Jack's Birthday

This weekend we celebrated Jack-Jack's 3rd birthday.  We celebrated his love of life, the sweet joy that seeps out of him, peels of laughter and shrieks of undiluted happiness.  We celebrated his stubborn nature, his love to sleep during the day but not at night and his determined "if I can't do it I am just going to push my way through" mind set.  Ugh, we love this little heart melting monkey-child who still loves to be rocked a little bit before bed time and held every once in a while.  And if he is in just the right mood, he wants his hand held too.

Learning to hold up 3 fingers is hard!

It 

A new bike!  A red bike!

And a fishing pole!

Done with dinner!

We celebrated him on his actual birthday on Saturday and again with his cousins and Auntie Danielle, Auntie Meg and Uncle Tim on Sunday at the zoo.
In November it is pretty cold here and today it was about 20, so we had a lot of the zoo to our selves, which we loved.  We got up close with a lot of the animals, who were pretty active.  We saw a lot of the monkeys.  We saw camels, wild horses, a pile of sleeping but not hibernating bears, lynx at play, prairie dogs, the tiger, penguins and all kinds of critters.  But the best one was the leopard.  He was moving around by the glass, undisturbed by the large, loud pack of human juveniles who were watching him and shrieking, laughing and enjoying their celebratory selves.  When we had moved just a few feet away, we heard him start to cough up a hair ball-large cat style.

Rurgh, rurgh, rurgh, rughr, rughr.  So we rushed back to watch him roar over and over again.  It was pretty cool.  Rurgh, rurgh, rurgh.  Then our loud pack of littles was back in front of the glass, quietly fascinated by up close his antics.  In the middle of a RURGH (not quite a roar, not quite a cough), he looked up, made eye contact with five little boys and sheepishly stopped mid Rurgh.  We all burst out laughing at the embarrassed look on his face and his hasty retreat to the back of the enclosure.  It was hilarious!  I don't think the kids will ever forget the leopard and his hairball.

  

At the zoo with Unc Tim.

Birthday cupcakes

Lil Devil and Auntie Danielle

Warm baby on a cold day...soon to be sleeping!

Linc and the fisher

Wing Span

Here are a few pictures of our sweet baby boy over the last year.

Some of my fav's.

A project Brayden had created for the TV show Artzooka.

Charlotte and Pops, the sound guy.

Charlotte, Elizabeth Reis and Chris Eggert, hosts of TCL.

When Brayden grows up...

Today, Brayden told me he wants to be a singer when he grows up.

That makes sense, since he sings all of the time.  And he picked up some new dance moves watching the Country Music Awards.  He plays his guitar quite a bit too.

However, he sings like his mama.  We might need to start voice lessons...

November

Hi!

This is my Sophie!

I love kisses!

I can wear my hair back in a bow!

How many toes can you fit in your mouth?

Grizzly's fur was in pretty rough shape.

So Auntie Danielle agreed to shave him.

Who knew it would be a kin to cutting Sampson's hair?

Griz has been really sad since he was shaved.

But he has loved all of the extra attention!

Now that we are in the house more, Peanut is getting more attention, too.

Charlotte finally got her crib canopy.

The boys helped with yard work-they are such sweet, loving big helpers.

And heart melters with their sweet, cheery good will.