Friday Fun

Yesterday was a very busy day for us. After a morning workout/play at the YMCA, we headed over to Lauren and Lily's for a brunch and gift exchange for the kids. We decided to do a Secret Santa this year, so each kiddo had another one to find a gift for. Colin got an awesome new dump truck from Zach, complete with "dirt/boulders" (seen here in Lily's hand).
It was such a fun group of families and Lauren made us some Zach got a Hot Wheels track that was a definite hit with all the boys:In the afternoon, Colin rode bikes with the neighborhood boys.
He wasn't too excited about going inside for dinner. I think this picture is just too cute a face to pass up though.
After a quick dinner and before we left for our party, we decided to open a small number of our family presents that we were not planning to take up north with us.
I managed to get a not-too-bad picture of the two of us. See, Michael's eyes are almost open! The thing is, it was supposed to be a pic of all three...oh well!
I did get some pictures of Colin eventually though. Here he is playing with one of his train ornaments.
I got Michael the rifle case he so subtly requested.
Here's a decent shot of the tree. Still working on good camera settings for this kind of light. Maybe I'll learn something while we're gone for Christmas!
As Michael was opening our present from Oma and Papa, Colin waited until the paper was off and in the most-excited-voice-ever said "dada, a box!" Guess we know what he wants for Christmas!
In fact, it was a Garmin. Apparently so we can find our way back to Arkansas!
As soon as we were done, it was time to head off to a surprise party Kim was throwing for Brett's 30th birthday. I caught his reaction just as he walked in:
Kim did an awesome job planning this and keeping it from him ~ he had NO idea! :)
Lily, Adriana, and Colin had fun playing together way past all their bedtimes!
I've said it before, but I'll say it again, Lily has the best expressions! LOL!
While we were there, Colin gave Adriana her present from Secret Santa since she was planning her daddy's party and couldn't be there.
I loved watching her puzzle out the bow and tissue paper wrapping.
Here she is wearing part of her new little outfit (which didn't fit too badly, thanks to my model, Colin):And a closer look at the whole kit and caboodle. I was SO excited to see her in this!And last, but not least, here are a couple more of my very own cutie pie:

Winter Zoo Fun

Colin and I braved the potentially bad weather today after our weekly commissary trip and headed to the zoo. It paid off because not only did it not rain on us, but the zoo was virtually empty and the animals were very active! It was kind of windy though, so I made Colin keep his hood up ~ fortunately he didn't seem to mind.
This is the first thing we have to see each and every trip!The zoo had just gotten two new bears and they were exploring their habitat for the first time. Two zookeepers were standing there with us keeping watch on them.
Colin especially liked the grizzly bear, who must have thought the world was finally about the right temperature because I've never seen him so active. I think he was showing off for Colin! :)
The gibbons definitely were showing off! Just as we were walking up, their keeper walked up to the cage and they were SO excited. They started making noise and swung down to the ground and dancing in front of her! It was hilarious!
The mamma gibbon had her baby out too, so Colin thought that was pretty cool watching her swing around with the baby clinging to her chest. You can kind of see the baby in this picture below.
We also enjoyed the reptile house. I can't remember the name of this animal, but it's similar to a gator. ***edited: it was a tomistoma***
Here's Colin telling me that this whatever-it-is was eating fish (which it was...he jumped up and caught some fish as we were watching). Very cool, especially since Colin and Michael have been pretending to be bears by the side of a river catching fish for dinner each evening. Gulp!
Checkin' out some more lizards.
What he does now when I ask him to look back at me for a picture. Thanks. I love seeing your darling face.
Back outside for more animals.
He just looks so big to me standing there looking at the animals!

Weekend Fun

We had a great weekend full of fun and friends. As I was getting lunch together on Saturday, I looked up and saw the boys both peeking over the couch at me. I missed them with their hands both over the side, but they're still pretty cute, huh?
On Saturday evening we went to an "alternative Christmas dinner" with some of the civilians who work with Michael. This was such a nice, relaxing evening and we enjoyed the company SO much!

Many of the guys in Michael's flight are self-professed foodies and each year on the 2nd Saturday of December they get together for this dinner. The basic premise is to bring a new recipe you want to try out on someone besides your family or that they will not let you make for Christmas dinner. The catch is that once you bring something, you can never bring the same dish again! The result is a super yummy and eclectic dinner. We had everything from Cajun to Japanese to French cuisine and absolutely everything was delicious!

The company was even better! This is such a fun group of people that we don't often get to hang out with because most of them live way farther outside the city than our military friends (one couple is 60 miles out!). Bernadette, one of my favorite other wives was there and I met a few new women as well.

