Wrapping up 2013!

The last two months of 2013 were filled with lots of fun activities. Ever since we moved to Texas, we've always gone camping in November with some of our friends. Just being able to comfortably camp in November is a luxury we didn't have in Ohio or Utah, so we're definitely trying to take advantage of it.

 Marcie and the boys enjoying some "fresh" hot dogs.

 Although not exactly roughing it, camping with an air mattress and a pack-and-play is the only way we actually get any sleep when we camp. On this year's trip, the coyotes were pretty loud and unnervingly close to our campsite.

 On a morning hike..

...followed by some excellent canoeing.

Our good friends Jeremy and Amanda came and visited us from Dallas. We always have a good time when they come, but this year Jeremy invented a new kind of game. Those who have been to our house know that our driveway is rather steep. This had always made it hard for the kids to ride bikes in front of our house...but this game wasn't for the kids. :) The challenge was to see which adult could coast furthest down the sidewalk on Spencer's tricycle, but you were only allowed to pedal for the first 5 feet. It was a ton of fun (and a surprisingly good workout) and resulted in lots of funny pictures.

 The game started at the front door; here's Jeremy with the boys before he started one of his runs.

 After crossing the no-pedal line, you start coasting...

 ...then round the corner onto the sidewalk and see how far you could get!

 Brant with Spencer, Gavin, and Adelle.

A failed attempt down the other side of the sidewalk.

Marcie with Spencer.

Brant scored some free tickets to an A&M basketball game from one of his colleagues, so he and Spencer had a great trip. They came home at halftime (it was a night game), but it was lots of fun.

We got tons and tons of rain this November. The boys absolutely loved going outside and playing in the rain. While our boys normally don't like getting muddy and dirty, this is one instance where all the rules go out the window. It's fun to watch them play.

When it's sunny outside, the boys love to all play on the driveway. Football, soccer, and frisbee are the current favorite sports.

For the third year in a row, we celebrated Thanksgiving with our friends the Smiths. The kids all play well and we have a great time. It's crazy to think that we've only got one more Thanksgiving left in College Station!

This year, Marcie made the runner out of craft paper so everybody could write what they were thankful for. This was Spencer's message--it earned him some extra ice cream!

After Thanksgiving, Troy and Brant went to Walmart for some special deals on Christmas presents. Although we didn't plan on it, we ended up with a pretty sweet deal on a full-size trampoline! Because the weather was still warm and we couldn't hide it until Christmas, Brant set it up the next day. The boys have loved it and spend hours a day outside.

Christmas this year was pretty relaxed and low-key. We enjoyed spending time together as a family, playing games, and trying to keep the kids busy while Spencer was off from school. Brant took a few days off from work, and it was a great few weeks.

One of our family traditions is to read a Christmas book every night before bed. Here we are reading the Polar Express.

 Spencer has grown accustomed to Santa...Gavin still isn't sure...and Tyler (obviously) is not a fan.

 Spencer had a Christmas party at school, and Gavin was invited! It was the highlight of his week.

What's Christmas without Gingerbread houses?!

Marcie and the boys at Santa's Wonderland. The 30-minute hay ride and lights show was awesome!

 After opening presents Christmas morning, Brant and the boys made cookies and then took them to the fire station around the corner since they had been at work all day away from their families. It was the best part of the day. The firemen were excited, and they even let the boys get inside and on top of the fire truck! A new tradition was born.

Halloween (and too many pictures)!

Here's Tyler in his way cute giraffe costume (same one our other two boys wore when they were one). I just have a problem deciding which picture to use since I think they're all cute. Back in the day when I had a camera with actual film, I would take one, maybe two, pictures of each thing and hope for the best when I got the film developed a few weeks later. I love that now with a digital camera I don't have to wait to know if a picture turned out, but in order to make sure I get a 'good one' I take a ton of pictures of each pose. I plan to go through them and delete all but the one or two best ones. The problem is, I have the hardest time deleting any of them. Each picture shows a little part of a child's personality or a little part of our stage of life right now. I officially took 10 pictures of Tyler alone in his giraffe costume. I deleted one easily because it was a blurry blob of brown and yellow, but I can't decide which ones to keep/delete from the rest of them. None show him sitting perfectly still, smiling at the camera, but each one shows something about him that I love. In most he's trying to get away and then he'll stop and look back at me. In the last one he's trying to pull off his costume because he wants to hold his ear (which he does all the time) and was getting frustrated that he couldn't find it. I should just take one or two pictures of each pose so I don't have to decide between so many. 

Here are the five pictures I took of Spencer trying out the Heisman pose for the camera. He had such a hard time figuring out which leg goes up and which arm goes where. He finally got a 'good' pose and I love the look on concentration on his face. 

Here's Pirate Gavin. He just looks so cute in all of his pictures!

Our boys were super excited for trick-or-treating! It was so hard to wait until it was almost dark before we could head out. They got a ton of candy with trunk-or-treat on Wednesday night and trick-or-treating the next night. I love that the boys are still at the age where they share all of their candy with their parents. Unfortunately, I can't eat any for a few weeks since I just had mouth surgery, but Brant is pretty happy to have first dibs. :) Happy Halloween!

Sydney, Australia!

