Ice Ice Baby

Last Thursday night, freezing temps and a wintry mix visited the Dallas/Fort Worth area, covering the ground with layers of ice and snow. The temperatures have been freezing ever since - except for a few hours yesterday afternoon that allowed me to brave the roads to go spend my Kohl's cash. I struggle with online shopping. Anyway, I'm convinced that someday DFW will realize they need to invest in salt trucks and plows. And after my trip to Kohl's I'm also still convinced that Texans don't know how to drive on ice and snow. Good grief!

Stephen and Nate have been out of school ever since, and I can't imagine that they will even go back tomorrow. I know this ice has been terrible for some, so I hesitate to admit it has been wonderful for me. It has been a long semester, and these few days have allowed us to stop and breathe. And put up our Christmas tree. I wasn't sure how that would EVER happen this year, and I was more than okay with not putting it up. But there were two little ones around here who would've been pretty disappointed if we didn't.

Nate and Evie have loved playing in the snow, although it's mostly ice with a thin layer of snow on top. Looks like they'll get to enjoy it for a couple more days!

Beautiful!

 Yesterday we pulled out some makeshift sleds and went 

sled riding in our front yard and street.

 I don't even need to say how much fun this was. Their faces say it all!

 Our hill isn't quite like the Kentucky hills that I grew up sledding down,
but our kids don't know the difference.
One of my very favorite childhood memories is of my Grandma Vater
sledding with us down the hill in her backyard. She sure was a spunky grandma!

Hopefully this will be one of our kids' favorite memories.

Nate loved sliding on his belly down our neighbor's driveway. 

Who even needs a sled on this sheet of ice?

Simon

Simon is our earliest walker. He took off right after his birthday, and now he's all over the place! I love it though. Nate and Evie didn't walk until 15 months, and I was SO ready for them to get up and move by that time. I love that Simon can move around and entertain himself easily. Here are some pictures of this sweet boy:

 I'm not sure who loves this birthday gift from Uncle Nathan and
Aunt Erica more - Simon or Nate and Evie. Thank you!

 Learning to walk. We did our usual "you get at one end and I'll
get at the other and make him walk back and forth" game.
I think he giggled too much to benefit from it!

 Simon LOVES his baths. He screams every time I get him out. 

It gets a little bit old.

Now that he can walk, it's time to start some basketball drills.

Reminds me so much of these pictures of Nate!

Simon's 1st Birthday

Simon turned one year old last month. It's pretty crazy how they can go from this:

to this:

in one short year. His first year went by quickly, and I'm really looking forward to this next year as he grows. I don't love the baby stage, but so far I've really enjoyed Simon at age one!

We celebrated Simon's birthday in the Blan way - with a family day and a cake. I made a monster cake in celebration of our sweet Si-monster. Here are some more pictures of our birthday boy:

Halloween

I'm short on time, but not on pictures, so I'm just going to post without too many details. This was our Halloween:

Nate had to dress up as a storybook character for his school. He chose to be Jack from The Magic Tree House books. He decided to be Jack for trick-or-treating too. 

Evie had decided to be a butterfly for Halloween, which was perfect because we already had some butterfly/fairy wings. But on the day before Halloween we were spending a rainy day at the mall and found this super cute costume at Gymboree. The price was already reduced AND I had a 20% off coupon. So, she was a butterfly/witch/fairy instead. Perfect!

And, of course, Simon was a little iPod. I loved using our iPod costume one last time! It's a little behind the times, but that's okay. So are we!

I can't resist posting these pictures of Nate and Evie wearing the iPod costume:

Pumpkins

We carved pumpkins for the first time last year, and the kids loved it so much that we're making it a tradition. I decided to wait until Stephen could help this year since Simon is a handful right now. So, we spent Friday evening scooping out the pumpkins and watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,"and then on Saturday we carved them and roasted the seeds. I think I like our new tradition!

 Scooping out the pumpkins.

 We had to contain Simon, but I think he still had fun!

 Evie LOVES getting her hands messy!

 Nate is detail oriented - picking out all the seeds.

