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"Pies and Keeny"

The above title means "Pumpkins and Candy" in the Tate's 2yr old language. We had our fill of Halloween festivities and have tons of candy at the house to prove it!

Our Halloween week kicked off with a visit from Gamma and a trip to the Seward Farm's Corn Maze. We had so much fun at the playground, answering trivia questions to make our way through the corn maze, riding the cow train and taking a hay ride. It is such a cute place! Pictures will follow soon - we had to use a disposable camera because my batteries were out!

Next, it was into lots of Halloween crafts - decorating Halloween t-shirts with Gamma, making pumpkin cookies and finally carving Pumpkins. Tyler carved her own kitty-cat pumpkin, Eben worked with Scott on a "scary" pumpkin and Tate and I stuck stickers on a pumpkin for him (Scott later carved a "T" into his pumpkin. Here are some pics to share:

Of course the week ended in lots of candy gained from trick-or-treating. We went with some new friends to a nearby neighborhood. The kids were thrilled with the hayride they set up in a trailer attached to their truck. We got lots of candy and we're happy to share!

Circus with Nona!

In mid-October we had a great visit from Nona, Scott's mom, known as Robbie to the rest of the world. She preached for Scott on Sunday morning while he was out of town and then had some down time with the kids for the rest of her quick stay. Definitely the highlight was a trip to the Cole Bros Circus of the Stars. While it was obviously a small-time circus, the kids didn't know any better and it was great for them to be able to sit up front and, for the boys, experience their first circus. They were spoiled greatly by Nona with cotton candy, funnel cakes and super cute face painting.

If Boys Ruled the World ...

If boys ruled the world, the following three videos explains what the world would be like ... it would include a huge mess, lots of bike riding, laughter, cuteness, a bigger mess, and some singing.

Tyler and I stepped out of the house for a bit on Saturday and here's what happened. Fortunately these boys have a wonderful father who documented it all and made sure it was all taken care of before mom got home!

First Place!

Dr. Tyler won first place in the chemistry division at the science fair! She came up with the idea to do the popular "Mentos in Diet Coke" experiment except she used several different sodas to determine which gave off the best eruption. Answer: Diet Coke! Here are some pictures of her, the experiment and her blue ribbon!

Smells Fishy!

Scott had a successful fishing trip with the guys in our small group on Sunday night. As our "hunter/gatherer" he brought home two speckled trout and two big redfish! Here are some shots of him and the boys on Monday morning cleaning them up. Tate was a bit suspect of the cold fish but Eben loved them! Oh, and can't forget to include the fact that Scott also cooked them up for us on Monday night: fried fish for the kids (trout) and blackened redfish with a seafood stuffing for the two of us! Why do I even bother?!

Belhaven, Belhaven

This past weekend we made a quick trip up to Jackson, MS (home of our alma mater, Belhaven College and also where Scott and I first met, dated, made a home, worked, had Tyler). We drove past the old apartments and met my college roommate and family (hi, Kathleen!) for lunch at Keifer's (mmm!). But, left with an hour or more to kill before the wedding we were there for, we took the kids over to Belhaven and showed them around. It was a gorgeous day and so nice to see a much-improved campus from our days there. Although we graduated some time ago, seeing our kids running through the same spots where we first started our relationship - well, it seemed to me to be a completed circle. Incredibly fulfilling to know this was a place so important in our lives - at first it symbolized the tail end of our childhoods and then our introduction to adulthood - it was the place we learned, grew up, first met, first kissed, the place we came back to after getting engaged. And now, to see our kids sticking their feet in the fountain and walking the same sidewalks was incredibly satisfying!

Belhaven has done well for itself as far as the facilities go - we were incredibly jealous to see what a gorgeous campus it's become and incredibly sad to see "our" swing is now gone and replaced by in-ground fountain.

Belhaven, Belhaven, we shall not wholly part,
This dear green hill shall bind us still to God and thee in heart.

Happy Birthday Tyler!

As a close to the birthday extravaganza week we welcome Tyler to her eighth year! Happy seventh birthday, Tyler!