Brant and I had the chance of a lifetime to take a trip together to Australia. He presented one of his papers at two different universities and had a week between presentations to see the sights in Sydney. I thought I'd join him and I'm so glad I did. He left Tuesday morning and presented at the first university on Friday (which was really Thursday in Texas since it's 16 hours ahead there). I left Thursday morning and got there Saturday morning. It was a 32 hour trip so I was really glad when I met Brant at the airport and then we took the train to our hotel. We couldn't check in for a few hours so we left our bags there and took the bus to the Harbor. It was incredible! Brant and I just kept looking at each other because we couldn't believe we were in Sydney. 

One of the first places we went to at the Harbor was the Sydney Opera House. It was magnificent. 

We spent a long time walking along the Harbor and there's an amazing Botanical Garden that we spent an afternoon exploring. 

This is the bus stop outside of our hotel. We took the bus to the main Harbor everyday to catch a ferry to another part of the Harbor. 

Here's one of the ferries with the Harbor Bridge in the background. 

They had a huge bar/lounge area next to the Opera House. It was packed full of people in the afternoon/evening. 

Here we're on a ferry to Manly Beach which took about 30 minutes to get to. 

This is Manly Beach which is on the north side of the Harbor. On Wednesday we switched hotels to one that was closer to the University where Brant was presenting on Friday. It also was closer to a lot of other beaches. Once we checked in, we walked to Coogee Beach that was just a few blocks away. From there we walked along the shore line to Bondi Beach. It took a couple of hours and we stopped and swam at different beaches in between those two. Brant has a lot more pictures than I do so I'll try to post those too. 

As much fun as we had, we were so excited to get back to these three little guys! Sorry for the creepy eye picture, I've got to do some photo editing. It was 9 at night and Brant and I had just had a 40 hour Saturday since we got to Dallas about the same time we left Sydney. Then we had a long layover before our flight to College Station. 

Our trip would not have been possible without the help of Grandpa Rich and Grandma Pam! They were so generous to come down and watch our kids for 10 days. We knew our kids were in good hands so we really didn't worry about them. Also, Rich did some awesome projects while he was here, including making the picnic table they're sitting on as well as a lego table and some other fun things I'll post about later. 

Pam even made some Halloween sugar cookies and the boys (and Grandpa) had a fun time decorating them. 

First day of Kindergarten!

The big day finally arrived- Spencer was so excited to start Kindergarten!

We can tell when he's extra excited/nervous about something because he gets even sillier than normal. :) 

You need big muscles to be a kindergartener. 

How did my little baby get so big??

As soon as he walked in the classroom he sat down at his desk and started coloring. I'm glad he was so brave. Gavin sure missed Spencer once we got home and he realized the only person he could play with was me. I'm not as good at Legos as Spencer is. 

We celebrated a great first day of school with Wendy's Frosties! 

In other news...

Our water line broke (again) so Brant got to work fixing it. Luckily (for me) it started leaking an hour after Brant got home from his week-long work trip. I'm glad he was home to fix it! We also have a plumber friend who came over to help out- hopefully this time it holds for good. 

Tyler's current favorite thing is taking a bath. He spends the whole time squealing and splashing himself in the face and is always sad when I take him out. 

Fun Summer

Gavin turned 3 in June! He really wanted a 'rocket ship Mater' for his birthday so he was a happy kid. We also made chocolate cupcakes just like he wanted. 

One of our latest projects was making wooden airplanes. 

I love how Spencer's plane turned out- he always makes sure to follow the instructions exactly and wanted his plane to look just like the one on the box. 

Gavin's plane shows his personality too.

Working some play-do magic.

Thanks Grandpa Rich and Grandma Pam for the Brazil shirts you brought back! 

One of my favorite things about Gavin's current stage is how much he loves to 'hide'. He still thinks if he can't see me then I can't see him. He just giggles while I ask 'Where's Gavin?' and then pops his head up to surprise me. 

We have a year pass to the Children's Museum in College Station. It's a pretty tiny museum, but the boys have fun.  

I tried to turn the faucet on a couple of weeks ago and no water came out. I went outside to investigate and noticed water pouring up out of the water line going to our house. Awesome. I called the city to  turn the water off (I tried to, but couldn't find the shut off valve since the water was muddy), but Brant came home early from work and beat them to it. He and our neighbor tried to repair the broken pipe. It didn't hold and it would have been a couple of days before a plumber could come out. Luckily, we know a plumber and he was nice enough to come help us after he got off of work. Our water was back on by 10 that night- thank goodness for helpful plumbers!

We have a crawler on our hands! Tyler mostly just scoots around rather than crawling on his hands and knees, but it's working for him. He is making sure to get into all of his older brothers' toys. 

We spent a hot and humid day at the Houston Zoo. The giraffes are my favorite, oh, and the boys in front of the giraffes. 

They had an exhibit full of lego animals. The boys kept running to the next animal- they were more excited about the lego ones than the real ones. 

The first Tuesday of the month is $1 day at the Natural History Museum in College Station. You can pretty much see all of the museum in this picture because it is super tiny, but it's a fun little outing when it's so hot in the summer. 

College Station is home to the George Bush Presidential Library which is an awesome museum. We spent a few hours there on the fourth of July since admission is free. 

Tyler is such a happy little guy and so content to just chill in his stroller. 

This was our last Family Home Evening activity. The boys are practicing being reverent (something we need to work on in Sacrament Meeting). They had to sit still with their arms folded for a whole minute. You can tell Spencer is trying so hard not to laugh. This was the practice round- Gavin failed miserably- but the second round they both did a great job. It helped that the reward was a cookie.