The Atwoods

Vacation 2011

2011-10-06T12:42:00.001-05:00

At the beginning of August, our family took off on a 3,000 mile road trip! My brother got married in Pennsylvania, so we planned a trip that took us to the East coast and back again. Our first stop was the Creation Museum outside Cincinnati, Oh.

This was so fun! Will got the most out of it since he is really into dinosaurs, but all the boys enjoyed it. We are definitely planning on going back when the other boys are older. I am not a big fan of museums, but this was actually really fun. A lot of interactive exhibits, everything new and first class, clean bathrooms, a nursing room, etc. :)

The museum also had a beautiful garden, and the weather was perfect for enjoying it!

The petting zoo was one the boys favorites. Will was VERY serious about the whole, "keep your hand flat so you don't loose a finger thing." :) This is also when Jason was attacked by the baby goat! He was not happy about the damage to his pants. We went straight to church after the museum, so he was wearing good clothes. :)

Thursday, the night before the wedding, we went with my parents and my sister's family to Delgrosso's amusement park. The park is very family friendly and CHEAP, and the boys loved spending time with their cousin Drew.

This was the highlight of our whole vacation. All the kids were happy and well rested at this point and had a blast.

Drew was serious about his rides! This was one that went high in the air and then dropped you, but he wasn't scared at all. Such a big boy!

The night ended with funnel cakes, and Jason and Donnie taking on the big death drop.

Such a fun day!!

Paul and Michelle's wedding was Beautiful! I didn't get a lot of pictures, because I was busy chasing after the boys and bawling like it was my own wedding. :) I'll have to pull some pictures off of their facebook page for another post.

Connor loved the candy buffet! Their reception was so fun. It was relaxed and casual, but there were a lot of little details that made it very special. Also, they had really really good food!!!

Jack was so tuckered out!

The next day, we got up and went to Washington D.C. This is where the vacation started to get a little long. :) After the beautiful God-centered Creation Museum, the hot, packed, evolution-centered Smithsonian was a bit of a let down. Also, we had been to all the D.C landmarks several times before since we lived in Maryland when we were first married.

You may notice that Connor is not in very many of our pictures; he had a rough day, and was not a fan of our nation's capitol.

We hit one last museum on our way home, the Nascar Hall of Fame.

We planned our trip so we would travel through Mississippi on the way home and get to see cousin Drew (and his mommy and daddy) again. The boys camped out on the floor and had a "sleep-over" that lasted about 10 minutes. :) The adults stayed up super late and played mexican train. We have so much fun when we are all together!

After 10 days on the road, we were very happy to be home!

Update

2011-07-15T10:55:00.023-05:00

Just wanted to do an update to bring our blog into 2011.

In November we drove to Mississippi to spend Thanksgiving with the Hagans.

The cousins had so much fun together!

In December we flew to Milwaukee to celebrate Christmas with the Hoover side of the family. It was an adventure flying with three small children (two lap children), but it was well worth it. We had a lot of snow, and Will and Connor were able to spend a lot of time outside. December was also a big month for Connor; he threw his paci away at grandma's house!In January we had our Annual Winter Revival. We enjoyed visiting with the Potters, our speaker and friends from college, and doing some sightseeing in Corpus. This is at the Lexington, an aircraft carrier and museum.

In February, we spent a lot of time at the pediatrician, and walking the floor at night with Jackson. He had horrible ear infections that didn't clear up until we tried three different antibiotics. Will and Connor have never had an ear infection, so it was a new experience for us. :(
Also in February, Jason celebrated his 30th birthday! The boys and I got him a Keurig, and he got lots of K-cups from our friends and family.
In March my family came down for a visit, and we celebrated Will's 5th and Connor's 2nd birthdays with a builder party, a very appropriate theme for this year since the church is in the process of building a new auditorium.
Will lost his first tooth and started taking piano lessons in March too! (Not sure what this crazy face was all about.)
I did not get a single family picture, not even of the boys, on Easter Sunday. :( Here is one of Connor during our egg hunt.
In April and May we had a lot of home renovation projects, and a flood in our kitchen.
We gutted our bathroom down to the studs, and put it back together, in just over a week. Super Craziness!!! (did I mention we did all the work ourselves, and we had no idea what we were doing? We watched a lot of you tube diy videos.)
BEFORE

