Pillow Talk

The boys have shared a room for well over a year now, and they really enjoy it!  I had many hesitations at first, some have come true, but overall it's been great!  They do sometimes wake each other up in the morning, they also talk and keep each other up at night sometimes, but they love their room and their time together. 
Now that Luke is really talking and able to have conversations it's fun to listen to them.  Friday night they were particularly talkative for some reason.  Carl was gone hunting, so I stood outside their door to listen for a minute, then listened more through the monitor.  A portion of their conversation went like this...
Isaac:  "Luke, when you go hunting, you hav to be quiet.  When the animal comes by you shoot it!  Bang!  Then get it and take out the meat.  Even if the animal is going to a party, just shoot it, bang!"
Luke:   "Is there cake at the party?"
Isaac:  "Yes, but you still shoot it.  Did you know that Ella didn't get one bite of her cake at her birthday party?  Her own cake at her own party, not one bite."
Luke:  "Oh, not one bite.  It make her sick?"

Ha ha!  I love the hunting explanation!  And then the way they go from one subject to another, it cracks me up!  These are precious times, full of sweet moments that I want to always remember!  I am so thankful that for right now, at this moment, they are the best of friends...I pray that they always keep this tight bond.

Disney on Ice

This past weekend Carl went hunting, so I had a long weekend with the kids.  I wanted to do something fun, so decided to take the boys to Disney on Ice with Kristin and Taylor.  I was a little hesitant as to how this would go, it could be a lot of fun or it could be scary and end badly.  Friday night while talking in their beds I heard the boys talking about the next day.  Luke asked, "Are we going to Disney World tomorrow?"  Isaac corrected him, "No, we're going to Disney on Ice."  Luke responded, "Oh, Disney World, Ice."  Ha! 

Well, as you can see from the pictures, they loved it!!!  It was a great show, with plenty of variety, and great music.  The show started with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Donald Duck...all characters they know and love!  Luke's face was priceless, he was mesmerized!  Then there were short versions of many Disney movies, including The Little Mermaid, Brave, Tangled, and Beauty and the Beast.  During The Little Mermaid they had Ursula, the octupus sea witch.  I was worried this would be scary, when she went off stage Isaac asked me if she would be coming back.  I told him no, thinking he was scared of her, but he suprised me and said, "I want her to come back."  After the show he told us she was his favorite part!  What!?!  I was not expecting that!  He also told us that he wants to be the Beast.  Not sure if that's because he was surrounded by smoke and then turned into a prince or if it's because he got the princess.  He won't give me the reason for wanting to be the beast.  Luke's favorite was Mickey...that did not suprise me. 

All three kids did so well, they were well behaved, enjoyed the show, and had a great time! 
I love that we made a fun memory with our special friends!

What a season...

 Isaac had a huge cheering section at his second to last game!

 On his way to score goal #5 of the game!

 Hannah taking Oma for a walk.  :-)

Happy soccer boy!

Isaac's first soccer season has come to an end, but what a fun season it was!  We are so thankful for the great friends he got to play with, and for the blessing of a wonderful coach!  Isaac had a blast, and completely surpassed all of our expectations.  I had heard so many stories about kids' first seasons of sports being painful and not any fun, so I was preparing myself for some struggles.  There was not any of that from our boy, he was always ready to play and anxious to get to the next practice or game.  Isaac is timid in every area of his life, well except driving, but this experience was so good for him!  He was the oldest on the team, but quite a few months, and I think this helped his confidence.  He quickly came out of his shell, and by the last game we convinced him that it was okay to be a little aggressive and to take the ball from other players.  On the way to the last game he told us he wanted to score a lot of goals, so we told him to go for it.  We talked it up, reminded him to run fast, get that ball away from others, and get it to the goal!  We really tried to pump him up.  He said that if he scored too much the coach would tell him to stop, so we told him to score until the coach told him not to.  Apparently our peptalk worked, the first whistle blew and Isaac was off, he immediately got the ball and ran straight for the goal scoring his first goal of the game.  I'm not even sure the other players knew the game had started.  Ha!  Well, that was just the start, he scored two more in the first two minutes!  Isaac was on fire!!!  The smile on his face was priceless!  He continued to play well, but did get tired towards the end.  He scored two more throughout the game, then as the last quarter was about to start he said he wanted one more, he wanted 6 goals.  I told him to go for it, and he did try, he missed two attempts, but ended the game with 5 goals.  We are so proud of him!!!  Isaac loved this season of soccer, he can't wait to play again!  I love seeing his joy for the game! 

