January Randoms

Luke and Caleb learn that they can get balloons for free at Kroger. Now whenever we pull into the Kroger parking lot {even if we aren't actually going to Kroger} Caleb yells, "Yay! Boon!"


Nate had to do some work at Mammie and Boppa's. Caleb had to "help".


We took cows to the sale. Caleb LOVES "boos"! Of course the boys had to feed the cows that weren't loaded up on the trailer.






Daddy took the day off and Luke was out of school so we went to the park. It was super crowded, so instead we went exploring along the trail between Rose and Town Parks!


How Caleb watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse since we don't have cable.


Caleb helped empty the dishwasher.


Luke got a great report card for the 3rd six weeks, so we went to Purple Berri to celebrate.


The boys waiting for Daddy to get home from work! He is now doing the scheduling for Ken Man so he is at the shop during the days - which means he gets home at a more consistent time now. We all are very excited about that!

Luke Gets Sick

Luke ended up getting really sick during the second week of January. He had an upset stomach on Tuesday morning, so he stayed home from school. It's a good thing because he ended up throwing up, too. I immediately went into disinfection mode because I did NOT want anyone else to get the stomach bug. He was pretty out of it that day and spent most of the day on the floor watching TV with Daisy.


He seemed a little better on Wednesday but his stomach was still upset. So he stayed home from school again. We were hoping it was a 48 hour bug and that he would be back at school by Thursday. But then Thursday morning he slept until after 8 AM and immediately threw up after he woke up. I called the nurse at the doctor's office then and she said they needed to see him to make sure he didn't have strep throat. I scoffed when I hung up the phone, sure that there was no way he had strep throat. Since when does strep show up with stomach bug symptoms and no sore throat? But I took him in anyway.

I knew it was probably a good idea after he couldn't even make it out of the bathroom before he fell asleep.


And guess what?! He had strep throat! One dose of antibiotics and he felt MUCH better. The only downside was he had Friday and Monday off school for Martin Luther King day so he missed over a week of school!

20 Things About Our 20 Month Old

1. He calls us "Dad-ee", "Mom-eee" and "Dooo". He has called me Mommy for awhile; he made the transition to Daddy on Christmas Eve. Calling Luke "Dooo" came after Christmas.
2. He loves, loves, loves trains and all things "choo-choo". He is quickly becoming obsessed with Thomas; thankfully we had a wooden Thomas set from Luke. Within the first day of getting it out he played with it more than Luke ever has.
3. He also loves cars and will often play in his room by himself with his cars or trains. He loves his alone time!
4. He loves Mickey Mouse and the hot dog dance...he is following in Luke's footsteps and calling Mickey "hot dog". He started that all on his own.
5. He loves to sing and dance. Last week he got up on the hearth and performed his own version of the hot dog dance.
6. He is at the age where he has major conversations with us, but all in babble. We can tell he is telling us something important to him, but we have no idea what! We do know that he is going to be a talker like his big brother.
7. His favorite words right now are "uh oh" and "aw man".
8. He is not much of an eater, but he loves to snack. He doesn't eat big meals, but lots of various "snacks" throughout the day. His favorite foods are bananas, applesauce pouches, grapes, blueberries, apples, peanut butter on Ritz crackers, Teddy Grahams, pirate's booty, cheese sticks, yogurt, peas, spaghetti, and macaroni & cheese.
9. His favorite place is outside.
10. His word for drink is also "Dooo" so I have to use context clues to figure out which Dooo he is talking about.
11. He always waves at Mickey at the beginning of any Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode he watches.
12. He buckles any buckle he sees unbuckled...his carseat, his booster seat, Luke's backpack, etc.
13. He loves all animals, but doesn't say their names. Instead he calls them by what they say. Cows are "boos", chickens are "bawk bawks", pigs are "oink oinks", etc.
14. He pumps his arms when he runs and thinks he is moving sooo fast.
15. He has a major temper.
16. At the playground at school he loves to wallow in the wood chips. He is filthy every afternoon.
17. He loves balloons and calls them "boons" just like his big brother did at this age.
18. He is a major Daddy's boy! He is grumpy everyday from 5 PM until Daddy gets home!
19. His best friend is Kinley from next door; he calls her "Dee" (think Key). He also loves "Ee-ah" (Eva).
20. I can't remember the last time he slept past 5:30 AM. {Yawn}

Newest Member of the Family

Our neice Bayleigh Dawn was born in Houston on January 11, 2013. I ended up going to see her with my sisters-in-law Rebekah and Hannah on January 12. Nate was in Lake Tahoe on his annual Ken Man trip, so I took the boys to Dallas, picked the girls up in Corsicana, and we drove down to Houston and back that day. It was worth it getting to meet this sweet baby girl the day after she was born!



We had to get a picture of her in the hat that Jamie made. Precious!

