Holiday Time = Busy But Good Time

Yeah! The holidays are here in full swing! Its a busy time but its also a great time. Below are tons of pictures of all the things we've had going on.

The boys have been wanting roller blades for a long time but I told them I wouldn't buy them new ones b/c they might not like it once they got them and I wanted them to fall and scratch up used ones first. So I found them some at Goodwill for $6.99 and $4.99...within one day they had mastered skating and on this day I found Jalyn asleep with his on!

Up at the school parking lot learning some more.

Jon Michael loves his, I'm constantly picking them up out of the floor. It was so funny watching Samson pulling him like a sled dog.

Jalyn had his Thanksgiving play. (you can't see him behind the little girl)

Doing some motions to a song.

The boys made turkeys and sent them to all the grandparents. They LOVED getting their hands covered in paint.

A rare quiet moment when I wasn't the one with the camera.

We had a craft night at my house with some of my friends from church...it was great! We all worked on different things, getting a headstart on Christmas crafts. Chrisitine brought her sewing machine and some super yummy cupcakes.

You can't have a craft night w/o lots of snacks, so we had cookies, pumpkin bread, homemade salsa, stuffed jalapeno's....so yummy! You have to have something to do while all the paint and glue is drying!

Sarah caught up on her daughters kinder. pictures in her scrapbook.

Look at that skinny girl!!!!!!! Tammi and her super cute fleece blanket.

I couldn't post pictures of the crafts that Connie and I worked on b/c that would give away our Christmas gift ideas!

The boys wrestling with Daddy...they still can't team up on him and win...one day...

This is Thanksgiving Day, on our drive to C.S.....eatting donuts for breakfast.

You would think it was a long haul trip or something!

Its my tradition to decorate for Christmas after Thanksgiving dinner. I really wanted to go with a new Christmas color this year around the house but I didn't think Jesus would to happy with debt just to decorate for his birthday!!!!

The boys always love decorating their mini trees, every morning the ornaments are in a new spot. They can't seem to keep their hands off since they're allowed to actually touch them.

This is the first year I've brined our turkey....SUPER SUPER SUPER YUMMY!!!! Jonathan said the white meat was juicier than the dark meat...it really was the best turkey and leftovers we've ever had...I'll always use a brine now.

Jalyn LOVES his elf hat. It was the first thing he wanted out of the Christmas boxes when I got them out of the attic.

Jon Michael has really been into making paper snowflakes...so everyday we get to vacuum up "snow" pieces...but he's loving it.

This is what the boys were doing while I was decorating the porch the day after Thanksgiving.

The boys and a neighbor took turns doing dangerous but fun things together....I kept the front door open while I was working in the front room and I kept going out to check b/c they were just laughing hysterically from all the fun the were having.

It seems from here until Christmas we have some activity every single week. I love it!

This holiday season has already been so much fun and I loved hearing the boys conversations turning to deeper things this year. At church they are saving their change to help give Christmas to 100 families and they are really into it. Jon Michaels heart is really understanding more this year, its great to see him grow and have loving thoughts of his own, not ones we've just put in his head.

Ok, we'll post more soon, have a great time celebrating OUR SAVIORS birth!!!!!

Smarty Pants!

Jon Michael brought home two awards last week. One for not missing any school and another for the honor roll. We're super proud of him!

He has his daddy's sleepy eyes when its time for a picture!

Showing off his "wavy" tongue and awards.

Good job Jon Michael! Keep up the good work.

Celebrating!

Its midnight and I'm tired BUT I can't sleep, I'm blaming the awful daylight savings time aristocrats for it. Anyways, it provides the perfect time for me to blog (except for trying to not disturb my sleeping husband with my typing!).

I've struggled a lot in the past with the celebration of halloween and being a christian...a few years ago Jonathan had me listen to some ladies who say that since God has tons of celebrations in the bible that we should take advantage of a worldly thing and turn it into another time to thank God and just enjoy celebrating...celebrating what? Anything, everything, God is good.

