New Wheels

**From January 2011

After seeing Jacob ride his bike the last few weeks, we knew he needed a bigger bike. Plus, Luke showed interest in riding a bike as well. So, we made the plunge and bought Jacob a bigger bike

and passed his Lightning McQueen ride down to Luke.

Both are thrilled with their new rides.

Underwater Camera

For my birthday, I got a new pocket camera (mine broke last spring.) Since I LOVE my DSLR and use it for almost every picture taking occasion, we wanted the new camera to have its own identity and specific use. We decided on a waterproof one. Though the "everyday" pictures it takes aren't spectacular, they do the job of capturing the moment if I don't have my big camera with me. I was quite happy with how the underwater ones turned out though.

In Honduras:

Haircuts

Today was haircut day for the boys.

Jacob: Luke (aka wild man):

As the stylist was putting gel in his hair and running his fingers through it, it was all sticking straight up at one point. Luke grinned and said "hair all done" and tried to get down from the chair. We asked him if he wanted it to be spidy like that and he said yes. She then put it into a faux-hawk. He loved it. (But he looks older than his 2 1/2 yrs, so it won't be staying....I like my little guy looking 2!)

Bowling

Yesterday I took the boys bowling. David and I took them once before a few months ago, so Jacob was very excited when I told him we were going. It is amazing what a difference 4-5 months can make.

Jacob attempted to bowl with his fingers in the proper holes,

though he still did a painful drop of the ball rather than roll it.

He even got a strike on one throw. He was excited he knocked them all down, but not excited that meant the end of his turn.

Luke, as is typical these days, insisted on doing it "all myself."

I was a bit nervous in the beginning that he would drop the 7lb ball on his foot (or someone else's) but he did great.

The ball didn't roll very fast, but except for one throw in the 8th frame, the ball made it to the pins every time.

Here's Luke:

And Jacob:

And one more of Jacob (with 'help' from Luke):

Christmas Week

Though I have a lot of updates to go back and edit and post, I thought I would start from some of the more recent posts to keep everyone up to date. This one is actually about activities that went on last week, Dec.20-26

Because all of our regularly scheduled activities were not in session this week for the Christmas holiday, we had a lot of free play time and "do what you want" time. With such a busy fall schedule, we didn't have too many of those days, and we missed having them from time to time. Daddy had to work for the first 3 days of the week, so we tried to keep on our normal eat/nap routine and just find other fun things to keep us busy.

One day we went to a pizza parlor with a kids play area:

We made another zoo trip this week, this time with a couple of friends. No matter how many times we visit the zoo, the boys never tire of it.

As is an Armstrong family tradition at Christmas time, we all went out for a nice dinner at Taste of Texas. One of my favorite restaurants, and so festive at Christmastime. Between waiting for a table and eating, it was a 3 1/2 hour affair. The boys did fabulous. David and I were so proud of their behavior.

Friday was a day of making Christmas cookies,

then Christmas Eve mass and dinner with the family.

Of course, Saturday was Christmas Day. Santa made a visit and brought everyone in the house a lot of goodies. I plan to write a "Christmas Morning" post soon.

After opening gifts, we headed out to Aunt Catherine's house for a wonderful Christmas brunch.

The rest of the week was filled with good old playtime with lots of new toys.

**I take a lot of pictures in general (an average week is about 80 pictures), but because of Christmas morning festivities, there were more than twice as many pictures taken. I try to cut down the number of pictures I upload and share to a more "reasonable" number, but this week couldn't get it down below 100, so be aware if you plan on looking through the link.

Here are the pictures from the week.

Pictures by Monica

For the past couple of years, my friend, Monica, has taken pictures of the boys and our family. I always intend to upload some of the best pictures to share here, but never get around to it. I don't know if I'll ever get the other ones posted, but here are some of my favorites she took the weekend after Thanksgiving, including our Christmas card photo for the year:
Some great shots of the boys:

and some beautiful family pictures as well:

Here are the rest of the pictures she took during the session.

Excited

Jacob is beyond excited about Christmas morning. There is so much running around inside that little body of his he could hard stand still tonight. I wish I could just bottle up the innocence and wonder he is experiencing right now. It is just adorable and so so sweet. I also wish I had my video camera on when I went in to kiss him goodnight so I could capture the bubbling over of excitement and glee on his face and coming from his mouth (I did try to go back in with my camera, but like most times he sees the camera, he clammed up). What an amazing time!

Here are the little guys in their new pajamas with the cookies and milk for Santa (I can just see the excitement in Jacob)

My two handsome little men ready for Christmas Eve mass:

Applepus and Brebra

OK, so a very different post than normal, but one I just had to write to remember this cuteness. Right now, Luke talks A LOT and knows so many words, it really is amazing. Not all of his words are correct though. For example, my new favorite - Octopus is Applepus. Adorable! And Zebra is Brebra. I hope to get this on video soon to add to the post.

To the zoo...yes again

Another warm winter day in Houston, brought the boys and me back to the zoo today.

This time we went with our friends Katie and Gideon. Gideon is in Luke's class at school, but the admiration and affection Gideon has for Jacob is what really keeps Gideon wanting to hang out with us! My efforts to get a picture of all 3 rambunctious boys was futile.

In fact, at this spot, Gideon wanted to play duck duck goose instead of taking a silly picture.I got these two to sit for 5 seconds...

This time, as promised, the boys got to ride the Herman Park train. The ticket prices have gone up since the last time we rode, so our rides may not be as frequent as they once were.

My boys have always been stroller kids. They would rather be pushed around than walk (or run) on their own. As much as I like this (it sure makes it easier to take them out on my own when they aren't running in two different directions) sometimes I wish they would get out and walk a bit. Pushing nearly 80lbs of stroller and kid gets heavy!

Not sure what his problem was in the stroller picture, he really was having fun....

In front of the chimpanzee window today, one feisty chimp scared both my boys in two separate instances. The boys were standing on the wall by the window, and this one chimp went right up to the glass and hit it right by their faces. Both were very quick to back away and almost fall off the wall. Good thing Mommy was there to catch them. It really stuck with Luke. Later, at the orangutans he wouldn't go within 3 feet of the glass enclosure!

Though I am sure this has been going on for some time now, and I just haven't registered it, I realized today that Jacob has started asking "what is ?" when an unfamiliar word is used in conversation. Before, he would just glaze right over what was said and go on, even if he didn't understand. He is once again showing his love for knowledge with these new questions. The word that made me pay attention...passengers. Big thanks to Katie for tolerating his neverending silliness and helping to answer his numerous questions.