Christmas card pictures, 2013 edition

This weekend, Anna and I took the kids to the trail so I could take their pictures for our Christmas card. (I always ask Anna to come if she's able, because she is SO good at making the kids laugh and smile!) I had a vision of what I wanted the pictures to look like, but . . . that didn't quite work out, ha ha.  And as usual, we got some silly pictures, but we also got some really, really good ones this year! Here are some of my favorites. Enjoy! :-) 

Happy (belated!) Halloween

Last week was Halloween, and the kids had a lot of fun deciding what they wanted to dress up as this year. Thankfully, we spent less than $10 on costumes this year! Oliver wanted to be a spy, which was easy since he already had camouflage pants, Buttercup wanted to be a cowgirl, and Theodore ended up wearing two costumes that we already had from previous years. :-)

At some point, we realized that this was the first year that Buttercup chose to dress in a girl-specific costume -- in previous years, she was a lion, a robot, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Luigi (from Super Mario Brothers).  Ha ha!  

The kids decorated foam pumpkins with Halloween stickers and glitter this year, and I love all of them, but I think my favorite is this eyeball-covered pumpkin that Theodore decorated! He loved the googly eyes and he even found an eyeball sticker to add to his decorations! 

 We also decorated more mini pumpkins. This one of Buttercup's is my favorite -- it reminds me of a globe. :-)

And we also made mummies out of mini pumpkins. I think they came out really cute! 

A tale of two birthdays

If it's October, then that means it's the birthday month at our house! :-)  Miss Buttercup turned 5 (FIVE!) two weeks ago, and Oliver turned 7 (SEVEN!!) on Saturday. They are getting so big!!

We were crazy this year and had two separate birthday parties . . . at home . . . on consecutive weekends. Oy. Buttercup's party didn't have a real theme, since she couldn't decide on one, but we did have a big princess bouncy castle. :-) 

Miss B also wanted her friends to make glittery pumpkins, so we did that, too!

I think one of the biggest hits of the party was when Granddaddy decided to make himself some popcorn . . . which turned into a big bowl of popcorn for the kids, complete with sprinkles and chocolate chips. :-) 

It didn't last long!

 Buttercup also wanted to play a game where the kids stuffed marshmallows in their cheeks and tried to talk to each other, but everyone was happy jumping in the bouncy house, so we decided not to do it. Oliver still wanted to try, though. :-) 

Then we had cake! And that was it. Happy birthday, Buttercup!

The following weekend, we had Oliver's party. He wanted a MacGyver party, so he and I came up with an idea for an obstacle course that would (in our heads) mimic a MacGyver-type mission. (Trust me, it was much more awesome in our heads!!)

I made these super cute fang cookies for his party: 

While I was taking pictures of the cookies, Theodore came into the kitchen and said, "Cheese!", so I snapped his picture. However, neither of us were expecting the flash to come on! So the first picture looks like this:

And the next picture looks like this, because he wanted me to take his picture again, but also didn't want to be blinded by the flash. Ha ha ha!!! I love that silly little boy!!!

Anyway, back to the party. The morning of, Oliver helped Dennis and me set up the obstacle course. Needless to say, he loved using the mallet. :-)

Thankfully, there are no pictures of the kids (and me) doing the obstacle course, ha ha! I think they had fun though. I know Oliver did! He really enjoyed it. The objective was to get the map from the bad guy headquarters, and involved 1) attaching a grenade to a trip wire with putty, 2) making a "smoke bomb" (baking soda + vinegar), 3) dodging Nerf bullets shot at them by the bad guy (Dennis), and 4) maneuvering through a laser maze. 

The obstacle course took a couple of days to figure out, 1 hour to set up, and the kids were all done in 14 minutes! Ha ha! Thankfully,my friend and I had some science experiments ready to entertain the kiddos until it was time for food. 

Theodore liked playing with the baking soda on the driveway!  

Finally, it was time for cake! Oliver wanted a bomb cake, so that's what he got. :-)

Happy birthday, Oliver! We are so blessed to have both of these kids in our lives!!

First day of preschool, 2013

Yesterday morning Buttercup started preschool for the last time! She's still pretty bummed that she' has to wait another year for kindergarten, so she was super excited about going back to preschool. :-)

I can't believe how big she looks in these pictures! My sweet girl. :-)  I hope she has a great year!  

Feeling squeamish at the reptile show

This weekend, we met one of Oliver's friends at the playground for a playdate. While we were there, his friend's mom invited us to join them at a reptile and amphibian show that afternoon. I would have preferred not to be in a room full of squirmy, jumpy, slimy things, but once Oliver found out, of course we had to go! :-)

Right when we walked in, there were two long tables with rows and rows of small deli containers. Inside the deli containers were little snakes. They were all so beautiful and incredibly brightly colored. I loved looking at all of the different patterns and colors.

