Snow and Santa

I'm sure you've all heard by now that Houston got some snow yesterday. It was our earliest snowfall since they've been recording weather. It was funny; Nan was in town on business and hung around a couple extra days and experienced her first snowfall of the season here instead of in Indiana. Here are some pictures of the snowfall. I have video, but I haven't watched any of yet. When I have some time I'll cut some of it and post it up here.

Cole was confined to his exersaucer outside. He's kinda over being in that thing now that he can crawl everywhere and pull up and cruise. But I didn't want the wet snow getting on his pants and feet, he'd freeze! He does enjoy the cold weather though. You can't see any snow falling in this picture. It had just started and was still pretty wet.

This was about 4:00 in the afternoon. We had two pretty decent downfalls during the day.

Brian and Carter made some snowballs and threw them at each other.

After we came inside, Carter found Daddy's after-ski-boots and my scarf. SO CUTE!

Today we went and visited Santa at Memorial City Mall. We got there at 9 only to find out Santa doesn't arrive until 10. So we shopped around until it was time to see Santa. Unfortunately during that time a line started and we ended up not getting out of there until 10:45. Cole was terrified of the white bearded man.

But Carter hung around to tell Santa "I want an airplane with people inside." We'll see if St. Nick obliges the little guy.

Thanksgiving

I was going to update the blog with pictures from our visit to Santa and our recent snow and then realized I hadn't even uploaded and updated on Thanksgiving. So here's that.

Brian, the boys and I drove to Oklahoma City to Brendon and Stacy's for Thanksgiving. Brian's parents drove in from Indiana, so all the Sheltons celebrated Turkey day together. It was so much fun to watch the boys (the little ones that is) play together. Cole was enamored with Brady, and Carter was enamored with all the animals. Brendy has 2 outdoor cats and Nan and PeePaw have 2 dogs they brought with them.

Birthdays, Birthdays and more Birthdays

My birthday gift budget is going to help the economy. We've been to at least 5 parties and missed a couple in the past few weeks. We had a blast at all of them though. And Carter keeps insisting that it's HIS birthday party we are going to and I keep telling him his birthday is in January and we will celebrate then. But on Wednesday when we went to Luke's party, he again said it was his birthday and I told him no and asked him when his birthday was. His reply, "On Tuesdays and Thursdays". Uh no, honey, that's when you go to school :)

Another fun thing we did recently is enjoy a trip from Brian's mom. She came down for almost week at the beginning of the month. Here she is with the boys before bedtime.


And on Dad's birthday, the 6th, we all went to Benihana's to celebrate. Dad picked the best place to take the boys. Carter had a BLAST. He didn't try, even once, to get out of his chair during dinner. That's one of our biggest battles these days.

They sang to Dad, Parker was embarrased I think :)

Here are some pictures from Luke's party. I'm waiting on a real cute one from Joanna that she took of Carter and Luke. I'll edit my post once I get it from her.

Cole joined in the festivities as well. Here he is chowing down on a cupcake. At Grant's party last Saturday he ate a chocolate cupcake. And at Carter's friend, Madison's party he ate an entire piece of chocolate cake. I would NEVER have allowed Carter to eat all that sugar before he was 1. But hey, your rules get much more relaxed with number 2 :)

The boys are doing well these days. We're staying busy, as you can assume with all the parties. Cole is on the move big time. He's even pulling up to a standing position on his own now. I put him down to play with some toys in the living room while I was doing laundry and then a few minutes later I heard banging on what sounded like the table in the playroom. I thought, no way, he can't stand yet. But alas, this is what I found when I walked in the room. Cole had crawled in there and pulled himself up to stand at the table.

He loves his new found freedom, as does Carter. They play really well together. Yes, Carter gets frustrated every now and then when Cole takes a toy he was playing with. But overall, they really do enjoy each others company. I have the cutest video of them playing chase around the kitchen island. But since they had just got out of the tub, and are naked - it is obviously inappropriate for the Internet. Guess those that are interested will have to come over and see it person.

Carter continues to enjoy school. They have off next week for Thanksgiving, but celebrated this past Thursday. He came home with a turkey painted handprint, a colorful pasta necklace and an Indian headband.

Big weekend

Boy did we have a big busy weekend. In the past 4 or 5 days I've taken over 200 pictures. Cole was baptized on Saturday morning. Our friend, Danny, who is a pastor in Mansfield came down with his wife, Sarah, and did the baptism for us. It was intimate and special. We did it in our backyard and had a brunch to follow. Here are some pictures from that.





Rev. Danny Anderson and his wife, Sarah Anderson with Cole.

A full length photo of his gown. It was the same one Carter was baptized in. I hope to keep it in the family as an heirloom, it sure has the quality for it. I had Carter's full name and baptism date embroidered on the slip back in 2007 and will do the same for Cole.

Cole and Grandpa

Grandmama with her 3 great-grandsons.

