Micah on Thanksgiving

Here are a couple of pictures taken of Micah on Thanksgiving. We were out throwing this "bumper" for Ellie. Micah would throw it (all of 3 feet) and Ellie was very patient - usually- to wait until he had thrown it to try and get it. They had a blast together! :)

Riding in the car!

We went to my parents house for Thanksgiving and had a great time. It is always a blessing to be surrounded by family, although we wish we could have been with ALL of our family, not just a portion of it. :)

I have several fun pictures from our time there, but here are a couple to start off with. These were taken on our way over on Thursday morning!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know it's a day early, but I wanted to wish every one a very happy Thanksgiving. I hope that you are able to spend the day with loved ones! I have so much to be thankful for, more than could ever be written in a blog. Have a great day tomorrow! :)

Riding and Pushing

Joshua and I downloaded two new videos today. One is of multi-talented Joshua, riding his bike and snorkeling. The other is of Micah finally figuring out how to push his toy while walking! :)

Wrestling with Daddy!

The boys love to wrestle with their daddy! Both Joshua and Micah get in on the action and pounce on Neil. Somehow, he manages to "wrestle" both of them, but keep the boys from hurting each other accidently! They always have a blast! What a Dad!

Scuba Diver in the Making!

Joshua spent a good part of Saturday wearing this mask and snorkel! He even rode his bike around for awhile with it on (of which I do have a video of...so maybe you'll see that one, too!). One of his favorite parts about being "Scuba Joshua" was the sounds he could make through the snorkel tube. Surprisingly, what ended his play time with it is that he had stuffed a bunch of dirt inside the snorkel while playing outside. And I just haven't gotten around to washing it out!

New Words and Sounds!

Micah is trying hard to talk and say words. There are already many things that we can recognize or understand what he is trying to say. He has always called the milk in his cup "juice" for some reason, although he rarely gets juice. But this morning, when I asked him if he could say milk, he nodded his head yes and then said "k" or the sound that the k makes at the end of the word milk. That was definitely something new for him. He has a word that is similar to blanket, says "this" quite often, and the list goes on. He was saying "thank you", but has dropped that for the moment. When he's upset, he calls for "mama", and when he's happy and looking for Neil, he practically yells "dada". "Book" and "look" have been in his vocab for a long time now.

As for trying to make the sounds of things, some new ones are the sound of an airplane, a cat's meow, a horse, and an elephant. He's already proficient at a dog's bark and a duck's quack! :) The elephant sound is funny because he tries to raise his arm like the trunk of an elephant. So cute!

This is such a fun, yet sometimes frustrating phase to be in. I enjoy the newness of his words and phrases, but as all of you know who have children, it's sometimes hard to try to communicate. This morning, we spent several minutes trying to figure out which book he wanted to read. After my pulling out several and asking him if he wanted to read them, we finally found the right one. It's amazing that he has preferences already!

More videos!

I just uploaded two more videos. One is of more box fun with the boys! It's the gift, that wasn't really a gift, that just keeps giving! :) The other video is of Joshua learning to climb trees at the park the other day! There is a tree in our yard that he loves to climb. The only problem is that it's not a very big tree (think Charlie Brown tree) and he likes to try to go higher than I would prefer! Sometimes it's hard to find the balance between being a protective parent and letting him test his limits!

Brrrr!

We met some friends at the park today. Yesterday, the weather was beautiful, almost warm. Today, it is 50 and windy, with winds from the north. Thankfully, it is still sunny! It's hard to make the shift from just layering up to wearing big coats, hats, gloves, etc. Regardless, we had a good time and it wore the boys out! That's a bonus for me, as it means they are both currently sleeping! Enjoy your day! :)

The Joy of Reading

I am so thankful that both of my boys love books! Joshua thoroughly enjoys our trips to the library and then reading the books the rest of the week. He is totally into non-fiction these days, and absolutely soaks up everything that we learn. Micah is really starting to get excited about books, also. Yesterday, while I was trying to get Joshua situated for his rest time, Micah followed me around with a book that he wanted to read. He must have followed me, holding the book up in the air, for a solid three minutes before I could scoop him up to read it! What a precious moment! And this morning while Joshua and I were eating breakfast, Micah walked around the room several times with a book in hand, coming back to me at least three times for me to read it to him! :) I love it!

All they want for Christmas...

...is a nice, sturdy box!! This box has brought hours and hours of fun for the boys. It has been a car, a storage container, something to decorate, a place to hide in, and much more! :) It never ceases to amaze me how something so simple can provide so much entertainment!

Video Update

I uploaded several new videos from the past week. It's amazing to me how a week can go by, and if i'm not intentional about the things that I would like to get done, then, well, they don't get done. :) You can find the new videos on my video bar. Enjoy!

A Walk Down Memory Lane

While Joshua and I were hanging out this afternoon, we decided to go through some of his pictures when he was as old as Micah is now - about 14 months. I pulled up some pictures from May of 2006. Wow. That seems like so long ago. I thought others might enjoy seeing them as well! :)

Neil and I were reminiscing about the blackberry patch we had at our house in AR. At not much older than 15 months, Joshua would go straight for those blackberry bushes and eat whatever berries he could find - ripe OR green! And those thorns didn't seem to matter at all! Joshua seems to forever have a deep love for blackberries! On Tuesday night, Neil took Joshua to Sam's to pick up a few of the bulk items we get there, and Joshua spied a container of blackberries. Those blackberries made it home with the guys, and they didn't last 24 hours in our house! YUM!

