Christmas

This year for Christmas Moma and Papa came to visit from Utah. We had a lot of fun with them and were sad to see them go.

The boys in their new Christmas jammies and robes on Christmas Eve.

The boys with some of their loot.
We had some friends over on Christmas Eve and on Christmas, here the boys are hanging out with Hallie and Jason (our friends from Baylor) and Jason putting together some train stuff they got for the boys. They love Hallie and Jason.


Alan and Sam on Christmas morning.
Here the boys are a couple of days after Christmas with their friend Brylee making a gingerbread Christmas tree.

And the verdict is...

I guess it is kind of fitting that this being our 100th post we get to announce that we are going to be having another boy. We had an ultrasound this afternoon and as soon as the technician got a good view of the baby I looked and said "that there, that means it is a boy, right?" She said "yes, it looks that way." He was definitely not shy, and we got a great video of him taking some nice big gulps of the amniotic fluid, the technician kept saying "yum, yum." And then we got a view of him with the umbilical cord in his mouth. I guess he is practicing for eating on the outside.

Anyway, we are excited for this little one to come.

JUMP!

As you can see we have been celebrating around here. Alan finished another semester and we are excited for his last semester of school (cross your fingers).



The boys had a great preschool activity last week and got to dress as pirates and go look for the true meaning of Christmas. They had a blast.

We set up our Christmas tree.
And believe it or not, it snowed here for about 30 minutes one day and here are the boys enjoying the little snow that fell. If you look closely at the second picture you can see a little snow piled up against the fence.

We took a ride on Cinderella's carriage as we celebrated with the season at a Baylor tree lighting ceremony where no trees were actually lit.

You May Have Noticed

That we changed the title of our blog page. Before it just said Alan, Minda, Samuel, and Jacob. Not only was this a really boring name it was also a bit inaccurate. We are adding another member to our family sometime in the end of May. Yes, that means we are pregnant. Almost 15 weeks now.

Many of you may already know this but we thought we would let the rest of you in on the little secret. For those of you who would like to tease us about having another set of twins let me put your minds to ease, it is only one this time around (I made the ultrasound technician check multiple times to make sure.)

We are extremely excited about the baby and maybe a little nervous about the timing. Alan graduates from school in the middle of May and the baby's due date is May 28th so it cuts things awful close. But we are looking forward to the adventure.

The boys are very excited and love to talk to the baby, it is very sweet. We will see how sweet they are when they realize what it means to bring a new baby home.

The new name I picked for our blog is not really all that exciting either so if any of you have any really great ideas for a new name leave me a comment on what you think it should be.

Silly Pictures and Heritage Family Farm

The boys are so ready for Christmas. They have been asking when Christmas will be here since before Halloween. We decorated for Christmas while Alan was out finding deals early on black Friday. The boys found these hats and have been walking around only answering to the name Santa Claus and they love it.
The other day Sam was having a hard time napping and he decided he would sit by his door against his dresser and wait until I let him come out of his room. Well I guess he fell asleep there as he waited because when I went to get him he was really out of it. I picked him up and carried him to the couch and he fell asleep on the couch. I came back a little while later to check on him and I found him totally asleep standing like this against the couch. We have never really ever had a good sleeping picture of the boys so this was a first for us.

Alan got out some old rubber boots he has so he could have dry feet as he went out to do field work. The boys thought they were really cool and have been wearing them all around the house. Here is Jacob sporting the boots.So our boys are deathly afraid of dogs but we took them to the Heritage Family Farm last Friday and they fell in love with this puppy (thanks to Hallie for the help with the puppy.) The farm was a lot of fun we got to see how to make yarn and fabric, we learned about making cheese, saw a demonstration on how to make cider, saw how to do some blacksmithing etc. The boys really loved the petting zoo the best though. Sam was so cute he kept kissing the dogs nose. (This dog was so sleepy it almost looked dead but it was breathing so we knew it wasn't.)
Sam sitting on a bale of hay.
Jacob and Daddy on a bale of hay.

Making Spirits Bright

My kids surprise me everyday with something they pick up from who knows where. The other day I was utterly confused though when Jacob came to me and said "Mom what are spirits?" I thought wow that is a hard one to explain. And so I tried to explain to him in the most simplest terms what I thought to be an acceptable answer. He looked very confused and looked at me like I was from outer space. I wondered where he had learned that word and I asked him and he said. "Mom spirits are bright." I was really confused about how he would have come up with that on his own. So I asked him what he meant. He said "Jingle Bells, making spirits bright."

When I realized what he was talking about I just had to laugh at myself for confusing him so much. It was a pretty simple question actually that he had asked. Oh well I guess I better learn to do some investigating as to what he is really asking next time.

