My Christmas List

The other day Gabe came home with a note he had written to Santa. Well he didn't actually write it his teacher did, but he told her what he wanted. In the note he said he wanted the usual things he had already told me: Super Mario for the Wii and Bendaroos. But the last item was a little odd to me. He wanted a hat. So on the way home from school I asked him,

"What kind of hat do you want?"

"I don't know..."

"Well do you want a stocking cap or a baseball hat...."

And with the most serious look on his face he just simply said,

"I want a sombrero."

I couldn't contain myself. I was laughing hysterically! When I finally composed myself I asked him if he even knew what a sombrero looked like.

"Yeah it's big and it has little balls hanging off of it."

So now I'm on a quest to find a sombrero for Christmas.

Family Pictures

We had our family pictures taken a couple months ago. We hadn't had a picture of all of us taken since before Kate was born. And Matt and I hadn't had our pictures taken since our wedding day! We had Mary Morrow from ToMorrow's Memories take our pictures and she did a fabulous job! We had scheduled a "mini" session which was only a 20 minute session down at the Myriad Gardens. I have to admit I was more than a little nervous about how she was going to get any decent shots of my 3 rambunctious children in only 20 minutes! But she did it! I was extremely please with the great pictures we got!

Trying new things...

Kate never took a pacifier or a bottle as a baby. I can't tell you how many different types of pacifiers I bought her to try to get her to take one. I thought I had thrown them all away but she found one somewhere and has taken a liking to it. She'll walk around with it in her mouth and chew on it. She looks so funny walking around with this thing in her mouth...

Thanksgiving Pictures

As usual I'm behind on my posts. So this is going to be a speedy post. Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving. We had lunch at my parents house with my grandparents and my Uncle Randy and his family. It was a great day!

I made this shirt for Kate. Don't look too close, I didn't do the greatest job sewing it. And by the end of the day it's eyes had fallen off...

This would have been such a great shot if she weren't munching on marshmallows!

Gabe decorating Meme's Christmas tree, a new Thanksgiving tradition

Gabe and Ryan making cookies

Our First Broken Bone

I always knew Ryan would be the first one to break a bone and I was right! He's just such a fearless rambunctious child. His dad calls him Tank if that tells you anything. On Tuesday afternoon we were at the store finishing up a busy day. Ryan was running around like he usually does at the end of the day. All of sudden he ran past me and somehow, I'm still not sure how, he slipped and fell. I heard a loud bang and he got up holding onto his head. At first I thought he busted his head just because the way his head hit the ground. But he wasn't bleeding anywhere. He kept rubbing his head. After a few minutes he was still crying which is unusual. Ryan usually recovers from falls pretty quickly, hence the name Tank. After a few minutes of crying he went from rubbing his head to holding his shoulder. After debating about whether or not this was a serious injury Matt and I decided just to take him over to the urgent care just to get things checked out. After the doctor saw that Ryan couldn't raise his arm over his head they decided to do an x-ray. And sure enough he had a broken collarbone. They gave us a prescription for some pain medicine and a sling and referred us to an orthopedic surgeon. We went to see the orthopedic surgeon the next day. He told us that Ryan is young enough that the injury should just heal itself. We just have to watch him to make sure he doesn't hurt it again. So that means no running, jumping or just being the crazy kid that he is. He's been pretty good about watching what he does.

Ryan's Thanksgiving Feast

Ryan's school always has a Thanksgiving feast before they let out for Thanksgiving break. They perform a couple songs and then the whole school eats lunch together. Ryan was dressed up as a pilgrim. His teacher said he wasn't too thrilled about putting the pilgrim costume on. But when he saw everyone else in their costumes he told her he would put it on just to sing his songs because he couldn't sing without his costume. In the pictures you'll see he doesn't look too thrilled. But he was so cute singing his songs! There is also a video of him singing one of his songs.

More Halloween Fun

On Halloween we stopped at Matt's dad's house to do a little trick or treating and to show off the kids costumes. After that we headed over to my mom and dad's to do some trick or treating in their neighborhood. They always have alot of people handing out candy over there so it's a great place to trick or treat. My Aunt Denise and her little girl Maddie were there as well as my Aunt Kim and Kylie. After trick or treating around the neighborhood we came back to the house and roasted some marshmallows and enjoyed some yummy smores! What a fun night!!

Papa helping Gabe make his smore

Meme and Papa were the Black Eyed Peas

Kimmie was showing RyRy that girls can be football players and Kylie was Hannah Montana

Kate enjoying her candy

All the kids

Our little piggy!

