Luke's birthday update

Here is Luke's Q and A update and here is a link to last year's answers.

1. What is your favorite food...hummus
2. What is your favorite thing to do at school....play outside
3. What is your favorite thing to do at home....play with my big sister
4. What do you want to be when you grow up....policeman
5. What is your favorite book....spiderman
6. What is your favorite movie...Avengers
 7. If you could go anywhere right now where would you go....go to Target
8. If you could do anything you wanted right now, what would you do...I would go get a spiderman shooter
9. What was the best thing that happened to you when you were 3....When I got to eat cookies and milk
10. What do you think will be great about being 4....getting to go sissy's school next year!

Dear Luke,
You are really getting big! You are almost in real school now. I just can't believe it. You are changing sooo much. You are starting to read little words and are spelling really great. You can write your name pretty well and just today on the way home from school you counted to 10 in Spanish and told me all your colors in Spanish.  I was pretty impressed!
You love playing sports with daddy especially baseball. Daddy says it melts his heart when you ask him to play baseball outside and it doesn't matter what he is doing he has to stop and go play with you. You will play soccer at the Y this year. Your first time on a real team! We are excited to see you play. You will have lots of fun!
You are really funny and make us laugh all the time with your hilarious comments. You still love to cuddle with me and hold my hand. Please don't let that ever change!
Ella loves you so much! She would do anything for you. I hope you cherish your relationship with her because it will be so important when you get older.
My prayer for you each day is that God gives you a good heart, a strong will, good morals, and strong faith. Always know how much your daddy and I love you!!
Love,
Mom and Dad

Super Luke's Superhero birthday party!

This year Luke wanted to have a superhero party so when I heard his cousins...who really got him into superheros...were going to come down for a weekend in January I thought it would be perfect to have his party then with his two best crime fighting buddies Brooks and Blake! He also got a special surprise because Mims and Pa came down too!
Here are a few pics from the party:

This is the food table where I sat at all the food later that day for lunch.

We created a little villian that the boys would have to fight while dressed up as superheros. His name was Victor Villian. All the credit goes to my sister Julie who came up a couple days before the party and helped me set up. She drew Victor for me! She's awesome!

The boys got to pick a nerf gun they wanted to use to shoot Victor.

We made Luke's room the Superhero Secret Hideout. We put red lights in the light fixture to make it a little cooler. They really loved it and I heard them all day saying, "Let's go to the secret hideout!"

 I had a bunch of superhero costumes with capes and masks for them to dress up in.

 A target for target practice....not the best target but I was running 102 fever while I was putting this together so I wasn't really putting in too much effort at this point:)

We hid little Victors all over the house and the kids had to find them and shoot him with their guns.
Here are a couple pics of them finding him:

We had lunch later after the big nerf gun war between the dads and the kids! Uncle Landry instigated a big battle and bullets were flying everywhere! It was pretty entertaining!

Birthday cake time! Luke requested a Captain America cake. He was pretty happy with it!

 Needless to say he was a very happy boy that day! Thanks to our Texas family for making the trip up and giving him exactly what he wanted for his birthday!! We love you guys!!

Luke turned 4!!

My little boy turned 4 this month!! I swear it really feels like we just brought him home from the hospital last week!
We celebrated just like we did Ella's. Had family time that day and then a big birthday party later...well actually this time we had his big party first. On his actual birthday, Ella and I surprised him in bed with Ice Cream for Breakfast!! We couldn't do that for Ella and then not for him!! Lyle and Ella also got him a present.....iron man mask and repulsor blasters!! He was THRILLED!
Here are some pictures of him that morning:

Later that night, we surprised him with a cake that he really didn't think we had! It was really funny!!
I swear....he did put on clothes at some point that day! Happy Birthday Luke!!

And two other important notes about big boy Luke.....he has gone without a pullup for almost two weeks now and no accidents!!! Also, he got bumped up to a booster seat!! I can't tell you how excited he was to get on the scales and see that he was over 40lbs!!

I think I had a birthday..

January has been a whirlwind so far. With the kids birthdays and a bout with what may have been the flu, I can hardly remember what has happened. I turned 33 on the 10th though and the kids were very sweet to me! Ella saved her bake sale money and got me a sweet surprise! I love those kids!

Ella's birthday update

Last year, I got an idea from a friend to ask the kids a list of questions each year on their Birthday and see how their answers change each year. Here is Ella's new answers and HERE is a link to her old answers.
1. What is your favorite food.....sweets
2. What is your favorite subject/thing to do in school....music
3. What is your favorite thing to do at home....play with Luke
4. What do you want to be when you grow up......a teacher
5. What is your favorite book....Black Beauty
6. What is your favorite movie....Scamper the Penguin
 7. If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go? Colorado
8. If you could do anything you wanted right now what would you do... go get a dog
9. What was the best thing that happened while you were 6.....the 100th day of school celebration
10. What do you think will be great about being 7....I am able to help my mom in more ways.