So we don't celebrate halloween and we don't trick or treat but we CELEBRATE in other ways. The boys have always loved costumes so its the time they get a new dress up outfit and they have so much fun being in character with their costume the rest of the year. One of my favorite things is finding the boys all decked out in super hero or pirate costumes out of the dress up basket, just pretending and playing. Since we don't trick or treat we do lots of treats of our own. We have in the past done trunk or treat, which is what the boys call halloween, and gone by a couple of friends houses to check out costumes, this year the mosquitos were just to bad to be out, the few treats we handed out at our door resulted in huge bites that I got in our own house.

I'm trying to figure out another way to word our celebration but not say happy halloween...This year I said Happy Orange Day....I know stupid but I couldn't think of anything else and I had a whole theme going all day so it works for now. Luckily I have awhile to think this through for next years celebration.

Ok, enough jabbering, enjoy the pictures, like I said, its late, I'm tired, they are not in order, as usual just check out the captions!

Daddy and Samson playing superheros, mixed with castle and dungeon...the boy has an imagination! I love seeing Jonathan spending time with the boys in the ways that mean the most to each of them. He had spent time playing with Jon Michaels checkers treat so this was his time with Jalyn.

Since we don't trick or treat and load up on pounds of candy, I took the boys to the store and they got to pick out a toy and some candy of their choice. They both got color changing cars.

Jon Michael working on the stripes for his car.

You know those sticky hands? (I really want to call it a booger hand, b/c of the texture, but Jonathan thinks I've lost all sense of propriety when it comes to snot and boogers...the boys have been a bad influence on me!!!) Yep, one stuck to my ceiling...I don't have a picture of the marshmallows stuck to the front room ceiling from the marsh. gun last year....life in a house of boys...such fun!

This was Jon Michaels candy choice, candy eyeball checkers!!!

Told you these weren't in order, this is our pumpkin cake to go with our orange day theme.

( I was just looking at the picture and thinking how funny it is that I'm going darker and darker with my hair as most are going lighter and lighter...just a random thought...its pretty funny when I run into people back home (College Station) and they are shocked b/c they still think of me as my natural blonde...)

Kissy Face Black Ninja and Pirate...

Jalyn coveting pumpkin cake!

Jalyn practicing his sword skills with Daddy b/f getting into his pirate costume....this isn't an unusual sight at our house...when we have bible study all the kids, little girls included, have some kind of sword or weapon!

Happy Orange Day breakfast....orange iced cin. rolls, and egg and sausage scramblers with cheese (the cheese made it orange), and of course orange juice to drink later.

Ok, that was our fun weekend with the boys. It just happened that it was Jonathan's weekend off from work so it truly was good family time, all spent together...good times and good memories.

I've been debating for days on whether I was gonna post these pictures or not, but they are a big milestone for Jalyn, and super cute. I promise he's not naked, he'd just gotten home from taekwondo as soon as he'd hung up his clothes I told him to come and read, so he was in his cute little undies.

This is the first book that Jalyn has read by himself! He was so proud. Jon Michael has been reading chapter books for so long and Jalyn has wanted to read but now he really can say that he can do it. We're so proud of him. He was NEVER interested in learning while he was home with me. Jon Michael loved to do workbooks and I can totally see how homeschooling would work with him, but Jalyn, no way, not interested....BUT in school in a classroom setting he has just taken off and is doing so well (a relief to this mommy!).

He was attempting to be modest and cover his "undies" but I think that might have backfired since he looks naked.

And speaking of Jalyn.....we found this lost dog on the way home from school yesterday. Jalyn LOVES animals, he keeps asking,"If we can't find the owner can we keep him?" I said,"I don't know someone else might want him". Oh my goodness, you would have thought we were gonna be sending the dog to a death squad or something! He was so sad and tears started forming...it was cute. So for now we've got two dogs and the boys are LOVING it.

Happy Fall Ya'll!

Happy Fall Everyone! Its been a busy one for us. This post has a lot of pictures, I thought I'd just put it all into one instead of multiple posts.

This is the front porch decorated for the fall. The door banner I've had for a long time, it says, "Give Thanks". God has been showing me so many things that I'm truly grateful for. Don't get me wrong, I'm always thankful but it usually the typical, "I'm thankful my family is healthy, I'm thankful we live in America", etc....But He's really been impressing true thankfulness on me lately and really feeling it not just thinking it.

I had a garage sale a few weeks ago and a neighbor thought these were fake on the porch....I cringed when she asked! That's one of my biggest pet peeves...DON'T PUT FAKE PLANTS IN YOUR YARD!!!! I told her no they weren't fake but took it as a compliment.


