Fall 2010

Halloween was a blast again this year. We carved pumpkins and went trick-r-treating as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary but lots of fun.


Thomas carved this Longhorn with no help!!! Pretty nice.


Joshua did this scary skeleton face and Charles did an old-school jack-o-lantern.










Thomas went as a UT Longhorn football player (notice a Longhorn theme with him)



Charles went as a policeman with big muscles...



And Joshua's costume was a bit of an optical illusion. He was riding around on his little friend's shoulders. He is with his buddy, Jeremy, who on a dare dressed like Cinderella.


We began the evening at our good friend's house, the Morales', with a little pre trick-r-treating party on the front lawn. Then all the little kids headed out together.



We spent Thanksgiving this year in Flower Moud. Danny and Tricia came into town with the kids too. For Danny's birthday we roasted hot dogs, made smores and had a little "party" at Grammy and Papa's house.



Thomas had to take a picture with uncle Danny because he turned 41 and that is what Thomas had on his shirt!

Uncle Danny is a big Longhorns fan too. He got this helmet for his gameroom.



Next on our list of activities was the ICE exhibit at the Gaylord. We had never seen this before although we always wanted to. This year was a Charlie Brown theme, which I LOVE! It was pretty amazing and fun to see. They keep the temperature at around 10 degrees, so they provide big heavy parkas to see the exhibit.




The Ice Slide!






Thanksgiving day was spent cooking, playing games, and eating!!


The boys enjoy some appetizers.


Grammy and the boys made these placemats one night a few weeks before Thanksgiving. And the placecards were Turkey cookies with everyones name on them. So cute!


Papa pretends to carve the bird!

And here is a shot of the kids table. The meal was great and it was fun to hang out with all the Wintons!!

Thomas turns 9!

We celebrated Thomas's birthday this year with dinner and presents at Grammy and Papa's new house, and then the next weekend he invited his two best buddies, Blake and Jay to go to Medieval Times and for a sleepover!

Grammy made a "monster" cheeseball for an appetizer.

Grammy and Thomas

Cake and presents!




New Bike from mom and dad!


Medieval times!


Thomas got Knighted




Our Knight (red and yellow) won the whole Tournament!


The boys reluctantly took a picture with the princess too. What a fun birthday!!!

Happy Birthday Chuck!

When Charles was born 6 years ago, I never dreamed we would call him Chuck. It never even crossed my mind. It's such a crass nickname of a beautiful, old-fashioned name. Carlos. sure. Charlie, OK. But Chuck. Well, yuck!

Thank you Thomas.

One day, Thomas just started calling him that, and the name just comes out every now and then. Sometimes, it even kinda fits (sometimes). Regardless, it always makes me laugh!

So Chuck just turned 6. It's just incredibly sad, every birthday that my youngest son has is one birthday farther away from any babies around here. And that is just sad! (only for me of course)

But he is one fun, silly, wonderful, kid. He drives us CRAZY "doing his Charles thing" and as Papa says "but he sure does it well...that Charles thing"

Charles wanted a sleepover and a movie for his birthday, so that is what we did. He invited three boys over, we ate dinner, cake and ice cream, then headed out to see "Cats and Dogs". Charles has really been into this "Last Airbender" cartoon, so our good friend Amy made an AMAZING cake for him. How cool is that?



Here he is with his buddies about to dig into that cake, after swimming and hot dogs...


Enjoying the birthday song...


And making his wish!

After the movie it was presents...and off to bed!





The next morning everyone woke up at the crack of dawn. It was swimming and donuts and lots of this:

and this...

and even this:


Swords, light sabers and guns! What more could a 6-year old want??

Summer Wrap-Up - 2010

The entire first half of our summer was spent playing baseball. Both Thomas and Joshua made the All-Star teams for their ages, and Steve coached Thomas' team.







Both the boys and Steve had a really good time with this. Both of their teams won trophies from at least one tournament, and learned a LOT about baseball. But it was really HOT watching all those games!

The next big thing that happened was Grammy and Papa MOVED to Flower Mound. Their car was delivered to our house before they arrived. It was such an exciting event that Charles set up his chair on the lawn to watch.




The boys also did a few of the local Flower Mound high school sports camps. Joshua and Charles both did the tennis camp while Thomas did football. And all three did a soccer camp. I was trying to keep them busy since this was my first summer since I'd had kids back at work...from HOME!



The two big boys went to camp in July (in another post) and we all went on a cruise to Alaska at the end of the month!! There are too many pictures to post here; I had to make an entire scrapbook from that trip. It was fabulous! There was ziplining and dogsleds and glaciers and sushi and formal night and high tea and hot tubs and swimming pools and FOOD! (just to name a few things)We took the trip with all the Wintons. What a fun time! Here are a few pictures.






The last thing before school was a quick trip to El Paso. I had to stay home and work, but Steve took the boys for some time with Grandma and Grandpa Kall. They Celebrated Charles' birthday with a Spongebob cake, went to Western Playland, and played a lot of cards!