Michael and I were the youngest people there, other than Colin, but he did not seem to mind. There were plenty of adults to talk to and they had dogs: stuffed and real!
He carried this little guy around all evening and pretended to give it a bone and pet it.
Colin was on his most miraculously good behavior and we were SO proud of him. Michael and I are still in awe! He said please and thank you's, wiped his mouth after each bite while sitting at the table with all the adults, ate everything he tried, and was just a joy to be around!
What a fun evening!
On Sunday after church, we headed over to Leah's to help her decorate Christmas cookies. The guys were all nice and watched the kiddos for us. I'm not sure how many we did, but there were a lot of cookies and the five of us spent about 4 hours working on it, but didn't even notice because we were having such a good time...

...such a good time in fact, that I barely took any pictures! Whoops!

Here are the girls. :)

Where Did The Week Go?

Often the weekend will roll around and I will wonder what we did the rest of the week, so here's a recap of the past 7 days.

On Saturday, I wanted to have a cookie decorating party instead of a birthday party, so we invited some friends over, made some of my favorite snack foods and got to baking! Here's some of the gang busy decorating:
Adriana, Teddy and Colin all played pretty well together and Colin even took a nap for me ~ great birthday present! LOL!
Adriana, super-sweet as always.
And Michael and Teddy, who really would have liked some cookies, but only got Cheerios!
After a giant "snack" of meatballs and broccoli cheese soup, Colin was ready to serenade us in front of the Christmas tree.
Sadly for Nick, Colin thinks he is his own personal toy! Nick happily played with him though until Colin went to bed. Then Nick and Alaina stayed and played cards with us the rest of the evening.
Sunday morning was Michael and my week to work in the church nursery. I love watching Colin play in this environment with which he is so familiar, but I am not! As is often the case, Colin was the only kid there during early service!
He went and got two matching books for he and Michael to read together.
And then dragged the rocking chair over beside Michael so they could read together!After church, our Bible Study class had our Christmas party. The older kids begged to be allowed to watch Colin and they did a great job entertaining him playing ball and running around.
The three followed him around all afternoon!
While we finished up making dinner, they all watched part of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
Michael helped out in the kitchen.There was quite a spread of food.
And we had a great time socializing with our friends.
One of the moms had come up with some games and craft projects for all the kids (a challenge when they're spaced so far in age!). One of the things they did was make little iced Christmas trees. You can see a mostly finished on in the background of this picture and Colin sitting by one of his new friends. Her name is Katelin and she is 2 1/2. Her parents just moved to the area and joined our class.
Colin did relatively well spreading the icing.But he was much more interested
Alright, as excited as I am to move away from San Antonio, here is one of the things I'm going to miss about Texas. Last Friday, when the freeze was predicted (and actually happened), one of our friends from Michael's office went out and picked all the lemons from his lemon trees. This meant he had more than he could possibly use up and we reaped the benefits. Yummy!
The colder weather has kept up from doing much outside artwork the past couple weeks, but Tuesday I decided it was enough and Colin and I began constructing cardboard box tunnels in the garage for him to play in (I have been stockpiling cardboard boxes for just such an occasion).

As we were doing that, I thought it would be fun to cut out some giant cardboard animals. I began with a frog and a fish, inspired by one of his current favorite books, The Icky Sticky Frog. After playing with them all day Wednesday, I decided we should paint them up on Thursday. So we headed back out to the garage with paintbrushes in hand. You can see part of the tunnel system behind Colin in some of these pics.
Here are the results. Guess which one Colin did?
Thursday night, Michael got ahold of the camera, so I actually have a picture of myself...doing dishes. :)
On Friday Colin and I headed to the gym and then to toddler story time at the library with Lily and Adriana. I'll see if I can snag some pics from their blogs, as I didn't even get my camera out! Earlier in the week, Colin and I had gotten a new set of animals: North American Woodlands, so we looked for books about beavers, grizzly bears, foxes, and elk. He's already made Michael read every one!

Michael came home early, so we did some shopping around town. Here are my boys getting ready to head out. If you look carefully, you can see Colin has a cow and a sheep in his hands. He plays with all these animals we've collected every day, so I think we'll continue getting them until we have them all!
At Best Buy, Colin's favorite place is in front of the video camera that is hooked up to a screen so he can watch himself play. He would stand in front of this all day, I think and is delighted by running in and out of frame!
So, that's what we've been up to this week. Maybe next week you'll get more frequent updates...but no promises!