January fun!

In January ...

...we raked, jumped in, and played with leaves in our neighbors' yard. (Yes, January is Texas' "fall.") The boys thought this was great fun!

...we had a special visit from Kim's Aunt Jeanene and Uncle Mike (and Uncle Mike's sister, Julie). They stopped by for lunch and a few hours of hang out time on their way to board a cruise the next morning. We had fun catching up. They gave the boys some nice gifts, including a cool question & answer a day journal for Ian. (We'd loved listening to his answers to these questions over dinner and answering the questions ourselves!)

Aunt Jeanene read Ryan the cute book they gave to him, too.

It was fun introducing Nathan to both Aunt Jeanene and Uncle Mike. It's obvious that they're experienced grandparents.

"Aunt" Julie got some time with Nathan, too!

...Ryan has continued his tradition of wearing Kim's or Matt's shoes whenever he finds them lying around and of being super helpful. Loading clothes into the washer is one of his favorite jobs.

...Ryan asked to paint multiple days in a row. He thinks it's so fun when I put the various colors of paint into an old muffin tin. Then, he'll methodically go through each paint brush, painting a little with it before putting it in a collection cup and going onto the next one.

...our friends from church, the Limmers, brought us dinner and we had a game night!

...Kim took Ryan and Nathan to the children's museum. This trip, the rice was one of Ryan's favorite stops.

...Ian celebrated 100 days of school by dressing up as a 100-year-old man. We had fun putting flour (and hair gel and hair spray) in his hair to make it look whitish and finding some props to make him look the part.

with buddy Caleb

Ian's teacher aide, Ms. Tina, really played the part well!

Ian with Mrs. Brandenburg and Ms. Tina ... what fabulous ladies!