Cornelius Chronicles

Happy Birthday to my sweet little man! My baby turns one year old today. We love you Mr. Loyd! You are a joy in our family. You are always cheerful and brighten every room you enter with your wide, generous grin. Thank you for sharing your curiosity and enthusiasm for the world around you with us. We are very blessed to have you as part of our little family. Here is some video of his party last night. Publish Post

Our little Miss Rebekah is quite the budding chief with her toddler sized kitchen. As you can see, she certainly dresses the part well and her food is absolutely wonderful. Sometimes she brings me and Dustin 4 ths and 5 ths of her pretend creations! These two play so well together. Lately, Rebekah has wanted to be on the Dora car whenever Loyd is on it. Usually, Loyd is a pretty good sport about this forced sharing arrangement. Bekah got Loyd a sucker from the Bishop today after church. Check out the fruits of his labors. Eat your heart out KISS! My baby boy is getting so big! I can't believe he will be turning one year old tomorrow! Where did the time go? We celebrated the birthday boy's special day a little early. We had a small party and a very yummy cake tonight instead of tomorrow. It was lots of fun. I made the hats from the Internet (thanks PBS KIDS!) and our friend Jennifer and her hubby, Orrin, made the amazing cake! We'll post more birthday footage...

We woke up early on Saturday and Dustin headed down to the Galveston County fruit tree sale. He picked up a Mid Pride Peach tree and a Satsuma tree (it's kind of like a mandarin orange only smaller). We worked diligently all day to prep the ground and get these new additions to our yard planted. So, after all our hard work and a couple of blisters we are proud to introduce you to James our little peach stick (all the stuff we read on planting a peach tree said this was right) and our happy little Satsuma (he was much much easier to plant so he never got a name). The Peach stick, I mean tree! (notice how the guide pole is taller than our tree) Our potted Satsuma. It's a small tree so we can leave it in a pot and bring it indoors if we ever want too. Cool, huh! This is Loyd doing his favorite new trick. He pushes one of his chairs over to the back door, stands on it, then begins working like a mad man to open the door. This little guy is crazy and always keeps me on my to...

Winter time in Texas can be a little unpredictable. It will be 30 and chilly in the morning and then 75 and clear blue skies by noon. On Saturday we took advantage of the 75 and clear blue skies moment and played in the back yard. The kids had a great time. Loyd has figured out how to get on the Dora car all by himself and is pretty good at steering it around the patio/drive way. he even made it to Mr. Kiekie's house (I was watching him, the stinker) before returning to the back yard. He can't turn the car yet so he either goes forward or he backs up. It's pretty funny. Bekah was pretending to have a birthday party with all of her "babies" and Tinkerbell the other day. I was in charge of cutting the pretend cake and serving it to everyone. After I took this picture and put some real dishes in the dish washer I came back and found all the babies lined up in the corner. I asked Rebekah why her babies weren't sitting at the table and she told me, ...

We had a guest come visit this week. Her name is Flat Olivia. We are all very glad she came. The picture above is with her and Rebekah by the NASA rockets on NASA Rd 1. Flat Olivia is here for a school project. We are suppose to show her around town and teach her a little about League City then send her back home. Wish us luck! A very nice couple in our ward was cleaning out their attic and came across the table/chairs above and a small pretend kitchen complete with dishes. They kindly gave them to us. The kids are in heaven! Loyd learned how to climb up on the chairs by himself in about 5 mins . He also learned he can drive his sister nuts by pushing the table around the kitchen while she tries to put "food" on it. They crack me up. Now Bekah insists on baking in her kitchen all day long and pushes plates of "cereal" and "pancakes and hash browns" on the family all day long. (Note: My menue is more extensive. She just has an obsession with...

Ok, so I thought I would be brave and cut Loyd's hair (but not too brave I did give myself some time for mistakes to grow out before Loyd goes in for his first birthday pictures). All I can say is that we REALLY miss Aunt Lizzy and her fabulous hair cutting skills. Thank goodness hair grows! Here is a funny picture of Bekah sporting her flawless fashion sense. She cracks me up!

Yesterday we went to the Houston Children's Museum . The kids had a ball. They had a building zone, a pretend grocery store, giant puzzles, a puppet show theater, live chicks, and a giant water works exploration zone. They even got to paint their faces. Rebekah's engineering and grocer genes showed threw. She adored the little grocery store and got pretty good at building pipe systems to direct water flow. Loyd loved the table that blew small beach balls into the air using air pressure. He loved to grab the balls and then make them float again. We made it home happy and tired. Here are some photos of their silly face paint.