Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! We had a very fun month celebrating, eating, shopping, and spending time together as a family. Here is what we have been up to this month:

We Put Up Christmas Decorations

This is just a sampling of the snowmen that Howie made. He filled a whole wall in his room with snowmen in every color of the rainbow.

Howie's nativity scene, complete with a shepherd, a smiling cow, a polka dotted camel, and four alligators.

We got a new Christmas tree this year. Everything is better in pink, right? I love it!

We Saw Santa

We Made Christmas Cookies

Howie likes a lot of sprinkles on his cookies.

We Made Gingerbread Houses

We Ate Gingerbread Houses

Santa Came!

We Enjoyed a Lovely Christmas Day

We very much enjoyed the Christmas season! What a wonderful time to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and feel the love of our friends and family near and far!

On The Move

Today Henry is 10 months old. It has been a busy month for the little guy. He has four new teeth. He has a new bed and shares a room with his big brother. But if you were to ask Henry, his biggest accomplishment of the month (and his whole life, really) has been learning to move.

Henry started by scooting around on his bum, but that is a pretty slow way to get around. So on November 4, Henry crawled for the first time. A whole new world opened up to him. There were so many new things to explore and get into. Big brother's toys were no longer out of reach. If he got temporarily left in the living room, he could follow after everyone. And no longer did he have to sit and wait for someone to put him within arms reach to grab at the blinking internet lights. Yes, crawling is great fun.

But if crawling is fun, just think how great walking would be! A week after crawling for the first time, Henry took his first steps! It is only a matter of time before he is running after big brother and really having some fun.

The Best Halloween Ever!

Last year Howie wanted nothing at all to do with Halloween. He refused to wear any kind of costume, and he stubbornly resisted asking people for candy. This year Howie discovered Halloween.

Howie spent the entire month of October anticipating Halloween. He knew Halloween was coming, and he knew it was going to be good. He was going to dress up as Spiderman, and people were going to give him candy. Every day he said, "Halloween is coming, right?" and "Halloween is for treats, right?" Needless to say, we had quite a lot of fun preparing for and celebrating Halloween this year.

We made Halloween decorations.

We made Halloween cookies.

We carved a Jack-O-Lantern.

Howie drew on the pumpkin with his markers.

Matt carved the pumpkin, not really following the lines that Howie drew.

We went to a Halloween party.

Henry is dressed as Super Grover

We went to our ward trunk-or-treat.

Howie plays the candy bar walk game. Once Howie discovered they were giving away full sized candy bars, he played over and over again. He won twice.

And here is Henry--sleeping through the whole thing!

We went trick-or-treating.

At the end of it all, there was much candy and happiness and excitement for all. As Howie said when we were walking home from trick-or-treating, "This is the best Halloween ever!"

Corn Maze

On Saturday we took the the boys to the South Texas Corn Maize. It was a perfect day for some fall fun. A passing cold front meant it actually felt like fall (a rarity in Texas); so we pulled on our sweaters and socks, grabbed some hot chocolate, and drove down to Hondo, Texas.

Once there, we wandered through the corn maze, went on a hay ride, and explored the pumpkin patch. Howie had lots of fun playing on a bouncy play mat, climbing on tractors, and going down the giant tube slide. Henry loved playing in the dirt. The whole family had a great time!

We are ready to enter the corn maze!

Our fearless leader, Howie! Amazingly, we didn't get too lost even following Howie's directions.

We made it out! I was pleased to discover that my directional abilities have improved since the last time I was in a corn maze (which was in high school).  We never got hopelessly lost and we found the end without cheating!

Playing in the pumpkin patch.

Howie had a hard time picking a pumpkin so he ran around the patch picking up all of them.

Henry sat down at the first pumpkin he saw and reached for whatever pumpkins were within arm's reach.

Henry loves his pumpkin! We brought it home where he plays with it and chews on the stem.

Henry and Matt

I just love this boy's smile!

Howie playing on a tractor. After his experience with golf carts, Howie was a little worried that the tractor would start moving while he was on it. He got very upset when I pushed down on the pedals, even though the wheels were half buried in the dirt.

There are room for two boys on this tractor.

Howie goes on a tractor ride. You might think from his face that Howie is not enjoying the ride, but this is actually Howie saying, "Cheese!"

Howie playing on the bouncy thing.

Dinosaur Tracking

Michelle has asked that I, Matt, be a guest writer for this post.  The San Antonio Botanical Gardens recently opened its newest exhibit "Dinosaur Live."  It features 11 lifesize dinosaurs scattered throughout the area.  The opening of the exhibit coincided nicely with a book that we've been reading with Howie at night titled Dinosaur Tamer (it is the story of little boy named Rocky who lives in the wild west and lassos big dinos).  Naturally, Howie assumed the role of dinosaur tamer at the gardens while Henry served as the timid naturalist strapped to the back of his dad.

The exhibits featured giant, prehistoric cockroaches, 3-foot long scorpions, an allosaur, and some other big dinosaurs that I can't spell let alone pronounce.  The exhibits were setup like a scavenger hunt with some of the dinosaurs, as big as they are, tucked away in dense forests making it fun to search for them.

This was also the first time we've gone to the Gardens in the fall, so a lot of the foliage was new to us.  We'll be sure to take some non-dinosaur pictures next time we go to show everyone.  Hopefully, in a few weeks all of the leaves will begin to change color giving us a reason to go again.

The Allosaur mom is too busy keeping all of kids in order to notice us in the background (Michelle and I feel for this dino-mama)

I love it that Howie is too concerned with the dinosaur to smile for the camera.  This was one of the first dinosaurs on the exhibit, so he was still trying to determine if they were actually alive.

They had set this big dino up in a big clearing, so you could see from a lot of different spots throughout the park.

Finally, one of the rarest finds along the tour, the Hobson family together in a picture.  From the look of the dinosaur's face in the background, she was very surprised, too.

A Little Redecorating

We love color! Bright color! Lots of color! We have lots of color everywhere in our apartment except the living room. We were tired of our living room dragging us down, so we decided to redecorate. So far we have rearranged some furniture and purchased a few things, but I think it will take us quite awhile to actually finish for several reasons: we are cheap, we have no idea what we are doing, and we have kids. In the meanwhile, here is a glimpse of what we have done so far.

I purchased a new cushion for our papasan chair. The old maroon one was a major part of the color problems in the living room. All of the maroon and navy blue needed to go--and quickly! 

A new rug for the floor gave us some much needed color right away. Our old run was brown and boring. I don't think anyone would call this new rug boring. And it has polka dots. I love polka dots.

I love these lamps! (We bought two.)

An end table we purchased at a flea market for $10.

Another end table purchased from Craigslist for $30. I love it!

And it has storage! Our remote is lost much less often these days.

Some new art for the walls. I think eventually these may be replaced with something more custom, like something I paint myself, but for now these give the walls some lovely color.

A bike clock! So awesome! 

A new stool for my desk to replace the wooden folding chair that threatened to collapse whenever someone sat down.  Howie really likes this one because it swivels up and down--it is a chair and toy all in one!

So, there you have it. If we ever manage to finish our redecorating I will show you the end result. Will all of these things go together? I don't know. I am not much of a decorator. But I do know that our living room will be colorful!