noodle's celebrations

as always, birthday celebrations go on and on each year for our boys.  we have recently adopted "family fun days" as a better substitute for a birthday party.  and believe it or not, the boys prefer it...maybe because they get to plan our entire day, including meals and activities.

we celebrated noodle's family fun day on a friday that we did not have school.  it began with a trip to dunkin donuts.  i didn't complain!

then we headed to walmart to buy a small present for him (he chose a new beywheelz), after trying out the skateboards!

this is completely hysterical to me!

then we ventured on to the fort worth science and history museum to meet up with a few of his friends from school that graciously invited us to take advantage of their membership there.  we spent the morning hours digging for dinosaur bones and exploring their exhibits, including a bed of nails and a hurricane wind tunnel.

bed of nails

i love their faces!

noodle chose mcdonald's for lunch.  i am not a fan, but hey, it's his day.

then we went to main event for some family fun bowling.  after 3 games, the lure of the arcade games was too much.  after trying to convince both boys not to waste their money on those claw games that are designed to never let you capture and grab a cheap stuffed animal, we relented and this is what happened!

he won twice!!!  we ended the day with dinner at chili's and renting a movie and eating candy.

the next birthday celebration was at mimi and poppy's house.  he was so excited to get a harry potter lego book, a new beyblade, some new athletic clothes, and a new scooter with light up wheels!!!  we ate cookie cake and played outside.

on noodle's actual birthday i took cookies and drinks up to school at recess for his school buddies.

before dinner, he opened presents from us.  he got a new basketball goal (which broke in 2 minutes and i had to ship back so don't buy this one!!!), basketball shorts and a beywheelz stadium from his brother burrito.

don't ask me why he is doing the star trek sign???

we also went out for dinner (again, his choice!) at ihop and then came back home to open presents on skype with nina, pappaw and nonna in st. louis.  he was so excited to get more beywheelz, a beyblade destroyer dome, money and a scooby doo game (thanks uncle daniel!).

i would say that this boy is blessed beyond measure and we sure had a good time celebrating him!  happy 7th birthday noodle!!!

halloween 2011

halloween 2011 brought a new tradition to the rutherford household:  carving pumpkins.  neither john nor i could recall ever having done this as a kid and so we felt pretty uneducated and inexperienced.  however, with a little online research, we had a great time!

we bought two really great, big pumpkins.  they were so cute i hated to cut them up!  noodle's class had carved a pumpkin a few days earlier so he was our go-to expert!  after sawing off the tops, the boys were so excited to reach in and remove the guts!  noodle was totally obsessed with removing all the seeds so that we could roast them later.

love these two!

the perfect pumpkins

john and noodle

burrito

the finished products

this is their scary pumpkin faces!

aren't they cute?

and here's their spooky side!

the trick-or-treating crew

 and we had a blast on october 31 with our friends from church.  we made an interesting group:  a knight, a snow princess, a football player and a parrot!  nonetheless, we all had a blast and have 10 pounds of candy to prove it!

thanks friends for hosting us that night and letting us raid your neighborhood!

and for some regular traditions, the boys participated in a reformation day party at school.  they are asked to come dressed as either an animal from God's creation or a bible character.  we've been a frog and a lion, a penguin, and as abraham and titus from the bible.

noodle as a parrot

this is what he looked like when he actually wore the bird head part!

 

burrito as a roman soldier.  i know it looks more like a knight but use your imagination! :)

all in all, we had a great time dressing up and being with friends and having lots of fun!

noodle's 6th birthday

as it seems to be standard practice now, we had a several-day celebration of noodle's birthday this year.  on friday, we celebrated with friends at school.  noodle sat at the front of the classroom while his friends sang "happy birthday" to him.  it was very sweet.  he then helped me pass out juice boxes and m&m cookies that he picked out from the store.

it also happened to be "texas rangers spirit day" so that it why all the kids have on rangers shirts instead of uniforms.  a fun day all around!

then the party continued the next morning at the soccer game.  after the game we shared gatorade and more cookies and the team all sang happy birthday to noodle.

i love his little smile here!

then the real party moved to skatetown that afternoon where the boys from noodle's class plus a couple of our dear friends from church joined us to skate it up.  even john and i strapped some skates on and relived our glory days from middle school!

this is a little game they have the kids play...balancing the ice cream on your head.

noodle doesn't like cake (or ice cream) so we went with the big cookie for the cake!

noodle's actual birthday was on sunday so we celebrated the real thing with a family party at our house.  this is one spoiled little guy!  his ultimate present was the nintendo dsi and a multitude of new games for it.

happy 6th birthday noodle!  we love you so much and thank God for you each day!

hallow-weekend (a week belated)

so once again i'm grossly behind in my blogging ventures.  i'm quickly learning that i simply cannot accomplish everything.

but enough of that.  we celebrated our halloween all weekend long.  the boys kicked it off with their reformation parties at school. 

for our halloween costumes, the boys decided on being football players.  they each have their own football uniform and i applied a little black mascara on their cheeks and we called it good.  i love simple costumes!

on saturday, the boys and i did our own halloween thing while john went to golf with a group from our church.  the boys and i had such a fun "mommy time!" 

first, we went to the video store and picked out a movie to watch later that night.  then we went to our community fall festival at a local park.  we had attended this one a few years back, and the boys had fun, but the downside was having to wait in some long lines in order to do the activities. nonetheless, they were patient and had a blast.

we finished up there and then headed to ihop for breakfast for dinner.  the boys chose a chocolate face pancake and gobbled it up!

john joined us halfway through our meal and then we headed home for some movie time!

on sunday, we celebrated reformation day at church and then came back for an impromptu halloween lunch.  it consisted of mummy dogs (hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls), cheese-covered bugs (macaroni and cheese that are bug-shaped), and chips with monster mash (guacamole).  the boys love to indulge my culinary creativity!

then sunday night we headed over to dallas to go trick-or-treating with some great friends.  our party represented 3 mermaids, a cheerleader, a baseball player and 2 football players.  we were a diverse group.

the moms took the kids while the men stayed back to watch the rangers play in the world series.  it was a bit chaotic trying to keep track of seven running children in the dark but we did it and all survived!  thanks again gibsons for hosting!