Cousin Time!

 One difficult thing about living away from our families, and there are many, is that our kids have no cousins to play with. I know I have blogged about this before but it often makes my heart sad. I grew up surrounded by built-in playmates in my cousins and family get-togethers were a very important part of our childhood!

Last summer, at our family reunion in CO, it brought me such bittersweet joy to watch our boys having the time of their life with their cousins. They made such special memories. One thing that our years away from home have taught us, is to treasure any and all time we do have with family.

This weekend my kiddos' newest little cousin, E, is visiting! She is 16 months old and busy, busy, busy! We are just loving every second with her!

It took her about 5 minutes of warming up before she was toddling all over the place. She has been especially enamored with Eliana, which is gives us great glimpses into the wonderful friendship they could have as they get older. They are both so petite:)

This morning:)

Just melts my heart to see them together! Two little E's:)

Little E does not like to have bows in her hair but I snuck in an adorable Pebbles hairdo this morning! It lasted a little while before she figured out how to rip the rubber band out:)

Eliana is enjoying having her around, as long as she doesn't touch Baby Anna and any of Baby's accessories! We are working on the sharing thing;)

Cutie pie!

Tomorrow my sister and the little girls and I have a fun day planned while all my boys are busy at work and school! They should be so jealous:)

Our Week

I know I am becoming a regular blog-neglector of late. I just seem to be at a loss for words these days. There is just so much going on and much of it just doesn't have adequate words. I hope that my desire to blog daily will come back soon because I miss the ease of writing and sharing. Of documenting the big and small stories of our life.

 

Our kiddos are growing so quickly. Lately, just looking at pictures of them, we are blown away at how tall they are getting; how quickly they are changing.

Take this girl for instance. She will be THREE a month from today! Wow. I just cannot believe it. She is such a great conversationalist. She tells us everything these days. All the things she sees and wants to make sure that we saw, too. She has some good vocabulary, too! She likes to tell us, "I can easily do that." ha:) She often has a word of the day that she will use over and over. This week one of her words was "a 'dorable." The way she said it and broke it up into two words was so cute! She just keeps saying, "Aw! That is SO a 'dorable!"

We got her some new shoes this week, since her feet started growing. This was probably only her second brand new pair ever! I usually get her shoes from friends or at thrift stores.

These are pretty special, though! Dora shoes that light up! Can they get any better than that?? She's pretty proud of the lights;)

The boys love this line/box game that they find in certain coloring books. I have no idea what it is called but they love it! They spent a long time playing the other day, so nicely, that I could hardly break them away for dinner:)

During "naptime" today (a.k.a. nap rebellion), Eliana managed to sneak her arms through the crib slats and break into a storage bin next to her crib. She decided to dress herself in some pants. I was so surprised when I brought her downstairs to see pants on her and after questioning her, figured out what happened. She was pretty proud of herself! Nevermind that they are inside out and backwards.....;)

 Look how tall Z is getting!! He just loves first grade. He is getting so good at reading and is making lots of friends. He joined running club like Samuel, which started this week. He ran a full mile and will earn his first charm!

And Samuel got the Friendship Award at school today! In his class, they have this really neat thing where the kids write on post-it notes throughout the week, nice things about their classmates. It can be something they helped them with, a kind act, anything. And whoever gets the most post-its at the end of the week wins the award and a special lunch with the teacher!

We were awfully proud of our guy! He has really shown such growth lately in his compassion and ability to see right and wrong and to want to correct it. It's pretty amazing to watch your child flourish like that and I pray it continues!

I am not sure if I picked up the kids' recent colds or one of my own but it caught up with me today and I am praying and hoping I don't stay down for long! We have company coming this weekend and it will never do for me to be down and out!

Have a great weekend!

Popeye Kids!

Last week was such a long week for me and some of my days just seemed to drag by. This week is full almost every single day with activities! Eliana and I have been invited out twice this week to visit friends, which will be fun. I do enjoy playing pretend, reading books, watching Sesame Street and strapping and unstrapping Baby Anna into her latest contraption 108 times a day (Okay, maybe not the last one) but adult conversation is awfully nice!

