Edmund -- 4 Years Old

Edmund's birthday was last month, the week before Thanksgiving. He has really been able to understand about his birthday and age change this year. The whole week after his birthday he would use his age in conversations whenever he could. Like saying, "Mama, can I have my four years old boy's Legos to play with?" (He got some Legos for his birthday, and we have to keep them up high when he isn't playing with them, so that Nathaniel won't get them.)

His birthday meals this year were: Blueberry Pancakes for breakfast, Spaghetti with bread and salad for dinner, and Chocolate Cream Pie with whipped cream for dessert. The whipped cream was very important to him. Before he had even decided on a pie he knew he wanted whipped cream on it. :)

We had a lot of fun baking the pies together. He is getting really good at helping with stirring, adding ingredients, and getting out everything we need for the baking process. Jaired taught him how to crack an egg, but he doesn't like to do it because his fingers get egg white on them -- he is such a particular little boy.

Here is the final result. It was pronounced a great success.

Singing "Happy Birthday."

He blew out each candle individually!

Opening presents.

This book is The Wind in the Willows. We read it together the next week and he really enjoyed it. The pictures are beautiful.

Jaired and I got him a sleeping bag. He is so excited, because he has been asking for one since the summer. He sleeps in it almost every night.

In fact, that night we lit a fire in the fireplace and camped out in the living room.

The birthday shirt, made by Aunt Kimberly.

It is crazy that my first baby is four years old now. He is such a sweet, particular, funny little boy. He loves to help me around the house and to play with his little brothers.

We started school with him this year. He has really taken off with writing the alphabet, though he still doesn't remember the names of all the letters. He continues to love drawing and has recently been making "books." He will draw pictures on several papers, scribble "words" on them, then staple the pages together. It is always interesting to read these stories to him. He expects me to know the story, so I have to ask him questions to figure out the general plot and then make up something off of that.

Edmund likes to tell me about his wife, whom he hasn't meet yet. Her name is Aba-baba. He is always talking about her, how many children they are going to have, how she is going to to have a sewing machine just like me, or be like me in some other way. He is so serious about the whole thing.

Random Pictures

From a few months ago:

Edmund and his buddies having some hands-on experience during a Tower of Babel during children's church.

Edmund and his finished product.

Apparently, he didn't want to stand still for the picture.

(The building materials? Marshmallows and peanut butter.)

My budding musician.

Hmm, is he playing Bach? Or, wait, maybe it's Grieg. It is pretty hard to tell at this stage.

Edmund's Zoo

Ever since we visited the zoo last month Edmund has enjoyed playing zoo with his various animals. Today, when he invited me to visit his zoo I decided to be a good tourist and take my camera along for pictures.

The proud zoo keeper

A kangaroo, sheep, and goat live in cozy harmony.

A tiger (that looks more like a bear) shares his pen with a cow.

Edmund assured me that the tiger would not eat the cow. They are just sitting there together.

A cute baby bear.

And the whole zoo.

The Bite of the Sewing Bug

It seems like I end up sewing more during the winter than the rest of the year. At least that is how last winter was. Before Christmas I was making gifts, then afterwards I had several things that I wanted to get out of the way before Jeremiah was born.

I just got my first "load" of fabric for this winter's sewing delights. Be prepared for pictures of sewing projects over the next few months.

For now I will show off my babies and see if you can tell the three apart.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

These pictures are the boys in order, as you may have guessed. Jeremiah is 7 months and the other two are about 5 months. He kicked his feet when I was taking the picture, which adds to how much bigger he looks than the others.

Nathaniel -- 2 Years

Nathaniel's birthday was about two weeks ago. We always get together with the family to celebrate birthdays.

Kimberly made this adorable owl shirt for Nathaniel. Do you see the little leaf detail on the back?

I think this picture is so cute just because of the face Nathaniel is making.

A present from Grandpa and Omi. Yes, that is a fishbowl, with a fish in it.

Nathaniel, getting his first look at his new fish, which he and Edmund named Otto, after the fish in A Fish Out of Water.

This may be my very favorite of all his birthday pictures. We had just finished singing, and he is saying, "yay!"

A little side story: Since the beginning of the summer Edmund has been wrapping up various articles to give to me, Jaired, or Nathaniel. He sings Happy Birthday, cheers, then hands over the gift to be opened, so that is how Nathaniel learned to cheer every time someone sings Happy Birthday.

It only took Nathaniel two puffs to blow out all his candles, which is pretty good for a two year old. Yes, he is two. There are three candles on his cake because we always put one to grow on. :)

Enjoying his cupcake.

I love this little guy. He is such a lovable little boy. He loves to snuggle, and is never shy about go up to our friends asking to be held. He is an funny mixture of big boy and baby. He loves reading books and drawing pictures. He is really getting into playing with Edmund, and is able to understand a lot of what Edmund wants him to do in the games they play. But he also still loves his pacifier. He can be such a baby sometimes when he is sad or not feeling well, but a lot of times if he gets hurt he will come to me crying and wailing and as soon as I kiss him on the head he shuts off like a switch and goes back to whatever he was doing. He is still very attached to his Gorilla and Dog, but he also goes through times when he has some other special thing he likes to carry around. This week he has been carrying around all my baby washcloths.