Erica and her boyfriend, Jake, came in from St. Louis. He coincidentally had a CPE course in town and they stayed for the ceremony. Too bad he's blinking in this picture, otherwise it would have been a good one. Sorry Jake!

I like this picture not only because Sarah and Cole are in it, but Carter actually took it. He insisted "I do it on my own" and indeed he did.

On Friday night we went to the Fall Festival at church. They did such a great job. There were so many games that were age appropriate and the boys had a blast. Here they are dressed up in their costumes. Brian has on one of his shirts from when he was in the Navy. It was a little tight, so he didn't wear it all night.

Grandpa volunteered for parking lot duty; that's his uniform not his costume :)

Here is Carter fishing for lollipops.

Here is Carter at the bean bag toss. He got two out of three in the hole. Great job!

Cole is getting a duck out of the pond. It has a number on it, and you exchange it for some candy or prizes. He got a lollipop - the only kind of candy I'll let him have.

Here's Carter on the play castle inside the Kingdom Club (that's the area they call the Nursery). It's there year round and he loves it.

This was Cole's favorite room and Carter's second favorite. There were bubbles everywhere and they could pop them with pool noodles, so creative.

And this was Carter's favorite. They had a preschool room emptied and filled with balloons that they hit around with blow up bats. We spent alot of time in that room.

The ring toss. Yea, he got pretty close but thats okay.

And the bowling game.

And last week we went to Awbrey's 3rd birthday party. It was a princess party and all the girls got dressed up in their princess dresses. So I went and found a King's costume for Carter. Cole just wore a crown, I didn't think he'd enjoy, nor keep on, a costume.

Here is Carter and his friend Luke, the only other boy at the party besides mine.

We love candy and Aunt Alli

Most of you probably already know this, but Brian loves candy. Not chocolate, but the sour sticky stuff like Airheads, Now & Laters, and fruity stinky gum. It seems his love of the sour stuff has been passed down to my sweet boys. It's not a bad addiction, just a fun treat they share together. But that almost changed recently. Brian came home with "The Claw." It's a miniature version of the classic arcade game where you use the joystick to move the claw around to get prizes like stuffed animals and jewelry. Brian's is full of candy. Or should I say was full of candy. Not because he ate it all, but because I ended up returning it. Sorry honey, Carter was eating WAY too much candy :) I did snap a photo for history's sake.



Aunt Allison came to visit on a last minute trip. She had some miles that were about to expire and while Matthew was out hiking for a few days in the Guadelupe Mountains, she came here. Yeah for us. Here's a picture of her and Carter eating the trail mix that mom made for her. There was quite a lot to go around.



Carter insisted that Aunt Alli climb in his climber with him. She's so good - she did with a smile on her face. And I'm so mean, I snapped a shot of it and then posted it on the Internet. Bad sister-in-law, bad sister-in-law.



Here is Cole crawling towards his lollipop the other night before bathtime. He's crawling alot more now. He even followed Carter and his friend Awbrey into the other room today. He wanted to play with them, it was so cute.

And this is a picture of Brian putting Carter to bed. Or at least what he was supposed to be doing. They found eye ball stickers in Carter's sticker book and put them on each other. It was funny. Surprisingly, even after all the excitement Carter did fall asleep shortly thereafter.

And Phoebe told me that I can now embed my videos from YouTube so I don't have to edit my videos to make them shorter or compress them. So much easier! Here's my first YouTube video, hope it works. It's of Cole playing the xylophone. Yes, it's 3 minutes long and there are some boring parts but since I didn't have to edit it - I didn't!

9 months brings lots of milestones

Cole turned 9 months last week and he is just checking off his milestones like it's a grocery list.

Putting himself in a sitting position, by himself - Check.

Clapping - Check.

Cutting his first tooth - Check.

Crawling - Check.

It's crazy around here. And that's just one kid. Carter is doing great too. He absolutely loves school. He comes home and insists that his artwork from that day go up on the fridge. He tells me about his day, though it does take some questioning on my part. Geez, now I know how my parents felt when they would ask me how my day was and I'd respond "fine." Carter does something similar when I ask what he did at school. He almost always says "I played with my friends." Too cute. Though tonight we were talking about his friends and he mentioned one girl at school and said "She pushes." I asked him if she pushed him and he said "Yes, outside." I asked him if Mrs. Hewitt saw it and he said "No, Mrs. Zarse did. And she told ****** 'No pushing." I love having conversations with him. I sure hope it lasts. Tomorrow is Circus Day at school. They are transforming the gym into a Circus and he's looking forward to it.

We've had wonderful weather here lately. It has really made for some fun family time. Two weekends ago we went to the Cy Fair Fire Fest. Carter loves fire trucks and this got him up close and personal with some trucks. Check out the matching shirts the boys have on. My friend Phoebe gave those to them when Cole was born. I promise I didn't go out and buy fire truck shirts just for the Fire Fest. But the cold spell came just in time to show them off. Just perfect.

And compare the picture from this year to the one from last year.

