It's a new year!

You're probably thinking that I'm going to apologize for my complete blog absence for the last four months. But I'm not. Truth is, nothing has happened over the past four months. Nothing at all. There has just been nothing to blog about. 

Ok, who am I kidding?! So much has happened that I can't even seem to manage my email account on some weeks. So I'll close out the year of 2013 with some pictures from the last four months. (and spare you our Christmas until the next blog post!)

Happy New Year, friends! We wish you all a happy, healthy, adventurous 2014 filled with peace, love, and lots and lots of joy.

The cutest little guy in the world started Little Saints in September. He goes on Tuesdsays and Thursdays from 9-2 and LOVES it. 

He also played flag football this fall. Even though it's a whole lot of chaos, he had tons of fun and keeps asking to sign up again. Mom fail, though…Kolbe played yet another season of soccer and I either never brought my camera or did and was too distracted by either his awesome soccer skills or chasing my two-year-old to take any usable pics. 

We got to get ALL the cousins together while Jackson and Kennedy were down to visit. They are quite the crew!

We celebrated Mark's 30th birthday!

These boys sure love their Dada.

And have a fun little birthday party with local family and friends…and an awesome Texas Tech birthday cake that our friend Veronica made!

Mark and I took a quick weekend trip up to Dallas for his birthday. We got the see the Red Raiders play their first game of the season!

We saw looooots of high school football on Friday nights. It's our favorite thing to do in the fall.

In October, we were so proud to see Mark complete his first half marathon. It rained the ENTIRE time. But we had so much fun and he did great. 

And this guy's greatest achievement was mastering the toilet. That, and going from a vocabulary of about ten words to no less than ten thousand...

Kolbe's school held a storybook parade. He was the most adorable Woody ever!

And all three were loads of cuteness in their halloween costumes

We always swing by my parents' neighborhood first as we're there often and have made friends with all of their neighbors. There are three families, all with boys the same ages as ours. Little boys galore! (and this was with one family missing still!)

A certain little boy turned six. SIX.
It's going by soooo fast.

He's still just the neatest little boy and we're so proud that he's ours.

Thanksgiving was spent here in The Woodlands with my side of the family. We finally got to meet "Pat's honey" (as Grant calls her) Ana is awesome and we're fairly certain that Pat is way out of his league.

The boys had fun playing checkers with Pa and cousin John.

And spent lots of time at the park.

Despite Grant having bad ear infection and me having pneumonia, we still managed to squeak in our annual family photo shoot. We alway do these by scoping out pretty places around town and then propping our camera on a bench or ledge. May never end up looking super custom, but hey, it's free and looks about as naturally "us" as it possibly could.

Kolbe's class held a 50s day party…he felt like such a stud with his Mom tattoo.

And we also got to accompany his class to the farm! Grant and Rudy had a blast...

As did our fearless cowboy.

We also learned some awesome archery skills... 

Had loads of fun playing sports... 

And, as always, plenty of trips to mass.

Note to self: This blog post took you thirty minutes. You CAN spare a little time from here to there and make these more frequent!

Note to you: I'm really, really, going to try to get back into my weekly routine of blogging. I'm not a huge fan of Facebook for sharing pictures…the public side of things kinda keeps me out. But I post pictures on Instagram several times a week, if you Instagram. You'll have to send me a request because my account is private, but it's another fun way to follow along with our family. (not that our lives are just soooo riveting or anything!)