Fall?

Warning! This post includes a crazy long list of events...because I am WAY behind! So...between a busy fall, a dropped computer, and a very behind mama, I have completed neglected keeping up the blog. And I apologize to anyone who actually looks at it! As Christmas is quickly approaching I thought I better load up on what we've been doing this fall because I know we will have many picture worthy moments in the next month that will make it impossible to keep up. So here is the quick and (somewhat abridged) version of what we've been up to the last couple of months. So one of the things that was so great about where we lived before was that there was an awesome nursery/"plant store" to use Will's words not far from our house. But wait...we have a new great place at our new house too! Here is Bellamy exploring at their fall festival...yes, I'm really just now posting about things that happened in October. Hush and enjoy.

A little sibling fun...

Gotta pick out some great pumpkins!

And AJ was here! One tradition that we have is to go to our church pumpkin patch each year and attempt to get some pictures. We were lucky to have AJ joining us this year -- and we love some AJ time!

I also was lucky enough to borrow a camera from school to play with for a few weeks -- and I was spoiled! It was fun, but I had to give it back. :(

Cheese!! The girl does love a good picture opportunity!

Quite possibly my favorite fall picture. Did I mention I LOVED playing with that camera??:)

And of course Halloween has also come and gone. Yikes! This year Will really got into the idea of a costume and trick or treating and the whole thing for the first time. Here we are headed to the annual trunk treats at church -- with our "shark scientist animal doctor" and a pretty stinkin cute cowgirl.

Dancing with Daddy...

I mean seriously. She loves the camera. Cheese!!

Before heading over to go "candying" as Elyse called it, we attempted a group shot of the costumed kids. This is actually a pretty great attempt by Melissa to get all four of them at the same time!

Best buddies. Think they enjoyed themselves?

In the meantime, Elyse has turned 4! She had a fantastic zoo party that of course Will loved every minute. I love this picture of the two of them on safari together. They have the best moments when they think we aren't watching.

Weaved into the fall is of course, Husker football season! Here's the little cheerleader ready to go. She loves it -- and attempts to chant "Go Big Red!" at the TV. Our little Husker girl...

Speaking of Husker fans, Will has really gotten into football season this year. I couldn't resist this picture -- at AJ's, dreaming of a Husker win I suppose...

Will played soccer for the first time this year and it was so much fun! Quite possibly the best part of it -- Todd came out of retirement to coach the Pirates. :) The coach with his team for a little pregame pep talk. I think it went a little like this -- "no hands, our goal is over there, no it's not snack time..."

Our little soccer star in action, courtesy of Aunt B photography.

We hosted the end of the year team party at our house, complete with a soccer pirate theme for everyone. Check out the cupcakes...

Argh...

Thanksgiving break came just in time for a trip to Aunt Debbie's salon and B's first haircut! She loves having her hair messed with so I figured she would do okay, and she did. It must be Aunt Debbie's special touch. :) Such a big girl!

Of course she thinks she can comb it herself...

It wouldn't be a trip to Omaha without a trip to Will's favorite place -- the zoo! I think we will be visitors for a long time...Bellamy was all over the place and squealed at all the animals, especially the aquarium.

Monkey see, monkey do...also known as "Will was on this rope so I absolutely must sit on it too"...

A rare family photo -- thanks to Grandma's picture taking skills!

So there you have it. Fall in a nutshell. Whew!

Our Life according to iPhone

The blessing and curse of iProducts...I never use the computer anymore! And if I never get on the computer, the pictures never get downloaded, and if that doesn't happen, the blog certainly never gets updated...I must find a better system! In the meantime, I thought I would show off a little of what we have been up to recently -- all courtesy of iProducts considering I'm not even sure where the camera is right now! :) So in no particular order...the Tones family life according to my iPhone!:) We've had a few visitors...here's one of Will's favs, Justin! He was in town for work so of course we had to go to Lupe's. Justin and Todd of course had to have beeg suckers and Will helped to celebrate the occasion with his Mexican food favorite of "mushy beans and spanish rice." :)

Will's first day of preK! He is SO excited and already making plans to be in kindergarten. :)

We are in trouble...this little lady loves a good outfit! Bellamy loves to try on any clothes, shoes, hair accessory, anything you can find right now. Here she is checking out her fancy new raincoat and boots, courtesy of Elyse. :)

Contrary to the thermometer, it is fall...and Husker season!

Will and Elyse attempting their first sleepover! They may not have stayed like this all night, but everyone made it to morning and they had a great time. The highlight of the night (and I'll spare you the picture, although I do have one) was definitely when they discovered that Will's blue toothpaste and Elyse's pink toothpaste mixed together on a toothbrush makes...yep...purple spit! :)

With the beginning of preK also came the beginning of Will's soccer career. :) His first game is this weekend, but here he is ready for his first practice. He's been SO excited, especially since Todd is coming out of retirement to coach the team. :) Look out, I hear the Memorial Drive Pirates are going to be tough this year...

And here's B, just being B. Always a smile but definitely hard to photograph these days. Every picture turns out to be a blur because she has taken off somewhere again. A rare still moment...probably because she's trying to show off her favorite green shoes. :)

I mean, really, does it get any better than a little girl in pigtails? :) Again, showing off the green shoes...she would wear them to bed if I would let her.

