Happy 1st Birthday, Luke!

Luke turned one on November 1st!  We waited for Nana to be here to celebrate his birthday.  We just had a small family cupcake party.  It was fun, and I think Luke really enjoyed his cupcake and animals.

We love this cute little smiley boy!  He is becoming very adventuresome and loves to get into the pantry!  Any time he sees the front or back door open he runs to it and tries to escape outside.  He loves being outside.  He climbs on everything.  I have to make sure the kitchen chairs are tucked under the table or I find Luke has climbed on to them on to the table.  Happy birthday, Luke!

Happy Halloween!!!

Family Home Evening "Jack-a-lan"

For Family Home Evening on Monday night we carved a jack-o-lantern!  I bought the pumpkin on Saturday night and all up until Monday night Brek asked and asked and asked when we were going to cut the "jack-a-lan!"  I caught her a few times with her own knife trying to carve it herself...

Here is Daddy and the kids drawing the "silly" face for the pumpkin...

Luke was so good all night just climbing all over the couches while the kids helped with the pumpkin.

Somehow (Brek) during all of this Tyce got the idea that a witch was going to fly out of the pumpkin and come get them!  He was so scared to put his hand in it!  But he finally did!

Finished product!

After all of the Halloween and witches talk, Brek ended up sleeping with us that night!  I thought for sure it would have been Tyce!  I guess Brek scared herself!

Football Season

It's football season once again, but oh so different in the Payne family this year!  No Friday night high school football games and husbands who don't get to come home until 10 PM!  That part I love!!!!!  But I have to admit, I really miss seeing Coach Payne down on the sidelines coaching.  Now we get to watch college football at friends' houses and hang out with Daddy all of the time!  We love it!  Here are my football players!

Ice Cream Party!

I was out of diapers for Tyce once again and decided it's time!  Time to potty train!  I knew he was ready because I was always catching him with his diaper off trying to put underwear on.  So I stole an idea from a friend and did a sticker chart.  He loved it and quickly filled up all of stickers which meant he got an ice cream party with Daddy!  And I am happy to announce that Tyce is potty trained!!!  He even sleeps all night without accidents!  We still have an accident every once in a while, but he has really gotten it down.

He was SO EXCITED to go out for ice cream with Daddy!

We couldn't do a sticker chart for Tyce without doing a sticker chart for Brek!  Brek had started to have accidents in her bed almost every night (Our fault because we gave them sippy cups of milk at bedtime...not anymore though!).  So she filled her chart up as well!  I thought she would want to do exactly what Tyce did and go for ice cream with Daddy, but she said she wanted to go with me!  I was so excited to get to take my little girl out!

Waiting for her "pink" ice cream 

 I'm so proud of my kids!

Brek's 4th Birthday

Brek turned 4 on August 12th!  I can't believe she is getting so big!

Here she is posing in her cowgirl outfit from Nana.  Can you say adorable?? 

For Brek's birthday party, we did a fairy/princess/superhero theme.  Don't look too closely at the cake.  It was a good idea, but as you can tell the execution didn't pan out.  Also, ignore the antlers on her head.  We didn't have very many options for backgrounds.  But isn't Tinkerbell super cute? 

It took her forever to blow out her candles!  But I'm so proud of her for actually blowing them out this year.  She's been too shy all of the other years.  This is how she was blowing so that's why it took so long. 

Here are the princesses!  Best picture I could get. 

And the rest of the party (excluding adults) 

Brek with her bday present from Grandma.  She is ready for school now! 

Here is Tyce trying to give a thumbs up.  He got a little surprise from Grandma, too!

Too Early

This morning Luke woke up early.  He woke up at 6:00 AM which for this momma is too early!  My kids do usually wake up around 7:15 so they are not late sleepers, but this is just too much!  And he's been doing it quite a bit here lately.  Usually when this happens I spend the whole morning lounging around waiting for a chance to doze back off.  This morning that didn't really happen.  At about 8:30 Brek was laying on one side of me on the couch and Tyce on the other and they were making me fall off.  In frustration, I finally said, "You guys are so mean!"  To which Brek replied, "And you are so lazy!"

Touche