Christmas 2011!

These pictures are not in order. Grandma and Grandpa Mead came to Little Rock around the 13th and we all headed to Branson, MO together and had such a great trip! Branson is only 3 hours away and we went to the Dixie Stampede show which is owned by Dolly Parton. It was a Christmas show and absolutely amazing! There was a live nativity scene with a manger scene that came down from the roof, live animals including three camels for the wise men, etc. Austin and Axel were entertained the entire time which tells how amazing it was! We ate the yummy food with our hands.

Here is a picture of Grandma Mead with Tom and Austin at Silver Dollar City. It was SO freezing and we were grateful grandma had packed her Ukraine supplies to help keep us all warm. This was right before the Christmas parade came by.

Here is Grandpa Mead with Axel, Austin and Tom at the entrance of Silver Dollar City.

There are these cool tunnels for kids to climb up and down at Silver Dollar City. You can't really see Austin very well because he was going too fast to get a good picture!

Silver Dollar City has this huge area of balls where the kids can shoot the balls up 5 stories and it is complete chaos of fun!

Tom and Axel on the boat ride where we shoot the "bad guys". Austin could not get enough of this ride!

Axel and Austin with Santa at our playgroup activity. Our neighbor came as Santa and the older kids loved it and Axel well....he wasn't so appreciative. But Axel did eat 4 candy canes from Santa!

Axel is obsessed with lollipops! If he is ever grumpy, a lollipop will always cheer him right up. He was not happy that he didn't get to go with dad and Austin on this ride but the lollipop made it all good. For Christmas we could have given him 20 lollipops and been done. He literally had a lollipop in his mouth for 4 hours on Christmas. He had every color of saliva dripping down his arms.

The boys made a gingerbread house with grandma and grandpa!

Here's the fam on a the train at Silver Dollar City.

Austin went in for the first bite on the gingerbread house. Those cookies can break a window! I bought a kit and was worried the cookies might have broken....the only thing I needed to worry about was Austin's teeth breaking when trying to take a bite!

We went to a really cheesy dinosaur museum in Branson that was super overpriced and the kids were too young to be interested. Austin had found some quarters that grandpa left in the hotel room and wanted to use them in the video games in the lobby. He kept putting it in the "claw" machine and Austin kept winning 3 pairs of fake teeth and was thrilled that we left with about 15 sets of these fake teeth!

Here is our Christmas tree with all of the gifts. Austin is pretty good on the bike with training wheels! Austin keeps trying to have us give Axel's 3 wheel scooter to him...however, Axel is very well aware that is his and will not be giving that to his brother anytime soon!

We have SO many leaves in our backyard! Luckily we just hired our neighbor to clean them up. It would have taken about 12 hours to clean up!

The boys didn't want to take turns in the ladybug at Silver Dollar City!

Here's Axel with grandma and grandpa in our backyard.

Axel loves to dig in this pot of dirt on our back deck. Caught him in the act! He loves being filthy.

Here is Tom and Austn wrestling at Silver Dollar City!

Family pics 2011 in Arkansas!

We took our family pictures at The Old Mill in North Little Rock. Gone with the Wind had its opening scene filmed here. Absolutely gorgeous spot!

October 2011!

I just finished writing my 59 page thesis for my Master's degree. A sense of relief has been felt in our house since I have been able to get more sleep and have not been doing homework for 2-3 hours every single night after the boys have gone to bed. Tom is on a campout tonight with the scouts.

Each Tuesday morning, our ward has a playgroup that meets together and does different fun activities. This has been the best thing to help me get to know so many cool women in our ward and their cute kids. Usually Jessica DeGroot organizes these activities but I am filling in for 3 months since she just had a baby. I am not naturally crafty and was so proud of myself for putting this together as a "cookies and costumes" party. Such a fun group and turnout! The donuts have eyeballs and the oreos are spiders. Here is a picture of our crew. Austin is a fireman and we were glad to see the safety reflector tape on his costume works well! He pretty much outshined everyone else haha. Axel is a doggie and he loves that suit but gets too hot for the dog face that sits on his head. I have a wig on-that is not my natural hair thank goodness.

Earlier in the month, the boys helps me poke these faces in our pumpkins. Austin wanted to take a picture with his face being "sad". He was very proud of his sad face (whatever makes you happy right?). Axel and Austin both kept ripping the pieces out of the pumpkin so we took a picture fast while the pieces were in the pumpkins and still working:)

Austin's face cannot contain any more excitement about this pumpkin! Glad he decided to have a "happy" picture.

As a mother, you just have to laugh sometimes at the impossible odds of actually cooking dinner without your kids destroying something while you turn your back for one minute. Austin found the wax paper and found it amusing to throw it out in front of him and watch it fly. When Axel saw what Austin was doing, he joined in the fun. I knew I would laugh about it one day so I took a picture! I'm already laughing about it!