Let's go back a bit...

A friend from church sent me some pictures of Joshua that were taken at our Fall Festival. Here is one with his friend, Bailey! They had such a fun time and always enjoy seeing each other at church! :) She was "Super Bailey" and Joshua was Superman! Needless to say, they thought it was a blast!

Micah was sick for a good part of the weekend, but is doing better now. Before he got really bad, though, we did manage to make it to a hockey game. The boys really enjoyed it and we made it through two of three periods, which says alot, since Micah is usually in bed by 7:30!

Last night, Micah was finally feeling better, and we all needed to get out of the house. We headed over to our local Bass Pro, which is already completely decked out for Christmas! They had a huge kids area with games, free photos with Santa, and more! They where also showcasing some of their more pricey christmas gifts for kids, of course. Both boys had their pictures taken with Santa. This is the first time ever for either of them. Joshua was unsure, but the prospect of getting a candy cane helped him to overcome any fears. Micah, on the other hand, was not a happy camper! All in all, we had a good time, and didn't even have to spend any money! :)

At the farm

Yesterday we went with our Friday playgroup to tour a local farm. We had a great time, but it was cold and windy! Thankfully, we were bundled up! The boys got to call the cows, which they thought was a blast. That morning, before we left, Neil jokingly told Joshua to have fun "wrestling the pigs". After we saw the cows, Joshua then asked the farmer where his pigs where, as he wanted to go "wrestle one"! So funny! He doesn't miss a thing!

I couldn't resist!

It's almost that time again...time for haircuts. The boys generally do well with it, although Micah is a bit of a challenge. I couldn't resist posting this picture. It is from two haircuts ago, and they both got short cuts. I had been trying to let Joshua's grow out a bit on top, but all it does is stick up in the back. So, we might go back to short cuts for awhile. Any tips on how to cut it so that it won't stick straight up in the back? :) By the way, I couldn't get them to look at the camera because they were busy watching a video, which is about the only way I can get their hair cut these days!

No pics, just thoughts...

What a busy, fun, and challenging week it has been. We haven't really done much, but I've been trying to spend more undivided time with the boys, which means that I don't get as much done during the day. Micah does not sleep that much, and when he is awake, he's pretty high maintenance. So, that leaves Joshua and I very little time to spend together. I've noticed lately that this has been taking it's toll on Joshua. I'm going to have to get more creative with the time we have...oh, the joys of parenthood.

On a completely unrelated topic, we had another flat tire on the 4runner this week. I can't even begin to tell you how many flats we've had in the nearly two years we've lived here. The roads here are horrible. I know there are worse things in the world, and it's not that big a deal. We've even come to laugh at it, as it occurs so frequently. Thankfully, I had just gotten home from running an errand when I noticed the sound of air slowly leaking out. Joshua thinks it's "cool" and then goes off to ride his bike and have a "flat", which he then has to fix, of course! What a boy!

More Park Pics

Park Play

Yesterday we headed to the park up the street from our house. It's a part of the elementary school there, so we can only go on the weekends and in the afternoons after school has let out. With the days getting shorter, it's going to be more difficult to make it up there during the week. But both the boys love to play there, and we get some exercise on the way there and back. I took my camera this time and snapped over a hundred shots of them playing! Wow, so much, all for the perfect shot! Here are some pics from our excursion!

Dancing Spiderman and more...

Last Friday night we went to a fall festival at a local church that some friends go to. Joshua got to play games, bounce in a big blow up bounce game, and do other fun things. Micah pretty much clung to a basketball from one of the games all night long! They both got lots of special treats! I took the video camera instead of the Nikon because it is small and easy to handle. This was great, but I also didn't get many good shots of the boys in their costumes. We did get a short family video of Neil with the boys. There is another new video of Micah dancing and clapping to the music! So fun!!

Maybe this is a good time to post a disclaimer: I am not that good with the video camera. I am much more at home with my manual camera in my hands! :) So, bear with me as I try to become more proficient at it! There is great value in both mediums, and I really want to become better at capturing the boys, both on camera and on video!

Lightning McQueen and Grasshoppers!

Today was an eventful day for Micah! He finally figured out how to get onto the Lightning McQueen riding toy ALL BY HIMSELF! He was so pleased with himself and had a grand time getting on and off, over and over again! It takes quite a bit of practice to figure out how to swing the leg over. I was impressed! :)

As for Joshua, the kid is amazing. He manages to scoop up bugs that other kids can only dream of! In the picture above, he is showing off the catch of the day, a grasshopper. Those critters can be difficult to catch, but he seems to do it with the greatest of ease, just like his Daddy!

The boys seemed to handle the time change okay. Thankfully, they only got up at 6:15 am. I was worred that it would be 5:15 a.m.! We'll see how they do the rest of the week. After dinner tonight, I voiced to Neil that I would miss our evening walk. He suggested that we should go anyway, even though it was pitch black outside. So, we grabbed a flashlight and went on a "tree frog hunt"! The boys thought that our evening walk was a blast!