 They make a pretty good team.

 I carved flowers in Evie's pumpkin, and Stephen carved a scary face in Nate's. We used templates from HGTV's website.

Happy Halloween!

Chalk Art

A couple of random pictures:

Nate and Evie worked on this piece of chalk art after school everyday for about three days. They were so proud of it! Nate made the sun and they both colored the blue around it. The pink and purple drawing above it is the grass that Evie drew. I guess she sees in pink and purple. :)

  Simon is on the move! He's pulling up on everything and taking a few steps on his own.

It's hard to believe he turns one year old on Sunday!

Outside

I didn't take any pictures in September. NONE! I tried to make up for it a little bit the other day by taking these pictures of Simon playing outside. It's hard to believe that in just a few weeks he'll be one year old! Simon LOVES outside. He's already started crying when we have to go inside. I think he learned that from his cousin Ethan last summer. :) He's crawling all over the place and pulling up on everything, but mostly he's keeping us on our toes. Stephen started calling Simon "Si" when he was a baby, but he has more recently (and more appropriately) nicknamed him the Si-monster. Here are some pictures of our sweet Si-monster:

Kindergarten

I can't imagine any child being more excited than Nate to start Kindergarten. I'm thankful we waited an extra year to send him for so many reasons, and that is definitely one of them. He's more than ready to go, and I'm ready for him to go. His first day of school was, in his words, "My favorite day ever!" It wasn't my favorite day ever, but honestly, it was a very good day. :)

Evie, on the other hand, has missed her brother terribly. I really think she was grieving the loss of him last week. She was sad and depressed all week. I tried hard to plan things for us to do, but any time we were home she was very lonely. This week has been better since her two day a week preschool has started. Hopefully we'll all be in a good routine soon. Here are some first day of school pics.

 Evie woke Nate up early every day last week. My plan was to wake him up at 7:00, but she thought 6:15 or 6:30 might be better. I won't complain too much about it because it did allow them time to play before school. One of their favorite things to do is sit and look at our family photo albums. I've made a snapfish photo book of our pictures every year since 2006. So they love sitting and listening to stories about the pictures. Now they've looked at them so many times that they tell us the stories. One morning last week they sat together and looked through the albums. I think it helped Evie's day to have some good quality time with her brother before we took him to school.

I love the close bond these two have. I pray that it stays this way forever.

Goodbye Summer

Summer is officially over for us. Here are a few final pictures just to catch up:

Evie with her red, sweaty face after playing backyard soccer. Our summer evening tradition has been boys vs. girls backyard soccer. Stephen takes it easy on us, so the girls have actually won a few. Nate cried the first time we won. It's hard losing to a girl! We took these pictures after our final game of the summer. But, we've decided Nate isn't going to play on a team this fall on the condition that we have regular Blan family games on evenings and weekends. I don't think it will be a problem because Nate and Evie both LOVE these games. They won't let us go too long without getting a game in.

I love being this silly girl's teammate!

 Simon is 10 months old. 10! He's moving all over the place. He's not quite crawling, but he can get anywhere he needs to go. He's officially the winner of our three. Nate and Evie crawled and walked late, so it's strange to have a baby moving around the house. But it's also refreshing. He's happy most of the time because he stays so busy exploring.

Nate got a new bike for his birthday. It looks so big for him, but he does just fine on it. I'm looking forward to the weather being a little cooler so he can ride more!

Nate's 6th Birthday

It's been almost a month now, but better late than never. Nate turned 6! We had decided on a Lego cake for his birthday, but as we were looking at some Lego cakes online, we came across a castle cake video. The cake in the video was pink and sparkly - very princessy - but Nate HAD to have a castle cake for his birthday.

So, instead of a pink sparkly castle, we went with more of a medieval castle. I struggled through it. The towers were harder to construct than I thought - especially since I like to use buttercream icing. I know fondant would work so much better, but I guess I care more about the taste of my cakes than the looks. Anyway, here it is. We celebrated as a family by watching the Planes movie and eating at In n Out - Nate's new favorite place to eat. Happy 6th Birthday, Nate!