You better not pout...

Here's a sneak peak of this year's Wilson family Christmas card! Fortunately, this pose didn't make the cut. It was the first pose of my "family picture photo session" and it only went downhill from there! Nolan is always ready for the camera, I had to threaten Luke with the loss of his trains if he didn't smile and look at the camera (simultaneously) and Dane, well, hopefully he'll laugh at himself one day! Oh what a joy Santa's lap should be this year! Ho Ho Ho!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...March?

Just a week ago we were enjoying a blustery 80 degree weekend and the boys just HAD to go fly their kites. You gotta love a warm November day that makes it feel like a spring day! We finished our yard work and headed up to the park near our house where we could find wide open spaces and enjoyed lots of giggles and squeals from the boys trying to fly their kites. It was actually too gusty to keep the kites up for long, long periods of time but when they came crashing down they were up again in no time thanks to the gusts of winds that caught their kites. I was a little thankful we didn't have one of those 2 handle kites because I am convinced it would have carried Luke away! Even Dane enjoyed watching his brothers fly their kites. Maybe next year he'll have one of his own to fly!

I love the look of concentration on Luke's face in this picture.

Turtle kite

Fish kite

Nolan has mastered his kite (for the moment anyway)

A tree in the park with fall color! I love the different shades from the bottom to the top of the tree. I appreciate any color I can see because in Texas the trees go from green to brown to on the ground.

Dane and Lucy hanging out by the baseball backstop enjoying the show!

It's Pumpkin Carving Time!

I haven't decided which holiday my kids like most...Christmas or Halloween! This Halloween I got my first taste of "I want to be _______". I had great plans for their costumes and how I was going to create a "theme" for the 3 of them but this year I had to let my ideas go and embrace the costume decisions made by Nolan and Luke (I still got to dress Dane up tho!). Either way, Halloween day always proves to be very exciting. We started by preparing our pumpkins for their annual "carvings". Nolan and Luke drew pictures of what they wanted their pumpkins to look like. I did the cutting, they did the gutting! Dane even got in on the action.

As it has been in the past, the weather was wonderful yet again for our Trick or Treating adventure! I remember many Halloweens in Missouri where our costumes were covered up with warm winter coats! Not so in Texas! This year Nolan was a USA soccer player, Luke was Buzz Lightyear (to infinity and beyond!) and Dane was my little viking (he IS 1/8th Norwegian ya know!). I guess I'm a sucker for the home-made costume as I think so many others are. A run down of Dane's costume looked something like this...

A "pelt" of fur - $3.50

A viking helmet made out of a baseball cap, paper horns, tape and paint - Free

A viking shield made out of a sauce pot lid and aluminum foil - Free again!

Duct tape to attach the horns to the cap - PRICELESS!

I hope everyone had a ghoulish night to remember!

Nolan and Dane "gutting" their pumpkin

Dane posing for the camera

Nolan doing his "gutting"

Luke scooping out his pumpkin guts

It's time! This viking has arrived!

A viking, a soccer player and a Buzz Lightyear

A rare photo of me and Dane!

Drew and Dane walking together. (I think Drew was checking the score of the World Series Rangers vs. Giants, game 4)

Who couldn't love this picture!

Someone loves him a Kit Kat bar!

The Pumpkin Patch

A few weeks ago we made our annual trip to the Halls Farm Pumpkin Patch. We've visited another pumpkin patch several years ago when Luke was about 18 months old and well, we keep returning to the tried and true. This pumpkin patch truly resembles the "less is more" philosophy. As always I attempted to pose 3 children in the same photo and as always, I get a great shot of Nolan and Dane and interesting participation from Luke. Once I put away the camera the boys finally got to have the fun they were promised! Hay mazes, corn mazes, tractor climbing, farm animal viewing and pumpkin picking-outing. The only event we missed this year was the evening hay ride which was sold out 2 hours before the next ride. I think our pumpkin farm secret is out because every year it seems to be a bigger and bigger group of people hanging out at the pumpkin patch. Next stop...Halloween!

3 Brothers together (sorta) :)

I finally got a decent shot of Dane.

Hanging out in an old truck!

A great picture of Luke and Nolan. Sure wish I could get a picture like this with Dane included.

Luke LOVED picking out his pumpkin this year.