2012: a year in photos

instaFriday 12.28.12

weeds in the sunset / old sink / cousins talking at the old farm

sawyer was a wee bit tired / snowmen at the nativity / christmas morning

the aftermath / enjoying christmas movies / mmm... eggrolls

my childhood stocking / pop with the boys / to infinity & beyond - with mary & baby jesus

linking up with jeannette

instaFriday 12.21.12

christmas in our home / sawyer's happiness with a beanbag / watching the last episode of gossip girl

these two / breakfast with my love / bama sock monkey

beer & bath / a little sparkle for a little party / our mcdonald's has been redecorated

linking up with jeannette

cayden's convos

our big guy is really tickling us with the things he says these days. to hopefully keep track of it and to remember forever, i'm going to start including these kinds of posts...

setting: cayden has a puzzle on the couch he's putting together. he's standing in front of the couch leaning over the couch cushions. jeremy notices that he's having some problems so he leans in to help him out.

cayden: daddy, you gotta get outta my face.

jeremy: o_O

and then jeremy comes and tells me and we bust into a fit of giggles and reflect on the hilarity that is our three year old. who has no idea that he's funny.

happiness

these little people that we've been blessed with sometimes steal our breath away in the sweet little everyday things they do.

monday, on the way to school, cayden said, "mommy... i'm big now." jeremy and i tried and tried to convince him that he was still small, but it didn't work. he was adamant about being a big. of course, we used it to our advantage by asking if big boys wet their underwear, or bite or don't listen to their teachers... cayden agreed that big boys do in fact NOT do any of those things. and so far? so good!

monday night when we were watching some of our friends' boys, sawyer fell in love with balin's beanbag. he just kept falling back into it and squealing with joy. i decided to grab my phone and try to get a shot of his happiness. and what i captured? pure joy. (as a side note, jeremy and i are VERY glad that santa decided to bring a beanbag to sawyer this year. it should go over well!)

we thank God every day for these sweet little boys. so glad that we can be blessed with the small and big joys they bring to our lives.

christmas lights

friday night, we loaded the boys up to go look at christmas lights. we thought it would be a fun tradition to start with them. perhaps they're still a little young? and we're not sure how much sawyer could actually see facing backwards, but we had a great time.

there was one awesome neighborhood that had the BEST lights. i mean, definitely borderline tacky. i took a few snapshots of the "winners." good stuff. every time we took a turn, there was another house. it was like the neighborhood had some unspoken competition going on.



and then for the grand finale, we'd read about a house close to ours that had programmed lights. we didn't get the best parking spot - it was crowded - but it was still awesome. please enjoy the video. complete with a coughing baby, whining child and laughing husband.

instaFriday 12.14.12

the BEST bedhead / matching christmas jammies = cutest things ever / little man & his sad face

trusting daddy to not let him fall / ice skating cheese / sick day for this nugget

bath time shenanigans / the chevron is strong with this one / colors & textures for the win

linking up with jeannette

the farmer & the dell

oh my goodness. this song. it gets sung ALL. THE. TIME. no lie. this is only a snippet, but little man will sing the whole thing by himself on any given whim. we have a routine at bedtime: we read one book of cayden's choice, then the bible, then say our prayers, then he lays down and gets to pick two songs to sing before he goes to sleep. and one of them is always farmer and the dell. this song makes absolutely no sense to me, but cayden loves it so. & i really love listening to his little voice singing it. such a sweet little voice!

ice skating!

jeremy is a small group leader for our church's middle school youth group. (wow, that was a lot of words.) anyway, our youth are a pretty cool group of kids and the youth ministers at our church couldn't possibly be any cooler either. and i'm not just saying that because we're friends with them. i can only hope that by the time cayden and sawyer (and any other children that might come our way) will have people they can look up to like our current youth leaders.

but i digress. it was a big weekend for the 6th-8th graders this weekend. friday night they had a lock-in. and it's honestly the coolest lock-in i've ever heard of. (there was lazer tag, scavenger hunts, some sort of zombie tag game, etc.) jeremy participated. stayed up all night with those kids. apparently there were close to 100 kids there — amazing, right? anyway, jeremy could have been cast in the walking dead on saturday (minus all of the creepy make-up). but he was so excited about how the night had gone and i got excited hearing him talk about it....

and last night, they had their christmas party at the local ice skating rink. usually when there are outings like that, we take both of the boys. (last time it was a back to school party at the bounce house. i mean, that's a win-win for everyone.) ice skates on the littlest allen boy just wasn't going to happen (andplusalso? he was feeling kind of puny), so i stayed home with sawyer while cayden got to go with jeremy. and oh, the cuteness that is a three year old with ice skates on. i love seeing all these new things that the boys get to do. it's just so awesome to experience it all through their eyes!

instaFriday 12.07.12

all the cousins / sweet pup silhouette / three little monkeys
sick day = craft day / perfect snack / result of craftiness

linking up with jeannette

santa 2012 style

santa went exactly how we expected this year. everyone was happy and all smiles while we stood in line. and then the moment came. is that not hilarious? yeah, we think so too!

cayden adored santa this year. even walked up to him and said, "i like you santa." and santa being the great guy that he is, responded with a hearty, "i like you, too." cayden climbed right up beside him on the bench and continued to talk to santa. jeremy carefully tried to back sawyer into santa's lap... but i think we can all see how that went. so while sawyer was screaming, cayden was smiling and talking. the photo? epic for sure. and sawyer closely resembles a one and a half year old cayden a couple of years ago. it was perfect. and even after we got sawyer off santa's lap, cayden continued to chat with santa... telling him about the 'vengers, 'vengers bicycle & 'vengers skateboard that he wants. too bad his interest in the avengers didn't come last year. you know, when everyone had avengers everything. santa's going to be getting creative this year for sure.

after santa, we hopped on over to the carousel - complete with reindeer! sawyer was very uninterested in the carousel at first. like busting eardrums-type of uninterested. but after it started going, he calmed down and enjoyed the ride. cayden was mesmerized and loved it. and jeremy? well, i think you can hear how he felt about it. it was a wonderful morning that was mostly enjoyed by the kiddos. and i can't wait to add this years photo to the previous ones! (2011, 2010, 2009)