Things That make Daniel Laugh #14

When I say "beep beep" after he honks the horn on his big blue car. :) As we were on a walk today he must have laughed at this 25 times...maybe more!

I do not have a current big blue car picture, so this one is from Halloween and at least you get to see the big blue car. :)

Things That make Daniel Laugh #13

Shaking the laundry. He thought this was soooooo funny last night.

Merry Christmas!!

I cannot even tell how thankful we are to be HOME this Christmas!! Merry Christmas!

Things That make Daniel Laugh #12

The puppy sound as he turns the pages of his new Christmas book. A video of this will be coming soon...:-)

Things That make Daniel Laugh #11

Throwing his light up shoes on the ground and watching them "light up". I took a video of it and will have to post it later. This had us all laughing today!

Things That make Daniel Laugh #10

Tonight it was simply saying "ho, ho, ho"! He thought this was hilarious. :)

Gingerbread House

Making a gingerbread house is a definite Christmas tradition at our home. But can I let you in on a little secret? There is not one thing I enjoy about putting it together...that is outside of the excitement of my kids...which is the ONLY reason I continue to do this year after year. Truly baking is not my thing. I love to cook...I love to decorate...I love crafty things...so one might think this would be right up my alley. Nope. Not at all. But watching the excitement of my kids is...so it is worth working with the frosting and dealing with the mess. :) And I do like the end result...


And here are a couple of pictures of the process...lot's of candy and frosting eating involved...




The Final Product...



And one final picture including Daniel when he woke up from his nap...


Project accomplished...until next year!! It can take its "sweet" time getting here too...

:-)

Things That make Daniel Laugh #9

At lunch today when I said "roar, roar, roar" as I wiped off his face. :-)

The Day Daniel Came Home

I have been slow to upload photos...and have yet to sift through all of our photos from Disney World...but rest assured a video will be coming in the near future! :-) As I have started the process, I came across this photo from two weeks ago when Daniel came home from the hospital...


Love these kids. And I love when they are all together. I also love that Daniel is in the "squint and close your eyes whenever you see a camera phase of life". His big brother Sam went through the same phase when he was this age. :) It is fun to see different characteristics from my older kids show up in the younger ones. Daniel truly has a little something from everybody.

Things That make Daniel Laugh #8

The steering wheel spinning at the playground near our home. Every time he spun it he giggled.

Things That make Daniel Laugh #7

When I asked him..."Do you wanna go for a boat ride?" Over and over this made him belly laugh. :-) Seriously, you just never know with him...and I LOVE that!

Things That make Daniel Laugh #6

Tonight I was holding him as I shook the can of PediaSure that I was going to feed him and he belly laughed every time I did. This of course made me laugh. And then my (very quiet) laugh made my girls come down and tell me that all our laughing was keeping them awake. :)

Things That make Daniel Laugh #5

Tonight when I said "hello, hello, Hell0000" as he was playing with his toy phone in the door of the laundry room. :) Nothing new, but tonight it made him belly laugh. :)

Things That make Daniel Laugh #4

Today it was the sound of velcro separating when I changed his backpack. I just seriously never know what sound...look...noise might make him belly laugh. :)

Things That make Daniel Laugh #3

Tonight when I told him he could "splashy, splashy, splashy" in the bathy when he woke up. Okay I said Wokey-upy too. :-) But the "splashy, splashy splashy" is what made him laugh. :)

Things That make Daniel Laugh #2

Today it is the "piggy noise" on his Little People Barn. As I am getting ready to start dinner I hear Daniel hitting the "button" and belly laughing in response to the piggy sound. Again so sweet. I do not think that there is a sweeter sound than a child's laugh.

Things That make Daniel Laugh #1

Today it was anytime I said "Num, Num." So sweet.

Christmas Tradition?

For the second year in a row I took my big boys on a special Christmas date. We went to the Trans Siberian Orchestra. This is an amazing show that puts fire, fireworks, lasers, and a rock twist to traditional Christmas songs and songs of their own...something my boys love!! I have always loved one of their Christmas CD's called "Christmas Eve", so the first time I attended this concert it was a real treat...and continues to be!! I am not sure if this is something we will do year after year or not. There were some things that bothered me in the second half this year, so the jury's still out on whether this will be a long standing Christmas tradition. Regardless we had a super fun time together at the concert...the special effects really are amazing!

After the concert, Sam took us out to eat at Five Guys Burgers and Fries at the Galleria...

Our attempt at a self portrait...

Sam added jalapenos and hot sauce to his two patty wonder burger. Drew and I couldn't help but laugh when he ate his first jalapeno...fresh and still loaded with seeds...his cheeks flushed, then turned red, eyes watered and he reached for water!! I guess it was a hot one!! The only thing missing was steam coming out of his ears! :-)

We stopped at the Five Guys at the Galleria, so we were able to see our favorite Christmas tree as well.

We hope to bring the whole family back to see this beautiful tree soon!

Thanks boys for a fun date! And thank you Sam for the yummy dinner! Love you boys!