I can't believe we have a seven year old, a second grader, a reader, a writer, a beautiful, caring, artistic young girl to call a daughter! As I prayed with Tyler before bed on her birthday I teared up (many of you know this deserves a blog post on it's own!) at the idea of how incredible she is at seven. She is super smart, incredibly caring, patient (especially with her brothers), thoughtful, giving, laid back and easy to accomodate. To be her mom is such a priviledge and this was one of the first times, as a young mom, I felt I could look back at a substantial period of time and feel so proud of who she has become and all she has to look forward to. Tyler tackles Bible memory with a passion, she will go along with anything and is "so bored" with second grade because it's "so easy".

We celebrated at home with presents but the next night we took three of her friends out to a nearby paint-your-own pottery place and then to CiCi's for pizza. It was such fun to see her interact with her friends, to get to know them, etc.

Happy Birthday Boys!

Scott and Tate celebrate their birthdays today - Scott at 32 and Tate now 2 years old! I retold Tate's birth story to him this morning ... the old "at this time of day we were doing this, etc." Tate was born at 11:35am (incidentally the same time as Tyler) after a pretty quick and easy drug-induced and epidural accompanied labor. He's the only of our children who I thought fit their name from the beginning. He was a little man and Tate seemed perfect.
He was a great birthday gift for Scott who joyfully volunteered to share his birthday. This is also the birthday of Scott's grandfather, Robert Fox (Tate Fox's namesake) who died in 2004 and my grandmother, Dorothy Osborne, who died in 2003. So, all said, it's a pretty special day for our family! I took Scott out last night for a little dinner and arcade game-playing and this morning we started the day with birthday candle cinnamon rolls and Tate's first time to be measured on our growth chart.

Cupcakes

In leiu of an actual party, Tate brought cupcakes to our playdate today. As you can tell, there was quite a bit of icing!

Can He Fix It? Yes, He Can!

Here are shots of the five of us at the Bob the Builder show at Lynn Meadows yesterday. The kids got to make their own toolbelts, edible constructions and wooden birdhouses.

Jeh (Yes) and No!

Yesterday, while Scott and Eben were out playing golf, I had a little conversation with Tate who will turn two this weekend. Here are a couple of our conversations(by the way, we're dog-sitting this week) ...



If you'd like to see the entire conversation (it went 11 minutes so probably only the grandparents are THAT interested!), you can link to them on youtube. See Part I and Part II

Helmets

To keep from losing any more teeth we upgraded Eben's helmet ... And, of course, Tate had to try it on too ...

Smile!

Eben did an amazing job with his surgery today. No problems and was really thrilled to be doing the whole thing. He told me he was asleep during it but he still remembered it so I guess the medicine did it's job! I took him before hand and let him pick out some treats which included: jello, Root Beer Float ice cream, superhero popsicles, chicken noodle soup and Mexican soda.

Tonight he'll have his first visit from the tooth fairy who will find a ring box decorated with monster truck stickers and holding three separate pieces that fit together like a puzzle to form a tooth!

Tyler in Nevada

Tyler hit a big milestone this summer, making her first solo trip with Nona (Scott's mom) to Nevada. They went to visit Scott's grandmother, Bammer, and were really busy doing all sorts of fun things in the process. Here's a slideshow I stole from Nona's blog to show lots of the things they did:
(also note the loss of one of Tyler's front teeth - she has a new smile!)

Monster Truck birthday

I just realized I never posted pictures from Eben's little birthday party. He had multiple celebrations - one being with Scott's family while they were in town and then another a week after his birthday with some of his friends. Here's pictures of the festivities ...

Busted

On Wednesday night Eben's front tooth said hello to the sidewalk while riding his bike. As a consequence, he will be saying goodbye to his tooth on Tuesday! For the following pictures on this blog you'll be seeing him missing his left front tooth - it was fractured in three places and will be pulled making a nice, premature spot for his grownup tooth to move down in a couple years. Here's his injured tooth - in a few days I'll post a shot of his new smile!

Bye Bye Summer!

Now that school has started, vacations are over and Labor Day has passed, I guess it's time to say goodbye to the summer! I LOVED this summer even though it was so crazy! As a farewell, here are the kids with their final ice cream cones of the summer!