 Dear Ella,
Another year has gone by and again you have amazed your father and I with how great you are! You are so smart and doing so great in school. But even more importantly, you are so nice and respectful to everyone you meet. We are so proud of you and love you more than we could ever say. Stay sweet and continue to work hard and you will have a great life! Thank you for being our little girl and Luke's awesome big sister!!
Love,
Mom and Dad

Ella's Spa party

Instead of having a big party for Ella this year, I told her that she could invite one friend to go to the spa with her. She was very very happy about this and asked if she could take her cousin Belle who lives in TX. Thankfully, Landry and Elizabeth were nice enough to bring her all the way up here so she could go with Ella. Ella was thrilled! She LOVES her cousin Belle. Saturday afternoon was the big day. I had arranged to have them open matching spa robes with their names embroidered in pink. They looked really cute!

 Elizabeth, Mims and I dropped the girls off at the spa around 2. Their mouths dropped open when the lady said she wanted to make it really special so it would probably be about 2 HOURS before they were done! While we waited for them to be done, the spa lady kept sending me pictures of the girls relaxing. They were so funny!

When we came to pick them up, they were letting their nails dry and just laughing it up. I think Belle summed up the day for them pretty well when she said, "Two hours with no moms and no boys! Nobody to control us! It was awesome!" Ha Ha!! They have life so rough! Ella thanked me about 100 times for her spa day so I know she had a great time. It wouldn't have been near as fun for her if Belle couldn't have gone with her so a BIG THANKS to Landry and Elizabeth for making the trip up!!

Happy 7th Birthday Ella!

As always, New Year's day has special meaning for us. Ella was born on New Year's day in 2006. So, not only do we get to welcome a new year, we also get to celebrate our little girl! We woke her up New Year's morning in her bed with a little surprise. Every year, I wake the kids up on their birthday with a little breakfast in bed and their birthday presents. Ella knew I was going to do this and kept talking about it the night before trying to guess what I was going to do for her. So, Luke and I played a little trick on her this year. We walked in to her room carrying the breakfast tray and a plate with a candle stuck in half an onion!! She yelled, "Mommy!" It was funny to see her reaction but even funnier watching Luke jump around waiting for her to see it! After the trick, we got her her real breakfast....chocolate ice cream!!! She was so excited!!

Not only did she get a surprise from Luke and I, but her daddy had woke her up before he left for work and gave her a very sweet gift. A beautiful gold cross necklace that he picked out just for her. A special gift from a very proud daddy. That night, we left her pick out what she wanted to eat for dinner. She picked Subway! Then we had cake and candles. We had to sing her Happy Birthday just one more time.

New Year's 2013

With the blackout this year, our New Year's Eve celebration seemed a little off but we still partied just the same. Lyle was in and out all day because he had to work but got to enjoy the festivities with us that night.
First we had to get the house in party mode. Ella helped me decorate.

Then we got out the party hats....I have used these same hats and horns for about three years now! The kids still love them!

After our Epic Mickey (our new Xbox's game) marathon, we got ready for the countdown. We lit sparklers and counted down the New Year in the back yard blowing our horns and singing away! Then we went it for our annual New Year's toast with "fancy" wine and called it a night! See ya later 2012! Welcome home 2013!!

Whiteout and Blackout of Christmas 2012

Christmas Day was going along perfectly! The kids were running from one toy to the next and Lyle and I were just enjoying it all....especially knowing Lyle had one more day off! The weather had been reporting that a record setting snowstorm was coming our way but we just waited for it to hit and didn't think much of it. Around 2pm, the ice started to fall and I looked at Lyle then and said, 'This could be bad." It wasn't until I put the pork loin in the oven around 4:30 did the power go out. We didn't panic at first. We thought surely it would come back on in a little while. We had a gas fireplace so the house stayed pretty warm. We just lit some candles, stuck the pork loin on the grill outside, and played some games in the dark. Little did we know, the power would not come back on for 4 more days!!

One good thing...the pork loin turned out better than it ever would have in the oven! I couldn't fix any of the other 5 side dishes I had planned on for our Christmas dinner but it was pretty good by itself!

We pulled the mattress into the living room in front of the fire and settled down for a long night around 8pm. Probably the earliest I have ever gone to sleep but not much you can do when the power is out after it gets dark. The kids thought is was awesome! It was fun for ONE night:)

The next morning we woke up to this in our back yard....a foot of snow! The kids were out in it by 7:30 am!

They played in it all day! Lyle helped them make a family of snowmen.

On the 27th, when the power still had not come back on and Lyle had to go to work, we decided to head to my parents' house and wait it out there. First we had to go over to my brother's house and feed his animals before we left town. Here is a pic of his house covered in a foot of snow.

The kids were thrilled to be going to their grandparents. They had a blast there and even got to go snow sledding. This is something I used to do as a kid growing up every winter. We would tie sleds behind our 4-wheelers and slide over the snow. It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed it as well. However, we did have a minor accident at the end that resulted in Ella getting a little scratched up but she was a trooper and can't wait to do it again!

They really did have more fun that it looks like in this picture:)

The power finally came back on Saturday, the 29th. So we headed home on Sunday. We had to get ready to celebrate a very special little girl's 7th birthday! I was never more happy to hear the sound of the dishwasher and laundry machine running in my house than I was on Sunday when we got back home!!