Happy Holidays everyone! I did not get a Christmas letter out this year, so hopefully everyone saw on the back of their picture that they needed to check out our blog for updates. It has just been a busy year and a busy last few months.

Brandon is about to turn 3 on Monday. I can't believe it! He is doing really well and is a very happy kid. He loves trains, cars, busses, airplanes and pretty much anything that goes! He is very athletic and can kick a soccer ball perfectly just like his daddy. He loves to swim and play outside and loves hanging out with other kids his age. He is very lovable and loves to snuggle. He is going to be going to school starting in January. He qualified thru the school system to go to a pre-kindgerarden full day program. 6 hours a day, 5 days a week! I don't know what I'll do without him during the day, but it will be so good for him. He will have a speech therapist come into his class 4 times a week to work with him. He will eat breakfast and lunch at school, go to the library, art, PE, music and do lots of learning. He will also get to take a nap at school :) I know he will be so excited to ride the bus!

Brandon just transitioned into his big boy bed. We tried to move him into it in May, but it didn't work out. He just wasn't ready. He would cry all night and get out a million times. He missed the confinement of his crib. So after 4 days/nights of no sleep, we put the crib back up. Last week, we decided to try again and so I took the crib down again and put up his big boy bed. He was SO ready this time! He climbed right in and there was no turning back. He has been sleeping great! I always believe that a mother's instinct is always right and I just knew back then that he wasn't ready and now he is, so it's been great. We are slowly introducing the potty to him now. He likes to sit on the potty, but hasn't figured out what to do on it yet...

Colin is doing great as well. He is now 19 1/2 months old. He is such a charmer. He is also very lovable and is very smart and inquisitive. He is talking up a storm, using phrases, naming everything and anything and will repeat pretty much whatever you say. He copies Brandon a lot and they love to play together (when they aren't fighting over who gets what toy!) Colin also loves trains, cars and balls. He loves to eat! He will eat everything! He actually prefers vegetables to anything else and we think his favorite food is onion!!

Colin finally mastered the art of walking. It took him awhile because of his low muscle tone. He just needed to build up the strength in his legs and get his coordination down. He is much more flexible that most people, so imagine learning how to walk with spaghetti noodles for legs! He is doing great though and is practically running now.

Juan has been working like crazy...he has a new responsibility as the Standardization/Training Program Manager at his squadron. He put in long days at work for the last 3 months in preparation for his first Program Evaluation. The Evaluators came all the way from San Diego for the week long "extravaganza." Fortunately, it went very well for Juan and he received high marks overall. Juan's next challenge will be in February when he goes to Nevada for challenging mountain training. As the days continue to come and go, Juan gets closer and closer to deploying yet again :( Times we have together, especially during the Holidays, become a bit more special.


I have been super busy too! I keep joking with my neighbor that "yes, I did join ANOTHER activity!" I am very active in our MOMS (Mothers on the Move Spiritually) group at church. I am the secretary for the group this year. We do a lot of service projects for the community, like this morning, we made 600+ peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the homeless shelter. We also have playdates for the kids and moms to get together. I also joined MOPS (Mothers of PreSchoolers) this year and it has been really fun. It has been great to get to know a whole new group of girls who I have a lot in common with. I somehow got volunteered to help organize the crafts for MOPS, but that is right up my alley, so that's ok. My mom and I joined the handicrafters at our church and that has really been a riot. They are a great group of "mature" women who make crafts to sell for the church at their annual bazaar. I also still go to the YMCA with the kids as much as possible and am really enjoying zumba and spinning. I also, over the past 2 months, participated in 2 craft shows so I was busy painting and crafting lots of stuff. Also, I ran with my neighbor in a 5K in September and a 6K on Thanksgiving with her and Juan. We are hoping to run a half marathon in February, but we'll see about that. On top of everything else, I was taking Brandon 3 times a week to speech therapy (which thank goodness is off our schedule now that he will be going to school) and Colin to physical therapy one time a week. Phew, no wonder I don't have time to keep up with this blog!

