This is a preview of Jacob if he ever decides to grow a go-tee!
Cookie Recipe - from www.eatathome.com
Here is Rylan hard at work...
Rylan is my loyal Tiger's Blood fan. He gets is every time and gets the same creepy red lips every time. I think he looks like the Joker!
What is it about ice and syrup that can make any gray day better??? We love our sno-cones!
These boys love our country! When we go to the library we stock up on non-fiction books from the 900's. We love to read biographies - especially about American Revolution and Civil War heroes like George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Paul Revere, Sam Adams, Abe Lincoln, Robert E Lee and more. We love to get battle books about the Revolution and Civil War. I've learned so much reading the books to them! On 9/11 we made a flag craft and wore our flag shirts after worship services. They also helped put up our flag out front. Jacob asked if we could keep it out longer than one day...and of course we did. 
There is just something about fall, Texas and high school football that all go together. The weather gets a little cooler and Texans feel the need to go cheer the local team onto victory. Two weeks ago, Dad and I took the boys to Creek's Homecoming game. It was special because Dad worked at Creek for 20 years and I graduated from Creek and the boys go to pre-school at Creek. We love our Wildcats!
Gotta love fall, Texas and football. Now that Jason is home, we are hoping to make it a weeklt affair! :)
While Jason was at the TX wildfires, Mom and I took the boys for their first visit to a paint your own pottery place. I took them when they were 18 months old and did handprint plates for me, but this was their first experience of creating their own pottery. After looking at the dozens of choices, they both decided on football boxes. Rylan wanted his to be Green Bay Packers, his fave team! Granna helped Rylan with the G, but he did the rest on his own!
An Jacob picked the Dallas Cowboys, his fave team! Momma helped with the star, but Jacob painted the rest on his own!
Once we got 3 coats of paint on, Momma wrote the team names and we were done! This was a BLAST! I was so impressed with the boys concentration and excitement. They've already been asking to go back!
After a week we went to pick up the finished product. They turned out AWESOME!!!
We love to bowl...that's not to say that we are good, but we do love to bowl! The kids had been asking for a few weeks, so we hit the lanes one Saturday after stopping by a local joint for "real" pizza.
3 green and a pink for momma!
This was the first time we have not used the "mountain." (that thingy that kids roll the ball down to bowl) but we all got to use the bumpers (thank goodness or 3 of us would never have scored!!) The boys did pretty good rolling the ball down the lane. Jason was a good teacher about swinging your arm back, etc. Here is Rylan watching his ball go down the lane. Sometimes it barely made it before stopping, but he improved through the game. He would sometimes run right up to the line, roll the ball and go up on his tip-toes not to get a foul. It was so cute!
Daddy won both rounds... and broke 100 both times! We had a BLAST!
Here are my three favorite boys sharing the first ESPN Gameday of the season. Welcome Lee, Kirk and Chris - we've missed you!
This is Rylan's chart. Some items are the same as on Jacob's (mealtime manners, show respect, answer adults, obey the first time asked) but some are specific to Rylan (no whining, control temper). Throughout the day if they make a poor choice, they get one mark. If they do it again, then they get an X. At the end of the day, all the boxes that do not have an X earn a sticker. Then each sticker gets one penny. We have a small basket of prizes/outings, that cost $. ___. They earn the prizes with joy! :)
One of Rylan's first prizes... a LegoMan (40 points).
And Jacob's chart...
One of Jacob's first prizes (75 points).
So far, so good. Thank you Dr. Dobson!!!
Then I gave the boys my point and shoot camera and a pen and we were off! Whenever they saw something interesting, they would take a photo of it and cross off the first letter of that item. The goal was to get all 26 letters of the alphabet. They took all the photos (and many extras!) and crossed off the letters. It was the best shopping trip to date! :)
W is for Wright's Bacon. I had stopped to look for bacon for us. I was prodding them to pick B is for Bacon, but Jacob spotted the W and the rest is picture history!
H is for Haberno peppers.
One of Rylan's random photos...others included the steering wheel, his feet, Jacob's hair, random shoppers, random buggies, etc. They made me giggle!
J is for jello. Rylan insisted that I picked up the green jello for the photo.
E was tricky. As I was looking for green beans, I pushed the buggie beside the peas. Jacob was thrilled to find the E in early. Rylan took the photo! That's teamwork!
Q was another tricky one... luckily we saw these snacks as we were looking for pretzels.
Now we are going to print the photos and made an ABC book. I think we may do this again one day! :)
On a completely other note... a local Hallmark store was closing and selling off everything! Our church secretary told me that ornaments from the past were on 80% off, so the boys and I went to investigate. There were THOUSANDS of ornaments... and now they were 90% off!!! So we walked up ad down each aisle. They were so sweet seeing something for each person. We just kept filling up our basket. Here is the damage... 16 Hallmark brand ornaments for $24.16!!!! This just may be the deal of the year! :)
