Life 'Round Here

So this was my backyard today:

Untouched by photoshop.

Isn't is glorious?!

How amazing is the Lord to give us such a wonderful sunrise!?

Love.

The rest of this post is full of random photos that possess the following qualities:

1) Are from January

And that concludes the list.  

Hence why this will be one of the most random posts to date.

Little Dude.

When he decides to have a short nap, this is where he hangs out while I work.

Also note that he has not one, but two num-nums (pacifiers) dangling from his old man gums.

Not quite sure how he magicked them together, but it makes for a great photo.  :)

Do you ever find things in your home and think to yourself, "What?  Seriously?!  Is there no one else here to see this?!  Am I on candid camera?"

Happens to me all day.

This was one of those moments.

I found a fork, attached to my sink with a magnet.

Confused?

So was I.

Me thinks we have a crafty three year old living in this house.

I am always a responsible housewife who sees to the laundry and dishes before any other needs.

Wrong.

I am always a housewife that snuggles her babies, even when they are fast asleep, and uses snuggling as an excuse to read a book.

I may or may not have read the Hunger Games trilogy in a week.

These are Little Dude's buddies.  They came over with their parents and played after church one Sunday. Good times.  :)  

Little Dude.

This next sequence rocks my socks off.

One day in January I decided I would leave Squirt in Sesame's room.

She said she wanted to have a picnic with him.

I went downstairs, rotated laundry, snagged my camera and caught these treasures:

Yes, those were sequential.

She made the sandwich and shared the sandwich.

They he fell over (like he does)

and she "picked him back up."

I may have helped her out on that one.

:)

Kid's Quips

Caryn.  You totally win the quote game.  :)  What is your heart's desire?  Game of Memory?  A teeny tiny Boy Ville?  Perhaps a Pretty Princess set?  :)  I might  make an exception and whip you up an oven mitt if you prefer!  :)

Moving on...

One of my favorite recent quotes from the new three year old in the house came the other day in the car.  We were driving by one of those "We Buy Gold" places with a person, dressed as Gumby, waving manically outside.

Sesame: "Mommy, who is that?"
Me: "You know Sesame, I don't know.  Who do you think it is?"
Sesame: "It's Dr. Roscoe."

She didn't miss a beat!  It just goes to show what a few fun hats in a Dr's office can do for a kid!  :) We love you Dr. Roscoe!

Another recent gem:

Sesame: "Daddy, may I go into Jack in the Box, Please?"
Husband: "I don't know Sesame.  It's kind of late."
Sesame: "Actually, I know the Jack in the Box.  So it's okay."

Where does she get this stuff!?  Her expressions to accompany the hilarity are fantastical as well.  Love that kid.  Speaking of my kids:

Um...Where did my baby go??? 

For real.  This girl is not a baby any more.  Three just seems so...

Big.  Fun and fantastic, but old and big too.  

Meanwhile, these two love each other.  No, like I can't sleep until I hug you kind of love one another.  It's rock-tacular.  Except when their expression of said love includes sitting on the other one.  Or clawing the other's face.  All with good intentions, mind you, but harmful nonetheless.  I mean who wants love-claw marks.  Maybe that Twilight chick, Bella, if she'd gone for the werewolf dude.  But that's a long shot.  

Favorite.  Little Dude.  Expression.

I call it his "Old Man" look.  

He reminds me of Carl from the movie "Up."

Only armed with a teething ring instead of a walker with tennis balls.

Slight difference.

Yep.  That's my boy.

:) 

Drool and all.

He finally has two teeth and a third just broke through today.

He's also eating like a maniac.

Does this ever stop with boys?

Seriously.

I heard they always eat all the time.

Anyway, he's doing well.

Still not interested in moving about much.

He's very much an observer.

Be back soon-ish.

My Kids.

My kids make me smile.  Wait.  The way they adore each other makes me smile.

Sesame sneaks into Squirt's room when he wakes up from a nap before I even hear the boy.  It's amazing.  Her "Mommy sense" is almost more attuned to him than I am.  She drags the footstool to the rocking chair over and climbs up to greet him.  He squeals and giggles every time he sees her.  She's like an instant happy pill!  :)

Little Dude loves, loves, to snuggle with Sesame in her bed.  I lay him down next to her every evening at bed time.  He immediately extends his left hand out to touch her cheek.  Seriously.  I think it's the boy's way of saying "I love you" without words.  It's too cute.  She responds with squeals of delight and says, "Ezzy, that tickles." or "Ezzy's playin' with my cheek.  Do it again Ezzy!"  He cannot contain his joy at her enthusiasm. His little feet kick a mile a minute and his arms flail about.