I saw Jon Michael on the couch and wondered when I got old enough to have a kid who could just hang out on the computer!!!!

The boys wanted to play in the front yard the other day. I went out later to check on them and this is what I found....them playing with "creatures". (Notice Jalyn's pal, Samson, in the mix?)

YES, creatures meant SLUGS!!! Such little boys! I was gonna say, only little boys, but I know some girls who would think this was cool also.

We went to a tailgate party at a church down the road from us last Sunday. The boys had a great time. Jalyn liked "banging" the frogs with the big hammer.

Jon Michael waited in line for over an hour to do this! He loved it, can you see his smile? I kept asking him if he'd rather go do something else and he said no and then when he was done he said it was worth the wait.

Doing some flips on the bungee thing.

Saturday Jon Michael had his last taekwondo tournament of the year. Jalyn is standing and doing the student oath.

Jalyn keeping busy doing his "art". (Yes, it is a dinosaur! Good job!)

Doing a pattern.

And another pattern.

He had just put his mouth piece in getting ready to spar and I told him to turn around and smile...so funny.

Jon Michael and Christian posing for a picture...I told Christian he should have sparred so he could beat up Jon Michael.

The Winner..(yes, that's Jon Michael).

Again, The Winner.

Final Match.

Final Winner.

He got a bronze in patterns.

Gold in sparring.

He loves tournaments, we've thrown around the idea of traveling next year for him to go to tournaments out of our area. He always leaves meeting a new friend, he says that's one of his favorite parts. I think he likes the sparring just as much though! ( I didn't get a picture but his eye was pretty red after the 3 matches, I asked him if he got punched in the eye, he said, yep...then just walked away like it was all no big deal! I think he even enjoyed that!)

Ok, that's all for now, of course we're busy with school and church and family stuff but this was the biggest stuff at the moment.

Have a great FALL!!!!

Cutie Patooties!

Just a few pictures of the boys this week....they are so cute...and the older they get so much more enjoyable and fun to watch.

Sunday afternoon they were just playing around and decided to be a human burrito....they laughed and laughed while they tried to roll into the blanket.

Jalyn's trying to kiss Jon Michael, which he was only trying to do so that the wrestling would continue...they love to wrestle...I usually have to leave the room b/c they get so rough but at the same time they're screaming they're laughing hysterically.

Such cuties...

Today kinder. dressed up as their favorite character from their rhyming section...Jalyn wanted to be Jack from Jack and Jill....he wouldn't let me wrap the bandage around his head...

This is his Jack face...he's pretending to be hurt from falling down the hill....he did let me put a bandaid on his head, and he told me to fix his hair "flat" b/c Jack wouldn't have worn spikey hair...so cute.

Typical Evening in Our Home

(Ok, so this picture totally goes with the stuff at the bottom of this post but I can't get it to move its just stuck right here!!! Its Jalyn exercising with me while Jon Michael is building with blocks in the background.)

Yesterday I loved how our evening went after school. Just thought I'd share a few pictures. I was folding clothes on the love seat and looked across the living room and the boys were each doing their own thing and it was nice to see them settling into our evening routine.

Jon Michael doing homework.

Daddy and Jalyn reading his library book.

Then after Jonathan left for bible study I took a break from housework and did my P90X workout. I haven't done it in awhile b/c I've been plagued with bladder infections again and its impossible to do jumping and all the things required...goodness, I can't even walk or sit sometimes when I'm having bladder issues, so P90X is totally out during those times. Anyways, I've really wanted to get back into working out and just got over my latest infection so I decided I better jump on it while I could even though my body is still so worn out from being sick.

Jalyn LOVES to workout! He has his own dumbbells and he uses the bands when he can't do the exercises with the weights, its so cute! Here's a few pictures from that.

This really is one of the exercises, you put your feet in a chair and do incline pushups...he loves it and always asks if he's doing it right.

(This is where the picture at the top was supposed to go....Jalyn was doing another weight lifting exercise and he said, "Momma, I can feel the burn a comin'!" Really that's how he said it, "a comin"....it was so funny!!!!!!!)

This is Samson while I workout....a dogs life....so sweet....