 Coach Seth presenting him with his medal and trophy.

We ended the season with a team dinner, where each player was presented a medal and a trophy.  The trophy is really cool, it even has his name on it.  ;-)  Isaac was so excited about it!  Although apparently we need to work on his humility.  He said to me the other day, "Why is my trophy so small?"  I said, "Everyone got the same size trophy."  Isaac said, "Well, I scored so many goals."  "Oh, do you think you should have a bigger trophy since you scored so much?" I asked.  "Yes," was his answer.  Oh goodness, let's start working on being humble.  :-)

Easter 2013

 

Cousins celebrating Easter together.

Colton helping Isaac find a final egg.



 Hannah had her own personal egg "hunt" and she loved it!  She knew right away that she needed to put the eggs in her basket.

 Me and my silly boys after our egg hunt at home.



 Daddy and his little girl before church.

 Luke studying an egg during our egg hunt.

 Off to church!

Luke with his Easter basket, he was so excited!

 Isaac wearing his Easter best for his school Easter day.



 The boys ready for their first egg hunt of the year.  It was at a friend's house and they were so exctied!



Easter was a lot of fun this year. (sorry for the picture overload)  We started our celebrations a couple of weeks early with friends, so that got us in the spirit and focused.  The kids loved the egg hunts, of course!  Even Hannah got the hang of it.  We really tried to focus on the reason why we celebrate Easter.  Throughout the last couple of weeks we read books about Easter, read the story in their bible, and did some activities to focus our hearts and minds on the resurrection of Jesus.  My favorite activity is the Resurrection Eggs.  There are 12 eggs, each has a little something to take us through His death and resurrection.  It really breaks it down for the kids and includes scriptures to go along with it.  Isaac also did them at school, so he had it down, and felt like he could lead us through them.  It was fun to see him take that leadership.  We celebrated Saturday evening with the Griffin family, but unfortunately I forgot my camera.  It was a fun night of dinner, outside play, and of course an egg hunt.  Sunday we went to church, then home for an egg hunt, and nap.  After Hannah's nap we headed to Oma and Opa's house for some fun.  It was a great Easter, another great time to remember the sacrifice He made for us and that He lives.

Bluebonnets 2013

 This one reminds me of Little House on the Prarie!  Ha!

 She won't walk, but she can stand so well!

 This is my favorite picture of the night!

We live in Texas, which means we must take our kids out to a field of bluebonnets and take pictures.  Okay, but really, it's beautiful so I can't resist.  Last year we went out with the Henderson family to take pictures, so we decided to continue that this year, I think it's our new tradition.  :-)  We found a great park in The Woodlands this year, there was a playground nearby, so the kids cooperated for us and then were rewarded with some play time.  They had a great time...and we got some great pictures!  The kids were so silly in the flowers, trying to so hard to not smash the flowers.  At one point a random little boy ran our way, pulled down his pants and almost started to pee right by us!  The mom was very embarrassed and upset, but we thought it was really funny!  I love these pictures and I love that we share the fun time with some of our best friends!
After the park we decided to grab some dinner.  We went to a great little place in Tomball for some for grub and then got ice cream at a sweet little ice cream parlor next door.  It was a fabulous afternoon/evening, it was a great reminder of how something so simple can be so special!