AFTER
We put down wood laminate floor in our family room where we had to replace the carpet from the water damage.
We also had our second missions conference in May. We had some wonderful families in, and I think eight kids total, so we did some fun kid friendly activities in Corpus. I had pictures, but they got deleted off my phone. :/
AND . . .
After over two years, and several bad offers/contracts, our house finally sold!
At the beginning of June we moved into our new house. We completely packed, moved across town, and unpacked in less than 8 hours! Our church family is so amazing; I don't know what we would have done without them!
This is the boys room, the first night we moved in. I bought these curtains and rug at Ikea for their new room over two years ago, and I'm so thrilled that they are finally able to use them. :)
Lately we've just been enjoying Summer!
Birthday Parties,
Baseball Games,
and lots of time in the pool.

Scarecrow Cookie Pops

2010-11-17T09:00:00.000-06:00

Will and I made these scarecrow cookies for kids club last week. The idea came from this blog.

To save on time, we just used refrigerated cookie dough and canned frosting.

We used wafer cookies for the hat, mini chocolate chips for the eyes and mouth, pecans for the hair (because i thought it would taste better than that ick bran cereal :)) and candy corn for the nose.

They were SO easy to decorate.
I usually stay away from anything to do with cake decorating ever since the lady teaching our home-ec cake decorating class in high school informed me she "could tell I was left handed." Yikes! :)

Next time we make them we may use chocolate frosting. Will thought they looked kind of like snowmen since their faces were white.

Target Deals

2010-11-15T23:12:00.007-06:00

Jason took Will to an Islander's basketball game tonight, so I took the little boys with me to get out of the house and check out some deals going on at Target. These glade candles were .50 cents after a gift card promotion. The cream of mushroom soup was .25 cents a can, and the renuzit air fresheners were free. I also used the new $10 off 3 sleepwear purchase coupon on some clearance pajamas to get 3 items for less than $5, but I'm not going to show my PJ's on the world wide web. :P You can find more deals and the links to the printable coupons I used here.

I also picked up these adorable insulated coffee cups. I've always loved anything snow or snowman (especially now that we live in South Texas!) so I couldn't pass them up. Aren't they cute!?

Connor really missed Will while he was gone. He kept turning around in the car, looking for him in the back seat. When we got home he brought me a book off of my night stand with a picture of who he thought was "wuu" (will).

Toy Story Party

2010-11-12T10:58:00.008-06:00

We had the cousins over for a "sleepover" (without sleeping over) to watch the new Toy Story movie.

We had rocket ship pizza, salad and LOTS of snacks. :)

Tammy brought these adorable popcorn holders with a mini bag of popcorn attached.

Grandma and Grandpa let us borrow their projector so we could watch it on the wall.

Fun Memories!

2 Months Old

2010-11-07T16:18:00.004-06:00

I can hardly believe it has already been 2 months since Jackson joined our family. We love you Jack and don't remember what life was like before you!

Our Little Man

2010-11-07T09:00:00.001-06:00

Jackson at Eight Weeks

2010-11-05T18:24:00.004-05:00

Connor's Crazy Hair

2010-11-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

Just had to document Connor's crazy mo-hawk. :)
It fits his personality perfectly.

LightbulbTurkeys

2010-11-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

We FINALLY finished our turkeys that we started 3 weeks ago when grandma was here. The idea came from here, but you can buy all the supplies at Hobby Lobby.

You need one lightbulb per turkey.
They had these cute mini light bulbs too, so we made "baby turkeys" for the kids. My mom made a template for the feathers while she was here, and cut them out from orange and brown felt. We also used the felt for the rest of the pieces. Everything was attached with tacky craft glue, but you could probably use a glue gun too. Will's job was to unscrew all the light bulb lids and fill them with candy corn.
I just drew the eyes on with a sharpie.
We are going to use them as place card holders for thanksgiving.

