For Life

I wish I could join the hundreds of thousands gathered in our nation's capital today for the March for Life, as it is a cause that deeply stirs my heart. It is, for me, an issue that reaches far beyond political platforms to the very core of human rights. Isn't it beautiful to know that not a single person was created in error in God's sight?

 

“God’s love does not distinguish between the infant in the mother’s womb or the child or the youth or the adult or the older person. In each one God sees His image and likeness. Human life is a manifestation of God and His glory.”

 ~Pope Benedict XVI
 

Christmas Play

Nathan's preschool put on a precious Christmas performance this year, and he was chosen to be a wise man. He did a great job saying his line into the microphone (and I can hardly believe how much he's grown, seemingly in the blink of an eye)...

(Pardon the shaky camera work — I was trying to do too many things at once. Typical.)

Gingerbread houses

We were excited to have all four of the boys' cousins and their moms over to decorate gingerbread houses one afternoon before Christmas. I think as much candy ended up in tummies as on houses — but that's part of the fun, isn't it? It was such a treat to have all of the cousins in Houston for Christmas this year, and both Nathan and Luke relished all of the time spent with them...

Sweet Reese isn't quite sure about those noisy boys!

 Nathan and his "cousin-brother-friends"

 After gingerbread houses and lunch, the boys ran off some sugar in the backyard...

18 Months

Somehow our baby is already one-and-a-half years old — how can that be? At his well visit a few weeks ago we learned that Luke is now 33.5" tall (84th percentile) and weighs 25 lb. 12 oz. (49th percentile). This little boy is full of personality and sillies. He knows no fear and has SO much to say...

(at his Little Gym class)

Goodness, he's grown since his first birthday!

 I truly cannot imagine life without this precious little person. What an incredible gift he is!

Picture Overload

I realize that a single post sharing an entire month's worth of pictures is not really how blogging is supposed to work, but it is better than not sharing at all, right? The boys had a wonderful October filled with lots of time outside and plenty of costume wearing. Spooky Lukey learned to say, "Ghos (ghost) Boo!" and "Hoween." His version of "trick-or-treat" is a straight-to-the point "Treat!"

.......

Last weekend we took the boys to Zoo Boo at the Houston Zoo. The weather was beautiful (so beautiful that it took us a very long time to find parking — many other Houstonians wanted to enjoy the day a the zoo, too!). Despite the crowd, we had a blast...

One tired puppy...

My mom's group at church hosted a family picnic at a local park a few weeks ago. While I didn't manage to snap many pictures, I did capture Super Nathan chowing down on his candy apple...

We also took the kids to Dewberry Farm in mid-October to carry on our pumpkin farm tradition...

(mining for marbles)

We stumbled upon a beautiful nursery one morning that had lots of pumpkins and even some animals. We stopped to look around and stayed for quite a while... 

Logan came over to play...

and we painted pumpkins...

  

I came across a box of chocolate graham crackers at the grocery store and thought it might be fun to turn them into haunted houses. (I think the scariest part about them was my terrible construction — yikes!) Nathan loved decorating his. In fact, I think each family member's house had several Nathan touches added to it — ha!

 

Luke just wanted to eat his...

The next day I walked in the kitchen to see Nathan using his LEGO men to play with the houses. Mysteriously, several pieces of candy seemed to be missing from each one...

Last night the boys finally went trick-or-treating. Our whole cul-de-sac of kiddos went out together as a group, which was really fun...

 Spiderman Nathan

and sweet Puppy Luke