Huston: 4 years, 4 months

Huston had his Christmas preschool performance on Friday. He was really nervous about it and didn't want to do it, but we talked and talked about it for two weeks or more. The morning of his program he woke up and said, "Today is my program. I'm going to sing." Just like that. And I let my heart hope that he would. I took this picture of him outside of school that morning.

When the kids filed onto the risers, he was looking at us nervously and chewing his shirt. But when "Feliz Navidad" started, he started strumming his pretend guitar like the rest of the kids and singing the first few words. Then he just fell apart. Crying, arm flinging, utter despair. The girl next to him may have gotten hit by one of his flailing arms. And the girl behind him noticed his breakdown and reached down to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder.

Oh well. Maybe next year.

I just have to record a few more things, before I forget them. Here's a prayer Huston said at dinner time on December 2nd:

"Thank you, God, for this day and for this food and for day and night, day and night, day and night and for Mommy and Daddy and Arden and please just bless Arden not to hit." I couldn't help but laugh a little when his prayer was over, and he explained, "I was just praying for God to take away that sin from Arden."

His favorite game to play with Daddy when he comes home from work, is "Hut," otherwise known as football. Huston says "Hut!" and Clarke tries to tackle him, while Huston tries to run past him to the hallway. Arden tries to "block" by sitting on Daddy or otherwise interfering. Mommy is not allowed in the room when this game is played. I get told, "No, Mommy! Go away! I don't want you in here!" But I don't even mind, because I love his special games with his Daddy.

I also love how he says, "releven" for "eleven" and "relarm" for "alarm." And how he says, "Warmart" and "fwavwite."

Huston loves talking about outer space, which he calls, "Out-Ar Space." One day he told me, "I'm just so glad God gave us gravity so we won't go flying into out-ar space."

He still loves the movie Up and spends most of his day flying his paper "Up" house around and reenacting scenes from the movie, or carrying around one of his two books about the movie. His sweet teacher Ms. Kate gave him an Up sticker book a few weeks ago, and he walked around with a smile on his face all day. The pictures below are from October, and we're on our fourth or fifth paper Up house now (because Huston freaks out if they get bent or wet or wrinkled - he's a bit of a perfectionist like his mother), but that's pretty much how he looks most of the day, carrying around his little paper house.

We took the kids to Austin this weekend to see some friends and to see the Christmas lights on 37th street (which were not as good as I remembered, but the kids liked them). I desperately wanted to go shopping at The Domain in the afternoon, but it quickly became apparent that was a terrible idea. It was super crowded and the kids were over tired and just weren't going to cooperate. So we took them to a park to play instead, and they had a blast. Being a parent really makes you constantly die to yourself, but it's not always easy. Even though I knew the kids needed a chance to play, I was so selfish and just kept clinging to the hope of shopping. Anyway, we were rewarded with a super fun hour of playing and I'm so glad we went to the park instead of being miserable while trying to shop.

Huston was being such a boy at the park - going down the slide head first, climbing on this difficult set of stairs and doing it over and over until he could do it by himself. It's so fun to watch him get more daring after being overly cautious and afraid for so long.

We let the kids have dinner at Chick Fil A, and Huston and Arden are always beyond adorable in the play area together. It's like that playground really bonds them together and makes them a team. Arden can't get up all the steps to the slide by herself, so Huston goes behind her, pushing her bottom up so she can make it up each step. It is SO. CUTE. I could watch it all day. This particular playground went up really high and we couldn't see the kids at the top of it. They made it all the way up, and Arden started freaking out, crying and screaming, and she wouldn't slide down the slide. I asked Huston if he could help her, and he immediately started talking in this soothing tone to her,

"It's okay baby girl. I'm right here. And I'm never going to leave you. It's okay. I'm just never going to leave you. Come on baby girl." And she slid down the slide with him. Clarke and I just sat there looking at each other while our hearts swelled with joy and pride.

I love that boy.

Christmas so far...

Arden has soooo many cute Christmas outfits this year, thanks mostly to my mom's clearance finds at Dillard's last year. This lime polka dot confection, rimmed with fur, is one of my very favorites.

I wrapped 24 Christmas books before December started, and the kids have been opening one a night. Clarke's reading them "Fancy Nancy's Splendiferous Christmas" in this picture. After they read it, Arden went around saying, "Ooh Laa Laa" for days. I could just eat the kids up in their matching Gingerbread jammies.

We opened our new Little People nativity on December 1st and read the Christmas story. Arden calls Baby Jesus, "MY Baby Jesus." Huston's not that interested in it.

Huston did, however, LOVE helping me decorate the tree this year. He really helped me hang up a lot of the ornaments and was so excited about the whole process.

My friend Ashlee and I organized an advent devotional ornament exchange this year, which I might post about later if I have time. We got 24 girls together and everyone was assigned a day of the devotional - I had creation. Then we each made 24 copies of our ornament and had a little party where we distributed the ornaments so now we have one to go with each day of the devotional.

We have really enjoyed doing our advent devotional every night and hanging the ornament on the tree. The topics are simple, but good, and I hope it's preparing our kid's hearts for Christmas this year.

This Saturday Truitt and Melinda took the kids downtown to see the Christmas tree and lights. They had such a good time and came back talking about everything.

This sweet little outfit is from Melinda. So precious!

And Huston made his Rudolph shirt in school (and then threw a huge fit about wearing it and swore he was never going to wear it again).

I made the kids take another picture before church on Sunday because I thought their outfits were so cute. Huston was not amused.

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!