For the Grandparents

The Birthday Boy

Talmage turned 3 yesterday! Surprise, surprise, he wanted a cars cake. So he helped me bake the cake and after I frosted it, I asked him for some race cars to put on top. He said, "OH! I have race cars! This will be perfect!"
Back of the cake.

We sang 'Happy Birthday' to him all day. And after every rendition he practiced blowing out his candles. This was a big year because, despite the increased number of candles, he is no longer afraid of them. After all that practice it took 3 puffs to blow out the candles. Side note: this morning, my dad asked him if we should sing 'happy birthday' again. He ran back over to the cake and said "Yeah! With the candles?"

When it came time to finally eat the cake, Talmage was so distracted by the presents he didn't eat a bite. Logan, however, thoroughly enjoyed his cake.

This is the first year we've bought Talmage gifts...haha, I know. We are super lame. After a gift from us and both grandparents, it was a pretty awesome birthday.

Thomas is a Rock Star

It's funny to me that an ipod is the coolest thing ever to an 8-year old. So you can only imagine what happened when he helped himself to mine.

Hard at Work

I love how 'play' is really 'work'. Logan is hard at work-play.

Random Catch-up

Talmage is a silly guy. His ESL english is so funny to me.
For example:

These guys have skateboards!” –Talmage, admiring Thomas’ plastic army men

· I asked him the other day, “Do you want to go potty?” He answers, “No, I’ll just wait for it to get in my diaper.” (As you can see, we might be lacking motivation.)

· I was walking around the house yelling, “Mom, Mom” and Talmage asks me, “Hey Mom, where is that other Mom?”

· We brought my mom’s van to playgroup because I wanted to bring a couple of extra kids with us, when I buckled Talmage in, he told me, “Ah, mom! This van is TOO cool for me.” Yes, it is a very cool van. Just like when he calls our Subaru, ‘the white race car’.

HHe also thinks he can do big things. He follows me around all day wanting to 'help'. He loves to help, from stirring a bowl to vacuuming the floor to getting all the games out so we can play one of them. The other day while he was supposed to be napping, I found him on our bed with our candy stash. "Hey mom, I got a lot of candy!" He was very proud of himself. Truston had the first week in October off. We enjoyed a little stacation. We spent a lot of time outside, the weather was SOOO beautiful (now we are back to hot and humid 90's).

We visited the Blue Bell Creamery. Talmage LOVED it. As we walked around the factory, he kept exclaiming, "OOOOKKAAAYYY! TIME FOR ICE CREAM!!" He wore their little paper hat the whole day. Logan didn't love the hat, but he loved the ice cream. Logan eats more food than most adults. Actually, whatever Talmage and I eat combined, Logan eats all by himself. He is voracious, and has a little belly to prove it.
We spent a day down at Galveston. We rented a family bike and biked along the sea wall. It was so awesome. I would replace my car with that awesome family bike. As you can see, Logan and Talmage were having trouble enjoying it as much as Truston and I. It was so fun to have Truston home for a whole week. He really enjoys school and his classes, but it's always nice to take a break.
In other news, we've found some awesome garage sale finds. Here, people have all their festivals and garage sales in the fall, it's way to hot in the summer. We got a bunch of cute clothes for Talmage (pictured) and a bike!! Talmage loves his little bike. At any mention of the word 'bike' he is outside in a flash, getting ready to ride. We also found a bike trailer. It is my new favorite thing! I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!! Cinco Ranch has tons of lakes and natural areas with side walks around them. We have gone on plenty of bike rides and I'm looking forward to a whole winter of exploring.

Logan turned 1

Logan turned one one September 1st. Here he is with his favorite family member (except for me, of course.) He really likes my dad--they wave to each other the whole dinner time.
The day of his birthday was probably the craziest day of our lives. My parents movers came and moved all of their stuff in. It was so wild. So we delayed our birthday celebration for a couple of days and used waffles as a birthday cake substitute. Logan did not want the whipped cream.
This guy is moving! He started walking around his birthday and it has kind of mellowed him out (thank goodness). He loves to walk with sticks. You can find him day or night, carrying something long and stick-like. For a while, he wanted to push them along the floor, like a vacuum. His favorite was the dog's chuck-it. Now he prefers a duplo crain, the broom or vacuum attachments.

When we finally got around to celebrating, we did it BIG! I made this rice krispy cake...it was so delicious. My favorite was the chocolate layer, although the caramel and fruity layer were also popular.

Talmage is swimming!!

Yes, the buoyancy of his floties might equal more than the weight of his body. But we are counting it!