We went to the zoo this past weekend. It was Zoo Boo, where they celebrate Halloween. They had candy stations setup all around the zoo and Carter had fun "trick-0r-treating." It was good practice for the 31st. Here he is petting the goats.

We've been spending a ton of time in the backyard lately. Carter plays on his climber and slides. Brian throws the frisbee around. Cole and I sit on a blanket and play with his toys. We blow bubbles, throw the ball around and just really try to appreciate this season. It's been great so far. This is a video of Carter doing some somersaults.

This is one of Carter after he caught his first frog. He was carrying it around for awhile and as the minutes passed, the tigher he held onto that thing so it wouldn't hop away. I really thought he'd squish it to death. We finally let him go, though Carter came back looking for him the next morning. Thankfully for the frogs sake, he hasn't returned.

Here is Carter running around the backyard popping bubbles.

And Cole standing by his play table. He is getting good at balancing himself. He'll hold on with one hand quite often and then sometimes just use his belly for a little support. Rarely will he stand by himself because he'll fall after a second or two.

Another thing he's mastered is his Little Tikes basketball goal. He's really into balls right now and putting them where they belong. Here he is scoring his first goal, seriously, it was his first one. I just happened to have the camera out when he did it.

And another one of him with his favorite ball toy.

Here he is getting ready to crawl. I have tons of "almost pictures" of him getting ready to crawl. None of the actual event. But I did get it on video - even better. I've tried to get him to do it again, but I need to wait until Carter is at school or napping. Carter keeps taking the toys I use as incentives for Cole to crawl too. Or even better, he'll just give it to him. He doesn't understand the point of my "game."

While it's been mostly good weather we have had a little rain. It prompted me to have Mom pick out some cute rain gear for Carter to wear to school. I think he's going to need it for real tomorrow morning. He's just been playing in it lately.

And this is a cute picture of the boys in the bathtub. Carter loves to wash himself and Cole as well. We go through soap like crazy, Carter washes his hair several times a night.

So as you can tell we've been pretty busy lately. Now imagine us all (well not Brian) being sick. No it's not the swine flu, though there was a close call when one of our friends came down with it. Just your run of the mill cold that has turned into ear infections for the boys (again). I'm just suffering from the coughing and sneezing and utter exhaustion, but I feel I might be turning the corner. We have another weekend of great weather coming our way, so we MUST get healthy soon. Besides, Sissy and Ruppert are coming for several days. Matthew was in for the night last night. And Allison is coming for a short weekend stay as well. Then next week Erica and her boyfriend Jake are coming for 4 days. Then the following weekend Becky is headed into town for 4 days. So we have LOTS of fun ahead in the coming weeks, no time for sickness.

Off to bed, this one blog post has taken an HOUR to do and I need my sleep.

Cute pics

Here are a couple cute pictures of Cole that my friend Niki took. She's a photographer and got a new camera lens and was trying it out while we were at the gym the other day. Just my luck!

I think this picture is adorable, it really shows off his rosy cheeks.

Awbrey loves "Baby Cole." She and Emma must have kissed him a 1000 times that day. That never gets any less sweeter.

And here is one of Cole that my friend Kelly took at her house recently. He is just so CUTE!

Fun outing

Mom and I took the boys to the Woodlands Children Museum on Friday with Joanna and her girls. It had been awhile since we'd been there. Carter was a little young for all the imaginative play last year, but really enjoyed himself this time. I'm not sure if it is that he's recently started school or just an age thing, but he's starting to play more independently AND play "pretend" with things.

This is inside the kitchen of the miniature house they have there.


Cole is obviously too young to play pretend, but he loves to stand up and hold onto to tables now.



Here he is sitting on the checker board.

This is the Dinosaur Dig. It's filled with chopped up pieces of recycled tires. He had a good time looking for dino bones with the shovel and excavator.

They had an ocean/sand room that was a big hit. Here is Carter playing next to Awbrey.

And this was the cutest and funniest moment of the day. They insisted on wearing their lifejackets and getting in the kayak. They started singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." It was hilarious. They were even swaying back and forth. SO CUTE!

I think this was his favorite part though. I'm pretty sure I'll be getting him a cash register (with a credit card swiper) for Christmas. He loves to play with pretend money. Well, he loves to play with money period. He always insists on being the one to pay when we're out shopping. And since places like the grocery store have your own swiper and pin pad, he's in hog heaven.

Mom kept bringing him groceries to pay for. This went on for a long while.

Then he discovered the ATM where he could get MORE money.

Cole chewed on pretend asaparagus during the grocery shopping exhibit.

And here is Cole kneeling next to the train table. He wanted to pull up to a standing position, but he's not quite strong enough yet.

We went for lunch afterwards and Cole ate part of an apple pastry, those are the crumbs all over him. And then chomped on my sour pickle for awhile.

We had a really nice time. I'm disappointed to say that the Childrens Museum in the Woodlands has now closed. That was their last day. The owners of the mall have sold their building and now they are looking for another home. I'm glad we decided to go when we did, what are the chances we would go on their last day open after not visiting for over a year.