The Red Power Ranger and Bumblebee

Trick or Treating in Norman

Since the OU game was on Halloween night the city of Norman decided to have their trick or treating the night before Halloween. Matt's mom lives in Norman so we decided to get the kids all dressed up in their costumes and do some trick or treating down there. We had a blast!! There was one house in particular that really did it big for Halloween! They had a cemetery in the front yard with a fog machine. Then they had these huge pumpkin shapes cut out of wood up against their house. Then they had a projector that projected a face (eyes, mouth) onto the pumpkins and they would sing a song every few minutes. They're eyes and mouth would move along with the words. It was very cool. Then they had a maze for the little kids to go through. Then they had a haunted house set up in their front yard. It was a pretty good sized haunted house too. Somehow Matt's mom, LaVerna, and I got roped into taking the boys in the haunted house. There was a long line to get into this thing and just from hearing the sounds that were coming out of the haunted house I was sure the boys would chicken out before we got there. But they didn't. We got up to the front of the line and thankfully the lady that was letting everyone in asked us if we wanted the scary version or the not so scary version. The boys quickly told her, "Nothing tooscary!" Let me tell you, I don't like haunted houses or scary movies so I will admit I was a little bit tense going into this thing. It was very cool though. I don't know how they did this in their front yard, but it was a legitimate haunted house. It had different rooms with different themes, lots of black lights and scary people dressed up in costumes. The scary people kind of stayed in the corners so they didn't scare the boys too much. There was one room that the boys liked the most and everything was covered in black and it had neon pink and green dots all over everything that were glowing with the black lights. Then there was someone covered in a black robe that was the same pattern as the walls. This person completely blended in with the walls and you didn't know they were there until they moved. It was creepy and cool all at the same time. And it totally reminded me of the old movie When A Stranger Calls Back when the guys paints his body to match the brick wall. Creepy. The best part was the last room. We walked in and there was this huge tarantula, it had to be about 2 or 3 feet wide. And when we walked by it made this very loud noise and the tarantula jumped toward us! Ryan flipped out and tried to start running back the way we came. It was so funny!! I wish I had my camera on him for his reaction! And that was it! The boys had such a good time. After all that we went trick or treating and the kids got lots of good candy. It was such a fun time and I'm so glad we got to go! Thanks LaVerna and Mark for inviting us down!!

The kids with their Mimi

Transformer and Power Ranger

Katie getting kisses from her Mimi

The creepy cemetery

The little kid maze

Halloween Fun!

I had a "photo shoot" with Kate in this cute little Halloween outfit. This wasn't her costume just a fun outfit. The Halloween costume photos are on their way....

Crazy Hair Day

It was Crazy Hair Day at school. Here is Gabe's crazy orange hair. We had orange hair color left over from last years crazy hair day so we decided to go with the same thing. Ryan had Crazy Hair Day at his school too, but he wouldn't let me touch his hair. He doesn't like it when I try to do anything with his hair. He always tells me he doesn't like it spikey. He doesn't like gel or hairspray in it either. Gabe on the other hand loves Crazy Hair Day. He likes it when I give him spikey hair and spray it different colors. He made me keep adding more orange because he didn't think it was bright enough!

Is She Going to be an Artist?

Or maybe a writer? Kate loves to color and write. She always has a crayon and paper in her hand. When my kids go through phases like these it always makes me wonder if it's a sign as to what they're going to be when they grow up...

Pumpkin Pictures

We bought a big pumpkin to carve for Halloween. Gabe was very good about giving me directions on how to carve the pumpkin. Ryan would not help clean out the pumpkin. He thought it was too slimy. We did a very simple Jack-O-Lantern and I thought he turned out pretty cute...

Ryan's "Real" Birthday

Today we had Ryan's birthday party at JumpZone. He kept calling today his "real" birthday. I said, "Tuesday was your real birthday, Ryan. Today is your birthday party." He said, "Today is my real birthday...I get presents!"

We had a great time. The party was a superhero theme. On the invitations I told all the kids to come in their favorite superhero costume. Most kids just came in their favorite superhero t-shirt. I don't blame them. I'm not sure if I would let my kids wear a costume to a birthday party, you just never know who is going to show up in a costume and if your kid is going to be the only one dressed up! But we did have a few dress up including Gabe and Ryan! Gabe was a transformer and Ryan was a power ranger. I'm thinking this is going to be a tradition with Ryan since his birthday is so close to Halloween. I have visions of Halloween/Birthday parties with costumes and awesome decorations. If I can only get into that bigger house to be able to host these parties...

Anyway, back to reality. I made t-shirts for the Gabe, Ryan and Kate to wear to the party. They were pretty cute, if I do say so myself! I was going to make some shirts for Matt and I, but Matt convinced me that might be just a little too cheesy. In the end I'm glad I listened to him. It probably would have been a little goofy. I made the kids capes too. They looked so cute in them! Kate even had her own little pink cape. We also made capes for all the guests as party favors. The party was a success, Ryan had lots of fun and he got some great gifts. We really appreciate all our family and friends coming out and helping us celebrate his 4th birthday!

Fall Pictures

Ryan is 4!

Today is Ryan's 4th birthday! Somehow (overnight, it seems) he has turned into this little man who loves football, superheroes and wrestling around with his brother. The funny thing is that I think Ryan is more excited about Halloween this year than his birthday. He's been asking me all weekend, "After my birthday is Halloween, right?" He can't wait to dress up in his Halloween costume.

Tonight Ryan got to pick where we ate dinner. He decided he wanted pizza, so we went to Mazzio's. When we came home we had and cake and opened his present. He got an Iron Man toy, which is exactly what he wanted. Now we're watching Transformers. I'd say it's a pretty good birthday in Ryan's world. Saturday will be his superhero party at JumpZone. Everyone is going to dress up as superhero's for his party so it should be fun....

She's Walking!!

Braum's Tour

Last week the kids and I went on a tour of the Braum's factory in Tuttle. It was fun! We went with our neighbors Amie and her kids Caden and Anna and Amie's mom. We watched a video first, which the kids didn't really enjoy. Then we got on a bus that was white with black spots like a cow. Kate loved the bus because she didn't have to sit in a car seat. She sat next to the window and just looked out the window. We had to drive just a little ways to the factory. We got to see them making pies, ice cream and milk. They wouldn't let you take pictures while inside the factory so all we got were pictures after the tour. After the tour we went back to the main building and the kids got to enjoy an ice cream bar. The best part about it was that it was free!!