Little, expensive snakes. Very pretty, but . . . eww.

Baby turtles! They were SO cute. 

There were a lot of booths where the kids could hold some of the animals. Here's a picture of Anna holding some kind of lizard (wearing a harness. :-))

Here's my pretty girl, very excitedly wearing a snake. :-)

Oliver's turn! :-)

These next three pictures are so funny. Oliver wanted to wear a different snake, and right after it was draped on his neck, the snake started to wrap itself around his mouth and neck, and Oliver started freaking out. (He wasn't in any danger of course.) It was so funny! 

Some of the animals were not slimy, jumpy, or slithery, like this adorable baby hedgehog that Anna is holding.  

But most of the animals gave me the heebie jeebies, like this display with baby pythons hatching from eggs. GROSSSSSS. YUCK.

And, of course they had to have snake food available for sale, like these tiny, newborn rats. I was torn between feeling bad for them, and feeling grossed out because . . . well, they're RATS. 

Surprisingly, Buttercup liked holding the baby rats the best! 

I would like to say that this was a fun outing, but I mostly felt sick to my stomach the whole time. The kids really enjoyed it though! :-)

Update!

Well, summer is over, and now we're back into the school routine. This school year has started off much more easily for me since I knew what to expect, and Buttercup has also been doing better this year with her Oliver gone all day. :-) Theodore, on the other hand, doesn't understand yet why Oliver is gone all day. He's doing okay though, and hopefully he'll continue to do okay after his big sister starts preschool next month!

Here are some updates! 

Oliver: 

Well, the biggest news is that Oliver has accepted Jesus as his Savior! We talked about it for months, and at the beginning of the summer, I finally started to think that it was "real" and not just Oliver repeating what we've been teaching him and what he's learned at church.  I made an appointment for him to talk to our pastor, and the pastor agreed with me -- that Oliver really has accepted Christ into his heart! He was baptized at our church a couple of weeks ago and it was such a happy, joyful moment!!!  We are so proud of him!  

Oliver also started first grade about 2 weeks ago, and he's enjoying it so far. The first day wasn't nearly as emotional for me as kindergarten was! All of last year's kindergarten classes were rearranged into new classes for first grade, so he doesn't have all of his old classmates with him in his new class, but he still gets to see his kindergarten buddies on the playground at recess. :-)  There is another Oliver in his grade, and this year they're both in the same class! 

Oliver has been moved up to the next level of swim team and he'll have his first swim meet at the end of next month! He's not nearly as excited about it as his sister is, ha ha.  She really wants him to win "all" of the medals. :-)  Since the new swim team practices 3 times per week, Oliver decided to quit gymnastics team so he'll have time to do fun stuff after school, too. 

Buttercup:

She is really turning into a big girl right before our eyes! She's able to ride her bike without training wheels, run next to me on the trail, and she's also a big helper in the kitchen! She loves to cook and help me stir, and chop ingredients whenever she can. She also loves to watch The Pioneer Woman (a cooking show). :-)

Buttercup is continuing to do really well at swimming. She is really close to graduating from swim school -- she's in the second level, at station 8 (there are 10 stations).  Right now she's working on butterfly, and she was so excited to start learning it last week! It was the first time in almost 2 years that she was able to learn something other than freestyle or backstroke. :-)  She is really excited about getting to be on the swim team like Oliver! 

She is also still taking dance classes and she loves it. It's so funny how she is so much a tomboy, but also kind of a girly-girl, too. :-)   

Theodore:

Mr. T is still adorable and funny and such a little ham. His latest phrase is, "Why not?" And the really funny part is that he uses it appropriately, too!!  It kills me when he says it. This morning we were on the way home from a playdate at the park, and he asked if he could have a hot dog for lunch. I said, "No," and he said, "Why not? Why not, Mama?"  LOL!  It's just super cute coming from the cute little baby boy. :-)  

Theodore can also count to 10, and pedal his bicycle forward a little bit! Another really cute thing he does is that he'll tell you that he's 6 if you ask him how old he is. Oliver and Buttercup think it's hilarious, and one afternoon they spent about 15 minutes trying (in vain) to get him to say that he's 2. He's pretty convinced that he's 6.  :-)   

One not-so-cute thing that happened recently was that Theodore went through a sleep regression. It happened for about a week and a half, but thankfully now he's sleeping just as well as he was before it started -- only difference now is that he has to sleep with his favorite song on repeat and with his favorite cars in his hands. But at least he's sleeping!!!!  :-) 

Reading on the floor during Buttercup's dance class: