Happy Late Thanksgiving!

Look at this enormous, beautiful family.

We had a great Thanksgiving at my parents' house. Huston played with his cousins, Cody and Bradley. They're always so cute together.

The girls played with Grandpa:

Arden played dress up.

We celebrated Kierstyn's birthday.

Lots of fun was had with my brother's dog, Pup.

And we took some family pictures! My brother John's family:

All the cousins together:

My parents with all the grandkids:

My brother Ben, and his sweet girlfriend, Tracy:

And I'm not going to post our family picture, because I'm using it for our Christmas card.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, too!

Arden's 2nd Birthday

Someone special had her second birthday party today! And she had a blast!

I picked a "vintage cowgirl" theme for her party, but I ended up interpreting that pretty loosely. I just threw a burlap table runner on the table, some flowers in old starbucks bottles, mason jars for drinking pink lemonade, some star shaped platters that seemed cowgirl-ish to me (even though they're technically Christmas decor), and some vintage hankies from my mom thrown over jute string over the window and hutch.

My mom made the cake, as usual, and it was beautiful and delicious, as usual.

We had ham and cheese sandwiches on King's Hawaiian rolls, carrots and grapes, chips with homemade salsa, chocolate peanut butter balls, and cake. Simple, but yummy.

Arden wore a little denim mini skirt, cowgirl boots, and a pink t-shirt that said "cowgirl in training" that Mimi and Grandpa bought for her. She looked so sweet!

Clarke made an awesome video montage with pictures of her from throughout the year. It's become a tradition to do one every year for both of their birthdays. Arden went crazy when we first showed it to her, and she was gasping and pointing at all the pictures, saying "That's me!" and calling out the names of the other people in the pictures. She liked it so much that she started bawling when it ended, and we had to show it to her three times. Here she is watching it at her party with Mimi and Aunt Emily and Granny.

She loved when we sang "Happy Birthday" to her, and just squirmed in delight (unlike someone else I know). Here's the sweet face she gave, like "Is this for me?!"

Daddy helped her blow out the candles. Two years old!

She kept holding out her fork so we'd help her put bites on it.

Our wonderful family just spoiled her with presents and she loved it! She loved these two tiny ducks from Grandma (Grandma knows her well).

Sharing her crawling baby doll (from Aunt Emily and Uncle Christopher) with her cousin, Kierstyn.

Darling little table from Granny and Papaw, all set up for tea with new glasses and cups from Mimi and Grandpa.

Birthday girl.

Getting help with her new shopping cart and food from Uncle Ben and his girlfriend, Tracy.

Why is it so hard to get a good family picture? Huston did NOT want to smile.

Happy birthday, sweet Arden. We love you so so much!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Mr. Fredricksen and our little bumblebee!

This year was probably the first really happy, exciting, and "successful" Halloween we've ever had with Huston. We started talking about it weeks and weeks ago, and he would scream and say he didn't want to dress up as anything for Halloween and he wasn't going to do it and on and on. But I wouldn't give up, and kept talking about how fun it would be. Eventually he announced that he was going to be Mr. Fredricksen (from Up! of course) for Halloween. But then he would scream and say he wasn't going to wear a bow tie. Finally he decided he would wear a bow tie and he even came around to suspenders. He was super excited to get his "quad cane" and put tennis balls on the bottom, just like in the movie. And obviously it was no problem convincing him to wear glasses. I shouldn't have pushed my luck, but I did. I chased him around trying to get him to let me spray his hair white, but he wouldn't have it, so I backed off.

Here he is in all his Mr. Fredricksen-ness.

I bought balloons for him to carry, but he didn't want to take them trick or treating. It was funny, because all the people we passed just thought he was dressed as an old man. Of course, Mr. Fredricksen is kind of an obscure character, so if he had carried the balloons it might have confused them more and left them wondering why the old man was carrying balloons.

I was so proud of him for saying trick or treat and thank you to all of the people who gave him candy. He got a huge kick out of ringing the doorbells and commenting on all the Halloween lights and decorations we saw.

We passed one house on our street that puts a strobe light up every year (which we haven't talked about for a year) and he said, "Hey, remember when I was two and they put that light out for Halloween?" Everything that happened a long time ago is "when I was two" and isn't that an amazing memory?

Here's our crazy, adorable bumblebee.

She was pleased as punch every time she got a new piece of candy in her bucket. She said "More! Like it! Candy!" Her little feet was trip-trapping along so quickly when we started trick or treating, but they got slower and slower and by the time we made it around the block to the house right next to ours, she looked up at Daddy and said, "Hold me?"

Enjoying the first piece of Halloween candy from our neighbor - a Reese's peanut butter cup.

How does Mr. Fredricksen eat a Reese's?

They were so tuckered out after trick or treating - Clarke read them one story and was about to read them another, but Arden said, "All done! Night night!" at the same time Huston was saying, "Bedtime!"

Now it's the next morning and they're both in their jammies carrying around their buckets full of candy. It's only 8:20 and Huston is already plotting how late it has to be before he can have a sucker. It might be a long day!