put up with us.

Grant's first day of Preschool

Grant started preschool today. He was really excited! He has missed his friends and was happy to go back to the "big room" meaning the 3 year old room. His teachers are Ms Karen and Ms Cindy. And no, they don't wear uniforms, he just insisted on wearing this white shirt with his khacki shorts. As we were about to go into the room he told me "I want to go in by myself!" So he did, and never looked back. Here's hoping to a great preschool year!

We're tolerating First Grade

As you can see we didn't start out overly excited to be up at 6:30 in the morning.

Feeling a little better about going to first grade.

Walking up to the school with friends. Brother insisted on coming for moral support.

Found some friends from the neighborhood: Jackson, Tad, and Tate.

Made it to the classroom. He did okay until he realized the assignment was to write a sentence on what he did this summer, draw a picture, and put the date on it. We are not big on writing. He really sees no need for it but he told me he did write something...not sure what but that's okay. We didn't have near as many tears this year as last, thankfully. He has four friends in his class and the two girls who sit next to him , Ella and Eleanor, both like to ride horses so he has something in common with them. He says he will go back tomorrow so that is a good step in the right direction to tolerating first grade.

7

Today is Tate's 7th birthday. It is hard to believe this guy has been around for that long. It seems like yesterday we were at the hospital waiting for him to arrive. In true Tate form he finally made his appearance around 7:40 that night. A LONG day to say the least, but the best day ever. We had a small birthday party last week at Gattitown and that was alot of fun. He is having his first sleep over tonight and is really excited!

Tate is starting 1st grade next week and is somewhat excited. If you ask him he tells you "no" but I know he is ready for a routine and to be back with his friends.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY! WE LOVE YOU!

7 things about Tate

He loves his brother, they can be the best of friends and the worst enemies all in one day but they are close

His favorite food is pancakes

His favorite sport is baseball

He love to hunt and fish with his dad.

He love everything rodeo...especially bulls!

His favorite movie is Aliens in the Attic.

He got a new skateboard and he is loving trying to ride it.

Kids say the darnest.......

A conversation we had tonight:
Tate: Mom, is gosh a bad word?
Me: Well, it's not great, maybe you should say Oh my goodnes instead.
Tate: Well, I could say Oh my word or oh my.
Me:Yes, that sounds good.
Tate: Okay....what about Holy Crap?

Corpus Christi

In the jail cell on the USS Lexington. Tate was a little nervous it might lock on him:)

The USS Lexington. The tour that is supposed to take 4 hours. Julie's tour only took 1 1/2!

The boys in a real Blue Angels training"mock" jet. They thought it was pretty cool.

In front of the Texas State Aquarium. It is a really good aquarium filled with lots of fun shows and exhibits!

At the children's exhibit Tate looked for crabs. There were alot!

My favorite was the dolphin show. The kids really liked watching them, too.

One night we tried fishing off the marina dock. We didn't catch anything but the boys had fun.

On the bay cruise. Tate really enjoyed this. He spotted a dolphin jumping out of the water. He just about fell out of the boat yelling"dolphin! dolphin! dolphin!" until the captain acknowledged him and announced it over the loud speaker. He was really proud.

Grant, on the other hand, really just liked the tub of cotton candy we got at the concession stand on the cruise. He could have cared less about the dolphin.

The one thing Tate really wanted to do was ride the paddle boats. He was happy but poor David's legs nearly fell off having to pedal by himself!

We tagged along with David last week on a work trip to Corpus. He now has two sales guys there he will have to go see every month so we thought why not make it a family vacation? So we did and it was fun. We had no idea we picked such a great week to go. It was the annual FFA convention and every small town from South Texas to northern New Mexico was there. I was yes maam'ed ALOT which is sweet and made me feel rather old. Apparently, they were there for a week and everywhere you looked there were high school kids. They were well behaved from what we saw but it explains why we could not get a decent hotel room in the city. We had to stay at a roach motel the first night ( in one bed) and decided we could NOT do that for another two nights so David hooked us up with the Omni hotel on the water and it was wonderful! The kids loved the indoor and outdoor pool and Tate loved the breakfast buffet. He had never really seen a buffet before (besides Luby's and you don't serve yourself there). He couldn't believe that you could have WHATEVER you wanted! He tried alot of things and I was proud of him. Grant, ate his weight in bacon and raisins. Normally, our good eater, he zeroed in on those items and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is so fun to watch normal things become really cool in the eyes of your kids! We were happy to go to Corpus and have lots of fun, thanks David for letting us tag along!