I decided that Mondays would be a good cleaning day for me since it is always a day that E and I are trapped car-less at home. Today along with scrubbing the bathroom and other little tidyings, we pulled out some fall/winter wardrobes. Wow, can it be already? Last week, we were melting in 99 degree weather and this week, we are wearing jackets or sweatshirts to go to school!

Eliana gets such good use out of her wardrobe since she's a little mite. She has definitely grown taller throughout the summer but is still quite comfortable in her 2T clothes. She has a bunch of 3T clothes ready and waiting but winter may be half over before we break those out!

The boys, on the other hand, grow like weeds! Zakkai always has insta-wardrobe from Samuel, which he loves and Samuel hates. Samuel has a very hard time letting go of things and really hates to say goodbye to clothes, especially ones he really liked. That's why I do this sort of thing when they are NOT around! Samuel will need several things to fill in the gaps in his wardrobe, especially after I convince him that it is not a fashion statement to have his wrists and ankles showing all the time:)

I actually got my kids to eat some sautéed spinach tonight! Zakkai loved it and asked for seconds, Eliana sneered at it for a few minutes but ate 3/4 of it and Samuel ate it but pronounced it just "okay." Not bad! I will keep trying!

Maybe, just maybe that healthy, very green spinach will balance out the apple pie we may or may not have eaten for breakfast......:)

Fall Weekend!

 It has been a lovely fall weekend for us, starting Friday night! Ben alternates heavy/normal work weeks and this past week was his heavier one, made even longer by the amount of traveling he does either by car or bus/train. He rearranged his schedule so he could get home right when it was time to pick up the boys after school Friday! It was gorgeous outside so we thoroughly enjoyed our walk and letting the boys play on the school playground for a bit.

Yesterday we made a mini apple-picking trip! We are planning to go again when "our" apples are ready but yesterday we just enjoyed picking one bag of Honeycrisp, which we have never picked before. And of course, there was the lure of amazing donuts and a wagon ride!

Eliana was a fuss-bucket yesterday because she just can't kick this cold but she did enjoy munching on some apples!

The boys were thrilled with it all, of course! They can fit a lot of apples in their bellies:)

I love this picture! Right when I asked them to smile, Eliana took a big bite out of her apple:) She would halfway finish one, tell me she was done and then ask for a new one. She works it!

We got yelled at for doing this! The guy came over and apologized for yelling and was very nice but he was just afraid Samuel would fall. I guess he's seen it happen before!

Today was rainy and chilly all day so after church, we all got in comfy clothes and just relaxed! We made chili (yum!!) and I just took a fresh apple pie out of the oven. Hmmm....it's calling my name right now. Or maybe that's just Ben calling me, hoping for a piece....:)

Hope your weekend has been good!

Friday!

 This was my very favorite kind of day! Upper 60s, sunny, slight breeze, windows open for fresh air, wearing jeans and no worrying about cooking with the oven! It felt so nice to walk to and from school today, even if it was a bit chilly this morning.

Both boys aced their spelling tests at school today! We practice all throughout the week, mostly at breakfast time. Samuel's class has brackets for their spelling each week. If they get so many right on their pre-test at the beginning of the week, they are tested on either 8, 15 or 20 words (15 regular/5 challenge words.) And the kids are allowed to decide if they want to make a goal and go for all 15 or 20. Our hard-worker keeps choosing to go after all 20, of course! I am proud of him for setting goals and pushing himself.

Eliana, Baby C and I had a quiet morning and took a walk to enjoy the cool sunshine. I actually succeded in accidentally napping them both at the same time! I laid the baby down and read some books with Eliana in our bed and came up with the brilliant idea to bring in her elephants and blanket. I told her I would rest with her for a few minutes and before I knew it.....

This happened:) Isn't she sweet?! The blanket was Ben's when he was little; she has loved it since his mom gave it to us! Poor thing was snoring though, since she's so congested. Oh, and she peed on our bed......but before that it was cute anyways! And the bright side is we have freshly washed sheets tonight!

So sweet and innocent!

Happy Friday!