Texas Snow and Christmas with the Boudreaus

The week after Thanksgiving we woke up to a surprise outside! I didn't believe Carter when he told me it was snowing, but he was right! Carter enjoyed playing outside for a little while before the snow melted away.


Trying to make a snowball:


Throwing snow at Koda:


Climbing up the playset - he couldn't resist going down the slide:


Family picture at our Boudreau Christmas celebration - we had to celebrate early this year due to everyone's different travel plans.


The grandkids eagerly opening one of their gifts:


They had a blast loading up their suitcases and dragging them around all evening!


Carter & Santa opening a gift from Granny & Papa - remote control bumper cars, fun, fun!

Cast Your Vote!

Check out our poll to the right and cast your vote ---->
(If you receive email updates, you'll have to actually visit the website to see the poll.) We'll hopefully find out on December 7th if your guess was right!:)

Pumpkin Pics

Once again, I'm a few weeks behind, but I wanted to share some pumpkin pictures. This was Carter's first experience carving a pumpkin. He really wanted to help with all the "cutting", but didn't care for the "gushy mess" inside the pumpkin.


He wouldn't touch it with his hand, but he liked using the tool to scrape the inside.


The final result:


We also went to the Dallas Arboretum with some friends to see all the pumpkins, get a few pictures, and let the kids play. This was the first attempt at a nice fall picture.


About 10 minutes after arriving, Carter fell in the mud...he wasn't too happy about being dirty:).


Will, Lauren, & Carter


What a cutie, if I do say so myself:).


He loved the big pumpkins and kept insisting he was strong enough to pick it up.

Miscellaneous Pictures

Here's some pictures of a few random activities in October.

Great-grandpa Wessler sent Carter a care package with an assortment of goodies from their church's 100th anniversary celebration. There were some small screwdrivers, several pens, and some clip-on tape measures. Carter proceeded to hook all of them to his pants and spend the day working on things around the house. It was a hoot!


This was the afternoon we spent at the park and Ryan worked with Carter on riding without training wheels. I was amazed at how quickly he learned. Here he is ready to go!


He was a little unsteady for a while, but balanced himself out quickly.


Off he goes....
since that afternoon, Carter asks everyday to "practice" his bike-riding.


A few weeks ago we picked Trevor up and spent the morning at a park. The boys had a great time playing together, like long-lost pals:).




Amazingly, neither one went in the water:).

Robber's Cave Weekend

This is really overdue, but here are some pictures from our weekend at Robber's Cave with friends from church. I already posted some on Facebook, but still feel the need to document it on our blog:).

Bike riding:


Climbing rocks with Daddy:


This was the "adventurous" path up the rocks:


Hanging around...


Nature's slide:


Family picture


It was a great group of kids to hang out with for the weekend!

Baby News

We are excited to finally share with the rest of our family and friends that Baby #2 is on the way! I'm about 14 weeks along right now, the official due date is April 22, 2010. That also happens to be the day before Carter's birthday, so Carter will be getting an extra special present this year!:)

We've had 2 sonograms so far and everything looks good. The baby is growing right on track. This time around has been a little more challenging for me (and for Ryan since he has to pick up my slack) - I haven't been feeling well for several weeks now. I'm hoping it will pass in the next few days since I'm coming to the end of the first trimester, but we'll see. I'm trying to remind myself that the morning sickness (or afternoon, evening, & midnight sickness) is God's way of assuring me that everything is going well.

Carter is really excited to be a big brother. He already tells us that he's going to teach the baby to walk and talk and ride a bike, etc. It's really cute to talk to him about it.

We'll keep you updated as we continue through the pregnancy. (If you're trying to do the calculations yourself, I'll help you out... it will the 1st or 2nd week of December that we find out if it's a boy or girl:). ) We greatly appreciate your prayers that the baby continues to grow healthy & strong. We are already so blessed with Carter and are thankful that God is giving us another bundle of joy!

