Fighting Ninjas

In December, Uncle Robby came to town and the boys played Ninjas with him in the backyard. They had so much fun and got nice and dirty and loved every minute of it.

Playing war at President Hodnets house with their new nerf guns. Needless to say, Robby takes his battles very seriously.

Fall Leaves

We attempted to take our own family portraits this year with the beautiful fall foliage. We feel bad for our poor families out in Utah and Wyoming who are dealing with a bunch of snow so we thought we'd take advantage of our 60 degree weather in November and take some pictures. We went out before work one day so it was really bright and we just used our little tripod. We found this spot when Adam and I were walking one morning. It happens to be just across from the park on the road to the dump. We got a few strange looks as people drove past us with their pickups full of trash but we didn't mind.

Transportation Museum with Grandma Julie

We had so much fun when Grandma Julie (or Grandma Nana as Charlie started calling her). We went to the lake, drove her up to the transportation museum in Roanoke-(Charlie LOVEs choo-choos), bought some heirloom tomatoes at a street fair and forced her to ride the crooked road to the Mabry Mill. We made a yummy southern dinner complete with corn pudding, collard greens, grits and the tomatoes we bought. It was pretty good for our first time. We loved having her come visit and can't wait until she can come again. The boys got lots of good guy bad guy playing in and were pretty sad when she had to go home. I'll post more pictures once she posts them on shutterfly ;)

September Birthday Fun

At the last minute, we decided to throw Jack a birthday party with a pirate theme. We passed out some invites Sunday and his B-day was tues.

Lots of our friends from the branch came over and we cooked some kiddie Pizzas and popcorn for snacks. We started out the night decorating bandanas, but they couldn't wear them because silly me- I forgot that the fabric paint takes FOREVER to dry. So they all wore them home instead.

Check out the candy flying through the air...

Charlie was in heaven eating and waiting his turn for the Pinata. He went missing during the pinata part and Adam found him in the house polishing off someone's cake they had left on their plate- what a good little cleaner-upper...

Laura was the brave soul to take on the job of holding the stick while the wee blindfolded ones ran around swinging a big stick.

Almost to the end of the treasure hunt...

laura created the cutest poem for the treasure hunt with each verse leading them to the next clue for their pirate treasure. It was a pretty good poem- second only to her gutter poem from the 4th grade.

Blowing out his candles on his pirate cake.

His pirate party was a success. We hid treasures in the sandbox which we are still finding. I hope it was memorable to him- I think it was, he's already asking when he can have a birthday again.

September is a very busy month. the next week, we had Becky's birthday which thanks to packages from Grandmas got to be extended for several days- Thanks Guys- We absolutely love getting packages and mail from you!! I got what I'm pretty sure was my first ever princess party complete with tiaras for everyone!!! (good thing my boys are still young enough to wear tiarras... maybe the next one should be a girl...)