These next two are a cheat because I didn't actually take them on my phone, but I did get them in an email on my iPad from Melissa, so they count, right? :) Thomas and Bellamy discussing a little football strategy. Is it just me or do they look like two men at the coffee shop downtown having a Monday morning quarterback discussion? :)

And last but certainly not least, one for the farmers...Bellamy thoroughly enjoying her first corn on the cob experience. She may still only have a few teeth, but that was certainly not stopping her. Yum!

So there you have it, a little of this and that and hopefully a little picture of some of what we've been up to lately. Now to shut off the computer...hopefully not for quite so long this time. :)

Summer wrap up

I guess it's appropriate that I sit here on the last official day of my summer vacation to finally post summer pics...I can't believe it's over! Ok, it's not really over...there are still weeks to go before school actually starts and we have plenty of fun summer activities still planned, but the days of lazy mornings and having no schedule are over as we know it for another year. I suppose I shouldn't complain...some of you don't have the luxury of still getting summer vacation every year (and I feel sorry for you...) but it doesn't make it any easier! So, what have we been up to?? You mean besides birthday fun (mentioned in the last post) followed quickly by a Nebraska trip? And then moving a week later? That's about it I guess... We had SUCH a good time in Nebraska this year! Jessica's neighborhood finally finished the pool they have been promising since she moved in and we took full advantage of it. It was absolutely perfect for little ones and we invited some friends over throughout the week to enjoy it with us. Here's Will with a couple of buddies, Luke and Laney. It's always incredible to me how well they all play together even though they only see each other a couple times a year. So fun!

We also went to Lincoln one day to hang out and checked out the Lincoln zoo. The feature exhibit this summer is a camel, so of course Will wanted to ride it! He was so excited and loved every single minute. They won't let you ride by yourself until your 5, so Todd was the lucky winner that got to ride with him. :)

Another super cool event we got to take advantage of (thanks to AJ's quick thinking ahead of time) was the Olympic swim trials. It was awesome to be even a very small part of the Olympics and as we sit on the couch watching now we can't believe we actually saw some of them swim in person! Here's Will signing one of the phone booths for the London Olympics. He took the job of putting his full name in there very seriously -- and now somewhere in London the Olympians know that "Will Tones" is rooting for them!

Probably my favorite picture of the whole week. Will measuring himself against a picture of Michael Phelps. We asked him if he was the same size and he measured himself, looked up, and said "not quite..." Not quite indeed little guy. :)

And something that is SO uncharacteristic of Will -- he rode a shark! Think mechanical bull for little ones and you've got the idea. He is usually not our risk taker at all, so I thought for sure that we were passing up this chance. But after investigating it for a while and coming up with his strategy, he was all for it! And he actually did a really good job! Check out his concentration...

You'd think all of that would be enough fun for one trip, but no! We also checked out the dinosaur exhibit at Fontanelle forest. Of course Will loved it and the rest of us actually didn't have a bad time either. Fontanelle forest is beautiful and the dinos were so interesting that Will walked the one mile trail twice! Here's Will and Grandma with one of the dinosaurs spotted on the trail.

And inside while we wait for Will's second trip through the forest, Bellamy is quite content to do a little beanbag lounging...

There was also a dig pit, which I think Bellamy would have played in all day if we hadn't been invaded by a group of day camp kids...

To finish off the week Jess and my mom planned a great family get together at, you guessed it, the fabulous new pool and clubhouse! It was really great to see everyone and spend some time with family before we came back. I did a horrible job of taking pictures, but here is B with one of her cousins. The girls in this round of cousins are outnumbered for sure -- they have to stick together! If only we lived closer...I see a future babysitter in the works right here...;)

And then we made the long trek back to Texas and went straight to work...

We said goodbye to Sugar Land the first week of July and moved back into Houston. All of that really means nothing to you out of towners, but it was a great move for our family. Todd and I are much closer to work, we are all closer to church, and most importantly, we are practically around the corner from some of our closest friends. For those of you planning a trip to see us (wink, wink) you'll be happy to know that we have shortened your drive by at least 20 minutes. :) So in spite of the summer being quite the whirlwind, we have really had a great one. We are looking forward to all our new beginnings of the year and all the adventures yet to come. Including climbing this great new backyard tree...

Our little sunshine

She's ONE! And has been for almost a month now...but we're going to need to be cut some slack on this one. Since June started we have sold our house, bought a new one, celebrated this little lady turning one, drove to and from Nebraska, moved...get the picture?? It's been crazy!! But back to the subject at hand. Our sweet girl isn't "zero" anymore as her brother says. As crazy as life was, we did want to make sure and celebrate her and the joy she has brought into our lives. She is such a little ray of sunshine -- hence the theme of the day. :) As guests arrived they were greeted by the lemonade stand, which was usually being manned by one of the big kids to provide a drink and a snack. It's easy to build a lemonade stand when you have so many boxes laying around...:)

The lemonade stand was quite the hit throughout the day -- with the kids of all ages. Bellamy pulled up in her new birthday car for a little snack...

Thanks for my new car Aunt Melissa and Uncle Chris! I love it!

A little sunshine at the snack table...

And of course lemonade and "ice cream" cupcakes to complete the day...

Checking out the cake...and not so sure what to think about it.

After investigating her cake for a few moments Bellamy was not interested in sitting in front of it anymore. As soon as she was out of her seat this is where she headed...

Apparently Will's tradition of never being in a shirt in a birthday picture is translating over to his sister's birthday's too...

Happy Birthday sunshine!