Squirt also enjoys partaking of imaginative play.  I know, he's well ahead of the cognitive curve.  He has been dressed as Cinderella and baby Emma in the past week.  Shhh...don't tell husband dearest.  :)

Sesame worries when she doesn't know where Little Dude is.  For real.  She hunts around the house calling out for him.  It cracks me up because, most of the time, I'm holding him.  When she discovers his wherabouts she cups he hand over her mouth, hunches her shoulders up, squints her eyes and gives a silent laugh at her lack of observance.  Love that kid.

I also heart their matching pajama-jams.  : )  Too cute.  (Thanks Nonnie and Pawpaw!)

On a random side note, this photo from our first snow:

Is in desperate need of a caption.  For real.  :)  I cropped it just right in camera so the poor boy looks like the little brother in Christmas Story, immobile, left alone, in a snowy field.  : ) No worries, husband was right there.  : )

Caption this photo or fill in the thought bubble.  I'll choose a winner this weekend.  Winner receives their very own version of Lil' Blue Boo's Boy 'ville, Box 'O Princesses or Customized Memory Game!  : )  I feel like giving today!  :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We had a fantastic Christmas with our family out West and celebrated the New Year here at home!  I'll brief you more on the gifts, games and giggles in our Christmas later.  For now, I'm going to try and find homes for all this new stuff!  :)

Christmas Time

My son has totally, completely and successfully filled the leg of his sleeper with poop two times this week. I'm not just talking about a tiny smear of poo, I'm talking fill the leg.  Literally. It's as if someone took a funnel and just dumped it into his clothing.  The first episode was mind-boggling.  I went to change his diaper and there was only a small dab of poo - the rest was completely clean.  How does that happen??  The diaper was secure.  Immovable.  How does a tiny, pumpkin sized being manage to poop out of their diaper?!  Really!?  

Okay.  Now that I have that out of the way....

We snuck off last week on Thursday evening to Christmas at the zoo.  Fan-tastic.  It was a bit chilly, but that made it all the more fun!  :)  We donned our happy hats and waltzed around watching the polar bear, brown bear and bats.  Since it was evening the bats were actually awake and active.  Waaaaaaaay fun.  They're pretty interesting little creatures.  Z even enjoyed watching all the Christmas lights that were timed to the music.

Sesame was cracking me up.  When she woke up from her nap, I shared the surprise with her.  She looked at me and said "I want to see the polar bears.  Daddy wants to see the sharks.  They do this-" insert little girl spin-jump with crazy jazz hands flapping about. "Sesame, when do the sharks do that?  I've never seen them dance before??"  Very seriously she replied, "Only Daddy sees them do it." and then pranced off singing about squirrels or some thing. 

I chalked it up to silliness.  Turns out, the young sharks do the exact dance when they get over excited in the touch tank at the zoo.  No, really.  They do.  The kid could win a medal for replicating the molar shark dance.  She proved me wrong! 

Now for me to stop babbling and show you some photos.  :)

Preparing to enter the zoo.
Yes, that is a Pricess Leia hat.

Checking out the "real live reindeer."

Little Dude would NOT keep his eyes open for a photo.  I have four photos that look EXACTLY like this!
But isn't his Yoda hat cute.  :)

There's a seal.  See it.  To their left.  He looks like a shiny rock.

I do exist!  :)  Leia and Yoda.  How nice.  :)

AHA!  A photo with eyes open AND a smile!  

Yes, I know this is turned the wrong way.
No, I don't know how to fix it in blogger.
No, I don't know why it happened.
Yes, that's ironic because I'm a photographer.
Yes, I posted it anyway.
It's my fam.  Aren't they cute.  Even when they're sideways!

A blurry photo of all four of us!  

Running out of steam!

Ain't he cute. :)

Singing Christmas songs together!

Disobedience.

Before I begin I would like to apologize for the utterly atrocious grammatical display that is my blog.  My husband likes to remind me, frequently, that this is a display of irony in the most public form.  You see, I studied Creative Writing and English in college.  For real.  See.  Irony.

Moving on...