Aggie Games

Once again this year we have been able to enjoy returning to Aggieland for some football games. Due to circumstances beyond our control, Ryan & I haven't actually been down there together yet, but hopefully that will come. Ryan took Carter down for the game against Utah State, and then Carter & I joined Grandma & Grandpa for the game against UAB. Carter loves going to the games - his favorite part is watching the band & Corps of Cadets march in, then watching the band at half-time. He's also becoming addicted to the concession stand food:). Here's a few Aggie pics...

Ryan & Carter all decked out for the game. (I got to spend the day resting on the couch recovering from a sinus infection.)


Another highlight of visiting Aggieland - seeing Uncle Nathan!


Carter was fascinated by Uncle Nathan's "water backpack" and insisted he could carry it for him.


Carter & Grandpa


He really enjoyed all the bounce houses and kids activities this time.


Good times in Aggieland!

Boudreau Family "Camping"

Several weekends ago we enjoyed our 3rd annual Boudreau Family "Camping" Weekend. This year we rented a lake house that belongs to some friends. It was beautiful! The weekend ended up being a bit rainy, but we still had a great time. We enjoyed the time outside when it wasn't raining, and also enjoyed family time inside watching the rain.

Despite the rainy weather, the kids enjoyed swimming in the lake when they had the opportunity.


Ryan's favorite activity - kayaking.




We enjoyed several lawn games of Ladderball and Croquet. The adult matches were too competitive to bother taking pictures, but here's a couple of the kids playing around.




The favorite indoor activity of the kids was playing doctor. They spent hours taking turns "fixing" each other.




We even found time without rain for some fishing. Dylan & Dave both caught a fish (it may have actually been the same one...). Carter patiently kept trying, but no luck this time.


Family Picture

Summer Updates

Yes, we're still here! Obviously I've fallen behind on updating the blog and there's really no good reason for it, so I won't try to make excuses:). Here's some pictures from August - Charlyn & I took the kiddos to Six Flags on possibly one of the hottest days of the summer, but they still had fun!

It didn't take long for them to appreciate the water mist areas.


Carter & Avery make a good team!:)


Waiting to ride the trucks - this was at the end of our stay and they were all beginning to melt down, but at least they put on good smiles for the pic!


Batman!


Clearly this isn't from Six Flags, but I had to include in our August activities. Carter got a sock puppet kit as a party favor and this was his creation. He had a blast making it and named it "Fronk".


More updates to come... :)

Pictures from Bucharest

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from the final leg of our overseas trip. Once we finally made it to Bucharest, Romania we enjoyed walking around the town and also seeing some of the countryside. We were able to meet several missionary families with different jobs there in Romania, so it was great to hear about the different work going on there.

Frank & Diane Camarotti - IMB missionaries in Bucharest. They took us under their wing during our time there. We're extremely grateful for all their help.


One street in the "Old Town" part of Bucharest.


Traffic in Bucharest - they are crazy drivers!


The People's Palace in Bucharest - this huge building was built by the last communist dictator. It's the second largest government building in the world (by surface area), the first is the Pentagon.


The Camarottis went the extra mile and drove us up to the town of Sinaia. It's a cute little town right on the edge of the Carpathian mountians (also called the Transylvanian Alps - Dracula's castle was just a couple towns away:) ). This particular town is a popular spot because it it home to the summer house of King Carl, Penes' Castle. The tour inside was amazing!


I love this picture of the castle because you can also see the beautiful mountains behind it. It was breathtaking.


It's not an official vacation without the self-taken picture, right?


We enjoyed many authentic Romanian dishes during our stay. This meal, Ryan is having Mici (mee-chi) which is basically sausage made with special seasoning and then grilled. We had this for our first meal in Romania - Ryan was hooked and ended up eating it for 3 or 4 meals:). I ventured out to try Sarmale, meat wrapped with cabbage leaves, served with a side of cabbage and something that resembled dry grits. It wasn't bad, but I probably wouldn't order it again:).


It was an amazing trip and we were so blessed by all the people we met along our journey.