dressing up for halloween!

the only way i could capture all 3 boys together...here we are on our way to the Denton Bible fall festival...batman (ian), ninja turtle (logan), and my sweet giraffe (tysen)...

tysen's first sucker....a huge hit!

trick or treating that night in cousin max's neighborhood.

and now there are 9!

for mom's bday this year, we decided it was time to give her a formal 'grandkids' picture. we got them all matching and adorable and set about the difficult task of getting them all to at least look in the same direction! there are 9 of them now...and logan (not even 6 yet) is the oldest. we got crazy andy to do a puppet show which had them all laughing hysterically...as you can see...

my little guys...

and of course one with granny...

L-R- logan, tysen, granny, milia, reagan, ian, audrey, zach, kenzie, and aubren

us older kids were feeling left out...

we're almost all here...missing baby brother, sam, and brother in law, brian...and we seem to be missing a little maturity from my husband in the back. :)

brotherhood boys

all these boy's fathers have been friends since highschool. its such an incredible friendship...we hope they all grow up and have the same bond...

ian.tysen.luke.max.logan.keaton

2009

my little men

since i've recently found a place to print my blog, i'm determined to record memories, and funny stories...so one day they can look back and see what they were like when they were little. its definately not because i have a terrible long term memory. ha!

so...typically there will be short little stories here and there, but since i have been horrible about this in the past, this one is going to be a long one. i don't want to forget the little things that i love about my boys...

a few things i love about my little men...

...i love the way that logan cannot hide his dimples when i start to talk about them. he just grins and grins, and he can try as hard as he can not to smile, but those dimples always poke through!
...i love it when the boys play together. like, when they pulled berries off the bushes, and put them in their bamboo sticks, and made "super berry bombs".
...i love the way ian adjust his glasses whenever he is talking with little girls, or when someone compliments his new glasses.
...i love it when tysen says "lav-la" (meaning 'love you').
...i love ian's imagination--i swear we could make a movie of his life and make millions if we could record him 24-7.
...i love that the boys love worship music! their favorite song right now is "there is no one like you".
...i love to see tysen stop and swing his arms while he bounces to music.
...i LOVE to see the boys get so excited when they see their cousins.
...i love how ian expresses things with his hands. its like he's teaching a lecture.
...i love that andy takes them out one at a time every wednesday morning for breakfast. and i love that we won't talk about it for 2 weeks, but logan never forgets when its his turn!
...i love it when tysen does something to make the boys laugh, and then he keeps doing it to get more and more laughs. tonight it was logan saying "tysen, did you toot?" (he was honestly just asking), and tysen leaned forward, pointed at him and said "too?" and the boys just rolled with laughter. so tysen kept saying it over and over, and then throwing his head back with dramatic laughter.
...i love how ian watches his reflection in the tv when he's talking to me.
...i love that when we pull up to the church, tysen starts squealing "daddy!!"
...i love that logan organizes and follows the rules.
...i love ian's macho strut.
...i love ian's comparisons. "hey! that boy's name is max, just like my cousin's name is max!"
...i love how tysen says 'no'...its a very dramatic "ohhhhhh".
...i love to walk in and find a fort of blankets all over the living room (as much as i hate the mess)
...i love my new "mom to three boys" t-shirt!!!
...i love family walks.
...i love being the only girl.
...i love to hear the boys bring up Jesus when talking with random kids at the dentist.
...i love pictures of my family.
...i love it when logan and ian will randomly quote a Bible verse they learned at church.
...i love movie nights...and can't wait for tysen to be older so we can all enjoy them!
...i love when ian draws our family and i'm the biggest one on the page (cuz it means he loves me the most). :)
...i love to see tysen run and attack the older boys.
...i love all that all 3 have big blue eyes.

i think the main point is clear...
I LOVE MY BOYS....

State Fair

its a family tradition to go to the state fair! its ridiculously expensive, but we manage to do ok, since we get free tickets, and take our own food/snacks...the boys love it! their favorite part is always the petting zoo...and they love the dog show, and building with all the food samples. :) we were joined by their cousin max this year (and kyle's dad and sister/boyfriend)....

tysen and max watching the goats...(this is about where max found some goat food and ate it-yum!)

logan loved this cowboy area since he has a newfound love for football...and the cowboys!

naptime...thank heavens! we got to sample foods while he was sleeping!

traditional family picture....

