Here's what we've been up to

Perhaps this isn't the prettiest picture to start out with, but it's the one you get... We have been up to so many fun things since I blogged last! We're exhausted! The pictures loaded up starting with our most recent adventure... Michael P. Henegar to be exact. Mike is Jon's oldest friend. They've known eachother since they were about 13. Jon and I started dating when I was 16, so I've almost know him just as long. He's great! Super duper funny, majorly sarcastic and one of the most loyal friends I've ever known anyone to have. He's a carpenter and was down in the Houston area doing some work for his Aunt. He came and stayed for a couple of days and the kids had a blast. --so did we! We ate and ate (Ben and Jerry's mmmmm...) and played alot of video games. Eventually we went outside and here's Mike and Dalton teaching Delyla to do her first ollie on the skateboard that Darion got for Christmas!

Here's the scene for most of the time Mike visited. Let's talk about some severe competitive drive here... At one point I came into the room and actually heard Darion tell Mike that if he'd keep playing Mario Kart, that Darion promised not to trash talk any more. Now, trash talking is pretty common around here. We joke around alot and although I'm probably the least competitive person you will ever meet, I do like to win me some Mario Kart. It can get ugly. I don't blame Mike for disliking losing to a 9 year old. I only win when I'm playing against Dalton...

Yep, that's a $10 bill. Yep, that's a gaping hole in Darion's mouth. Yep, the tooth fairy paid dearly for that little pearly white. Quentin Mullens, aka "the tooth tank" was over playing with Darion the other day and well, things got a little WWF. Darion's already loose tooth got loosened all the way by Quentin's knee. Thanks to Quentin for relating the story of a tooth of his (or David's - can't remember) getting knocked out and the tooth fairy giving him $10 for it since it was sooooooo traumatic. That tooth fairy is such a push over.

Well, a little news about super chunk here... Delyla is all over the place. She has us all wrapped around her chubby little finger. She loves the little elephant purse that Gammy got her. She runs around all day and talks up a storm, most of which we can understand - amazingly. Her latest adorable babble is "Bath time." If it were up to her, she'd live in the bath tub. Wouldn't we all? Calgon take me away!

Here are the two studs Tony Hawkeing it up. Helmets are mandatory at our house - not good for the hair, but since the boys are going for the "afro" look lately, the helmets can't make it look much worse. Darion can't wait to hang out with Paxton and Stanton again so they can really help him to learn some new moves. Mom's moves aren't too cool anymore. Back in the day, I could atleast keep my balance, although I had some gnarly skate scabs... Hopefully my boys will avoid those for awhile - along with some of the other bad habits that little skater gang I hung out with had... Those were the days - Red Hot CHili Peppers and a half pipe... Rad

Here's Dalton's favorite Christmas present. A Transformers voice changing helmet. It was the hit of Christmas. All three kids fighting over it. Did I mention that there is no volume control? It's not a nap-time friendly toy, but it is pretty cool none the less.

Delyla got a talking purse, which she is kindly displaying here. You open it and it sings and there are adorable accessories that go inside like a plastic lipstick rattle, keys, a bracelet and a dollar bill. All very necessary items in the life of a 14 month old princess.

Here's the gang revelling in the Santa horde. The funniest thing was Delyla. After this picture, she noticed the plate of goodies that had been left for Santa on the fireplace. Well, she made a bee-line for the half eaten brownie Santa left. She grabbed it and started eating, not even considering that Santa probably has some heinous germs from traveling all over the world in 24 hours. Christmas was great though. Just us here at the house Christmas day. Jon miraculously had the day off and we ate and enjoyed family time. The day after Christmas, my parents came up from Surfside and we hung out and opened more presents. Then, the weekend after New Year's we went to Waco and had Christmas (and ham...) yet again with Jon's mom, and his 2 brothers BJ and Jason. Talk about present overload. We need another room to hold it all. A Christmas that we thought would be simple and sparce ended up being gigantic!

Yes, snow in Houston. Here are the kids and Brett having a snow ball fight before Darion went to school. It made us really homesick for Angel Fire! The saddest news now is that our adorable little Brett is gone. He was outside and we assume someone picked him up and decided to keep him. We are all still really sad about it. That little puppy who peed everywhere held a special spot in my heart... We're still hoping someone returns him, but it's been almost a week, so it is very unlikely. I hope they're taking care of him wherever he is!