Lizzy's SIX!

Today our Lizzy turned six. What a fun day we had celebrating her life.

The morning started with our traditional presents by the door...




Followed by lunch with mom, a trip to pick up her cake and a stop at Build a Bear to spend some birthday money...



Her bears name is Rapunzel.

It turned out to be a Rapunzel sort of party, I am sure like many girls her age across America. :)

We then had pizza (with olives and pepperoni's) for supper, followed by singing and cake...



We also had some super fun guests including the Harrison Family and Grandma Marge and a quick visit from Mr. Jim...








It was a great day!


We love you Lizzy Joy! Happy Birthday!

O Christmas Tree!

Yesterday we got out all of the Christmas decorations and had a wonderful day of getting the house ready for Christmas...

Daniel was ALL smiles...

He especially liked crawling on top of all of the Christmas totes...


We all worked together...


And this was the end result...


Every year we listen to the same CD as we decorate the tree. This year I especially liked watching my oldest son Drew's face light up as the music came on. He was so excited. We all were. Such a fun tradition!! We use all gold and red for our King Jesus. Red signifying the blood he shed to pay for our sins. And the gold is for the King that He is...the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. All displayed on our ("fake") Evergreen tree signifying His eternal reign.

I love Christmas!

15th Anniversary

Happy Halloween!

This year with our Disney trip just around the corner, all the kids decided it would be fun to dress up as a Disney character. When I initially presented them with the idea, I was hoping (although I knew it was a long shot) that my big boys would choose Peter Pan or Prince Charming or Woody. They chose Pirates of the Carribean. Not at all surprising and probably more fitting. The girls were Belle and Rapunzel. And since Daniel is too young to choose, I chose Woody for him. He made a cute one too! :-)

And we had Davy Jones...

Black Beard...

And the brother pirates...

Belle...

Rapunzel...

And Princess sisters...

The whole gang again...

One our way to trick or treat...

I was amazed at how many people were out trick or treating in our neighborhood...it looked like this on every street! So fun! There were some houses that had freshly made caramel apples and one house was making cotton candy for the kids.


And Daniel had a fun time cruising around in his blue car. The kids were so bummed that I did not collect candy for him, as they were hoping to blow their old candy record out of the water...

They came just shy with 431 pieces (we had 455 one year at the swiss tower) but they were already talking amongst themselves that next year, when Daniel is walking and eating candy we will totally beat it.

I hope they are right. I hope next year all 5 kids trick or treat together. And then they have a new record as the Jackson 5. :) HeeHee...couldn't resist.

American League Championship Game!!

Last night my big boys and I witnessed the amazing game where the Rangers won the ALCS! What an amazing, fun, fun, FUN night it was!! The pictures help tell it all...

Here are the boys in front of the stadium...

We got there about 3:30, so nearly 3 1/2 hours before the game began. The gates opened at 4, so we were able to watch the entire Ranger's batting practice. Here are the guys warming up...

Ogando!

CJ Wilson!

Hamilton and Cruz!

When batting practice started, we waited excitedly for a home run to come our way. The boys really wanted an authentic major league ball hit by one of their beloved Texas Rangers. And then it happened...Josh Hamilton hit a line drive to Ogando who was standing just in front of the boys. I screamed "Ogando! Ogando!" and he flipped the ball into Drew's glove!! Oh happy day!


And then a little but later David Murphy hit a home run off the 2nd deck right about us. It just missed Sam's glove (although I do think he was oblivious to this) and landed in the gap between the home run porch and left field. A man next to us was tossed the ball, but he handed it to Sammy. So cool! And so nice!! Both boys ended up with an ALCS Rangers batting practice ball, and it happened to be our 2 favorite players (besides CJ Wilson who pitches) that hit them! :-)

The boys also got 2 other balls...one by Sam screaming out the name of a player and one he "fielded" as it bounced around the bleachers after a home run. But he shared them with 2 boys near us who did not have a ball. There were maybe 10 or 12 balls hit out or tossed to the entire home run porch area...so the fact that my boys had 4 of them was pretty amazing!!! Just a gift!

Then both boys wanted to see how hard they could throw...





I told Drew I would give him $10 if he could hit the glove. He did. :) And he bought a Lemon Chill for himself and Sam. Awesome!

The game itself was amazing. The first 2 innings were pretty tense with the Rangers giving up 2 home runs to the Tigers. The tension was heavy. Then the Rangers bats broke it open with an amazing 3rd inning that left all of us with soar hands from all of the high fives we gave to each other and all the other fans we could reach. It was SOOOOOO fun!!! SO fun!! That inning tha Rangers scored 9 runs. Hit after hit. They eventually won the game 15-5.






We danced, we sreamed, we cheered, we ate, we laughed, I cried. It was a great night.

One I will never forget. And I am pretty sure Drew and Sam will not either!


Way to go RANGERS!!! Now lets win the WORLD SERIES!!!!!

Thank you Jesus. What a great gift this was indeed.