P + B = 3

Parker and Brooks are 3! Their vocabularies are exploding by the day, they're potty trained (finally!), and their little personalities are becoming even more distinct and unique.

They've both stolen my heart in completely different ways. They are SUCH a joy to us (even if they do make me want to pull my hair out at times!). I cannot believe how blessed we are.

Since this was their 3rd birthday, they got to do their very first Birthday Questionnaire! It has been one of my very favorite things we've done with Laney, and I'm excited to do it with the boys, now, too. We made each of them answer the questions without the other one present to avoid copy-cat answers. Hysterically, though, many of their answers were still very similar. They've got crazy little twin ESP stuff going on, y'all!

Parker's 3rd Birthday Questionnaire!

What is your favorite color? black and green

What is your favorite toy? my trucks and Woody

What is your favorite food? I don't wanna talk about food

What is your favorite TV show? Paw Patrol

What is your favorite song? Lion King (the Circle of Life)

What is your favorite book? Go, dog, go

What is your favorite hobby? play-doh

Who is your best friend? Bowen and Daddy

What do you want to be when you grow up? fireman

What kind of car do you want to drive when you grow up? a fire truck

Brooks' 3rd Birthday Questionnaire!

What is your favorite color? blue

What is your favorite toy? my Giraffey

What is your favorite food? cheese

What is your favorite TV show? Paw Patrol

What is your favorite song? Frozen (Let it Go)

What is your favorite book? Go, dog, go

What is your favorite hobby? baseball

Who is your best friend? Daddy

What do you want to be when you grow up? I wanna work at the Cookie Shop

What kind of car do you want to drive when you grow up? a fire truck

Class Christmas Gifts

We got crafty this year and, with the help of those under-utilized Pinterest boards I've been amassing, made some little Christmas gifts for the kids to give their classmates. Actually, I made them. Ha. It always sounds like a great idea to have the kids "help," but it never works out as well as you'd hope. I let Laney "help" me make the play-doh for this gift last year and we ended up with some fingers that looked like this (she's still terrified of the stove!). I. felt. so. bad.

So, this year, I did it all during nap time and it went off without a hitch. Laney gave her friends gingerbread scented play-doh with a cookie cutter for playing. It was super cute! We also made a huge batch for us to play with over the holidays and the kids absolutely loved it.

Parker gave his friends "Reindeer Antlers" and Brooks gave his friends "Reindeer Noses." I seasoned some tiny pretzels for antlers and used whoppers and a cherry drop for the nose. They got such a kick out of them and were so excited to carry them into MDO. I hope they still like my little home-made gifts as much when I'm trying to make them for their 16-year-old friends! HA!

Laney is 4!

Ok. Pretend this post isn't 2 months late.

We celebrated Laney Lou turning FOUR YEARS OLD with a small get-together at the pedicure salon and then walked next door to get some frozen yogurt. I think all the girls had a blast! I know Laney did. It's always such a busy time of year. We call it "fall frenzy." School starts, gymnastics starts, ballet starts, we do family pictures, Laney's birthday happens, Halloween happens, and then it's on to the big holidays. I'm going to have to get better at planning her parties earlier on. I'm just glad we got this on the books this year.

Just like last year, Laney completed a birthday questionnaire. Here are her answers at 4-years-old:

1. What is your favorite color? pink & purple (that answer has been a main stay)

2. What is your favorite toy? my unicorn beanie baby

3. What is your favorite fruit? apples

4. What is your favorite TV show? Dora the Explorer

5. What is your favorite thing to eat at lunch? macaroni-n-cheese

6. What is your favorite outfit? a turtle neck (Really?? I'm sure Dad will remind you of this in years to come.)

7. What is your favorite game? ring around the rosie

8. What is your favorite snack? chips

9. What is your favorite animal? an elephant

10. What is your favorite song? "my song" (Peng! 33 by Iron & Wine...another solid answer)

11. What is your favorite book? The Little Mermaid

12. Who is your best friend? Kiley & Gage

13. What is your favorite cereal? Fruit Loops

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? jump on the trampoline

15. What is your favorite drink? apple juice

16. What is your favorite holiday? Easter

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? "my duck, night night baby & all sorts of things"

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? cereal

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? cake

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? a police woman

Our 2 are TWO!

Happy 2nd birthday, Parker & Brooks!

We had some pictures taken to document the occasion. I'm planning on doing a long post about how proud I am of our little boys individually and how far they've come in that past 2 years. But let's be serious. That may never happen. So I've got to at least get these adorable photos up on the ole blog for you to see. Brooks cried nearly the whole time, so we have very few of him by himself. And he wouldn't even touch the cake. Oh, Brooks. Luckily, though, the photographer was one of my friends and had brought her daughter with her. So she stepped in and participated in Brooksie's place. We're going to try to force them to get married one day so we can have cute pictures of them feeding each other cake at age 2 in the wedding slide shows. Is there a better reason to wed?

Sew Excited

One of the things I got for Christmas was a new SEWING MACHINE! I'm thrilled. My old one just flat out died. I think.