Here's a cut picture of Delyla and Carolyn. We stopped through Waco before Christmas on our way back from a trip to Abilene. Yes, Abilene. You'll see the pictures soon enough. On the same weekend, the Bohannon's visited an Alligator Farm and went on a camping trip with the Batchelder's in Abilene. The only thing that could be more Texan would be shooting squirrels for dinner...

The Abilene state park is absolutely awesome. Doesn't it look like Paxton, Alison and Matt are soooo happy to be there with us? The park has a few of these awesome yurts - year round permanant tents that are circular. You can rent them to stay in. Well, Matt and Alison planned for us all to meet there thinking it would be about half way between us and... well, it was a nice drive for us, but is was really really far for them. What good friends to keep on trucking and meet us there anyway - 12 hour drives are really fun with 2 growing boys in the back seat who love eachother soooo much, not to mention the fact that you have to pack so much more for camping type scenarios (did you have to bring that Alison??? sorry for picking on you Matt...). We definitely got the easier drive, although poor Darion squished inbetween Dalton and Delyla's car seats - with the dog in his lap - well, enough said.

There was a fire ban at the park, but what's camping without smores right? These kids are all so good that they didn't even care that we didn't have the chocolate. They roasted marshmallows on the gas camp stove and didn't catch anything (except an occassional marshmallow) on fire. As Rachel Ray would say... yumm-o! Although Martha Stewart would have been mortified!!!

Here's Stanton with Delyla. He just loves the little ones and boy do they love him. You might be asking... "Where did they get those adorable hats, Gala?" None other than the amazing Alison of course. The Knifty Knitter strikes again! Cutie pies huh?

Here's Stanton with Dalton. There were some great hiking trails at the park. It was super fun to roam around until Paxton and Darion left the group to forge their own trail. We all found eachother after a sweaty half hour of running around searching. Jon, Matt, Alison and I were on the verge of panic when the boys just showed back up at camp. They really did a great job considering that it must have been a little scary to get lost. They saw another camper and told them what our camp site number was and the guy showed them where to go on his map. They found their way back and we didn't let them out of our sight the rest of the time - or maybe they didn't want to be out of our sight, we'll leave that to Sigmund Freud...

Here's a fishing dock that the boys posed on. Goof balls!

Well, here's the whole gang. We stopped to put the camera on a stump and get a group photo, and then another camper came by and offered to take a snap shot for us. You know, we've known Matt and Alison for going on 15 years now. They moved in next door to us in Denton, TX in 1995. We'd just gotten married and so had they. Paxton was on the way and we were all just niave college kids. We lived off spaghetti for atleast a year. They moved to Taos Canyon in NM shortly after Paxton was born and we visited them as often as we could. We eventually moved there too and for some reason decided to move back to TX. Not one of our most lucid moments... We'd love to go back - mostly to have our best friends show up and invite themselves for dinner, or to plant a giant garden and eat salad with Asian dressing for an entire summer and still not be sick of it! They're the best.

Here's Darion and his pet deer. There was this very friendly deer that they boys were throwing scraps to at the campsite. It was NOT afraid of us at all... I, on the other hand was a little skeptical. After all, wasn't it the movie Tommy Boy where they put the supposedly dead deer in the back seat and it wreaks havoc on their car? I didn't want a crazed deer wreaking havoc on my kids...

Here we are at the Gator farm prior to going to Abilene. Dalton is sitting on an alligator with Darion's assistance. Dalton was a little nervous, but Darion would have jumped right into the creak with all of the gators if they would let him. I keep telling him that Bindi Irwin is his soul-mate. You can imagine how well that goes over.

Here's Delyla standing next to a stuffed gator. She wasn't quite sure what to think, but she was a good sport. She was crying the instant the picture was over. Not as adventerous as her brothers - thank goodness, or perhaps, "yet" is the better word.

Here's the dare devil. He actually asked the guy that worked there in the red shirt behind him if he would get off the alligator and let him sit on it alone. Thank goodness the guy said no. How much is a mom supposed to handle in one day?

Well, that is it from the crazy Bohannon household. - for now