I have a two year old.  You all know her as Sesame.  Mostly I relay messages of her hilarity, sense of song and frequent imaginary play sessions.  Life, however, is not all rainbows and sunshine with her.  Please do not mistake me, I adore her with all my heart and want the best for her.  Which is why I decided to share this.

Today we arrived home from Bible Study, paired with a short trip to Pappy and Yia Yia's, just barely before nap time.  I plucked Sesame from her seat, ran her through the misty rain and placed her in the entryway.  I stooped down to her level and instructed, "Sesame, I want you to go to your room, take off your shoes, put them away and get into bed.  It's nap time.  Mommy will be in after I bring Squirt in from the car.  Do you understand?"  "Yes, Mommy, " she replied, "I understand."

I know that may seem like several instructions for a two (almost three) year old, but I know she is capable of completing such a list.  I jaunted to car, snagged Z, carried him up to his room, plopped him in his crib and went to Sesame's room.

No Sesame.

I heard singing from downstairs.  Loud, twirly "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" singing.  I peered over the balcony to see my sweet Sesame twirling about the living room with her Little People, singing.

I zoomed down the stairs,  mind racing as I went: Should I just gently correct her??  Should I spank her???  Should I give her time out??  What kind of offense is this??  Where in the scale of disobedience does this lie??  


Scale of disobedience.  There is no scale.  There is obedient or not.  She is clearly disobeying me.  She knows if she is disobedient she gets spanked.  No questions.


I grabbed her upper arm and turned her to me.  "Sesame" she stared at me with wide eyes, knowing she was in trouble, "What did Mommy ask you to do?" "Go upstairs. To night night time." "Did you obey me?"  "No, Mommy." tears commence.  "Sesame, what happens when you disobey?"  "I get a spanking."

She knew.

How like our walk with the Lord.  He continually reminds us how to be obedient.  When we fall He is there to pick us up - but loves us enough to allow us to endure consequences.  Loves us enough to discipline us.  He tells us ahead of time what the consequences of sin and disobedience are - and how to avoid them - yet we still fall over and over and over.

I suppose my thoughts on this topic were stirred up, not only due to this instant, but my time in the word - both through lectures and studies.  In fact, I might be slightly plagiarizing* from a sermon I heard.   The Lord is teaching me something and I'm willing to admit I don't know what yet and I'm a little scared.  But this isn't about me.

I spanked Sesame and quickly hurried her up the stairs.  I scooped her up into my arms, hugged her, told her I loved her but she must be obedient and then promptly tickled her.

The hug concluded the punishment.  We'll tell Daddy what happened when he comes home, but other than that, it will not be brought up again. We moved on.  When she wakes up from her nap, I'm going to take her out into the snow and make Parrot Poop helmets.  Parrot Poop helmets are a blog entry all their own.  I'll tell you sometime.  I promise.  I might even include pictures.


*Fantastic Sermon by Michael Boehm - which I will link to when it's posted.  :)

A Day in the Life...

So.  Happy Thanksgiving.  :)  

I was going to share a few photos from our Turkey Day.  The first two were test photos to prepare for a photo shoot.  Little Dude is only a week younger that the intended subject - which made him the perfect candidate for testing.  :)

Love that kid.  :)  He's a total charmer.  Soooo smiley.  Not that Sesame wasn't, he's just more so.  He's perfect the art of raspberry blowing.

"Riding the horse" aka Pawpaw's knee.

Story time with Pawpaw!  I LOVE JAN BRETT.  I'm sorry, did I yell that loud enough????  I LOVE JAN BRETT!!  Her stories are fantastic!  I'm on a Gingerbread Baby kick right now.  We just checked the Umbrella out of the library as well.

Story time with Nonnie and Pawpaw.  Nonnie is Sesame namesake.  She goes by Sesame too.  :)

The lovely table.

My little bro came out of his cave for lunch, ate, then retreated back to his cave.  He didn't even emerge for pie.  It was nice to see him for the meal though!

Mis padres in their element.  :)  They make some fantastic food in this kitchen.

Z's Thanksgiving meal.  He snacked on some mashed potatoes a bit later, but this was his main meal.

My Momma explaining Facebook to my grandparents.  I cannot even begin to describe this moment.  :)

Story time with Momma - we have a TON of story time these days.  I heart it.

Little Dude and his Momma.  He's wearing the baby doll cap from the basement.  :)

The next two photos are among my favorite of my children.  :)

She was reading to him again.  I love these two and their love for each other.  :)