Luke Goes to the Perot

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science opened right before Christmas in downtown Dallas. Mammie and Boppa decided to get memberships for themselves and the boys since the membership pays for itself within a few visits, and they couldn't wait to take Luke. Members get it early on Saturdays, so Luke spent the night on January 4th and they headed down early on January 5th. Luke was ecstatic to have "Mammie and Boppa time without Caleb" (his words!) so they could have just sat at the house and he would have been happy - but he loved his time at the museum, too.



The museum is truly amazing! There is so much to see and do that you can't get to it all in one day. Their focus today was the exhibits about weather for Mr. Meteorologist, the fossils/skeletons, and the sports area. As expected, Luke loved the weather stuff!




With all the skeletons.






He also enjoyed the section about minerals.




Over looking downtown Dallas with Mammie.


Riding up the cool escalator with Boppa.

Luke also loved the sports area. He got to race a cheetah and a football player {they both won} and see how his throwing a football compared to Roger Staubach. It sounds pretty cool! He can't wait to go back!

Caleb's Teeth Explosion

I knew it would happen, just didn't know when. My slow little teether is finally catching up! His fifth tooth came in about three months ago in October; it was his top right lateral incisor. We've been able to see teeth under swollen gums since his first birthday, and now - finally - they are coming in. On Christmas Day I noticed his bottom right lateral incisor had broken through the gums and that the bottom left was close behind, but not quite there yet. Today (January 4) his bottom left lateral incisor is officially in, and so is his top left lateral incisor. So he went from five to eight teeth in 10 days. I thought that was amazing...until I was changing his diaper tonight and saw that his first molar is partially in, too! There's one corner of his top right molar in. I'm hoping that this teeth explosion may be the culprit to his early waking lately, but I'm not holding my breath.

Getting Crafty

Something strange has been happening to me lately. I've gotten a {little} crafty! I didn't think I would ever be able to say that. But for some reason, I have been able to make things on Photoshop lately that have not been ugly. And some have actually been my own inspiration!

A lot of what I've done lately has been inspired by Pinterest, though. Including the teacher gift I made for Luke's teacher. It's a dry erase board - just a picture frame, scrapbook paper, and scrapbook stickers. She likes animal prints, so I was lucky to find some vellum zebra paper and layered it over red cardstock. I wish I had taken a picture of it finished, but use your imagination. I tied raffia around it and clipped two dry erase markers to the raffia. I also enclosed a Starbucks gift card.



I also wanted to do something for the enrichment teachers at Luke's school. They have such an impact on all the students, but I know they don't always get the same recognition from parents that the classroom teachers get. I also got this idea from Pinterest, personalized soap bottles. I created my own image, printed on transparency paper at Staples, and then put them inside the soap bottles. I used Softsoap Coconut and Warm Ginger that I got at Dollar Tree.

All the teachers got "labels" that said kind hands, teaching hands, patient hands, serving hands, loving hands, busy hands, fun hands, sharing hands, happy hands, protective hands, caring hands and gentle hands. The coaches said athletic hands at the top; the art teacher artistic hands; the music teacher musical hands; the librarian reading hands; the technology teacher technological hands (not my best work but couldn't think of anything else!) I made up labels and Luke signed each one. A little too big, but whatever. The finished product looked like:


I also made ornaments using this as inspiration. I made one using our family picture and on the back had our 2012 highlights. The one using Luke's picture had his achievements for each month of the year. The one with Caleb's picture had what he loves, eats, and says on the back. I haven't been good at documenting that stuff for him, so I wanted to at least have it on something! I used can lids since my can opener cuts the whole lid off with no sharp edges. Printed them out on cardstock, cut them out, and mod podged together. I painted the can lids black with spray paint and then hot glued them together with ribbon in the middle. Easy, peasy! And SO cute, I think.


Since my sister-in-law is so close to having her baby, they didn't travel home for our family Christmas. So we put together a care package for them. I included this ornament using the sonogram picture she sent me for her baby shower stuff. The other side has Psalm 139:13-14 on the back - For You created my inmost being, You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. This one may have been my favorite and it makes me want to go back and make ones from when my kids were in my belly!


I also made Christmas cards for myself, my friends Jamie and Michelle, and my mom. I'll share those later.

Trains at NorthPark

New Years Day we went to see the Trains at NorthPark. After seeing Caleb's reaction to the short preview he saw when we visited Santa, we knew he would love it. And we were right! He was absolutely enthralled the entire time we were there. He kept waving at the trains as they passed by and would always say, "Oh! Choo choo!" when he saw one. It was precious.



In true Luke fashion, he was over it within five minutes. He was patient for a little bit, but then Daddy had to take him walking around the mall because Caleb was not ready to leave.


They both liked watching the Thomas train go by, though.


I had thrown in one of Caleb's Thomas trains, he loved that, too.


Waving as a train passed by.

New Year's Eve

This year we spent New Year's Eve with the Hadash family. We went to their house, had ham, black eyed peas, cabbage and cornbread for dinner, and hung out until midnight. It was the first year we have stayed up until midnight in a long time! The littlest ones went to bed by 8 PM, the oldest by 10 PM. It was a fun night and I know the kids had a great time playing together.

Ready for dinner!


They were so excited to stay up later than their little brother and sister!