Axel catch up

Here is our sweet little guy who a few months ago would crumble into tears when Austin would come up to him and scream in his face for fun. That's what older brothers are for right? To make you tough! Austin got his joys out of making Axel cry so we kept telling Axel that he needed to be tough and not cry so easy. After a few weeks he started trying so hard not to cry. Sometimes he would buckle but other times he was able to hold a poker face. Now Axel has mastered the art of screaming for fun. This is his favorite hobby! These two guys get each other screaming for fun and it's hard to believe it used to make Axel cry. He loves making a "t" sound and flapping his lips with a little bit of spit. He is highly attached to his daddy. He follows Tom everywhere. If Tom isn't home then he follows mommy. He loves to grab onto our legs to make sure we can't do anything! He is a great sleeper. He smiles so easily. He has a lot of enthusiasm and loves to get excited about anything and everything. We went to the pumpking patch yesterday so he has been trying to pick up the pumpkins!

Burns Park and Elder Mead!

Tom now teaches primary and loved that the singing leader had this competition of the kids buttoning up a shirt, putting on a tie, putting on big shoes, and holding scriptures by the time the primary sang, "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission". So we did it for Family Home Evening. We were all cracking up hysterically as I played the keyboard and Tom helped Austin get the clothes on. Austin thought it was great! He knew the song by heart after we did this activity a few times.

The Wonder Place

Grandma and Grandpa Mead gave the boys a little birthday money so we headed to The Wonder Place. The Wonder Place has so many fantastic things for kids to explore and helped keep us busy while daddy was at an 8 hour boy scout training on a Saturday:( The boys have put pieces of material over wind holes. They are watching the material hit the ceiling and waiting for it to fall back down! The boys were playing at the indoor sand table. Axel wanted to make sure the whole room had some sand so he was sharing freely! Austin wanted to see if he could cover his whole head with sand and came out with "sandy brown" hair.

They have so many blocks and older kids usually kick Austin out of their projects since he likes to knock them over:) An 8 year old boy let Austin help and Austin was thrilled!

Axel is playing in the water. They have baby seats and he splashes so crazy and is dodging his splash in this picture!

They have an area for the kids to "treat" the animals. Axel just gave this dog a shot. I hope the dog is ready to wrestle Axel! Dogpile takes on a new meaning.

They have a stage and tons of puppets and costumes. This place is amazing. I don't even have pictures of every activity there!

This was Austin's expression when I asked him to smile for the camera!

Peabody Park for Austin's Birthday!

For Austin's birthday we headed to downtown Little Rock to enjoy Peabody Park. The splashpads are so fun and we walked the bridge.

Austin went into the heart of the water storm! Axel was up for a good time too. Axel is usually cautious but not today. He just went for it!

Looks like he is going to fall over......

but he didn't! We picked up McDonald's and Austin fell asleep in the car. We woke him up when we got home to eat. We sang Happy Birthday and enjoyed his gifts and Baskin Robbins cake.

Cali for 17 days!

In April, my sister Cynthia called and asked if my boys and I would fly to California for a couple of weeks and stay at her home if she flew us out. Easy answer of YES!!! Such a tender mercy given to us. With my mother on the other side of the veil, I feel so incredibly blessed to have a wonderful sister to fill in for mom and give us a summer getaway filled with help. True help! Here is Laura who was the lead babysitter the entire time. She was such a HUGE help!

Emilee and Austin. They each found their match of endless energy. I do have to note that Austin even made Emilee tired....we are in trouble aren't we?!

While visiting, Axel had his first birthday on July 19th. Aunt Keri threw an awesome party! She made dinner and some yummy chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter/chocolate frosting. Axel cried for almost a complete hour (which he doesn't usually do) right before dinner and luckily calmed down when he ate an entire container of Keri's homemade applesauce. Thank you Keri!

This picture was taken right before Axel grabbed the plate that dropped the cupcake. Luckily the candle did not light Keri's place on fire. And amazingly stayed lit when the plate was picked up:) Austin helped blow out the candle.

Do you think Axel liked the cupcake? Aunt Jenny gave him a bath in Keri's sink when he was done.

The crew headed out to Mormon Night at Dodger stadium. We had the all you can eat tickets:) All the Dodger Dogs and nachos my heart has ever dreamed of. Axel stayed awake until 11:30 that night so he didn't miss anything. Austin fell asleep on me around 10pm. Ran into a couple of Long Beach friends which was fun. We made it on the Jumbo Tron!! I think Tera did that with her crazy dancing!! Funnest Dodger game ever-even if they lost:)

The day after the Dodger game we headed to Newport Beach where Emilee taught Austin how to boogy board. The smile says it all! He LOVED the waves this year!

Emilee and her friend Lin held Austin's hands while jumping waves. Laura is next to them. Austin was screaming and squealing like a little girl having a blast!

Axel loved the sand. Not sure how much he ate that day. This was taken right after he threw his face directly in the sand and moved side to side. I've never seen a little kid love sand like that! Zack Hancock promised he will never bring his baby to the beach after seeing that. It grossed him out. Maybe when it is his child, he will experience joy instead of grossing out:)

Emilee kept burying Austin's legs and Austin liked kicking through the sand and rediscovering his legs every time. We miss everyone so much! Can't wait to do it again next summer!