Just Nolan in this one...

Since he's getting older by the day, we figured we'd better stop and take a few pictures to remember one day just how little, and blonde haired and blue eyed he was at one year old.  He's still our littlest, the baby, the happiest kid... and he hopefully always will be.  Here he is, just Nolan:

Don't worry, Nolan, there will be plenty more "say cheese" to come... it's a good thing he's a photogenic kid!

Fall into Autumn

As camera phones have become more and more sophisticated, it seems like it won't be much longer that you'd actually need a real camera.  Occasionally we still have to get out the big camera, but Becky tends to take hundreds of photos on her iPhone (uh ok, more like two thousand over the past six months... seriously).  So here are the latest from Fall in South Texas, as the leaves turn to... well, the leaves don't change colors and there really isn't a "Fall" here, but it is that time of year regardless.  So here are some pictures, and here's what the boys have been up to:

Played in the sandbox.

Baked some cookies.

Had "fun" at the playground.

Had a birthday.  A first birthday to be exact.

Played in the driveway and mean mugged the older brother.

Went for a cruise.

Got a TV stand/new place to sleep apparently.

Slid the slide.

 Dressed as a favorite book character - Arnold.

Showed some smarts.

Pigged out.

Cooked out.

And otherwise spent a warm Autumn with three crazy boys.  Now bring on the winter!

Tricked and Treated

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... everybody wanted to be Star Wars characters for Halloween! Well, the two older boys did, while it was sort of "forced" on Nolan.  But they all looked ready to save (or destroy) the galactic empire the other day for Halloween, or at least ready to go door to door to get free candy.  We walked around our immediate neighborhood until the bags were too heavy to carry, and got more than enough treats to send us all into sugar induced comas.  Here they were:

Darth Adam and General Paul Grievous

And a very unhappy Jedi Master Nolan

We even slaughtered some innocent pumpkins.

Good work Adam... unfortunately the Jack-O-Lanterns only lasted a few days before the bugs outside ate them alive.

Use the broom, Luke!

Ready to crush the Rebel Alliance! And get some Kit Kats, Snickers, and Sweet Tarts along the way.

They came back for more...

Grandpa Bill made his first visit to Texas last month, his first in many, many years anyway.  Being a native born Texan, I imagine it was an emotional return for him.  And not wanting to miss out on a trip to see the three grandsons, Granny G came along as well.  It's always a great time having them visit, and it came only a couple of weeks after we moved into the new house, so they put poor Grandpa to work almost the entire time he was here.  There was landscaping, shed destroying, garden planting, and all sorts of house work done.  A few moments here and there they did get out and see some of the Corpus Christi sites. 

Downtown at the Museum of Science and History, we got to see the three replica Christopher Columbus ships.  Apparently they were built for the 500th anniversary trip back in 1992.  When they were done sailing across the sea, Corpus won the bid to keep them here permanently.  Unfortunately, a barge ran into them in the bay and pretty much ended the sailing days for two of them, so now they sit rotting at the museum in pretty poor shape.  But we did get to walk on one of them to check it out.

Even Nolan came along.

And there's always Adam.

 And they went out to eat pancakes.

Nolan sat... uh, comfortably.

Paul harassed Grandpa Bill.

And we all went to the aquarium, of course.

Glad they made it, and we're sure they'll make it back again soon!

#3 is #1

Our blonde haired, blue eyed youngest son turned the big number one a week or so ago!  A lot has happened in the past year, and he's already living in his third home (not that he'll remember the others), but it would already be hard to imagine life without him.  He's the happy one, the easy one, the kid that will always bring a smile to your face.  He's just about ready to run now... walking great, and jumping up and bolting to wherever he feels he needs to be.  He loves his brothers, choosing to find and harass them wherever they may be.  He's a goofball with dimples, but really he's just our Nolan... Happy Birthday to the youngest son!

What? I'm only one year old.  How else would I eat cake?

Put on your party hat! It's a birthday bash!

This is what we're talking about... always the smiling one.

Got a book... but lost his clothes somewhere... maybe they got covered in cake.

A birthday celebration for the whole family!

And he was kind enough to share his cake with Dad... very kind indeed.

First Time Homeowners

So after a few months in the difficult house buying process, we finally got our first home! No more rent payments, finally.  Got a garage and a yard, finally.  All is good.  But... it's going to take a little bit of work to get it to where we want it to be, so we started off by tearing everything up.  Well, not everything, but a lot of stuff.  Thankfully, we have three (somewhat) helpful boys to give us a hand.  We got a lot of work done in the first few weeks, and then had to move in last week.  Now we're in continuous remodel!  Should be fun...

Climbing the ladder to success... or to fall off and hurt himself.

Adam helped keep Nolan out of the paint... most of the time.

Got the new fridge.

Did some new bedroom painting

And Nolan ripped out the old floor, all by himself... and then ate some of it.

We'll post more photos as we get stuff done, but for right now, it's still kind of a mess.  We've got room if anyone wants to come visit!

Just the Park

A lot has been going on in the past month, so it took me a while to make this post, but I'm trying to catch up now.  Before we bought the house and started the rush to get things ready to move in, we had tons of time just to hang out at the park.  Now that we're moved in and can slow down a bit, maybe we'll have more time to do that again.  But anyway, here are just some photos of the boys hanging out:

 The big first grader.

The rotten one...

The youngest one...

 The noisy one...

The happy one...

Ready to go down the slide!

Here, little brother, let me give you some help with that...

Whoa! That had to hurt... we better get out of here...

He's alive! And just a little crazy...

Once we get some "after" photos of the house done (that is, after we get some of the house done) maybe we'll get some of them posted.  For now, more work to do...