February Love

Our friends threw a little Valentine's Day party with lots of other 3-5 year olds. Spencer's favorite part, besides playing with all of his friends, was to decorate and then eat his own cookies. I think he ate 3 before I even noticed.

Spencer was so excited to grab his box full of valentines that I couldn't get him to smile for the picture. He especially loved all of the candy.

This is our little Christmas Thomas train the boys can set up all by themselves.

Dancing with Daddy!

Here is Spencer cleaning out his fingernails. He's been a little obsessed with making sure his nails are short and clean lately. He always grabs my nail clippers and then takes his nail cleaning very seriously. His nails may be clean in this picture, but he does have nutella all over his face. 'Chocolate toast' is a favorite around here. I love Gav's chubby little cheeks and dimples.

Fun at home

I haven't done much blog posting lately because I feel like we have been home a lot and life's just moving along without too much excitement. Plus, I forget to take my camera with me if we ever do go somewhere fun. We do have a lot of fun at home and I often feel I should take more pictures of just our day to day stuff. Here are a few:

Spencer posed all of his superheroes for this picture. Notice Wolverine hanging upside down and Ammon on the roof ready for action. These guys are hard core.

Gavin and Spencer spend A LOT of time riding these bikes in the backyard. There are three things I love about this picture. 1. We actually have a backyard which makes a world of difference with little boys. 2. That they are riding their bikes outside on a nice sunny day in January (Texas is awesome). 3. That Spencer thinks he needs to stick his tongue out in almost every picture. I'm hoping this is a phase. :)

Unfortunately Gavin loves yogurt. I only give it to him on days when I'm ready to clean up something like this. I don't even know what happened to his bib.

I always find Spencer reading books to Gavin. It is the sweetest thing ever. I also always find Gavin walking around with this hat on.

A couple of weeks ago Gavin fell right on the extremely sharp corner of our fireplace. We didn't realize quite how sharp it was. It was Sunday afternoon so I was so glad Brant was home because I was freaking out a little with all of the blood gushing out of his head. Brant tried to stop the bleeding while I tried to find a couple of butterfly bandages to close up the cut. Luckily the bleeding stopped after a few minutes and we got everyone cleaned up. Gavin cuddled with me for a little bit (probably more traumatized from us holding him down than from his fall) and then he was back to his crazy, happy self.

Christmas and Traveling

We had a busy and fun December. The highlight was spending a couple of weeks visiting my family in California.

After church on our first Sunday there we went to the levy by the airport to see planes take off and land. It turned out to be a fun place to play.

Me and my boys.

Thought this was a cool picture.

We spent 2 days in San Francisco since it's only a couple hours from Sacramento. It's my favorite city in the world! We had lunch at The Port and ate lots and lots of yummy bread.

Love this one of Spencer!

Spencer's first carousel ride (that he remembers)!

View of Alcatraz.

Checking out sailboats from the pier.

The boys ready for breakfast at Boudin's. We had dinner there the night before too. The best bread ever!

We were trying to show how steep the streets were, but this picture doesn't quite do justice.

We stopped at Muir Woods (long enough to take a picture). The bay area is beautiful.

We met up with our friends, the Martins, who just moved to Sacramento. We enjoyed seeing zoo lights with them and Spencer had a blast playing with his bud Andrew.

On Christmas morning Gavin started to get the hang of unwrapping presents, not as much as Spencer, though...

Spencer was so excited about every present. He got a transformer, a few superheroes, and some legos. It was fun watching him be so surprised and happy.

We got lots of cousin time. Here's Gavin pushing his cousin Gabbi around. I always forget to take pictures when I'm with family so I'm sad I only have a few.

We got to stay with my grandma and loved visiting with her every night. Spencer still misses Grandma Great.

After we got home the boys had fun testing out their new presents. Spencer got a scooter from Grandma Pam and Grandpa Rich. He and Gavin like to ride on it together.

From Uncle Jay and Aunt Amy the boys got superhero t-shirts with their names on them. They would wear them everyday if they could.

We spent New Years in Dallas with some friends. Spencer loved riding the horses! We're excited for a new year of adventures. :)

Airplanes, football, Thanksgiving and Camping!

November has been a fun month. We're loving Texas weather now that it's cooled down a bit. Mid-70's in November is awesome! The boys are getting bigger and bigger, and Spencer keeps getting sillier, as evidenced here by a few snapshots:

We were outside working on a Saturday morning when we heard this loud droning sound. We looked up and saw a group of three Osprey airplanes! They looked like something out of Avatar and, after some internet research, Brant found out they can rotate their rotors 90 degrees and can take off and land vertically as well as fly horizontally. Spencer and Gavin (and Brant!) were captivated. They flew over our house 5 to 10 times, so they got to relive it again and again.

Because A&M is (unwisely) moving to the SEC for football, this Thanksgiving marked the last Texas A&M vs. University of Texas football game for the foreseeable future. So, the night before, we packed up and went to Kyle Field for 'Yell Practice' (a very intense form of a pep rally). It was fun to get in the stadium and see all the fans (a.k.a. crazy people).

This picture was taken 30 minutes before it started. By the time the rally started, the stadium was filled with probably 30,000 people--for a rally! Crazy.

Unfortunately, we didn't last very long once it started. It got so loud that Gavin was scared after just a few cheers. But, that meant we got a cool picture of the stadium filled with people...and beat traffic :)

We spent Thanksgiving day with some great friends here in College Station. Although we were too preoccupied with the tasty food to take pictures inside, here's a picture of some of the kids having a great time outside.

Because it's so warm here, we decided to camping with some friends the Friday/Saturday after Thanksgiving (unthinkable in Ohio!!). It was awesome!

Spencer, Layla and Jackson fishing and relaxing on the banks of our campsite. We didn't have an actual fishing pole, so Brant cut some rope and tied it to the end of a stick. Spencer loved it :)

The dads overseeing their kids. This was my favorite part of the trip--just relaxing on the banks of the lake, having fun...

...which is much better than actually trying to sleep on a campout! Overnight, there was a massive storm that raged from midnight to about 4 am. So, needless to say, there wasn't a lot of sleeping done. But, we are thankful to our tent because out of five tents, ours was one of only two that kept their occupants dry! So, the next morning was a little wet, but still fun.

Gavin eventually worked up the courage to walk around (also, the fire was out at this point so my fear of him falling in to the fire was gone...which was probably the bigger factor that allowed him to walk around freely!). He had a great time and loved looking at the ducks on the lake. It was a great trip and might just have to be a Thanksgiving tradition!

ice cream and play time

Last month we went to the Blue Bell ice cream factory with some friends. It's supposedly some of the best ice cream in the U.S. It's pretty good, but it's no Graeter's (Ohio ice cream).

Seriously, we're at an ice cream factory guys, show some excitement! Gavin looks absolutely miserable and Spencer looks bored out of his mind. They did get a lot happier once we reached the end of the tour and got ice cream samples.

I love watching Spencer's imagination grow. Who knew that pencil holders made the perfect Batman hands?
This is a favorite hang out spot for the boys: the trampoline on the back patio.
Half our day is spent out here.

Spencer's second favorite place to play is our 'treasure chest' in the living room.
I'm in a 'Mommy Preschool' for Spencer and five of his friends. The moms switch off teaching and then we go on a field trip once a month. This was at the Children's Barnyard where the kids got to see lots of different kinds of animals. Once Spencer worked up the courage to pet the baby chickens, he didn't want to leave.
Back in September Brant and I went to see Brian Regan perform. He's our favorite (and only known) comedian and it was super fun!

Not the best picture, but we had to get something.