Two wheelin it!

Bye Bye training wheels!

Here she is excited...

And not so excited...


and then very nervous...

"This is GREAT"...

Impromptu photo shoot

While visiting my mom yesterday I noticed I had dressed everyone in color coordinating clothes (not usually my thing)...so out came the camera...
it got very windy which made for some funny faces!













Our little old soul...

The Sandlot

T's favorite movie. Shown on a giant screen. After dark.
Friends. Popcorn. Beautiful late summer evening at Platt Park.
Doesn't get much better than this for a boy who loves baseball.

DH Swim

We meet a sweet group of friends at the Downing House every Monday for swimming and lunch. It really has been the highlight of our summer this year and I hope it will be a tradition for many more to come. Certainly a blessing to spend time with these friends of ours on a weekly basis. Today was the last day most of us could be there since school is starting for some families this week. We missed the Dornbirers and Yonans today but snapped some photos of most of the gang before the summer comes to an end...
I learned it is very very difficult to get this many children to look at the camera and be happy all at once.
Mrs. Jill Gilley gets the award for most awesome smile.
Love, love and more love to these precious friends!

Homeschool here we come...

Today marked Sophie's first official day of Kindergarten at home! She was enthusiastic to say the least -- up by 6:30am dressed and ready to go. She literally jumped like a kangaroo into our bedroom this morning with an enormous smile on her sweet little face. Her enthusiasm wained a little bit after about an hour of our lesson...Thomas constantly asking for a snack amongst other things did not help. We had to finish our reading during the boys afternoon nap which actually worked quite well. I was asking Soph to think of words that start with the letter "W". She said "water", and then got stumped, so I said "What do you do if you are really really wanting something to happen?" (I'm thinking of "WISH" here) and she says "oh, WHINE." It does start with "W" and was certainly a good laugh! Hopefully we'll get the hang of our school schedule sooner than later. But even if we don't, I'm not too concerned. I can tell I'm going to love this...
I hope my children will too!

Had to take a picture by the front door...
even though we didn't go anywhere:)

Holding her favorite little drawing notebook




I'm Pretty sure she'll be teaching me a thing or two!

Cannot Believe...

Henry is ONE!
Today was his big day and it came and went so quickly.
Mr. T asked about every five minutes {ALL DAY LONG} if it was time for the cake. No sweetheart, not until after dinner...like 8 hours from now. We had a usual day of swim lessons, chores, naps and errands. I took Henry on a little shopping excursion to Antrhopologie to get him a Jelly Cat stuffed dog. It was a fun outing for us and to Patrick's amazement and relief, the doggie was the only thing I purchased. I was thinking I could buy myself a "happy GIVE birthday" present but I refrained. Henry seemed pretty unfazed by his day until we sang happy birthday to him during dinner. He had the sweetest expressions that I had never really seen before tonight. I think he knew he was the man of the moment. Really glad we sang to him during dinner too because he was screaming while we sang to him for his cake. Something about not liking me wiping his eye with a wet cloth. I should have left his goopy eye well enough alone. It was a bummer, but he settled down after nursing and eventually enjoyed his cake and toys.

The first six months of his life were a total blur to me as I adjusted to being a mother of three. The last six months have been wonderful and I cannot imagine our family without our sweet boy. I enjoyed thinking today about Henry's birth and just how amazing it was that he was so healthy despite being 5 weeks premature. Thank you Lord for this gift of life.











Things he likes:
Rollin, rollin, rollin...
His big sister saying "YEEEAAAAHH HENRY!!!!!"
and "you're such a little chunker"
Hiding small choking hazard type objects like marbles in his mouth.
Nursing
Black beans and tomatoes

Nicknames:
Sir Henry
Henry Huggins
Hank
Hen