"Whole Fam-i-ly"

Hunter's really into doing things with the "whole fam-i-ly" these days.  His favorite is to have whole family hugs where I hold Char and James holds him and we all hug, but he'll also settle for whole family cuddling in mommy and daddy's bed (or on the couch, but there's obvious space issues there).  He also often demands that we play in his room with the whole family.  Most nights after dinner, we all go in there to play with the kitchen, tools, magneats, legos, or his favorite choice these days...Go Fish.

On this night, Hunter gave us a special treat and strayed from the norm.  We actually got to play with Noah and the animals...

As you can see, he's very proud of how he meticulously placed all of the animals in their own little spot on the ark.

Char usually hangs out in the Bumbo and chooses a rattle to chew on.  Her mouth's a little ahead of her hands here;)...

Eventually, she just dumped all of them and created a new fashion trend with her rattle bucket...

The only downfall, is it's a little weighty...

We're working on a lightweight one to sell to the masses.

On the Catwalk

Hunter's having a pony for his 3rd birthday party, so we're going with a cowboy theme.  My little sister came over and took some pictures of him for the invitations (which turned out great!).  Here are some of my favorites...

I didn't want Char to feel left out, so she had a little photo session with mommy a couple of days later.  Clearly, I'm not as talented with the photography, but her cuteness makes up for it...

When he grows up...

Maybe he'll be a therapist like mommy...

Or a doctor?...

(Clearly he's striving for some sort of Baylor badge-wearing profession.  And let's not forget about the pager.  Yes.  A badge and pager wearing dude he is.)

Or maybe he'll just be a Bueno Head...

But based on tonight's conversation while we were watching the Olympics, H's profession of choice for now is football player.  Here's a snippet...

Me:  Would you rather be an Olympic figure skater or a football player?

H:  Football player (or more like fuh-bah payer)

Me:  Would you rather be a football player or a basketball player?

H:  Football player

Me:  Would you rather play football or soccer?

H:  Football

Me:  Would you rather play guitar or football?

H:  Football (as he's grabbing his football out of the toy box)

He and James then proceeded to throw it back and forth for about 15 minutes, and I was shocked at how many good catches he had. 

Dreams of watching my son as the star quarterback for MS State have already started to fill my head.  And naturally soon after I'll be cheering him on at all of those NFL games he'll be winning...except there's no way the quarterback for MS State would make it to the pros, so that obviously knocked me back to reality.  Ha!  Love you James...you know it's true;)

Snow Days

I had to work both Thursday and Friday, but was able to come home early Friday and play with the family in the snow.  Of course we took lots of pictures...

The backyard...

and the front...

We bundled Charlotte up, and she was so good the entire time we were out there.  She just happily watched as we played...

Hunter was really impressed with the snow.  Look how deep it is!  His shoes, socks and pants got soaked...

I showed him how to make snow balls and encouraged him to throw them away from mommy and daddy...but I couldn't resist throwing one at James, so inevitably we ended up in a snowball fight...which inevitably ended in tears from our little toddler.  He recovered pretty quickly though:)

Hunter and James made this snowman on Thursday, and his head fell off by Friday afternoon.  As you can see, H was a little disturbed by this...

He got over it once he found the carrot nose, though...

Of course he tried to eat it.

Since our snowman was headless, James and H got to work building a new one...

And Char still sat sweetly watching...

Since 1) we live in Texas and 2) my feelings toward skiing can be summed up with the word torturous, we don't have "snow" gloves, so Hunter got annoyed with wearing wet pieces of cloth on his hands pretty quickly.  It was a struggle to keep them on him...

I eventually gave up and figured, since his little hands and feet were already soaked, we might as well let him dive in head first.  So we (and of course by we, I mean James and Hunter) tried snow angels...

As you can see, he wasn't feeling it, so James gave him a lesson, and Hunter quickly followed his lead...

The snow was magical.  It made me want to move to a place with a real winter.  Almost. 

Wordless Wednesday

Bounce Town

Cousin Zack had his 8th birthday party at Bounce Town last weekend.  This is where Hunter had his 2nd bday party, so we were excited to go back and see all of the changes and additions they've made since then.  Hunter still took a little bit of time to warm up, but once he did, oh did he have fun...and do a pretty dang good job of keeping us entertained.

The birthday boy had lots of fun running around with all of his friends...

Hunter mostly ran through this middle maze-like section over and over...

While Charlotte posed for pictures in the toddler area...

More maze running...

and posing...

and running...

and posing...

We tried to get Hunter to follow little sister's example and pose for a family picture, but you can see how successful we were with our persuasion...

(James was too focused on holding onto Hunter's flailing body to worry about keeping his eyes open.  Obviously we didn't have the luxury of taking another picture once we realized this.)

Somehow Hunter was happy to stand still next to Daddy long enough to watch Uncle Steve play air hockey, though...

And of course he posed perfectly for a shot with Grandpa and Charlotte...

I have this really awesome video of Hunter dancing to Radio Disney in the middle of Bounce Town, but OneTrueMedia is not working with me today, so I can't share it:(  It was the funniest part of my day.  He kept lifting his arms up (raise the roof style) and bending his knees and turning in circles.  No way that mental picture even compares to the funny-ness of the reality that was H dancing.

We can't wait to go back to Bounce Town this month for Hunter's friend, Jackson's birthday party!