"i'll trade ya my chex cereal for a cheerio!"

our one treat...fried oreos....o my gosh--soooooooo good!

dinner mess

wow. sometimes an entire day can be destroyed in a matter of minutes! i had dinner all planned...grilled chicken, green beans, cornbread, and homemade french fries. the preparation started out great...even the boys were cooperating and playing on the porch! (its a good day when tysen isn't hanging on to my clothes as i try to cook dinner.) i started with the cornbread, put that in the oven. then put the chicken in some hot water to thaw...and started slicing my homemade fries. i found a tiny bit of mold on a potatoe, but i cut it out, and pressed on. the cornbread was done, so i slid the potatoe fries in the oven, and prepped the chicken. everything was awesome. then i tasted the cornbread. blah. something was weird. dug through the trash, and looked at the box. oops! that expired last february. awesome.

i will not be deterred! i found another little pack (that had not expired) of cornbread and whipped that up. here's where the evening began to go downhill. i set the square dish of cornbread batter on the counter, and then heard a loud crash on the porch. i instantly knew what had happened as the shrieking began. tysen was sitting in a lawn chair on the porch...i think he stood up, but at any rate, the chair collapsed on him and he was lying face down in the dirt. i darted around the counter rushing to get him, but slipped ....and my hand grabbed for anything, but sadly found the cornbread batter, flipping the whole dish upside down and crashing to the floor. my arm is covered in batter, there is batter all over my pants, and completely splattered all over the kitchen cabinets/oven/counter/floor....everywhere! i hop around the batter, and pull tysen up out of the collapsed chair (with one hand, since the other is still covered in batter)....he's ok, but now i have a ridiculous mess to clean up....and i'm really frustrated, cuz i really wanted cornbread!

finally the mess is cleaned up....and i pull the potatoes out to flip them over...and ugh...apparently i forgot to spray the pan because those fries stuck like crazy...so no more fries...it was just poatote mush. AH!

i called andy and said, please come home now. and by the way, we're going out to eat. luckily we had a giftcard to movie tavern, so we took the older boys (thanks to allison and sean coming over to hang out with tysen with only 30 min. notice) and the evening turned out quite nice!!

My Logan....

we had our first parent/teacher conference last week. (i still can't believe i'm a parent)....anyway, he's doing great! top of his class...very helpful...and apparently amazing behavior. i'm so glad he is at school, cuz we all know that is not always the case at home! she asked me how he had learned to read because his reading level was incredibly high... i was telling andy about it, and he just smiled at me, said "you're so amazing...spending so much time teaching him his letters and sounds and reading". i looked up and said "i didn't teach him anything!" he laughed, but i'm serious! i could be ranked world's worst mom ever, but i won't take credit for something i really didn't do! he learned his letters and sounds from the letter factory and word factory (two great educational videos), and we bought him a little dry erase board that had the letters on it for him to practice writing. and andy did all the reading teaching! NOT ME!! but i'm still the proud mom!

after i picked him from school, we had about an hour before my teacher meeting, so we went to the mall for a short date. we got a pretzel and icee...and then went to barnes and noble to eat it and talk. as we talked, we pulled chunks off the pretzel and would eat and talk. i noticed the pretzel getting smaller and smaller, but logan still tore a small part off each time. i was expecting him to just eat the whole thing at some point, but it finally got down to a really small bite, and he still tore it in half and left a bite! he looked at the last bite sitting there...and then walked away...
mom: 'don't you want that last bite?'
logan: 'no' (as he casually shrugs his shoulders)
mom: 'why not?'
logan: 'cuz i want you to have it'
mom: 'why?' (i was very touched, but generally curious)
logan: 'because! you are my mom!' (he seemed to be getting annoyed that i was asking questions)
it was such a sweet and generous moment. i forced a hug on him, and then i took a small bite, and handed him the other....do i have a great kid or what? :)