spring weather

The weather has been predictable Texas weather lately. One day it's hot outside and the next- grab your jacket...and hat...and gloves. Two weeks before Spring Break it was warm and beautiful outside. Then in one day it changed to rainy, cold, and miserable. It's warm again outside- shorts, AC, and all. I prefer the warm weather myself, so I'm enjoying Spring very much so far.

Here are a few pictures of a fun day outside with Noah from several weeks ago:

sliding fun

I can't remember what he was telling me here. Apparently something was really big.

We're looking forward to having fun in our yard this Spring!

fun at the children's museum

At the beginning of the month, my family came for a visit to Fort Worth. We enjoyed visiting the Children's Museum and watching an I-Max on dinosaurs. I mostly enjoyed watching Noah and Carson play baseball with Landon and having 2 girls-only adventures with my mom and sister!

Here are some pictures of our museum fun:

jude the construction worker
noah and carson- the little grocery shoppers

carson eating a lobster

noah cooking at a campfire

clay with jude- the little astronaut

jude is 8 months

I feel like I just posted Jude's 7 month update, but here we got again. Jude turned 8 months last week! At 8 months, Jude:

*can get from a crawling position into a sitting position

*can scoot anywhere he wants to go

*enjoys playing with toys with his brother in their room

*eats finger foods: bananas, peas, bread, pancakes, puffs, cheerios, crackers, etc.

*LOVES his bath and wagon rides

*has 7 teeth!

I think Jude might be ready for his first hair cut. There is this stubborn piece of hair that hangs in his face and it drives me crazy!

Oh those sweet dimples!
yea for peas! look at his cute teeth!

I love the self-feeding stage. So fun!

yum, yum!

a visit from dee

Dee came to visit us for the weekend. She arrived Saturday at lunch time with Taco Bueno in hand and left mid-morning on Monday. The boys had a great time reading books, throwing balls, and getting wagon rides with their Dee. I enjoyed a great sewing session on Sunday night and feel closer to being a sewer in the near future!

Dee and the boys

(Notice Noah's fabulous monster face :)
Dee bought Noah this fun helicopter at Cracker Barrell where we ate lunch on Sunday. Noah played with it while we waited for our table, while we ate, and then held it the whole way back to our house. That night Clay told him if he cooperated during teeth-brushing then he could sleep with his prize. He cooperated (read: didn't cry) so the helicopter went to bed with him. We all laughed because never did Noah realize that the helicopter was full of candy! He just loved the rest of the toy! Well the mystery ended on Monday when Noah banged the helicopter against a chair and out popped lots of tiny, colorful balls of sweetness. Before I could get them up, Noah was having a field day with the candy, even throwing some to his brother. I don't think I've ever seen my boys so excited about something!

Thanks Dee for visiting us and giving us lots of laughs!

haircut(s)

After Clay cut Noah's hair on Sunday, we found Noah doing this with the clippers...

... cutting Elmo's hair! Isn't it great Noah can have a pal through life that does everything he does?!

valentine's day

These are the fun things we did this Valentine's season:

We made heart-shaped pancakes with blueberry syrup for breakfast today. You can find the recipe here. We substituted the raspberries in the recipe for blueberries. We poured the batter into a heart-shaped cookie cutter to get the pancakes into the heart shape.

Noah made heart-shaped valentines to give to his teachers at school. He asked Elmo if he wanted to join the fun :) Clay and I are both really impressed with how well he shares, even if it is a stuffed animal he's sharing with.

Noah and I made these fun bags to give to his friends at school. They were filled with Kool-aid Playdough. I thought it was a good alternative to the sugar frenzy that is usual at parties for little ones. Actually I was surprised that he had one cupcake at school and his goody bag was only filled with valentine cards and no sweets.

I made these cards to go on the treat bags. The first one had the verse, "God showed his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8). The Kool-aid Playdough recipe was printed on the second tag.

We also received sweet Valentines from MeMe, Dee, and Grammie. Thank you for making Noah and Jude's Valentine's Day so special!

jude and luke

My mom got me a sewing machine for Christmas. Something I am so thrilled about and am looking forward to the endless projects available to me! The problem? I don't know how to sew!! Yet, that is. My friend, Rachel came over on Thursday to try to help me learn the basics. So far she showed me how to thread the bobbin and make simple stitches on scrap pieces of fabric. We tried another project in embroidery a few months ago when our babies were little ones. Now that they are eight months old it's not quite as easy to get work done. We'll have to visit on our weekly "sewing lessons" and wait for weekends to get real sewing accomplished.

A picture of our little ones at play- Jude and Luke