Busy..busy...busy

The year is already off to a busy, busy start! From birthday parties to baby showers to weddings to baseball tournaments, our calendar is filling up quickly.

Colby has 2 pre-season tournaments that his team is playing in. One is Feb 15- 17 and the other one is Feb 29 - March 2. His team from the fall season is staying together for the most part. They have 8 returning players and are starting practice back up this Saturday. Tristen will go back into the draft due to his team not staying together. Colby's coach called Jason and asked him to be the catcher's coach and will be attending a 2-day coach's clinic in the upcoming weeks.

My brother and his wife are moving here this weekend and so it will be nice to have them right around the corner from us. They'll get a taste of life with kiddos! :) I know Bear is super excited about watching the boys play baseball and practicing with them.

Abby's 4th B-day

Abby (our niece) turned 4 years old on Friday! She had a skating party today and here are a few pictures!

First.....

Hibachi restaurant for the boys. We went to Jinbeh for Allen's b-day. The boys had never been to a Japanese restaurant, much less a Hibachi restaurant. They were fascinated by it all. Tristen learned how to use chopsticks, and learned he liked ginger salad dressing. Colby attempted the chopsticks, but is like me....can't do it! Here are some pictures from our evening w/friends...

Jason holding Natalie, our friends' daughter (he was practicing for our little girl we'll have one day!)

Aww...We are famous!

The vendor I used for our wedding invitations recently redid her website - Velvet Rabbit Studios. If you look under Real Brides - you will see our wedding featured! Yes, this lady is located in Australia, and as crazy as it sounds, I did order my wedding invitations from her. Crazy, eh? She did an amazing job and I'll post a picture soon of her amazing work! Just wanted to share. :)

NYE 2007

We rang in NYE w/a few close friends. Our friends Chris and Stacey graciously hosted NYE at their new house. It was a pretty low-key evening, but we had fun. Here are a few pictures from our NYE celebration.

...Ready for the toast.......Jason's rockstar hair...

...Jason demonstrating him and Allen on the golf course...

Pictures....

Here are some random pictures from Christmas. I'll try and take more pictures sometime soon!

Tristen...listening to his iPod

Colby....listening to his iPod

Us...I look strange in this picture, but this is the only one from Christmas that we took.

Tristen...so excited about his Tony Hawk shirt from Marty & Phillip

Colby....joining in on the excitement with Tristen.

Abby....opening her gifts.

Aspen....with her gift from us.

Meg...excited that she got the wrestler she wanted!

Abby...

The boys new baseball bags! (They have wheels!!)

The boys new cases for their iPod shuffles.

My Texas Tech gnome from Marty.

Christmas is over...

Well, Christmas has come and gone. I'm a horrible mommy and didn't take pictures Christmas morning. I had every intention of doing so, but completely forgot. I'll take pictures of the boys new stuff sometime soon. I was more excited about them opening their presents then receiving mine.

We ended up at the last minute getting the boys cell phones. We have told them time and time again that they could not have a cell phone until they had a job so they could pay for one. Well, we contradicted ourselves (kinda). They will still have to pay for their cell phones through doing chores. At the end of each month, they will be paid so much per chore that was completed. The cost of their cell phone is $10/month, so anything they make over $10, they get to keep. Here our reasoning behind getting them cell phones. We do not have a house phone. We thought about getting a house phone, but it was cheaper and more cost effective (since we will be moving in 4-6 months) to get a cell phone for the house. Well, it is $10/month per phone line to add to our current plan, so we ended up w/2 cell phones. With my sister-in-law watching the boys after school now, there are days when she needs to leave 30 minutes early to get to her evening classes. The boys need to be able to reach one of us in case of an emergency, so this is how we ended up where we are w/the cell phones. There are rules and restrictions w/the phones, but the boys are on cloud 9. I'd like to hope that we are teaching them how to manage money and the value of a dollar through this new cell phone thing. They both received money for Christmas and immediately asked me to put it in their savings account, so I think we've got a good start on managing money. They also got new wheeled baseball bags w/their names embroidered on them. They got scooters, clothes, movies, game boy games, board games, and cases for their iPods.

Jason got a new iPod nano, case for his iPod, RoadId, clothes, The Love of Baseball book, Texas Rangers Nike pullover, and lots of other little things.

We all had a very nice Christmas and are very thankful for everything that we have. Next year we are starting a new tradition w/the boys. They will both be picking an angel from the Salvation Army Christmas tree and buying gifts for a needy child.