Luke turned 5 on November 1st! I love this kid so much! I told him that I was sad about him being old enough to go to school next year and that he needed to just stay home with me, and he was okay with that. :) He is so smart and is always making things out of tape and cardboard! He loves anything outdoors so I bought him some worms to go fishing for his birthday. Here we are fishing at the park...
Birthday buddies
He caught 2 fish that day!
He is so good at fishing that he does everything himself now including taking off the fish!
We waited until Saturday for Luke's birthday party so that Daddy could be completely done with football! Hurrah!
Luke told Brock how to decorate the cake. It's a monster!
We sang Happy Birthday to Luke, and Tyce blew out the candles! Crazy kid. He said, "But Daddy said I could help Luke blow them out." So we lit them again and as we were about to sing again Luke just blew them right out! Haha. It was pretty hilarious. I guess he figured we had already sang. We don't need to do it again.
Lots of fishing stuff from Grandma and Grandpa! He loved it! Brock was commenting that now Luke had more fishing stuff than he did. Later, Luke gave him one of his fishing lures. So sweet.
Luke constantly amazes me with his creativity. He is so independent and capable. We love him so much and are so glad he is in our family!
Brek was able to attend cheer camp again this year and had a blast! Last year they cheered with the cheerleaders the entire game. I guess they learned their lesson because this year they only got to cheer for one quarter. Bummer. Still fun though!
Vanessa called and invited us for the weekend of General Conference to come and hang out with them and go to Taven's birthday party. We, of course, said yes! We had a blast! Taven's party was at a gymnastics place.
Bruce
Brock in the foam pit
The boys in the foam pit
Tyce climbed to the top! Who else is super impressed with that?!
Bruce having a blast!
I thought this pic was pretty cool even though it's blurry.
Hanging out with Jaiton
And Bryson
And back to home...
Tyce having fun with blocks
I can't remember what exactly Bruce got into (maybe a marker?)
One day I noticed a yucky smell coming from the laundry room. I couldn't find anything in the laundry room so figured it was coming from the garage. I didn't have time to inspect that day (and quite frankly, was too nervous to figure out what the smell was) so the next morning right after I dropped the kids off at school I went to investigate. I was kind of scared that we had shut one of our neighbor's cats in the garage and that it had died (I had previously shut one of his cats in the garage but figured it out after hearing the cat meowing). So I went snooping around in the garage... No cat! Hurrah! My eyes landed on the freezer, and I got a sick feeling in my stomach. Sure enough, that was the stench! It was horrible!!! For those who do not know, our freezer plug fell out when we lived in Childress while on vacation and Kenney and pregnant Elizabeth found the stench while checking on the house for us. I have such a greater appreciation for their help now. :)
Those are 1 lb ground turkeys not mini chickens! They were literally about to explode. Gross, gross, gross. I froze it back up to deal with later. And it was still just as disgusting later, if not more...
And the culprit is this super fun outlet that had switched off. Time to find a new outlet for the freezer. Also, any ideas on how to take rotting meat stench out of a freezer? It still stinks.
The library had a fall festival that the kids just had to go to!
Free witches' hats, Halloween buckets, and cobwebs.
Tyce had entered a coloring contest at the library and we looked up to see that his had gotten 3rd place! Yay, Tyce!
Having fun watching a magician/clown.
They had a lot of fun for a while until they lost interest because the clown had to keep getting on to kids for scooting up too close to him. We ended up leaving early.
The boys made a spooky room with their cobwebs
The little boys and I went shopping to Goodwill one day. Luke kept picking out this yucky bat thing that he really wanted. I steered him towards this cool football helmet I spied...
He loved it!
He wore it the whole way home in the car (30 min)!
Wore it while eating lunch.
He literally wore it the whole day! He just might be his father's son.
Brock set up this cool fort for the boys
Tyce had parent teacher conferences one day and while we were waiting for our turn I snapped a few super cute pics of the kids...
Vanessa had told me that she had a good friend who cut hair so I drove up there to get it cut one day!
Turns out she's really good friends with one of my besties Bekah! This pic was for her. :)
Pretty short! Oh, and I colored it, too.
Brock holding Bruce at a pep rally at the park
And now I just want to take a moment to brag on Luke. This kid is amazing. If he sees something he likes, he'll make it. Just give him some tape! He is the tape king! And he also loves to cut up boxes and make things with them.
One day Luke decided that he wanted to fix things for me. This drawer front has fallen off due to the temper of an anonymous individual in our family. Luke fixed it for me with cardboard and tape!
Cardboard boy he made :)
Brek was able to attend cheer camp again this year. She just loves it!
She's in the orange shorts and pink shirt.
Good luck finding her in this pic.
Only a few girls received awards and Brek was one of them. Marvelous Manners! Way to go, Brek!
After we picked Brek up from camp, Tyce just had to go race on the field. He is so fast!
Brek sets her alarm and wakes up every day on her own. Lately she has been staying up pretty late reading. She has turned into quite the little book worm. I have come out a few times and see her on the couch asleep. She got up to her alarm but was still too tired to actually get up!
I took Bruce to the ophthalmologist to check out an eye situation. Turns out he's great! Yay! Here are a couple of cute pics from the office...
Luke entertaining himself
Bruce was so cute with his shades from the office
This is my view when I try to go to the bathroom. :)
Luke's homemade costume (a pirate!). Arrrgh!
We had a branch trunk or treat party. It was a lot fun!
Bruce the lion, Brek the soon to be cat, Luke the power ranger, and Tyce the football player
Bruce and Luke fishing for prizes
Brek and her good friend from church. Cute kitties!
And our annual pumpkin carving...
We usually just carve one big pumpkin, but the kids had won little pumpkins from the trunk or treat so we had to carve them all up!
Brock did the little ones and I did the big one
I took the littles to the park to fish and walk one day...
This caterpillar was ginormous!
Luke found a little one!
Bruce having fun on the slide
Bruce was so cute "feeding" the ducks. He kept saying, "Here ducks." Then as soon as they almost got it he would pull back and call, "No!!!" By the way, he was trying to feed them a pecan...in its shell.
Luke found a cool shell
Red Ribbon week fun...
"Smarty pants"
Cowboy day
Crazy day
Tent fun in the backyard with old trampoline mats and fence posts
Jack-o-lanterns sure don't last very long for us
Yes, my boys are playing on the trampoline with water the end of October. Proof that we live in Texas. :)
The kids' school had a big fall festival for their fund raiser. We worked a couple of booths for a couple of hours. The kids had a blast.
Tyce
Brek
Halloween
They had to dress as a character from their favorite book for school.
