Buddies

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

 Did you know that the next Narnia movie is coming out December 10th?

I just found out and I'm so excited!

 Jennifer and Ashley hosted an amazing Narnia party after Prince Caspian came out on DVD.

Note the lamp post in the background.

Can you guess who everyone is?

 Here we have Mrs. Beaver.

 And here's Peter, whipping up a little Turkish Delight.

And here we have a Badger, Lucy in London, Susan the Queen, 

and last, but certainly not least, Aslan.

Birthday Cakes

 

Josiah's 1st Birthday - Pig in the Mud

Strawberry cake in chocolate pudding - delicious!

 Josiah's 2nd Birthday

I made the icing blue using a packet of Kool-Aid, like the package suggested.

After one taste, I realized that it tasted terrible, and I could have just used....

blue food coloring!

 This was Josiah's other 2nd birthday party.
Christ made this Cookie Monster eating a real chocolate chip cookie.
It was fantastic!

 Josiah's 3rd party was Toy Story. 
Chris made this Rex erupting out of the cake with candy rubble all around.
Rex roars and asks, "Were you scared?" when you squeeze his tail.

Here are Bob and Larry.  

For Caleb's 1st birthday party, we could only find our red and green food coloring.

Chris whipped this up in about 10 minutes.  

Very impressive!

A Year Ago

 Here are the brothers a year ago.

 Funny baby.  You should see him today!  So handsome!

Josiah with his one and only short haircut!

Gourds

Today was Gourd Day at the library.

Josiah sat on the blanket with the other kids for almost the whole story.

That's a record for him.  Usually he asks to sit in the "cuh-na" (corner).

Josiah has been carrying around one of his gourd's googly eyes all day!

Birthday Presents

Two of my favorites this year:  new quilts for Josiah's room and this camera!

Making Doughboys

 Doughboys are a great addition to any breakfast cookout.  Simply wrap canned biscuits around a stick and cook slowly over the fire.  This is somewhat easier if you are not wearing mittens!

 Some people like to fill the hole with butter and jelly or even bacon and eggs when it's done and removed from the stick.  I think it's perfect plain - especially if the canned biscuits have little butter globules!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Here are some pictures from Caleb's 1st birthday party!

I turn 28 today!  Our little family of 4 has all our birthdays right in a row.

Yesterday, my cousin, Will, and I shared our 21st birthday party (he turned 21!).  

That is what can happen when you share a birthday! 

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

For breakfast I made delicious pumpkin chocolate chip muffin bread (muffins in a pan instead of individual cups).  It was great!  I read this idea somewhere.  All you have to do is take a chocolate chip muffin mix, add about 1/2 a cup of pumpkin, some pumpkin pie spices, and the 1/2 cup of milk that you would add to the mix anyways.  Turns out to be delightful! 

While we were eating this, Josiah asked, "Is God happy or sad?"  My deep response was, "Umm, happy?  What do you think?"  He said, "A little sad, because Adam and Eve ate the apple."

A little later, we were getting ready to go to the walking track.  He put on his jacket and pulled the hood over his head and said, "If the wind blowed my hair out, I'd look like Mr. Tommy."  Mr. Tommy is one of Josiah's wonderful Sunday School teachers, who just happened to also be MY Sunday School teacher at his age!  And as Josiah says, "He only has a little hair, right here."  Wiggling fingers around both ears.

This is Caleb and Josiah at the walking track on a cold and blustery day. 

Today was sunny and beautiful! 

Fall Fun

 Here's Caleb enjoying a CSBC retreat.

 What a beautiful place for a wedding! And why am I standing on my toes?  Perhaps to make up for Chris's extra height in his new cowboy boots.

 Joel & Jennifer as those guys on Up.  Stan & Ellie? 

Josiah helping his Poppa lead a hike!

Sunflower Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for a friend's wedding shower.  They turned out so neat and were actually pretty easy to make.  The center of the sunflowers were regular and small Oreos.  The petals were made by putting yellow and a little orange icing into a Ziploc bag.  Just reinforce one of the bag's corners with tape, and then cut a little notch for your tip.  The colors were even prettier in real life, if I do say so myself!  And the ladybugs and petals were M&Ms and gum.  Try it!

Dinosaur Eggs

This is a fun game that Josiah and I played once before he ate all the dino eggs because they were, "soo tasty and he was soo hun-gwee."  Put one egg (cereal) in the first bucket, two in the second...

Birthday Shirts

 I was going to post pictures of Caleb's party, but can't seem to locate them.  I'll show you the shirts I made the boys for the party instead.  I've seen cute handmade birthday shirts, but Caleb didn't need a shirt that would only be appropriate one day a year, so I made these instead.  The fun thing about these matching shirts is that Josiah got the smaller one as a present when he was littler, and I found the bigger one at Goodwill. 

 This is the first time I've ever added anything to a shirt, and it turned out to be much easier and more fun than I expected!  I'm going to try sewing around the numbers and letters to make them more permanent, but this is as far as I got in time for the party. 

 They were super cute in them!

CALEB

 Last Christmas,  I covered the letters of Caleb's name in cute scrapbooking paper and hung it above his crib.  Unfortunately, I hung it too low, and Josiah and Caleb got to the letters and suddenly, they didn't look so good.  Finally, I repainted them and added woodland creatures.  

I looked up ideas for the animals online, then cut them out of scrapbooking paper.  

This fox and the owl (on the E) that Heather cut out are my favorites!

Now they're nice and high so these crazy guys can't get to them anytime soon!

Veggie Tales Live

Josiah, 'Lou', and I got to go see Veggie Tales Live last week.  It was great!  

Josiah has loved these guys since he was tiny.

Happy Birthday to Caleb!

Today Caleb turns one!  So far we've celebrated with a candle in his cheesy breakfast toast,
but there is more party to come. 

 We sometimes call Caleb "best baby in the world." He's a great sleeper, a great eater, and so very happy and friendly.

 He's also a climber, and usually has some sort of bump, bruise, or scratch on his head.  

Actually, usually all three!

Caleb has been saying "Momma" for a while, but this morning it sounded like he said, "Dada" and "I-ah."  Josiah and Caleb love to play together!  They entertain each other all day long.  They like to play with pretend food.  Caleb likes to bring play food to me, hold it up to my mouth, and make fake eating noises until I do, too.  They also like to wrestle.  Caleb has been able to tackle Josiah since before he could stand up.  Caleb is walking like crazy these days.  He loves to walk and carry things at the same time.  He still sleeps great.  Usually two naps during the day and then 10-12 more hours at night.  No wonder he's so happy!  

Happy birthday, Caleb!

We love you!

Fall Festival

 Friday night was our annual Fall Festival here at camp.  It was better than ever!  We had the usual games, candy, and cake walk, along with a new bouncy house and a campfire with story telling.  We got to bounce alone before all the other kids got here.  The first photos are blurry because Josiah had been doing a little photography of his own and got the lens a little dirty.

Caleb with his Poppa

 

Josiah was Woody the Cowboy, I was Jessie, Chris was a cowboy (Sitnky Pete?), and Caleb was a lion.  If he had still fit into his green monster costume, he would have been Rex.  

A wonderful time was had by all!