Let's P-ARRRR-ty Mateys!

It didn't take Luke long to decide what kind of birthday party he wanted this year.  After dressing as Captain Hook for Halloween and finding out about "Jake and the Neverland Pirates", and then getting the book "How I became a pirate" - he settled on...wait for it.  Pirates! It was our first "drop off" party, meaning parents got to drop off their kiddos while we shivered me timbers.  Of course we went on a treasure hunt and then go lots of tattoos, because that's what pirates do.  Then we had a meal fit for a pirate including Pirate PB&J, Pirate Booty and fruit (well, even pirates need to be a little healthy).  Luke chose a cookie cake this year which I happily agreed with.  We even had a pinata full of tasty pirate loot thanks to our buddy P. Horton.  And then to shake up all that food and candy, Luke got a trampoline for his birthday that all the pirates had a blast on.  It was a great time to be treasured indeed!

 Party Table

 Cookie Cake was delish!!

 Looking for buried treasure.

My favorite superhero turns 5

Dear Luke Sawyer,
Today you turn 5 years old. This is such a big milestone for me.  I feel like you are shutting the door on your "babyhood" completely.  Although you've been quite the big boy for awhile, you are certainly all boy these days.  Here are my 5 most favorite things about you as you're turning 5 years old:
1. Your sweet heart: You have such a tender heart.  Of course you are quite busy and have you're moments, but so often I get to witness your concern for others and how much you love and care for your friends and family.  My prayer is that you always have this tenderness towards others, I know I will always have it for you.
2. Your vivid imagination: It is so fun to watch you building with your blocks and create scenes and dialog to go along with your creations.  Reid is so appreciative of this too and joins in as much as possible. Costumes are a must have everyday and there are usually several changes throughout the day into different characters.  You have decided being the "bad guy" is more fun than the hero, but you sure make nice bad guys.
3. Your quest for ALL the details: I think this is a straight you inherited from your mother who got it from Papa.  You want to know ALL the details there are to know about any situation, or any plans we might have, or where something originated from, or what is going to happen next.  It does make for a lot of questions, which sometimes is trying as your mom, but at the same time, I love seeing your sort through facts and coming to all sorts of conclusions on your own.
4. Your desire to make everyday a "FUN" day: This you certainly inherited from your Dad.  He loves to have fun events on the horizon and so do you. We start everyday and end everyday with a plan and you are pretty disappointed if something "fun" isn't included. I think it's what motivates you through the day, but it does help mommy to remember to incorporate some fun things into our busy life.  If you could have the ultimate fun day, I would guess it would involve friends, grandparents, a pool, Disneyworld, watching a movie, going to Chick Fil A and dressing up as a bad guy.  Maybe one day we'll squeeze it all in.
5. That you are "fearfully and wonderfully made": Everyday, even if for just a split second, I am reminded because of you, of our Heavenly Father, who made all of us and loves us infinitely more than we can imagine.  Being your mom reminds me of this love because even through your faults (and mine), and  the pains and trials you go through, I still love you more each day.  You are such a precious treasure to me and my heart would not be complete without you.  I'm so honored that God picked me to be your mom and parent you alongside with Daddy.  My ultimate prayer is that you become aware of HIS love at a young age and that you can take these above qualities and spread HIS love like wildfire.  I know you would be amazing at it.
We love you "LittleFoot" and celebrate the past 5 years, but look forward to watching you grow and learn in the many, many years to come!

Happy 5th Birthday Luke!

Catching up in 2012

For all 4 readers of our family blog, I apologize for my backlog of post. But they're up and hopefully you will get a small sense of what we've been up to this past holiday season. Probably the main reason I'm so behind is that I haven't been feeling 100%. Mostly nauseous and tired. And probably due to our little one due to arrive July 2.

Meet Moshell Baby #3!!

We're so excited, a lot nervous and anxiously awaiting his arrival. Early sonograms indicate there's a strong chance we're getting all the boy stuff out again. Hopefully I'll do a better job this year keeping everyone posted on our life events. Happy 2012!

Christmas 2011

I feel so bad for not posting more Christmas pictures...it's because I didn't take many Christmas pictures! The season was wonderful and memorable, I just didn't capture digitally as I would have liked to. However, here are the pictures we did get and hopefully they'll spur memories for years to come.

We had Luke's preschool Christmas program. He did much better singing this year, and even added a little choeography, when there wasn't any. It made him much easier to pick out of the crowd. He's the one with his hands raised.

"Put your hands in the air and wave 'em like you just don't care!"

We kept putting off visiting Santa and then when we tried at Santa's Village it was over a 90 minute wait. No thanks! We ended up visiting him right by our house at Watters Creek. We walked in, said hi, took pictures with our own camera and walked out with our candy canes. It was the easiest Santa visit ever! And the kiddos loved getting to see his "reindeer" mobile that he uses while the reindeer are resting up.

Sweets

Was so happy to tell Santa he wanted a Batman castle, a football helmet and submarine for Christmas.

Reid not so much a Santa fan. :) (Mom annoyed she's sitting on some old guys lap).

We went to the Soup Mobile's "Celebrate Jesus" party at the Hyatt downtown and helped welcome our homeless friends to their hotel for the night. It was a good night for them to be inside, because it was coooold and wet! Luke had a great time high-fiving all the dudes and it was a great experience for him letting him know how we were trying to help others less fortunate.

We went to a beautiful Christmas Eve service at church. It was my favorite so far. The music was wonderful and the message perfect. It's always my favorite part of Christmas. Afterwards, we all went home to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and play games. Miss Martha and Mr. Jim came over, which we loved getting to share the evening with them.

Batman undies to open wished for Batman castle!

So many presents (see Batman costume that was promptly put on to play with the new castle).

Christmas was a blur of presents and excited kiddos and lots of family and food! Good times were had, but we can truly say it's a good thing Christmas only comes once a year, because it took us two weeks to recover! Bring on the new year!

Christmas Pictures

By REM

In an attempt to get the perfect Christmas card picture, we rounded up the boys and took them to the train depot in old Plano. It's such a great park, even without the train! There are awesome playgrounds and a beautiful pond and gazebo there. However, there was a wedding that afternoon, so we had to keep the giggles to a minimum as we were shooting...trying to get smiles. It was a little difficult. However, fun was had and some cute pictures were taken! I highly recommend you check out this park on a pretty day, it's awesome!

All aboard!

One last look for any latecomers.

Checking out what brother is up to.

My sweet fellas.

The way brothers show they love each other.

Taking a break.

Let's play!

Contemplative

The End.

We are Thankful!

I love how they had rugby shirts when they came to America on the Mayflower.

We are thankful for so, so many things. One of them being Daddy's opportunity to go to Honduras this year (I should let him guest post that trip), and Gigi coming to stay with us for 7 days to help out while he was gone. She was a LIFESAVER! And a lot of fun! :)

Not only does Gigi want to cook, iron, watch boys, sleep in Luke's room with him...she also went to Luke's Thanksgiving parade at school. He was a handsome pilgrim this year. They had a wonderful little parade and then a feast with their class.

What a way to celebrate things we are thankful for!

Luke placemat he made (of course with the Star Wars lunch box).

Dining with friends.
Here come the turkeys! I loved their costumes!
Pretty pilgrim.
Pierce the pilgrim.

Ghoulish Fun for Halloween 2011

Best of 987 pictures taken

Since summer, Luke has known who he was going to be for Halloween. His favorite villain (we're so into bad guys right now)...Captain Hook! Nana found a fantastic costume at the Disney store and he has worn that thing everyday since it arrived. I wanted Reid to "coordinate", but since Luke had already been Peter Pan, we decided to go with Hook's nemesis...The Crocodile! Plus, this will probably be the last year I get to pick Reid's costume, so I went with it. He was the cutest little croc, and Luke a perfect Hook. We took advantage of the church's Fall Festival, and Luke went on several bounce houses which was a first this year. Reid road the choo-choo (of course), and they got lots of candy (good candy...hee, hee!).

"Where's the candy mom?"

Cutest pirate I've ever soon. But don't tell him that!

Pumpkin seeds...slimy!

Carving the great pumpkin!

Then on Halloween night we invited our tried and true fellow trick or treators the Widmers and Reddings over for some candy hunting! The big kids had a blast and the littles were too cute following along. It was a successful evening and we all ate ourselves silly on sugar. Or maybe that was just me after the boys were in bed. :)

Our first broken bone

It was inevitable. We have kids. We have two boys. We have two somewhat clumsy and adventurous boys. I just didn't think it would happen this soon, at least not to our recently turned 2 year old. Aye! It was a Monday evening and I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready, while the boys played upstairs. Reid has been "stair friendly" for over six months now, so we don't have any baby gates up anymore. Aye! He decided he needed to bring his Thomas the Train ride on toy from the upstairs to the downstairs. I didn't see him start at the top of the stairs, but I saw him at the landing, which is where he landed. I'm assuming he was pulling Thomas behind him and of course it plowed him down the stairs. He made it down 10 stairs. That's a lot. Especially when you're two feet tall. Needless to say there were a lot of tears. Reid of course was scared to death. I was so worried he had a head or brain injury of sorts. Luke was so worried and scared too. It was not fun. I checked him over a few times, especially for head "dents" and pushed on him to see if I could tell if there was internal bleeding (I don't know, I just thought I might be able to tell if there was), and after I got him settled with a snack and ice pack, decided to keep an eye on him. He thankfully didn't have any lethargy or vomiting, so I ruled out head injuries, but he did keep holding his left arm. However, he didn't seem to be in any pain and was still using it to drink with, play with, eat with....so I thought maybe he sprained it. Then when he was getting up off the floor and used that arm to get it, he started crying. He was so sad. I told Ross he needed to go get an x-ray and they were off. Thankfully Ross was happy to take him because I was worried I wouldn't hold up if they had to do anything too painful. They got home an hour later (Thank you Acute Kids Allen!), and he had a broken wrist. Thankfully it's not a bad break, but a fracture. They put him in a little splint (Red, cute, like Reid) and said he would need a cast. 4 days later I took him in and they put on his full arm cast (didn't see that one coming) and we picked maroon. Good thing too, it was just in time to support the Aggies beat the Raiders the next day. Coincidence? I don't think so. He has to wear it for a month and should be able to go cast free after that. All through this I am amazed at what a little trooper he is! He doesn't even act like he has it except when he occasionally points at it and says "boo, boo." Bath time is a little bit of a pain, but not terrible. And we are avoiding sandboxes, but other than that, it's not been too bad. More than anything we are so very, very thankful that was his only injury after such a scary fall. God certainly was watching over him and we remember that often.

"Ain't nothin' gonna slow me down...oh no. I got to keep on movin'!"