Bella's princess birthday party

Our niece (the kids' cousin), Bella, turns 3 tomorrow, and she had a princess birthday party last weekend.  Audrey wore her new princess dress, and James dressed up as Batman (not very prince-ish, but he loves an excuse to be Batman).  We had so much fun celebrating Bella and are so happy we got to be at her party!  Happy 3rd birthday, sweet Bella!

 

 

Audrey's 1st haircut!

We decided Audrey needed a haircut (well, a trim), so we took her to the girl that cuts my hair.  We were pretty sure it'd be quite the struggle to get Audrey to sit still, but she not only sat still, she acted like she could care less...

 

 

 

Finally a smile (which took some silliness from Daddy)!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a nice, relaxing and fun Turkey Day this year.  Nana came up from Buda and spent a few days with us.  We were supposed to run/walk in the Turkey Trot in the morning, but I had a cold (that didn't stop me from making a full Thanksgiving spread), so we decided to skip it.  We watched the Macy's parade instead, and we played football with the kids in the backyard, and we watched some football, and of course we ate a delicious Thanksgiving meal.  It was a wonderful day reflecting on what we are thankful for... mostly, our family and friends.

Homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

 

What are you looking at?

 

Sword fighting with Nana.

 

Yummy!

 

Audrey was still napping when we started dinner, so we were down a person at the table.

 

 

Someone woke up happy!

 

Cheese!

 

 

Christmas pj's on Thanksgiving night! Yahoo!

 

Christmas decorations in downtown Fort Worth.

 

 

Running at the track

James loves to run.  He runs laps around the house, and he runs back and forth across the backyard, and if there's an open field wherever we are playing outside, he runs.  We drive past the TCU track regularly on our way to church and school (same place), and James is always looking to see if anyone is out there running.  He calls the track, "the race". 

Sometime in late October, we took the kids to the TCU "race" so James could run.  He ran 100 meters in 39.4 seconds, and he ran 400 meters in 3 minutes 23.2 seconds (and he ran the entire lap in lane 5). 

 

While James ran, Audrey organized cones.

 

 

James took a break from running to climb the bleachers with Audrey.

 

On your marks, get set...

 

 

Halloween 2012

We painted and carved our pumpkins to get ready for the biggest candy holiday of the year...

 

 

 

Our superheroes were ready and more than eager to trick or treat...

  

 

 

 

 

 

James and Audrey had such a fun night wearing their costumes and going trick or treating.  We knew James would love it, but we were surprised how much Audrey seemed to understand and love it too.  The kids also really enjoyed handing out candy to other trick or treaters once we came back home.  Fun times for the Stoner's!  Happy Halloween!

Tough Mudder

In October, Dave ran the Tough Mudder in Austin with some friends he's known for a long time (Jeremy and Sabrina Ruckel, Jeff Ruckel, and some of their friends).  The Tough Mudder is a 10-12 mile obstacle course that includes lots of mud, water, barbed wire, electric current and climbing obstacles.  Dave's group finished the race in about 4 hours, and I was there to document most of it.  They all had so much fun that they're going to do it again in April, and I'm going to join in the madness this time.  Great job Dave!  You are officially a Tough Mudder!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trip to Denver

Just before Halloween, I took James to visit our friends, The Brown's, in Denver.  The Brown's lived in Fort Worth last year and moved to Denver at the end of the summer.  Owen was in James' class at school, and Owen's mom, Ann, and I have become good friends.  We are so sad that they moved away.

James hadn't been on an airplane since just before his 1st birthday, so as far as he was concerned, he'd never been on a plane before.  The anticipation of our trip and riding on an airplane was so much fun! 

 

 

We were lucky enough to arrive in Denver the day after it snowed, so James and Owen had tons of fun playing in the snow.  The boys also got to dress up in their Halloween costumes for the Brown's church's Trunk or Treat.

 

 

 

 

And, Ann and I got to go out to dinner sans kids (thank you Ryan for watching them).  We had a wonderful weekend, and we miss our friends so, so much!