We have been so busy, but it's been great. I feel like Jacksonville is really home now and I feel like it was a great move for our family. My parents just moved here too, so it has been really great having them around and here to help out with the kids.

We are looking forward to driving up to Maryland for Christmas this year and getting to spend time with Juan's family and the rest of our family and friends as well. Just not exactly looking forward to the COLD! Oh well...

Have a happy, safe and blessed holiday season everyone!! And don't forget to check back here often!
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I participated at our church's annual Vendor Craft-a-Faire this year. I was busy making all kinds of things for it over the past few months. I also had Erica, and a few friends put some stuff out. Unfortunately we didn't make much money at all, but it was fun. I have another craft show on Dec 5th and everything that is leftover is going to be put out there. Whatever is left over from that is going up on my new etsy shop (more information on that to come).

Here is my booth:



This picture shows some of the journals i made. i decorated them with buttons on the front and ribbons along the binding. You can also see the padded photo albums that Erica made.



Here are a few of my paintings:



This painting has real shells and a message in a bottle on it!

Here is a colorful sock monkey with real button eyes:


tiki man:


flowers:


owl:


In the middle are Tamara's body scrubs and on the right are some of Beth's stuff. She made washcloths and baby toys.



These are some cute picture holders I made:




Button flowers that I was selling for $1 each. I think I probably sold a dozen of these:








These are made out of old scrabble games, i think i only sold one--"faith"



Even the boys came to visit me to wish me luck!



And good job to the MOMS group for putting on a great craft show!


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Here is Picasso painting his latest masterpiece!






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Another busy month has come and gone...


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They boys had a great time trick-or-treating. We ended up dressing them up as football players. They wore their Steelers jerseys and were super cute! They ate a little bit of candy and just enjoyed seeing all the other kids and the pumpkins and being out when it was dark.













We went trick-or-treating with our neighbors, Jeff and Tamara and their little "pea" Lucy and dog Cassius.





oh yeah, i almost forgot to mention that Juan and I wore our pirate outfits...it was so hot!!

Check out the moon!










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Our good friend Nina and her adorable son Hayden came for a visit! It was great to catch up again and I loved seeing Nina as a mom. Hayden is such a good baby and is so cute! I miss them & maybe one day we'll live close again! :)








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Our church had their annual fall festival a few weekends ago and we took the kids for food and fun. The kids got to ride some rides this year. Just a train and a little piggy ride. I'm pretty sure Colin enjoyed the rides more than Brandon did. He was a little scared, but inside I'm sure he liked it!!














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that's what their Halloween costumes are...returned. Neither of them wanted to wear them. Brandon put his on for about 15 seconds and started ripping it off. Colin screamed until we took his off of him. So....I got my $50 back. But I couldn't send them back before snapping a few pictures. This is what they would have looked like on Halloween...










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A few weeks ago we went to the pumpkin patch and the boys each got to pick out two pumpkins. They each got one big one and one little one. They had a blast. It was funny because out of all the nice orange pumpkins, Brandon wanted the only yellow one on the patch. He also was intrigued by the pumpkins with warts! eww! They love thier "punions" as Brandon calls them!




















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Ok, so I don't have a little girl to scrapbook with me, but I have little boys who like to have fun with stickers and crafts. I have tons of extra stickers from scrapbooking that I let them play with and they like to put them in their own special sticker book. Even Colin likes to play stickers too!










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Welcome to our family blog where you will find updates on what we’re doing, captures of our favorite moments in photos or on video, and tons of love!

Happy Holidays--The Toole Update

Craft-a-Faire

art time!

October

Happy Halloween!

Nina and Hayden visit!

fall festival fun

Returned...

Pumpkin Patch

my little scrapbookers...

My Flickr Pictures
My Webshots Pictures
My Myspace Page
My Facebook Page