First of many, I am sure.

We went to Paradise Park today with some friends, and had a wonderful time! But, something happened during our visit, that made me not look forward to the later years with our boys, especially with Owen, who is incredibly sensitive.

Owen was playing in the water room with his friend Avree, and I was feeding wade his lunch at a nearby table. A mom that was with our group was in the water room, and she heard another mom go "EWW! He is drinking the water!!" She was referring to Owen, who, clever little man, was using the measuring cups to get water from the water table and drink from. Obviously, that is pretty gross, but obviously a 3-year-old boy doesn't see the problem, lol! But Owen heard what the mom had said ("EWWW!") and knew that she was talking about him. He then put the toys down, and didn't play anymore. He gets embarrassed and heart-hurt so easily, it breaks my heart. I know that there will be many more times in his life where he gets embarrassed and withdraws, and I know that I can't do much more about it than to encourage him to be his amazing self. I hate thinking about how he must have been feeling when he heard the other lady say "ewwww!" at him. I wish my babies would never have to know what that feels like. I wish I could have been there today, to say "O, no big deal! If you are thirsty, let's go get a drink!" With him, quickly diffusing the situation is key to preventing him from feeling bad. I feel bad I wasn't able to do that today.

Sweet moment with my sweet boys

I realize that I have yet to post pics from O's 3rd birthday, and write his annual letter to him. Guess that means I am out of the Mother of the Year race. RATS! I do need to do that, like, soon, obvi, before I forget all of the fun that occurred at his party.

We went to Lowe's yesterday, to buy some wind stakes for O's trampoline. The boys were riding in one of the racecar carts, and this lady that works at Lowe's came up and started chatting with my boys, which, who can blame her seeing as how my boys are so sweet and charming, who could resist them?? After she asked Owen the standard questions "what is your name? how old are you? are you a good boy? is this your little brother...?" to which Owen politely and sweetly answered, she moved onto Wade. Wade loooooves to play the "me so shy and coy!" game when people are talking to him, usually he will smile at the person, and bury his head in my chest. Well, since I wasn't holding him, he instead snuggled right into Owen, laid his head on O's shoulder, and hugged O's arm, while smiling sweetly at the lady. I.About.Died. from the cuteness. Owen then spoke up for his brother and said, "It's okay, he is just shy!" Awwww!

In other news, both boys are still amazing. Owen is smart as a whip, and starts tball here shortly. He is so dang excited. He is going to be on a team with Hudson and Gavin, which makes this even better! Wade is doing great! He is almost 11 months now, and not crawling! But before you start "oh my gosh! wade isn't crawling yet! can you believe it? that is crazy! something is wrong!"...I asked their pediatrician a few weeks ago about it, and his reply was "Be glad! Less chance for him to hurt himself!" Apparently crawling isn't even a milestone since so many kids just don't do it. He has the strength to do it, because he will hang out in the crawling position, but he just doesn't seem to care! Oh well! No skin off of my nose. ;)

Camera Gear

After my last post, I got a few emails asking what equipment I have...so, here it is!

Camera Bodies:
Canon 5D
Canon 30D (back-up)

Lenses:
50 mm 1.4
85 mm 1.8
24-70 2.8L

This year, I am planning on selling my 30D, and getting the new 5D Mark III when it is released, then my 5D classic will become my backup. I also hope to add the 70-200 2.8L IS lens to my "gear" this year. Exciting stuff! At least it is to me, lol.

Where have I been?

Wow, it has been a hot minute since I updated this thing! Let's see what has been going on with us...

-Owen turned 3! I have a big blog post to make about that whole shindig. It was so much fun! I still can't believe my baby is three. How.Is.That.Possible?

-We got Owen all signed up for spring Tball! He is so excited. He is going to be on the same team as his little friends Gavin and Hudson. We can't wait to see him play. He is a sports nut and he is going to completely eat this up.

-Wade is fabulous! Such a happy baby. We have been working through sleep issues. He was getting up 8-12 times a night, and it was realllly beginning to wear on me. We did a modified Smith of the No Cry Sleep Solution, and we are happy to say that he is doing great! He is down to only waking an average of 3x per night. And he naps in his crib now and sleeps in his crib until 3 am or so! Woohoo!

-Chris has been doing great at work. I am so thankful that he works so hard so I have the opportunity to stay at home with our kiddos. He has been having lunches with the president of his company, and just last week, the OWNER of his company sent him a personal letter thanking him for his leadership, professionalism, and hard work. Way to go, babe! Just had to brag on him for a sec.

I need to update with some pictures of the boys! They are growing like dadgum weeds!

First Snow

When it snowed last week, it was far too cold for us to venture out, so I laid out some trash bags with beach towels in our living room, and brought in bowls of snow for the boys to play in. Here is O's snowman that he made!


He was pretty proud of himself!

This is his "policeman" face. He always talks about how he is eating his dinner so "I can be strong...like a police man!", or "Careful, momma...I will do it for you, I am a policeman." LOL!



Wadey wasn't in the best mood during this activity, so he decided to eat the snow, instead.



...and he hated it!

Halloween

October came and went in the blink of an eye. I was crazy busy with pictures, I had sessions almost every day the last half of October! So that explains my lack of posting. Carving pumpkins! Owen is not a fan AT ALL of getting his hands dirty. So, you can imagine how stoked he was to discover what was inside of the pumpkin he was supposed to help scoop out...

Meanwhile, Wade chilled in his highchair, being a little cutie-patootie.


Owen is refusing to help scoop pulp out.


It was hilarious, he was so disgusted by what was in that pumpkin!


Finally after daddy got all of the guts/string out, Owen pretended to help. Of course he used a spoon, and didn't actually TOUCH the inside of the pumpkin, but whatev.



And because he is, like, SO BIG, he had to have his own (butter) knife to carve the pumpkin.


Our's was not a fancy pumpkin, folks. That is what happens when momma forgets to buy a carving kit, and on October 30th runs to Target to grab one, only to discover that they are all gone!


We, scratch that, Owen and I do a lot of crafts around here. Chris says that it is because my inner 1st grade teacher is trying to escape, and I would say he is probably right. Before we had kids, and we were in college, Chris worked for Liberty Schools maintenance department, and did electrical work. He always joked that elementary teachers would probably quit their jobs if they weren't allowed to hang things from the ceilings. SO TRUE! I have carried that home with me, as evidenced by the orange/black paper chain, egg carton bats, pipe cleaner spiders, fingerpaint spiderwebs, and footprint ghosts that were alllllll hanging from our kitchen table light during the month of October. :o) Here are our ghost lanterns. I will let you guess which one was done by: *mommy, *owen and mommy, *owen.


Halloween night! We had a Toy Story theme going. Izzy was Jessie, but unfotuately they weren't able to come out with us. We still had a great time, though and the kids got a ton of candy! After each and every house, Owen would run up to Joel (Hudson's dad) and say, "I GOT THE CANDIES BARS!!!!!!" Every.Time. We were rolling laughing. We had a great halloween!!