We love our Wildcats!

We are true Wildcat fans!  Homecoming was a few weeks ago.  We met Scott, Holly and Annelise at Stomp's for a big, ole juicy burger before the game.  I forgot to take a photo!  That day it was in the high 70's and quite pleasant.  That night however, the temperature kept dropping and dropping.... That day was the Homecoming Carnival and Dad bought the boys these super-cool Creek bandanas.  They wore them to every game after this one... Jacob on the neck, Rylan as a belt!

 All the girls looked lovely and the pomp of Homecoming was fun!  I saw a few old friends and it was a great night!

 Remember what I said about the temperature??? It kept getting colder and colder... and we were so unprepared!  Jason had his vest and the boys had their hoodies.  I had a light weight corduroy jacket and flats.  The wind was quite strong too, but we had to cheer for our Wildcats!

 We half-fought over who got to hold a boy for warmth!  By the middle of the 3rd, they were both out cold!  Jacob on GPop...

 and Rylan on me...

 It was another Wildcat victory and even though we were popsicles, it was awesome!

Whole-y Smile!

Rylan had been wiggling a bottom tooth for several weeks.  It was getting very wiggly and one morning at breakfast as Rylan tried to bite into the cinnamon roll, he said, " I think my tooth is going to come out in the cinnamon roll!"  So I grabbed the camera and Jason grabbed a paper towel.  Here is the last picture with all his bottom baby teeth!

 And here is the wiggle!

 Jason got the paper towel ready and the pulling began!!

 It's out!!!  No tears, no anxiety, all happiness!!!

 And his new whole-y smile - we LOVE it!!!

Holding his tooth and so proud, despite the sleepy smile!

Then Rylan placed his tooth in a small baggie and got it into the bear's front pouch and under the pillow before eating another bite of breakfast!

 Sweet dreams... hoping the tooth fairy will come!!

 Lo and behold - when Rylan woke up he found fairy dust on his window sill, steps and under his pillow.  Jacob even collected it is a box and saved it!

 The Tooth Fairy also left a Thomas Jefferson gold dollar.  What a great time of losing your second tooth Rylan!  And we LOVE your new smile!!!

Jason's 36th Birthday

The week before the BIG 3-6, the four of us went to Melting Pot.  On Jason's real BD, he picked to go to TBone Tom's because he had been itching to try their world famous Tom's Choice 14 oz. marinated rib-eye steak.  Here we all are waiting for the food to arrive and celebrating Jason!

 Jason said this was one of the best steaks he has ever eaten and with the bite he shared with me... I agree!  Almost everyone else got their famous chicken fried steak and I got their salad.  It was all SO yummy!

 After eating dinner, we came back to our house for cake and presents!  Rylan drew an awesome picture of Jason and wrote some super sweet words for his daddy!

 The boys could hardly handle their excitement over giving Jason his cards and present!

 Jacob drew him and Daddy having a Nerf battle!

 Then Jason opened his gift from the boys... his own Nerf gun!  Now they are evenly matched in battles! ha ha

 GPop and Granna gave him some cologne and a Half-Price Books git card.  He loves the cologne (and I do too!) and had already bought one book and waiting to buy another one!

 Mark and Martha sent an Academy gift card!  He's waiting for a JJ Watt jersey shirt to come in...

 And Popa gave him some cash... still trying to decide, but it may be another book!

 Jason requested Granny's yellow cake with homemade chocolate icing for his cake.  This was the first time I've made the icing.  It was delicious, but not the right consistency.  I need more practice to get the feel for it!

 Happy Birthday Dear Jason!!!

We love you so much and appreciate all the love and support you give our family!!!!

Jacob = Star Student

Back in October, Jacob got to be "Star Student!"  He thinks that he was the first Star because he is the best behaved kid in class! hahaha  I'm not going to tell him otherwise, and based on the kids who have come right after him, it seems that he may be right that she is picking in order of "best."

One responsibility of being Star is to make a poster of yourself and tell the class all about it.  Jacob told me which events he wanted on his poster and then I trimmed them and he helped place them and glue them onto the poster board.  It turned our really, really cute!  His sweet teacher sent me this pic of him sharing his poster with the class.

 Another thing the Star gets to do is take a favorite book for story time.  Jacob chose "A Picture Book of Davy Crockett."  You also get to bring your favorite snack on Friday.  Jacob chose for us to make Haystacks to take.  They were a HIT!!

Maybe the neatest thing is getting to bring Berry home for 3 nights.  Berry is the class bear and he wears a Notre Dame shirt since they are Mrs. Reed's favorite team.  On day one, Jacob and Jason taught the Irishman several football plays out in the front yard!

 Then they came in and Jacob, Berry and Rylan played Legos.

 The next night was Jason's BD (more coming), so Berry came with us!

 Here are Jacob and Berry outside of TBone's... Jason's pick for his BD dinner!

 Jacob, Berry and Granna at TBone's...

 And then Berry helped blow out the BD candles!

After all of their adventures, Berry writes an entry in the class journal about his visit at each child's house and it even includes photos!

Jacob loved being Star Student!  It was so fun to get to do all of his favorites and share them with his class.  Thanks for a great week Berry!

Red Ribbon Week

At the end of October, the boys school celebrated Red Ribbon Week.  Red Ribbon Week is a time when the schools teach anti-drug lessons and do lots of fun activities to promote saying NO to drugs!  On Monday, it was wear red day...  It also so happened to be the first day of early voting, so after school, we took the boys and waited about 45 minutes to cast our votes.  The boys LOVED pressing the "cast ballot" button and felt such American pride!

 Day 2 was hat day!  This was a hard pick for the boys!  They have a lot of hats to pick from... Mavs, Cowboys, Packers, HU, Rangers, Creek, Under Armour, and loads of non-baseball cap hats like Davy Crockett, hard hat, etc.  After MUCH debate and agony, they picked their favorite football team hats!  And they HAD to wear the team shirt too!

 The next day was bandana and/or headband day.  Jacob wanted to be have a cowboy bandana and Rylan wanted a sports bandana.  They thought it was cool!

 The last day was crazy hair day!  We got some spike gel for Jacob which he thought was hilarious and "very James Durbin."  Rylan was set on wearing the Thing 1 wig from a few Halloweens ago.  I still love that wig!

So they had fun, looked cute and got to learn a little bit more about saying NO to drugs!

Thankfulness

A few years back, our preacher encouraged us to use the months of October and November to focus on being thankful and to record our family's thankful things.  So we started every morning at breakfast going around the table and saying at least one thing we were each thankful for that day.  I would write the responses on a die-cut and tape them up around our dining room window.  This year we fell a little behind with Dad's surgery and two rounds of strep throat, but we still recorded lots of things that we are thankful for this fall.  Here's our list (in no particular order)...

* afternoon naps
* school
* the Bible
* Bible class - I learn lots of things about God
* that we live in a good place - the USA!
* to wake up hearing Jacob singing "I Will Call Upon the Lord"
* to hear Jacob singing songs of praise to God
* having a good teacher at school, Mrs. Reed
* GPop's surgery went well
* friends
* family
* the right to vote
* a good year
* cooler weather
* Daddy and Jacob had a good time at the football game
* that God is healing Rylan's throat
* Rylan, my brother
* friends like Blaine
* Flamingos (the people!!!)
* Daddy - he's good and plays football with me
* having a good family
* Mom feeling better
* God's healing
* going to Art today
* God is compassionate
* thankful for a great Monday at school
* a day off school next week
* a safe car
* Mommy having a Jerome (the not-quite-pulled-through ponytail that is how my hair usually is!)
* whole-y smiles
* a good school picture day
* being safe at school
* my boys!
* making new friends at school
* fun weekend with Scott, Beth, Isaac and Elise
* Jacob, my brother
* Aiden
* Ryder
* GPop and Granna
* Grandpa and Grandma
* Shake-Shake

Early Release Day = FUN!

The boys got out of school early one afternoon, so we picked up GPop and Granna and headed out for a few hours of fun!  The boys wanted to go to Longhorn Park and have a battle with GPop.  But first we had to check out the turtles in the pond...

 we even saw turquoise dragonflies!

 Then the three boys got their pop guns and the battle began!

 They ran all over that park and shot up all kinds of bad guys!

After the park, we went to get frozen yogurt.  It was a great way to spend the afternoon off of school!