Eighteen Again!

From Advent 2010

St. Nicholas Day

Nineteen days until Christmas, and St. Nicholas brought Alex a magic helper to make sure he was being a good boy! Alex named his special elf "Legos" and will be sure to see where he ends up every morning!

Bank on it...

Christmas is coming!

Building a countdown...

Deck the Floors...

with the Christmas countdown!

A Very Steve Jobs Christmas to You...

Our Christmas Cards Have Been Ordered!

Stylish Snowflake Stamp Holiday Card

Christmas cards and holiday thank you cards by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Here it comes....

The Christmas Countdown!
(or my ridiculous attempt every year to do an Advent Calendar with inanimate objects!)

Birthday Thanks

Four years ago, Alex made his arrival on Thanksgiving day. Hard to believe how big he is now, and what a fantastic little person he has become!

Mom "made" turkey cookies for him to take to his class today...


Last year's party at the Iowa Reptile Rescue (age 3):


Finally sporting some hair at age 2:


Full-on Charlie Brown baldie digging his cake at age 1:


And...making his grand entrance into the world!


Happy Birthday, Sweet Baby Boy!

Beggar's Night/Halloween

Anakin Skywalker "Baby Vader" ready to go trick-or-treating!




Decorations




Check out the Bears pumpkin!

Trunk or Treat

Sneak peek of Alex in his Halloween costume at his school's Trunk or Treat night. It was too windy outside for the cars, so they moved it indoors

Pumpkin Patch II

So, we went to two pumpkin patches in 24 hours! On Saturday the Kelly, Hennig and Reelitz cousins hit Center Grove Orchard, about 35 miles north of Des Moines. The kids had a blast, then we topped off the day with dinner down at the farm.

Alex modeling his new football jersey. Some might think that this simply proves that Dowling does start recruiting pretty early, but to be fair, Alex's grandpa, his grandpa's five siblings, his mom, aunts and uncle (and many cousins) all went to dear old Dowling. In this case, it's a family tradition, and we hope that he will be the third generation to attend!






An even bigger corn pit than Howell's!


Little Diva watching the boys




Scheming and dreaming...


Three Little Pigs house


Milking the cow










Beautiful farm sunset


Cousins


Doin' the Mac!

Pumpkin Patch

Alex's preschool had a field trip to the Pumpkin Patch on Friday. Beautiful weather, tons of pumpkins, and a big corn pit meant lots of fun for everyone!

Obi-Wan Alex

Dad was in Minneapolis for a conference, and brought back a surprise for his favorite Jedi.

Ready for Halloween!

Back to School

Here's to another year!



And...how we've grown since last year!