Summer 2012...where did it go???

well, you won't believe me when i tell you this, but we start school in 3 days.  yep, you read that right.  sickening i tell you.  i told john the other day that our school is an evil institution because it steals away my 3 most favorite people all at the same time. ;)

so since we head back to school on wednesday, i thought i better jump on the blog here and document a little bit of our summer, before i start posting "1st day of school" pics!

we started our summer with an immediate trip to st. louis back at the end of may.  and when i say immediate, i mean immediate.  we attended graduation on friday night and left 5 hours later in the wee hours of the morning to make the 11 hour trip.

here are a few of my favorite pictures from our trip to visit john's family.

Noodle and Pappaw playing croquet

burrito sticking his hand in a rabbit hole!

we had a great time at the science center

they built the gateway arch!

don't be fooled!  this was at the st. louis zoo but they so badly wanted to visit a cave.  this was as close as they got! :)

at the zoo on a beautiful day

our other big trip of the summer was to our favorite texas beach location, rockport!  this was our third summer to visit and as always, it was totally relaxing and fun.  this year we rented a house for a week just minutes from the beach with my family and had a great time, minus the jellyfish.  these are a few of my favorite pics from that trip.

of course we planned our trip around being in austin at breakfast time so we could eat here

first day at the beach

does he look like a surfer dude or what???

cousin porkchop

love this picture of my burrito

the grandsons with mimi

in the ocean eating a snow cone...life just doesn't get much better!

john and burrito and the vast ocean

our beach home on the fourth of july

waiting for the fireworks

celebrating our freedom

this is outside the texas state aquarium in corpus christi.  that bridge in the background makes me squeamish!

the boys at the aquarium

under the sea

other summer memories include lots of bike rides to the park with john, swimming with our cousin, ice cream cones from braum's, john's intro to baseball class for the boys (they're playing baseball this fall), going to the movies and eating popcorn, swimming in our blow up pool, and reading the harry potter books.  it's been a good summer and i'm thankful for my family.

our exciting new year's eve

we are such party animals!  our idea of the best nye ever was to buy snacky foods,  have a picnic in the living room and watch mr. popper's penguins.  love my guys!

happy 9th anniversary to the one i love

it has been 9 blissfully sweet years of marriage to my absolute most favorite person ever, john david!  my prayer is that i will get to celebrate 99 more years with you, and it still wouldn't be enough.

 xoxo,
jenn

christmas 2011 digest

christmas 2011 was wonderful.  it was just what we like for the holidays.  not too busy but fully engaged in celebrating the greatest gift we've ever received, Jesus.

christmas eve we celebrated with john's family via skype.  technology is simply amazing!  we set up the laptop so that they could watch the boys open their presents from them live!  it went smoothly and the boys were thankful for their gifts. 

talking on skype

noodle with a new school jacket

checking out a lego book

 we also baked and snacked on a birthday cake for Jesus.  we've never done this before and this was yet another attempt to remind burrito and noodle to not only think about the presents they were opening, but to also think about the gift of Jesus.  we had fun baking red and green layers for the cake, singing happy birthday to Jesus and then enjoying the afternoon snack.

mixing up the red and green cake batter

the finished product

singing and blowing out the candle

the inside view

 we headed out to the church john attended before we were married for their christmas eve service.  it is a large church and i wanted the boys (really all of us) to hear christmas carols on the pipe organ.  we set in the balcony because it was quite crowded and because burrito thought this was the most awesome thing ever!  we ended the evening by driving around an affluent neighborhood in dallas looking at christmas lights.

then came christmas morning!  we arose early and john read the christmas story from luke 2 and we hung the final ornament on our advent tree.  then we let the boys open their presents from us.  they each received a new pair of running shoes, a remote control car, and a lego set.  they were thrilled!

love this picture of my man

our advent trees

the long-awaited new zig shoes!

crazy remote control cars

burrito with his lego set

noodle with his lego set

 then we loaded up the car and headed down to mimi and poppy's house.  we opened presents with them, ate some breakfast, welcomed more family later that morning and then ate mexican food for lunch.  the boys enjoyed playing with their cousin porkchop, my cousins and each other.  it was a great relaxing day of food, family and fun.

the cousins!  love these 3 boys!!!

burrito with boxers on his head!

porkchop sporting the new baylor hat

as always, it seems to go by so quickly but we really enjoyed spending time together this year celebrating the birth of our Savior! 

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!