Two days late, but worth the wait

Someone else on their blog is posting every day in November something that they're grateful for.
I love it. So I'm snagging that sweet idea.

Here's for the first 3 days:

I'm grateful for: William, Cameron, and Andrew.

:)

Cop out?

Ah well, here are some more then.

FALL. I love fall. I love the sound of walking through crunch leaves. I love driving down the road and having the leaves blow all around the car like a snow flurry. I love the temperatures. And I LOVE the colors. Thanks for Fall!

-click picture to see that beautiful pearly white-
I'm grateful for the first pain-free (for me, anyway) tooth. I always wanted to smack those moms who said "oh, one day X had 4 teeth! I didn't even know he was teething!" Low, and behold, this little ol' tooth made a very quiet and stealth appearance. Its buddy to its left, is not being so kind to sweet Andrew.

I'm grateful for my camera, so I can capture the joy in my little boy's lives. What's better, really, than being outside on a slide with sticks aplenty to be found? More evidence of this camera (and subjects) that I'm so grateful for below:

What a stud. Poor kid, shortly before this picture his training wheel caught on the side of the path and he fell over.... into stinging nettle. We were just happy we made him wear a coat or it would have been all over his arms as well as his hands and wrists.

These fields are really not far at all from our house. Not long ago the fields all had wheat and corn in them. I love living here. The boys are playing in tractor tracks.

I love these boys. Pity the background is DIRT.

Happy Halloween!

Tonight the boys (all 4) donned costumes to live it up at the ward party. Good chili. Great people. Sugar-crazed toddlers running every which direction. I'd say it was a successful party!

William dressed as Thomas again. Hey, why muddle with a good thing? He's trying to figure out how a clementine got into his sack. Just kidding. He was asking Nathaniel to open it.

I haven't even seen Avatar, and I thought this girl's costume/hair/facepaint was the coolest!

My handsome Nathaniel and Andrew manning the candy bowl as kids trick-or-treated down a line of parents.

Kid has good taste!

We actually had enough Thomas costumes for most the family to be Thomas (thanks mom!), but they ended up just on Nathaniel and William. What very useful engines!


How cute is this Dragon costume?! Nathaniel's Aunt Dianne sent this to us. ah-dorable! Thanks Dianne!

"Look at me and I'll unwrap your reeses'" will get you a look like this. Bribery, wait, no... Incentives! makes our days go 'round. ;)

Checking out their loot. I'd say they did well! Well enough, in fact, to undo all the good I've done with BOB. Pity. BTW-- see those giant pixy stix? Yes, those are already in the garbage, unopened. As a kid, they are the BEST invention-- a package of flavored SUGAR! As a parent, they are the WORST invention, for the same reason. Funny how that works...

Carving Pumpkins

Earlier in the season, I let the boys 'decorate' the pumpkin with markers. Today we finally tackled carving it. I love Halloween! William still couldn't be convinced to put his hand in the pumpkin, so Cameron was my co-cleaner and William was the face designer.

Checking out the 'guts'.

Costumes are going on in a couple hours. More pictures soon!

boys

Each time I found out that the baby I was having was a boy, I was happy. Happy that these boys would have each other to experience life with, to complain to each other about their crazy parents, to enjoy sports together, to go camping with daddy (so mom could have the house to herself), etc. I love and adore these boys. But Man, alive, they might kill me. Cameron is so grown up for his age that the gap between him and William is shrinking drastically in many areas. They're 2 and 3 1/2. Today at lunch I had to slide their chairs farther from one another; William was hitting Cameron for not folding his arms for the prayer, and Cameron was hitting back (this is new, but hardly unexpected) yelling "don't hit me!" Honestly, I was torn between laughing and crying at the same time. Already?! Gosh dang it, they're cute though.

Angel boy kept crawling down this hall to play in the dirt carried in post-jog on the stroller. See, even he's on the all-boyness wagon. DIRT. It's irresistible.

It's okay, you don't have to tell me that he's the most gorgeous baby you've ever seen. I already know that you're thinking it. Sweet Andrew just turned 8 months old. Time is flying.

A boy and his ba-ba. I know I should take it away... but I just can't... yet.

Heaven help me.

fasanerie

The sunlight is so deceitful. I keep expecting simply crisp weather, but today when we went out it was in the 30s. Cameron keeps telling me that he doesn't need his coat or hat. It takes convincing and pointing out the cool features of them to get him to put them on.

Since William is such a *strong* personality, I used to worry that Cameron might just be steamrolled, but such is not the case! He's become quite the opinionated little bugger lately. It's incredibly obnoxious, and completely endearing at the same time. I can't believe how grown up he is!

Feeding the new donkeys.

Dearest C with his signature runny nose.

Our local fasanerie "uhu". I couldn't get my favorite (a big brown Owl with crayola-orange eyes) to look at me. Next time. I mean, really. What's a blog post without an uhu?