Speaking of Gorillas, we went to the zoo last Saturday as part of Nathaniel's birthday. Of course we took him to the Gorilla House. This one was right next to the window (as you can see) and Nathaniel was pretty excited about it.

Look at how calm and nice the gorilla looks. Well, just after taking this picture it sprang up and hit the window with all four feet. It was sudden, and loud, and kids don't know all about really thick, strong glass. That other little kid just about died of fright. Nathaniel handled it pretty well, his lip just trembled as he backed slowly away. But he didn't want to see the gorilla anymore. And when we went into the money house he refused to look at the monkeys. He still loves his Gorilla. :)

We love you, Than-than. Happy Birthday!

Jeremiah -- Six Months

Half a year; where has the time gone? For me this age is a big I-don't-want-my-baby-to-get-any-bigger/I-wish-he-would-grow-faster stage. Babies are so sweet and cute and I love it when they can start interacting with people, but at the same time teething and the increased mobility along with a growing curiosity make this time bittersweet. Why can't they stay this cute and innocent always?

Jeremiah has been very busy the last three months:

3 months -- rolling from tummy to back

4 months -- progressed to rolling from back to tummy, then learned to roll over either side.

5 1/2 months -- army crawling, sitting up

6 months -- first tooth, with the second one expected to pop through any day.

Jeremiah weighs approximately 16.5 lbs. He loves to growl and blow raspberries.

Our camera broke and we have yet to get and new one, so I don't have any six month pictures, but here are some from the last few months.

Learning to sit up. (Like his angel halo?)

Resting after a long day of sightseeing in Yellowstone.

An unwilling little traveler.

Bouncy, bouncy!

Don't roll off the bed, Jeremiah!

Rawr, I'm a little bear and I'm going to eat you!

Happy baby. He sleeps with that little moose that he got from Aunt Chava.

Beginning to scoot.

And that's it for now, I guess that was more than a few pictures. ;)

Our Household Monster

Yes, we have a monster living in our house.

It looks something like this:

Image courtesy of the Internet.

Our vacuum cleaner.

Of all my children, Edmund has always been the most fearful of the vacuum.

When he was a baby I would vacuum during his naps. As he got older he felt pretty safe if I sat him down on the couch before vacuuming. But he always had to be in the same room as the vacuuming; almost as if he felt safer if he could keep an eye on the situation.

Now, he asks to be allowed to plug in and turn on the vacuum, then he runs around the room shrieking and jumping off of the furniture. Playing a sort of "keep away" with the vacuum. His game seems to have done away with some of his fearfulness, but he still gets nervous if he gets in a corner and thinks he is trapped.

Disclaimer: No, I do not try to scare him or chase him with the vacuum cleaner. I am a very nice Mama. :)

Vacation 2010 Part 2 -- Yellowstone

A few more mountain climbing pictures...

Getting ready: Walking sticks, check. Water, check. Cameras, check.

Halfway up the main mountain we climbed.

A beautiful (the fuzziness is due to my picture taking, sorry) view of the Grand Tetons range from the highest point we climbed. There was a big grassy, sage bush covered plain on top of the mountain.

On to Yellowstone!

After spending a few relaxing days in the Teton area (yes, even with the mountain climbing it was relaxing!), we headed up to Yellowstone.

Our good friend Robby Haselwander was working just north of Yellowstone for the summer, so he was able to come down and hang out with us for the weekend.

We also met up with a good portion of Jaired's family on his mom's side for part of the family reunion. It was great to see the non-Missouri relations, and one of Jaired's uncles was able to take us on the main Yellowstone tour loop since he is so familiar with the area, so we didn't have to hire a tour guide. I don't seem to have any good pictures of the adult relations, but one of the boys' second cousins came, and she and Edmund had a great time playing together.

Joanna and Edmund on one of hikes.

Edmund and Jaired resting in the shade.

The boys slept well every night from all the exercise and fresh air they were getting. They shared a bed the entire trip and did a great job.

Edmund loved all the geysers. Here he is watching Old Faithful erupt. We stayed in the Old Faithful cabins, and we could see the geyser from our cabin.

Jeremiah, like his brothers, loves being outside, and he enjoyed being held a lot and getting first dibs on the stroller.

Nathaniel with his Aunt Kimberly, those two are really good buddies.

Nathaniel is a great walker. He doesn't even complain as much as Edmund does about having to walk instead of getting to ride in the stroller.

Visiting Mount Rushmore on the way home.

Oh boy, that trip home was crazy. Ellie returned with us, as the rest of the family continued on to Montana for the rest of the family reunion. We had decided before even starting the trip that going up in Montana was going to be too much driving for our boys, and I sure am glad we came straight home from Yellowstone. The drive through Northern Wyoming was grueling. We left Yellowstone through the East Entrance and drove through the Big Horn Mountains. The pass was crazy -- switchbacks and road construction! It took us about three hours to drive the 60 miles over the mountains, and Jeremiah was screaming almost the entire time!

The second day of driving, is when we saw Mount Rushmore and drove through the Badlands. About halfway through the day Jaired asked Ellie and I if we wanted to just skip that night's hotel and head straight home. We drove right through the night and got home twelve hours earlier than the original plan.

It was so good to be back home, but the humidity that hit us when we stepped out of the car was not welcome. It was 6 a.m. when we got home and the temperatures were already in the high eighties! We turned up our air conditioner and went to bed. :)