Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Nest Watch: 2011



There are things I love about living in the country.





There are things I hate about living in the country. The return of spiders in every corner of our house that refused to be killed off by rather constant vaccuming, the always immenint threat of shoes, tissues and fly swaters and the return of misquitos, ants and mice.







What do I love about living in Rural America? Lots. But today, today it is our Nest Watch.


Ladies and gentlemen, we are expecting babies!






Twelve misquito, fly, grub and beatle eating babies! We will only keep 4 of them, the rest will be up for sale. We hope the four we keep will be able to put up with their dad, the attack duck.






On another note, Brayden and Jack spent some time alone with their daddy today. Jeremiah was in the kitchen when he heard Brayden say "Stuck! Stuck Daddy! Jack Stuck!" He dropped what he was doing with one thought on his mind. "Uh oh!"




This is what he found. He had put his beloved new helmet on his little brother's head, carefully snapped the snap and then stepped back to watch. When he tried to get it back, he couldn't undo the strap...and Jack was indeed "stuck"! :)

Saturday, May 21, 2011

All in One Day.

I had to work this rainy Saturday morning. While I was working, there was also an unrelated hospital sponsored bike rodeo giving away free helmets. So I called up my fellas, and they arrived just in time to score one.







We knew Brayden would love it. Little toughie here didn't even want to take it off for his nap. We had to bargin hard to keep him from wearing it to the birthday party this afternoon.








All the while, it rained. It rained hard.









Then it rained harder.






Then the sun shone.






Ad then the skies opened up and dropped an unfathomable amount of rain, trapping us at the birthday party for an extra hour or so.






Another neighbor gave us a ride across the street because it was raining so hard, and we had the boys.





Later, we poked our heads out to find the creek was swollen up to the gate on the pasture. Then the neighbor called to tell us our pond had flooded the street. We didn't believe her, so we went out to look.







We should have believed her. It was up across our driveway, across the street and filled up a good part of the pasture.





We hope it goes down tomorrow. And we are gratefull the horses are at Auntie Danielle's house and not swimming through the fence.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Rolling Means Mobile. At 5 Months.








A couple of weeks ago, Jack started rolling as a form of transportation. He could now get to whatever he wanted. The only problem is, we never knew where we were going to find him when we came back in the room.






Tonight, I caught that beautiful, determined little baby scooting himself around the living room. He was really far off of the blanket, turned in the opposite direction I had faced him in and he was pulling himself across the floor.



Oh oh.



Doesn't he know he isn't quite six months old yet (he still has like 7 more days!) and he shouldn't be so mobile yet?!? His beautiful little squack and shriek of a giggle has turned into a hard little laugh that I adore. His little pounds are so heavily packed in his little frame that he wears the same size diapers that Brayden wears to sleep at night. He also pulled himself up to a sitting postition while he was in his brown bouncy chair. No more brown bouncer, I guess! Another perfect example of how his sweet, silly, snuggley personality is backed by stubborn determination.



We have been spending a lot of time outside, now that the weather is nice. It wasn't there for a while...okay, a long time! And we had to entertain ourselves inside.



Bubbles are Brayden's favorite form of entertainment,

second to Sesame and The Dinasour Train.



And Brayden finally got his birthday present...his sandbox!


Yay! Happy birthday, little love!

Monday, May 2, 2011

Routine

We have a routine at our house, and I love it. It doesn’t happen every night, but three or four nights a week we fall into it.

It is my favorite time.

Brayden gets his jammies on and brushes his teeth and then picks out which story or stories he wants to read that night.

Then the four of us snuggle onto the love seat in the living room and read books. Sometimes Daddy reads it, sometimes Mommy, sometimes Brayden…sometimes all three of us.

And Jack, Jack sits on my lap watching his daddy and his brother with wide eyed wonder, his face so open and shining with adoration.

Then he wants to read the books too. So he thwaps his little arms and works his little hands until he gets a hold of some part of Brayden. And just before Brayden starts up a ruckus, I remind him that is how Jack tells him that he loves him.

And then somewhere between the layers of the book pages and Daddy’s voice we hear a quiet little “Wuv you too Jack”.

And in that moment, I am so proud of us as parents...I think we are getting it right.