Gustav

On Labor Day Gustav came to visit! To celebrate our first real hurricane since living here, we boarded up the house and hit the road. We chose Natchez, MS as our destination, visiting friends the Bates who lived here running disaster assistance after Katrina. Turned out we had very little damage here, just some fallen tree limbs and short loss of power. In Natchez we had a great time, ate great food, swam and spent good time with friends. However, it turned out we were without power for half the time we were there! How ironic!

Brothers

Tate and Eben are slowly beginning to have a relationship not completely based on violence. Occasionally they now play with eachother and get in trouble together. Eben is training up Tate in all things "boy" - making great sound effects, jumping in puddles and riding bikes. It's so great to see them becoming occasional friends instead of purely enemies! Here are lots of pictures and videos of them lately ...

I love the hair in this first picture:



Helping (or hurting) their relationship, Eben finally moved in the "boy" room! When we first moved into the house Tyler wanted him in the room with her and then he became a bit of a nomad and moved during the night between our bed, Tyler's room and a sleeping bag on our floor. He was finally eager to move into the room with Tate and we put him back in a toddler bed. Here are the boys together in the bed after we built it together:



After staying inside while Tropical Storm Faye came through, we were ready to get out and jump some puddles. This was a first for Tate and really, probably the first time in Eben's memory ...





Finally, here's a video (yes, I was driving and filming at the same time) of Eben singing his favorite song "Joshua 1:9" from VBS this past summer. He loves to sing it loud and with motions. Here you can also see Tate joining in and then being abused by his brother - all in good fun!

Second Grade

In mid-August, Tyler started the second grade. Here's a picture of her that morning - CAN'T believe she's in second grade and about to be seven!

Lubbock

While Scott attended his annual Coop gathering in Lake Tahoe, I took the kids to Luboock, TX and spent some time with our wonderful friends from seminary, Christina and Ami and their kids. So, three moms, nine kids: insane you may say but it was wonderful! We drove first to Dallas and joined up with Christina and she and I piled all eight of us into her minivan and drove the seemingly 1000-hour trip to Lubbock. Here are a ton of pictures of all of us:

Happy Fourth Birthday Eben!

Happy Birthday America!

For the fourth, Scott smoked some smokin' ribs and we had two couples over. Then, it was off to the beach for fireworks. Here are a few night time shots...

We love the beach!

It finally came time for one of my favorite moments of the year ... our family trip to the beach. This year was different because it was mainly just us and my parents (usually it includes my three siblings and two spouses). We stayed at a new place this year called the Wyndham Ocean Walk Resort in Daytona Beach. It's great for kids - they have a playground in one of the pools, a waterslide, lazy river - you hardly even get to the beach! They also offer lots of stuff to do - "Dive In" movies, craft times, ice cream parties, etc - kindof like being on a cruise. Tyler went to the Princess Manicure and Tea Party, made "memory bracelets" with my mom and Scott took the kids to see National Treasure 2 in the pool! It was also a treat because we got to spend some extra time with the two older kids one-on-one and all together. Scott and I drove go-carts with them, took them to putt-putt and to see Wall-E. It was also a joy to see Tate really love the beach and the pool - he continues to dive into everything with great gusto! Eben continued his overall timid nature about everything but finally rode some baby waves on our last day there. Tyler, on the other hand, never braved the waterslide but for the first time was really adventurous with riding waves. And, as usual, we enjoyed some great spoiling by my parents who love us and our kids. They took each of the kids out for breakfast on their own, made frequent trips to the ice cream truck on the beach and celebrated my birthday with me at Bubba Gump shrimp and it was soooo yummy! So, thanks mom and dad - we loved it!! As usual I love pictures of my kids in the sand and got lots of those. But, I didn't really take the camera out until the last day so here are a few:

One day at Art Camp ...

In June, Tyler went to an art camp called Mud Daubers put on by the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi. The camp ran for five days from 8am-4pm and was packed full of learning about and producing art. Here I've scanned some of her best work although it's not quite like seeing it in person.
Here the students were asked to do their own piece in the style of van Gogh's The Starry Night. This is on a 10x14 canvas so I couldn't fit the whole thing on the scanner (namely, the moon).


Here are two sponge paintings on tissue paper she did when asked to do paint a certain time of day. The first is titled "1:00am" (I think she meant it to be dusk) and the second is "12:00"


Finally, this is a painting done on tile: