Happy 9th Birthday, Travis!

 

I can’t believe Travis is 9 years old!  I am pretty sure I say this every year, but the time just flies by! 

He celebrated this year with a sleepover at the house!  Although exhausting for Jeff and I, they all had a great time!  Lego building, video gaming, Nerf gun wars, pizza, cake, presents….what more could a 9 year old want? 

The boys enjoying a little Lego creation time!  

 

  

 

We gave all the kids Nerf guns and protective eye wear…let the fun begin!

Nerf wars!

Travis with his brothers on evening of his birthday!  He chose to stay in for dinner and eat Jeff’s famous lamb chops!

Travis with his new Nerf gun…his first…he was pretty excited!

Sometimes he is just like MacGyver

Jeff just amazes me sometimes!  He comes up with clever, creative ideas to solve problems that most people would have given up on!  In this case it was the Christmas lights on the outside of the house that were causing him trouble.

We got new lights this year that, in my eyes, needed precision hanging for them to look good!  I can not stand it when lights are hung haphazardly on the house.  They must be straight and all facing the same direction!  Well, getting up on our upper level proved difficult for him (that is a different story entirely!), so he devised a plan to get the lights hung straight on the upper eaves.  I came outside to find him with a stapler clamped onto a tree trimming pole!!  He had a second pole which was used as a device to deploy the stapler creating beautifully straight Christmas lights!  If only I had taken a picture of the outside of the house!  They looked great thanks to Jeff and his MacGyver style skills!

 

No more Binky’s!!!

Ryan decided on December 5th that he was all done with his binky’s!!  We have talked about getting rid of his binky’s for awhile now, but I was somewhat afraid to push it because he loved them and was such a good sleeper with them.  Honestly, I didn’t want to mess with that, but alas it was time.  He is 3 1/2 now, and older than either Justin or Travis when they got rid of theirs.  A recent trip to the dentist also helped plant the seed in his head.  So I guess he decided it was time. 

He came to me right before bed and told me that he wanted to throw them in the garbage.  He caught me a little off guard and I wasn’t sure I was ready yet, so I asked him if he was sure over and over making it clear that this was a permanent choice.  In the end he stuck with his decision.  I was far more worried about it than he was!!  We took our few pictures and it was off to the garbage.  He was proud of his decision and so was I!

Ryan with his binky’s for the last time!

His very loved binky’s!  The one in the front was his clear favorite!

In the garbage!

The first two nights were a little rough for him while trying to go to sleep, but once asleep he did fine without them.  We are now officially a house without a baby and now the last of our “baby gear” is gone…it is bitter sweet.

Getting the perfect picture….

Christmas Cards are stress for me every year as I try to get the “perfect” picture of the boys to send to our family and friends.  Fortunately, this year it went pretty smoothly, twice actually! 

I dressed them all up in their matching shirts sat them in front of the tree and took about 50 pictures.  When we were finished they wanted to see the pictures on the camera so I went to show them and discovered that their crazy mom forgot to put the memory card in the camera! They were disappointed when I made them do the pictures all over again, but they did a great job!  It seems as they are all getting older it is getting easier to get them all to cooperate at the same time! Yeah!

My cutie pies!

Trimming the tree!

Decorating the Christmas tree is one of my favorite activities of the holiday season!  The boys love getting involved and they love even more finding the special ornaments that have important meaning to all of us….their 1st Christmas ornaments, ornaments picked up on special vacations, photo ornaments showing their cute baby faces.  It is a good time for all of us!

 

 

 

 

 

“I want you to knock my tooth with it!”

Justin’s loose tooth begged to be pulled.  It was literally just hanging on, but he wouldn’t let us touch it!  We worked on getting him to wiggle his tooth for over an hour.  All he had to do was give it a little pull and it would have popped right out.  Finally, we gave up and decided it would come out when it was ready.  When all the drama was over, he taped his mouth shut to ensure that we would not come near him and pull out his tooth! 

 

Shortly after this, we put him to bed.  He came out about 10 minutes later  holding his watch, he says to me, “I decided that I want to be brave!  I want you to take my watch and knock my tooth with it so it will fall out!” WHAT?  Did he just ask me to knock him in the head with his watch?  I told him that I would absolutely not do that, but I would pull it out! One minute later, the tooth was out after a slight tug. 

Now, he can officially sing the “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth” song!

Fall Leaves

The kids absolutely love when all the leaves fall off our tree.  I am not allowed to rake them up until there is enough fallen leaves for them to have fun with.  They gather their friends and then the fun begins! They rake up, jump in, toss and throw the leaves and then the annual leaf fight begins.  It is a lot fun!  When the battle is over, the kids disperse and I am left with a lawn that is just as covered in leaves as when we started…it is all worth it!