Walker's Birthday Party

Walker had a great birthday. He spent part of the day reading his new comic book at the park, then we went to eat pizza and he got some awesome firefighter gear.

It was a beautiful day for his birthday party, and many of his school friends joined him at Castle Park to run around and eat cake/fruit pops. Later, family and close friends came back to our house to continue the celebration. It was a great day!

Playgrounds

We've been to lots of playgrounds recently!

Crazy Hair

Fun at the Museum

Vacation Video

We had a great trip to New Mexico last week. We ate good food, saw great friends, and enjoyed spending time in the mountains. Here's a video of some of the highlights.

Feeding Baby

Findley loves to take care of her baby.  Here she is feeding her some pancakes and eggs. Apparently, Baby doesn't like carrots.

Holiday Photos

We had a great holiday with family and friends. Here are some of our favorite photos.

Walker and Findley love to curl up together to watch movies and read books. We enjoy these times, because we know they won't be doing this when they're teenagers!

The kids met Santa a couple of weeks before Christmas and told him what they wanted. This visit went a lot better than the last time they met him.

Another cuddling photo. We can't have too many of these!

Marmee took this photo one day when she was at the park with the kids. It's one of our favorite shots of the past year.

Findley and Rosie took a nice photo together...

...but Walker just wanted to act silly.

We really tried to get a family photo, but this is the best we could do. Not exactly what we had in mind for a Christmas card image.

We had some time to hang around the house to take portraits.

And even Walker let us take his photo once or twice.

Findley pranced in her new shades...

...while Walker rocked out in his.

We got to spend time with some of our cousins.

And we wore lots of Santa hats.

Walker showed off one of his silly faces...

...while Findley showed off the only silly face she knows. (This photo is an extremely rare example of Findley sitting near food but not stuffing it into her mouth.)

Walker learned how to play Wii.

And Findley rode her new horse.

We played in the snow on Christmas Day.

Some of us liked the snow more than others.

Findley showed her friends how to open Christmas presents.

We rode the train in the Stockyards...

...and we all stayed awake! (This is also an uncommon occurrence.)

We spent a great holiday together!

Little Drummer Boy

Walker got a drum kit from his aunt, uncle, and cousins for Christmas this year.  He loves it!  Here's a montage of a couple of songs, including the song he danced to during his Christmas performance, as well as the Arthur theme song.  Rock on!

Dancing

Mama:  "Walker, do you need to pee?"
Walker: "No."
Mama:  "Then why are you doing the pee-pee dance?"
Walker: "I'm not doing the pee-pee dance."
Mama:  "Then why are you crossing your legs and rocking back and forth?"
Walker: "I'm just trying to keep pee from coming out."

Christmas Performance

Last Friday, the kids took part in their school's Christmas performance.  Findley sang one song with her class, and Walker sang two.  They both did a great job!

Recent Photos

Here are a couple of recent photos.

Walker has been experimenting with the swing set lately.  This is one of the more dangerous configurations he's tried.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to wish Geneva happy birthday.  Findley was so excited to see her.  This is a great photo of all four ladies.

Findley went digging through the costume box and found the monkey costume that Walker wore for his first Halloween.  It fits her perfectly!

For pajama day at school, Walker chose to take his largest stuffed animal. And yes, the bedhead is intentional. Of course it is. Really.

Recent Conversations

We sometimes wish that we had a voice recorder going at all times in our house, because the kids say things all the time that crack us up, but we somehow can't remember them a day or two later.  Here are a couple remarks that Mama wrote down before she forgot them:

Mama: "Findley, please don't touch that blanket.  I need to wash it because there is pee-pee on it."

Walker:  "And boogers."

=====

(Mama is cleaning out Walker's nose with a kleenex)

Walker: "Mama, you're like a dentist because you are doing things that I don't like."

Halloween Costumes

This year for Halloween, it took the kids a long time to decide on a costume.  For a while, we were going to have two Batmans, then two Spidermans.  Eventually, Walker settled on Buzz Lightyear.  Of course, Findley wants to be whatever Walker is, so she wanted to be Buzz Lightyear also.  Fortuntately, we were able to convince her to go as Jessie.  Their costumes got a lot of use this year at school parties and wearing them to friends' houses.

Here are a couple of photos from the first night they tried the costumes on.

Then, before the night was over, this happened.