My little turkey. :)

Scratch Mittens

2010-10-30T20:28:00.004-05:00

These little mittens have been a life saver for us! I got the pattern for them on this blog, and they were super quick to make. They stay on really well too.

This is Jack at about a week old with his mittens on. I promise to update with more recent pictures soon. He is growing and changing so much every day!!

Jackson Brian

2010-09-17T10:40:00.007-05:00

Jackson Brian Atwood joined our family 3 weeks early on September 8th. He was our biggest baby at 6 pounds, 4 ounces and 18 1/2 inches long! :)

Big brothers LOVE him, and have been adjusting well. It is still hard to believe that we are now a family of five, and that I am a mom of 3 boys! I am hoping to keep everyone updated with pictures here on my blog, but we will see how that goes. ;)
We have been busy this year with a kitchen update and STILL trying to sell our house. The boys turned 4 and 1 in March, and we had lots of fun with a pirate birthday party and a visit from Grandpa, Grandma and Ashlee, and Alisa and Drew. The church has been keeping Jason super busy, and we are getting ready to build a new auditorium.
Will started K4 Abeka video school, and we LOVE it! It keeps him occupied during Connor's nap time, and gives me a couple of hours in the afternoon to get things done. Yay!!
Well, those are the main things that are new with us. I know my 3 readers were getting tired of seeing my "Connor Crawling" blog post.
By the way, Connor has mastered crawling, walking, and now just runs wherever he goes. It's faster. ;)

Connor Crawling

2009-12-13T21:44:00.004-06:00

This was our attempt of getting a video of Connor crawling. Will was supposed to "bait" him with the phone, but he got too distracted trying to play a game. :)

Our Happy Eater

2009-11-21T19:59:00.004-06:00

Costume of the Day: Superman Edition

2009-11-20T17:28:00.000-06:00

Will stood so the ceiling fan would blow his superman cape.

Connor was pretty impressed. :)

He will have a partner in crime before too long!
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Our Favorite Hangout

2009-11-20T17:23:00.001-06:00

Will could play all day at the train table at Barnes and Noble.

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Costume of the Day

2009-11-18T15:07:00.000-06:00

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A Typical Morning

2009-11-17T13:00:00.007-06:00

I took these pictures last week on a random morning while the boys were playing. They aren't of anything super exciting, but I know in 20 years they will make me smile. :)

Tile Coasters

2009-11-17T12:45:00.006-06:00

Inspired by this post on my sister's blog, we made these coasters last night. They are for a gift bag we are putting together for our visitors on Sundays. A set of 4 comes out to be right around $1!

This one is my favorite. (I hijacked it to use for my coffee in the mornings. ;) )

CVS Deals

2009-11-17T12:39:00.003-06:00

I go in spurts of doing CVS deals for several weeks, and then taking several weeks off. Well, I ran in last night to use up an extra buck that was expiring, and got this for $0.78! If you are interested, you can check out the CVS deals for the week here. This is my new favorite "deal website." (You have to check out the follow me monday segments!)

Family Fun

2009-11-11T15:48:00.001-06:00

Last night we went to Whataburger dressed in orange for their free whataburger promotion! I meant to get a picture of the whole fam, but forgot. :(. Connor got quite a lot of attention in his orange outfit; about 20 people told us "she" was so cute. I guess the gender neutral color and long eyelashes were confusing them. :). We brought our burgers home and had a picnic on the floor while we watched "Up". Fun memories!!!

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Getting Organized

2009-11-07T18:06:00.007-06:00

I have been trying to organize closets this week, and finally tackled the closet in the boys room, the worst yet. :O It still looks a little cluttered to me, but they have a lot of clothes to store.

These cute day of the week tags were printable and FREE at Living Locurto. :)

I got inspired to make my own little tags for the boys' storage bins.

Fun at the Park!

2009-11-07T17:51:00.001-06:00

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