Y'all, this thing is crazy. It's not super expensive, but makes me feel like my old machine was from another century. Look at all this stuff, though:

Don't they know I'm too busy and lazy for all these instruction manuals? And this is even after I threw all the Spanish ones away. Great. I'll just spend all my free time (time in between cleaning hot dog juice off the floor and wiping hinies) over the next year reading these suckers and I'll be ready to start sewing come 2014.

Seriously, though, this thing better be able to sew my projects by itself while I'm sleeping.

But I'm not the only one who made out like a bandit this Christmas. Laney, Parker & Brooks got cars, trucks, lawn mowers, Lilly Pulitzer dresses, shoes, shopping carts, Dream Lites, microphones, and much much more. They also got to spend the holidays with 2 families that are down right crazy about them and would do anything in the world to see them happy. We are so BLESSED. It kinda makes me want to cry.

Christmas Bow Ties

I'm still going through all my pictures from Christmas. I just came across these, though, and couldn't resist posting them.

I made the boys some Christmas bow ties a while back and wanted to take some pictures of all the kids dressed up fancy. The plan was to maybe even put one on our Christmas card. That didn't happen because we got zero good pictures. Well that's if you count a "good" picture as one where all three kids are looking and smiling. We tried and tried until I was past the point of frustration and Marshall was begging me to stop for everybody's sanity. Ha.

But how can you stay mad at these cuties?

Giant Jenga

Hi! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! I'm in the process of sorting through millions hundreds of pictures to find the ones I want to post and remember most. But I wanted to stop in now to show you this little hand-made gift of ours that turned out awesome.

We made my father-in-law a Giant Jenga set. And by "we" made it, I really mean I had the great idea and Marsh did most of the work. Sorry, honey. But, seriously, it was pretty easy and works great! It is the perfect gift for that man in your family that doesn't need anything, doesn't want anything, and doesn't need another tie (or is a Cowboy like mine and doesn't wear ties at all).

Here's how we did it:

1. CUT YOUR BLOCKS. First, I bought three of the longest 2 X 4's available at our Home Depot. Then, I had a guy there cut them into 10.5 inch segments. They were long enough to get 18 blocks out of each of the three original pieces, which made for 54 blocks in all. He was SO NICE and didn't even charge for the cutting. I think the lumber only ended up costing $27 in all! Here's what they looked like when I brought them home from the store and stacked them up in the garage:

2. SAND YOUR BLOCKS. Here's where Marshall was really hating me at first. He sat there with our orbital sander between his knees for hours sanding each of the 54 blocks. Janson, Laney and I kept him company, though, and took some pictures, of course. He finally got in a rhythm and got it done quicker than we originally thought it would take. He lightly sanded each of the 6 faces of the block and then heavily sanded the edges and corners. You want to be able to run your hand over the block without getting splinters. I had read online that we would need to sand them first with 80 grit paper AND THEN with 220 grit to make them even smoother. But we only had time to do them once with the 80 grit paper and it was fine. Plus, they will get smoother as the game is played over and over.

And that's it! After that, we just put them in a large Rubbermaid bin and stuck a tacky little sticky bow on top of it. I think Papa D (my father-in-law) was kind of confused when we first gave it to him, but when all the kids went to sleep and we were able to go outside and play it, he LOVED it. Check out how there's only one block left on the bottom row in this game we played. Hold your breath!

Christmastime

Hello there. I haven't forgotten about you. It's always this time of year that I get busy, stop blogging and get so behind that I don't even want to start back up. So I'm just here to say hi.

With two 18-month-olds around, we haven't done much decorating. Our tree is up but bare. No snow globes are out. We're lucky the stockings haven't already been ripped off the mantle. But what a fun Christmas it will be! We can't wait to spend time with family, exchange gifts, and experience the "magic" with our little ones. What I'm looking forward to most is taking our kids to the Christmas Eve candle light service at our church. We're getting to experience the beginnings of teaching them about a Savior that was born long ago, died for them, and is integrally important to their current lives. It's special. And important. And wonderful. What a precious gift.

Oh and we already saw Santa while we were in Dallas at the Galleria. Laney told him that she wanted "a pink car, a purple airplane, and a REAL doctor's kit." She has not wavered in these requests. Needless to say, I'm still on the hunt for a purple airplane. I'm starting to think I may have to involve some spray paint.

Check out these pictures. Priceless.

Put on your ears, It's time for CHEERS!

We had Laney's birthday party this Saturday at the kid's area of the Grace Museum. It was Mickey & Minnie themed (we watch a lot of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse around here) and turned out so great! Since big girl is growing up and actually has friends to invite to a party, it's no longer an adult occassion. I'll admit, it was a little weird that I didn't invite all my friends from out of town. Things are a-changing.

But we had a great turn-out and it was a blast to see Laney interact with all her friends! She. had. so. much. fun. This party has been a long time coming for her. Since her birthday is so close to Halloween, we always run into the question of when to have her party. I didn't get my act together to plan it for the weekend before Halloween, so we did it the weekend after. So, she's been looking forward to this party for seriously like 3 weeks, now, which to a 3-year-old seems like a thousand years!