New Couches

We got a call earlier this week from a family in our ward who were getting new couches and wanted to know if we wanted their old couches. Since our couches didn't match and the "new" couches were in much better shape then our own we took them up on their offer.
There are a lot of pillows and the boys have discovered how much they love playing and hiding in all the pillows. Here is a picture of them playing in the "forest"(that is what they call the pillow fortress they make for themselves.)

I thought this was a funny way to watch tv, but they love to sit here and watch tv like this.

Pumpkins and Halloween

Alan, Jacob and Samuel worked on our Jack O'Lantern this year. Dad Cut the top and the boys helped scoop out the guts. They did not really like that very much because it was so messy but they had fun watching dad. They told us they wanted a happy pumpkin so Alan worked on that for them.





I love this funny picture, Sam is pointing to the pumpkin while Alan has this cheesy smile and Jacob just looks confused.
Halloween night, the boys with mom and all their loot. I made them monkey costumes but everyone thought they were bears or dogs until they saw their tails.
Trunk or Treating, the boys in their costumes and their bananas.
These last two pictures were just some cute pictures of the boys that I thought I would throw in.
The boys in new jammies wrestling with Dad

The Pumpkin Patch and the Zoo

Yesterday Alan took the day off of school and we went to a "Pumpkin Patch" about a 30 minute drive away. When we got there we realized it wasn't really just a Pumpkin Patch (this was all they had for a pumpkin patch) but it was a lot of little activities for the kids.
(Believe it or not this was the best picture of the boys I could get with the pumpkins)

They had a cow ride, the boys rode all by themselves and loved it. Afterward Jacob informed me that he was very proud of himself, maybe that isn't the best thing to teach him.

They had a golfing area, but the boys are still not very good at that, and also this duck race area. The boys loved this. They raced their ducks using the pumps and Jacob again was very proud of himself, clapping and shouting when the duck got to the other end.

Sam struggling with the whole race concept.
Jacob intently focusing on the race.
They had a hayride and we had fun with our friends that were also there at the farm.

A couple of days ago the boys and I went to the zoo. I realized it had been a while since we had taken pictures of them at the zoo, so I brought the camera along with me. The boys with Nemo, although Nemo seems to be missing in action.
This is the boys at the new exhibit at the zoo. We got new orangutans and a kamodo dragon at the zoo and they have statues of each.
Here are the boys on the Chinese horses they have to go along with the whole Asian theme of the exhibit.

These are the kids we went with minus Brody. I love this action shot of Brylie and Atticus, it was the only shot I got with all four of them.

McKinney Home

So my wonderful Aunt Glenda and Uncle Tracy are trying to sell their home in McKinney Texas (just north of Dallas) and so I am posting their homes blog in case you know of anyone in the market for a wonderful historic home in North Dallas. Even if you don't know anyone looking, her house is amazing and they did a lot of the work themselves, it is gorgeous, so check it out.
www.northbradleystreet.blogspot.com

Fire Trucks

We have been trapped inside a lot lately because of so much rain so it was nice today to get. We went to the library for story time and today they were talking about Fire Men and Fire Trucks and afterward the Hewitt Fire Department brought over a truck and a rescue vehicle for the kids to check out. Sam was a little hesitant because he thought he would have to ride on it and he didn't want to. Jacob was so excited the whole library time and when it was time to go he started clapping, it was really cute.


Jacob and Sam with their new fire hats.
Jacob liked how big the tires were on the truck so I took his picture next to one.

The boys watching the Fire Men talk about the hoses.
When they got home they found our garden hose and pretended to be fire fighters, Jacob told me he wants to be a Police Officer, a Fire Truck Man, and a Doctor (that's a tall order.) Sam told me he wanted to be a big, big, big Fire Chief.
Funny Boys!

Clothing Bandits Strike Again

So you may recall that a few weeks ago Samuel and Jacob got a little wild when we had people at our house for visiting teaching. They removed all the clothing from their dresser and then started tearing their playroom apart including tearing up some of their books. Well yesterday I was watching my friends two little boys. My boys and her boys were having a great time watching Bob the Builder and playing with their cars and trains. Then I suggested that the boys all go play in the playroom while I got some things ready for dinner. I checked on them just to make sure we didn't have a repeat of a couple of weeks ago. But apparently I wasn't quite on top of things as I thought I was because when I went into their bedroom this is what I found. Every article of their clothing strewn throughout their room. Now I beg you what is a mother to do? I am totally out of ideas as to how to get them to stop taking their clothes out of their dresser, so if any of you have any good ideas please share.