Primary Program Brothers

The morning of the Primary Program.
My favorite current picture we have of these boys.
Just love these good earnest hearts and their love for each other.

Sugar Cookie Not-So-Bliss

In my mind growing-up...sugar cookies were the ultimate family-bonding activity.  There's just something so "picture perfect" for me about those times spent with my mom.  I'm realizing now that my mother was a saint and that all these glossed-over memories were because I was not the mother, but the child!  Nothing can make me pull out my hair like doing sugar cookies with my own kids.  (Although almost always I enter each endeavor still filled with hopes of memory-making bliss.)

This time by the time we came to decorating our little pumpkins, Greg stepped in to help make it happen.  Of course, this meant "developing a model" with precisely  5 chocolate chips for each mouth and 2 candy corns for each eye, allocating the proper amount with each cookie, and then quality controlling them once created.  We sure know how to have a good time.  =)  (We were, after all, going to give some of these away.)

I thought it quite fitting that this is the best picture I could find of the experience.  May it remind me next time I get the hankering for a "magical family moment" that doubling a batch of sugar cookie dough might NOT be the answer.  =)

The Novelty of Yard Work

Treasuring the fact that this is our first fall in our own home and that yard work still holds a great "novelty" for all of us!

Nathan has been begging us to buy a rake so that he can rake the leaves.

Joshua loves being the "leaf crusher" when we bag them.

Greg's been taming our bushes.

And all of us have loved having some great excuses to be out in the yard in the beautiful weather.  (In between plenty of rain.)

A pretty typical sight these days.  Greg and I working on projects...and Nathan and Joshua playing football!

Front Door

From the first time we saw our home, we loved the front door!  But, from the beginning the frame around the front door has been one of the things that's bothered me most.  (It looked like someone had tried to paint it one color and then another color...and that neither had worked out.)  We found some paint in the basement that matches the rest of the trim in the house and are excited with how it turned out!

Flying Solo

I've just had a feeling that if we took off Joshua's training wheels he'd be able to do it!  Greg was at a camp out, and I didn't want him to miss the "magical moment".  So, I took off the training wheels and had the bike waiting for when he pulled into the driveway.  After Greg did one run up the road behind Josh, Joshua yelled, "Just let me do it, Dad!"  And HE DID!  I loved that when he told him grandmas and grandpas on the phone about it afterward, he let them know he, "doesn't even need a single training wheel anymore".

Meanwhile...

Ready for Any Occasion

Each day we drop Joshua off for P.M. kindergarten, and then Elizabeth and I come home and take a nap.  Before we walk over to pick Nathan and Joshua up after school, Elizabeth "needs" to get "dressed" again.  Sometimes she manages to change her clothes while still in her crib before I wake up...using whatever she can reach from the top of her dresser or top dresser drawer.  This was an especially fabulous day.  (Fully done herself.)  She loves wearing these kind of "tapping shoes" everywhere.  (She can walk in high heels better than I can!)  You can imagine between her attire and the way she greets Joshua like she hasn't seen him in years (and he to her), she's getting quite the reputation at the school.

And, just for a reality check ... 90%+ of the pictures I try to take of her these days are like this!

Cider Mill Season

A favorite family activity for us in the fall...cider mills!  A fun way to have a little treat (cinnamon and sugar donuts) and see the fall sights!

Accessorize!

You (and I) may worry that in the craziness of our "boy world" that Elizabeth won't reach her "girly" potential. However, although she does hold her own plenty well with her brothers...her girly-ness is definitely intact.  Especially when it comes to dresses and accessories.  One day she kept talking to me about her fancy "purple hat".  I didn't know we had a purple hat!  Finally she showed me.  Elizabeth is rarely willing to wear leggings in the intended way.  But, that doesn't keep her from making great use of them!

Ready for Church

Just a cute picture on a Sunday morning.

First Day of School

Nathan's First Day of Second Grade!
This is not only the start of a new school year for Nathan, but (because of buying our house) the start of a new school.  We're proud of him and how well he's adjusting.  

Our neighborhood has some great kids...one family (the two boys next to Nathan) is even in our ward.  (That is an amazing "coincidence" because we and they are the only Mormons at our school.)

It made the first day at a new school so much easier to get to walk there with friends we know!

Our home's backyard bump up to the sidewalk these kids walk to school on every day.  We've never gotten to be "walkers" before, and are really enjoying it.  (That was more true during the first days of school.  Now that I'm getting bigger and so is my "waddle", we're learning that driving can also be a great alternative.)  =)

Nathan's biggest fans dropping him off at school.  (Joshua goes to P.M. kindergarten, so we drop him off later.)

Joshua's First Day of Kindergarten

(Wish I'd gotten better lighting...but you can tell he's handsome no matter what the light.)  =)

Dropping Joshua off...unlike most of the children who like to have their parents walk them in to the classroom.  Joshua's preference is to give Elizabeth and I a kiss in the van at the car loop and head on in on his own.