Visitors

We sure love having family come and stay with us. The boys got to spend some great one-on-one time with their Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Gray. They had a lot of fun going on walks and rides with Grandpa. Grandma read lots of stories. Then we had our visits to the zoo, rose garden, and miniature golf.

Jaron "pop his head open" as he puts it at the Rose Garden. He got a deep puncture wound to his forehead when he fell going up the rock stairs with his hands in his pocket. It could have been a lot worse though.

Having them come and stay made a great couple of days.

Fall & Thanksgiving

I say it every year and I will say it again. I LOVE FALL! It just love when the air turns cool, the crunch of the leaves, and the fact the holiday's are approaching. I was driving one day down the tree en-covered roads we have here. The leaves were falling and the wind was blowing, they leaves were flying all through the air. It just made me so happy. Even more awesome, in Texas fall weather lasts a long time. In Dec. it is still fall weather. I do like snow and miss it a little, but I have the leaves to make me happy.

For Thanksgiving this year we had special visitors. Grandma and Grandpa Gray came. I made my first Thanksgiving dinner, turkey and all. It went really well. I made the ribbon Jell-O I grew up on and all the things that are a must for me. I made a pumpkin pie from scratch that was sooo good. It is a lot of work for one meal, but I had fun doing it.

Halloween

The ward did a fun trunk-or-treat again this year. The boys had lots of fun.

Pappy's Pumpkin Patch

This little boy was determined to pick up this pumpkin.

Eldon was very concerned about what we were making him sit on.
Hay maze
Feeding the fish




They have old water pumps that you can race your ducks on.

Fall is my most favorite time of year!!! The leaves, the smell, the cool weather. What more could you ask for?
The Bell's in our ward do this pumpkin patch every year. When Don got of early one day I jumped at the chance to go. LOVE IT.

Chucky Cheese (the birthday)

For his actual birthday we went to Chucky Cheese as a family, courtesy of Grandma & Grandpa Barlow. That is their gift, going somewhere special on your birthday.
Bryson just ate it up and had lots of fun being the "birthday boy" as he called himself all day.
He loved all the gifts he got this year: his monster truck (which he slept with for a few days), rescue garage, more trio blocks, dino coloring book, dino book, puzzles (he is SO good at puzzles), Diego jeep, Avitar, Pet book and "pet" animals, active learing TV game.
Thanks to all the our family/friends that love us and bless our lives with their love!

Bryson is so cute and becoming mom's biggest helper.
He is a good eater not turning away any food except tomatoes.
His heart is so tender and he always tells me thank you for every meal I make him, every place I take him, and every book I read.
He is still the most cuddly of all the bunch loves hugs and to just sit with you.
He talks really well for his age and know a lot of stuff as we have been finding out lately. He is just more quiet about it. He knows his colors, 1-3 articles of faith, the whole name for what church he belongs to, pledge of allegiance, ABC, how to spell his name. We are working on letter recognition . . . an the list goes on.
In short we love this little boy!

THE birthday party

Bugs
Swamp Water w/ flies
Alligator eyes & hide
Worms & dirt
The invites

Bryson Scott Hughes is 3 years old!! I was not going to do a party, but I really have fun planning and doing creative fun kid stuff so . . . The cake was always back and forth, "I want a lion cake, no I want a zebra cake, no I want a snake cake." Snake cake was the cake of choice for his birthday week so that was the large cake. Just in case he changed his mind the day of, I did cupcakes that were all different animal prints, leopard, tiger, zebra, giraffe, and the brown hairy one is a lion (or whatever you want it to be). I did large cupcakes and mini ones for the littler kids. We only invited a few friends so it was not a huge party. Which was good.
Don told me not to do a "Pam" birthday party this year with a craft and planned games, they are only three and need to just play. So the "Pam" party came in the form of the dinner I feed everyone. I am sad to say I did not take a picture of the pizzas before we ate them, but they were all animal prints too, I just used the olives to makes spots for a leopard and pepperoni to make the spots for the giraffe. All the others I took pictures of. I had lots of fun and Bryson really loved it I think. He has such a creative mind, he loves pretend so this was right up his ally.

I am too Blessed to be Stressed

A lot of family and friends know what I am up to, but just in case you don't I will post it. First I have welcomed a 4th child into the family. His name is Jordan, he is 2 months old. His mom (Nicole) teaches and dad goes to school full time. Dad (Tae) also is playing collage football. He comes Mon. , Wed., Fri. noon-4ish. Then Tues & Thurs 9-4. Sometimes he is here more when things come up. He is really cute, but I am definitely not ready for a 4th of my own any time soon. While he is here all I am able to do it take care of kids. Nothing more gets done.
On Wed. and Fri. I do a preschool for my boys with a few friends from the ward coming too. This takes a lot of time, since I am such an over achiever and everything has to be perfect. The boys love it though and look forward to school days.
Then my calling. I am the Beehive counselor in YW. Again I am such a perfectionist. I have to do everything the handbook says and pray for the girls night and day, then act on impressions. I have 5 girls right now only one comes from a strong gospel home. Two others come all the time, then I have two that I am working on keeping active. They are such sweet things, I just really want to give them a solid base in YW and make it a positive thing. Next month we are making quilts. Ya, I made my first quilt this month so I could teach them.
Then besides my boys, school, and YW I have my number one, Don. Since I am so busy we really are setting aside days now just for each other. Making date nights a priority.
Like I said we have been so blessed because of our faithfulness to the gospel teaching. We have hard times, but even then we are lifted through the atonement. I am way to BLESSED to be STRESSED.

Eldon 1 year old

Yes it is true Eldon is one year old. He has been officially walking for a few weeks and been taking steps since around 11 months. He is almost 25 lbs. and 31" tall.

He loves his food. I don't know what would happen if I let him eat until he said he was done. I usually cut him off, he eats as much as I do at certain meals. He will eat anything, really anything. Weaning is going really good with him so that is good.

He tries so hard to play just like his brothers do. He makes car & animal sounds as much as he can, and tries hard to make his little people talk to each other. This usually comes out as a scream more than words but he is trying. He likes to read just as the other boys. Baths are not his favorite though. He is so easy going he does anything, but I can tell he would rather not take baths.

He is an early riser. Lately I am lucky if he makes it until 6am. But he talks to himself for a few minutes while I try to force myself out of bed.

I short we are happy to have the little guy he is such a blessing.

Eldon 11 Months

August 19th Eldon was 11 months old. Times sure flies by. He had his first haircut a few days before he turned 11 months. That did not go well. He didn't like holding his head down much. The spoon picture - well he had been getting molers this month and bits his spoon when we feed him. Don won't feed him because it is such an ordeal to get the spoon back. I just think it is cute : )

Knick

Was I not suppose to eat your cucumber plant?

On July 24th Knicker joined the family. His birthday is April 12, 2010. He is a shiatsu/rat terrier mutt. So still just a little guy. He loves to chase the boys and catch them by the pant leg and chew things do shreds. He loves to pull weeds (and my plants). He also is really good at digging holes. He has one that is a good foot deep that he works on all the time.

Eldon 10 Months

On July 19th Eldon was 10 months old. Such a big boy. He is cruising all over the place and standing up to furniture to walk. Still not ready to walk though.