It's so hard for little ones to understand this birthday party stuff, especially when it's a party for somebody else. Before each party we attend, I have a nightmare of Laney bursting into tears when she can't blow out the candles and uncontrollably ripping open all of some other kid's presents while I stand in the corner dying of embarrassment. So, I always ask her the same questions when we're in the car on the way there: Whose party is this? {She answers} Who are we going to sing happy birthday to? {She answers} Who gets to open all the presents? {She answers}

On the way to her party that day, though, she got so excited and said, "Mommy! Today I'm gonna blow out the candles and I'm gonna open all the presents and everybody is gonna sing happy birthday to ME!" So precious!

We had tons of decorations and balloons and, of course, homemade Mickey & Minnie ears for everybody! {A big thanks to Grandmama for taking some long shifts with that glue gun.}

 Also, I've always wanted to make a birthday cake, so against my better judgement, I stayed up until 2 AM making one. I'm so glad I finally did it, but can't say I'll be opening a bakery anytime soon.

Just like anything that involves 3-year-olds, it was chaos. Wonderful, wonderful chaos. I'll miss this chaos dearly when it passes. (Check out the dad in the back wearing Mickey ears. Yesss.)

 And THE best friend, MyLeigh, got to come play! We don't see her much anymore because she goes to Laney's old school. So, anytime they see each other, they're attached at the hip!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LANEY LOU! I'm so so proud of you for how you've handled all that's been thrown at you in your 3 short years of life. You're the most wonderful daughter, the most loving big sister, and the smartest little girl in the world! YOU ARE LOVED MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE!

Boo.

Trick-or-Treat 2012 was a success! This was the first year that it was actually fun. I'm pretty sure Laney thought it was the best night of her life.

Of course, a good picture of them all together was far too much to ask. Laney tried.

But we all had a BLAST! There's even talk of a decorated trailer complete with lights, music, and lots of friends for next year. Having kids makes the holidays so much fun. The magic has returned!

She's 3!

Laney Bug, Laney Lou, Laney Girl, Pumpkin Butt. It doesn't matter what you call her...she's 3! She has been for a few days now, actually.

I. Can't. Believe it.

 

Here are her answers to her very first Birthday Questionnaire that we did on her actual birthday. She took this little interview very seriously. Some of these answers absolutely crack me up! I can't wait to see how they change through the years!

1. What is your favorite color? pink & purple

2. What is your favorite toy? my new truck

3. What is your favorite fruit? popsicles (oranges were a close 2nd)

4. What is your favorite TV show? Little Einsteins

5. What is your favorite thing to eat at lunch? cheese sticks & chicken nuggets

6. What is your favorite outfit? a party dress

7. What is your favorite game? Dora (on the iPad)

8. What is your favorite snack? marshmallows

9. What is your favorite animal? an elephant

10. What is your favorite song? "my song" (Peng! 33 by Iron & Wine)

11. What is your favorite book? my Bible

12. Who is your best friend? MyLeigh

13. What is your favorite cereal? cherry (haha?)

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play house

15. What is your favorite drink? Coke

16. What is your favorite holiday? Halloween

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? my lamb & bears

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? a "brepast" bar

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? hotdogs on the fire

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Abby Cadabby

Handmade Halloween

I love Halloween. Cute costumes, trick-or-treating, and the overall beginning of "the holidays." Every other time of year, I end up talking myself out of gimmicky outfits and costume pictures of the kids. For Halloween, though, we go all out! I feel like it's such a fun part of being little.

This year, my crew is going as Sesame Street characters. I decided on this because of a special request from a special little girl to be Abby Cadabby. For now, at least, I can default the boys to whatever matches Laney's costume. I'm doing this while I can, because I know before too long they'll insist on being a cheerleader, a ninja turtle, and a zombie. Or some other similar combination that doesn't coordinate at all. And I guess I'll have to let them. Sigh.

But back to now. I'm so excited about this little Halloween trio! And since I have this new love for crochet, I decided to make some Elmo and Cookie Monster hats using this pattern. They were way cheap to make. {It shouldn't be hard for you to guess which little chunky monkey is going to be Cookie Monster!} I planned on making the Abby Cadabby one, too, but chickened out last minute and ordered it from the lady who sells the patterns. It looked too difficult for my beginner skills. After seeing it in real life, though, I should have gone for it. Oh, and I also made a tutu for the Abby costume. It's the first tutu I've ever made, but it was SO EASY and fun to make.

I'm completely anticipating that the kids will not cooperate or sit still for a picture once they're all dressed up, so I'm just going to show you the hats beforehand. On some footballs. Because they can't run away.

SIDE NOTE:

Our church asked us to seriously consider whether or not our families should participate in this holiday considering its roots in the occult (in a flyer, not like personally contacted our specific family haha). And I completely understand where the church leadership is coming from on this. I absolutely believe in satan and demons and spiritual warfare. I can really see both sides of this issue. It's certainly something I'll think about and pray about as our kids get older!