Hello, Fall!

Yesterday evening we took a walk to a park that Nathaniel passes on his runs and that he has been gushing about for weeks. It met and exceeded expectations. Beautiful and fun!

Thanks to Aunty Cher for the coordinating outfits!
Thanks to Nathaniel for pushing the swing over and over again, and making the boys laugh.

Cameron made his own track to run around. Jump the fence, then run to the other end of it and back to his designated jumping point.

Dearest Andrew. He's already discovered something his brothers haven't been able to pull off: an effective stall-tactic to delay bedtime. What does he do? He coos, giggles, and touches my face. Makes me melt every time. I beg him to tone down the adorableness, but he's relentless I tell ya!

William.... had a rough day yesterday.

Nathaniel took this picture. He is very proud of it. Please gush over it. ;)
It is our virtual postcard picture to all of you saying "consider yourselves invited to come sit on this bench with us."

Riding around in style.


*On the face painting: William's kindergarten is a very Montessori type approach. There is little structure except for an opening/closing circle time. If the kids want to paint, then a teacher will supervise. They asked me at the beginning if I minded if he painted his face/skin and I said it was fine. Usually he only paints his arms and then washes it off before home. This was the first time he had his face painted. He told me another boy did it. He gets so happy and proud every time he sees the pictures ("Mommy! Look at my paint!"). I think it looks like he fell into a paint puddle. Fortunately, before I saw him, I was warned by a little girl with pink and black strips all down her face. All the paint came off quickly with just one baby wipe. :)

Dear William,

I'm happy you had so much fun at school today.
Your brothers and I missed you so much and we were SO happy to see your, uh, colorful face.
Love, Mom
P.S. Tonight, your bath is not optional.

For the Grandmas:

Footage of our little Andrew on the go.

Mmm. He's scrumptious.

I'm a pro!

Or ... well, not so much "pro" as "work in progress".

gallery

Tell me what you think.


Be gentle.

For the lazy mouse-clickers, here's a lil' sampling:

Maybe it's an just emotional attachment, but I'm in love with this picture of my mom with sweet baby Cameron. She has a true gift with all babies.

As long as I can remember, I've wanted to be involved in photography. I'm just incredibly shy when it comes to exhibiting talents. I'm more of a "hide your light under a bushel" kind of girl. This may very well go nowhere, but it makes me happy. I have to do one brave thing before I'm 30, right? :)

Weekend

Andrew is all over the place these days. I laid down on the floor to try to get a shot of him. When I made a noise to get his attention, ZOOM, over he flew trying to get the camera. What am I going to do with a mobile 7-month-old? He is still a complete joy. If all babies were like this, I'd have two dozen. Well. Probably not. He's settling into two naps a day, and! big brother Cameron has suddenly settled back into two naps a day. I'm giddy with this new development. It probably has something to do with William not being around to distract him and also just getting more settled in the house here. It's really beginning to feel like home, which is weird and comforting at the same time.

William LOVES his bike. The best $17.50 we ever spent. There is one kid at his kindergarten who loves William's bike too. Twice I have gone to the school and seen this other little boy just standing there staring at it. He must be a Diego fan. Makes me laugh. :) One of the teachers told me that William actually shared the beloved bike with this other boy last week. Good boy, William. I'm not sure how much German William is picking up, but it's been funny as he's adopting some German pronunciation in his English. He's been dropping his "r" sounds. He'll tell Cameron "Come Hee-uh!" (which is essentially the same in German, anyway).

I held out hope that one of the boys would get my green eyes, but it seems that Andrew's have turned brown. That's just fine; I am in love with all of my brown-eyed boys! He still looks more like me than his older brothers. It's just nice to have at least one of your children look like you. :) Isn't he just angelic? Maybe he gets that from me too?

Cameron gets more photogenic every day. Those eyes! I promise that he does actually smile sometimes. It does seem that he always has some drool on that chin of his though. Nathaniel had instructed him to show me the stick he was holding for this one. He was obviously focusing on the requested task ("heew, mommy").

I love the park behind my house. I love this daddy loving his family and going out for a walk with us even though he didn't feel well.

The treasured stick. I love having boys.

I love this new jogging stroller. I took it out for my first "jog" today. Let's end that story there.

Pumpkin patch tomorrow. Makes me giddy. I love Fall!

Cameron

I think his scar makes him look distinguished.

Meet the newest member of the family:

His name is BOB. He just arrived today. I completely love him. The kids do too. Nathaniel will, as soon as he meets him. I feel one step closer to fitting into my pre-baby(-ies) clothes, just looking at him.

Thanks to my dearest Nathaniel for forever spoiling your bride.

Chillaxin' while watching Jungle Book

(Don't worry. BOB will be put to better use later today, when we take him to meet our resident zoo animals).