Happy Birthday Brady and Tanner!

A few weeks ago we celebrated Brady's 5th and Tanner's 1st birthday! We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends. We are so fortunate that we can live far away and still be as close today as we were when we first met.

Family Picture Time Again

Gotta love the "fake smile" phase:).

You know what? Taking family pictures yourself is darn hard! One of these years we are going to make enough money for me to hire a real photographer:).

Or I will keep getting better until I actually like the ones I take. My biggest issue is focus. One thing, I think I still have my aperture too small even though I thought I had really opened it up. I guess I didn't because I can't seem to get everyone into focus. Focus would be my other issue. Here's the problem. I stand behind the camera and I focus in on someone's eye. Then I run and get into the picture and apparently that eye I focused in on moves because invariably the camera focuses in on a random blade of grass or a leaf somewhere. Boo!

Oh well, I was pretty happy with how these turned out. Especially since they were free:).

Growing Up

I came to a realization the other day... my little boy is all grown up. How did I come to this shocking revelation? It's simple.

His blue jeans.

For one thing, we bought him one pair and several pair of "softer" pants when we returned from Disney and they are already too short for him! Yikes! I guess that explains all the food he's been eating lately. We were very fortunate that our nurse at school gave us about 10 pairs of jeans that her son had outgrown. But, as you may remember Evan does not like blue jeans, or khakis, or anything else that is not sweatpants basically. I was bound and determined that he not go to kindergarten wearing sweatpants everyday and since we had all these jeans here, I decided just to start putting them on him.

Guess what? He doesn't mind them. Not a single complaint. He has not even mentioned "soft pants." That is when I really knew. My little boy was all grown up.

His temper has evened out so much over the last few months and he takes things in stride that used to cause major upsets. We are very glad about this, but it is also shocking to see how much he has matured. In fact, I can't remember the last temper tantrum he's had.

Now, he just happily pulls his jeans on in the morning. He sits calmly in the chair while they clipper his hair. He tries new foods without a fuss. He happily runs into school in the morning (I have to grab him and make him give me a hug!).

and he says,

"Sweet!" and "Awesome!"

He watches Harry Potter. He reads books. He counts to 300. He runs into my room in the afternoon and grabs his Bakugans and says, "Zack and I will be in the computer lab if you need me!" He checks books out from the library.

My little guy is definitely growing up!

But, don't worry, he still loves his pajamas and runs home everyday and puts them back on. And he still has some Evanisms, like

Poppy was making whisper noises in Evan's ear, not saying any real words. Evan said, "I can't understand you. Try a different language!"

Chloe wanted one of Evan's Hershey kisses and Evan said, "I'm sorry Chloe, but this is Bubba's private chocolate."

Evan explained to us that his friend, Carson, couldn't come over because they were going rock climbing. He then asked if he could go with them. I told him I didn't think he was really ready for that since he'd never been climbing before. He said, "Well, I'm sure there are some stairs or an elevator there somewhere!"

He has finally found a sandwich he likes: Grilled cheese. Last night he said, I love grilled cheese! It is my favorite food along with lobster, crab, and shrimp! Again, I'm pretty sure it is the butter.

Cuteness by Chloe

Chloe is such a little mess right now. She swings back and forth between the terrible twos and the sweetest little thing you've ever seen. She has definitely learned to be cute and how to turn on the charm. She will make a little pitiful face and ask for things in the cutest little voice, for example,

"Mommy, can I have some yogurt, pwetty pwease. My little tummy is so hungy. It says it needs yogurt right now."

She has also learned the power of bargaining, for example,

"I need one more piece of chocolate in my little hand and then I'll go home."

So, we got her the chocolate and she ate it and I told her it was time to go and she says,

"But I need one more piece of chocolate in my little hand."

I said, "No, you had one more piece of chocolate and you said you would go home after one more piece of chocolate in your little hand."

She responds, "But, it's not in my hand because I ate it silly willy!"

Clever girl.

But, this little girl can get some serious attitude as well. She can drive Evan crazy with her bossiness and tantrums, but he is pretty good with her. She has the eye-roll down to a fine art, although she sometimes looks a little posessed when she does it. She also likes to say "O-KAY" or Al-RIGHT" in a perfect teenage voice. And she has learned how to stamp her foot and pout as well.

Such as huffing loudly, crossing her arms, and saying "FINE!" as she stomps off. One day at my mom's she pulled this little move and then plopped down on the floor with her arms crossed in front of the TV and said,
"FINE! I'll just watch the news then!"

Chloe also loves to sing! She often sings herself to sleep and wakes up singing. We love to hear her little voice over the monitor. She puts on shows for her Grandparents and Granddaddy Ben and loves to bow when she is finished. This morning Matthew had her singing "Paradise City". My favorite line: "I want you to please take me hoooooome!"

But, more than anything she is still my little sweetheart. Last night she told me, "You are my best friend mommy."

I told her she was my best friend daughter and she said, "We'll be best friends forever."

That's what I'm counting on, sweetie.

For Every Good Shot....

there are a million that just don't cut it! After searching through the millions of photos I took this year I wasn't happy with any of them for Christmas cards this year. I feel like I can never get good shots anymore! So, I decided to take some this afternoon. And, as usual, I was working under a deadline because Shutterfly's sale on Christmas Cards ended today. So, of course, my extremely cooperative and photogenic kids were more than willing to oblige and perfectly pose and smile for my shots....

Or maybe not.

See for yourself....

We had many issues at this photo shoot... Chloe didn't want to leave her Granddaddy. She didn't want to give up her sucker (which had also made her teeth red). Evan refused to remove his jacket and had spilled yogurt all over his shirt. I literally decided to do this as I was driving home and did not give one iota of thought to what the kids were going to wear (because I was just going to take it in whatever they had on). That is why the toboggans came into play. I decided they would wear winter coats and toboggans to cover up crazy clothes and hair, but Chloe's coat was too bulky and made her look like a marshmellow and then Evan wouldn't take his off. Chloe is in a "fake smile" phase. Evan is the most impossible child to photograph. He turns into a big pile of jelly and any movement you suggest is over exaggerated by 20 and cannot smile on purpose naturally. Not to mention the obvious that it is just impossible to get two children to look at the camera at the same time. And of course there is the issue of them having to sit that close to each other without fighting. But, despite all of that... I actually ended up with some of my favorite pictures so far.

These did not make the Christmas card cut either for some obvious reasons, but I loved them because they were so natural and real. I loved the expressions on their faces in them. I'm keeping the Christmas card pictures a secret for now. I might post the entire later, after I have mailed them all out so I won't spoil the surprise:).

 In other news.... can you believe November is over half over?! Yikes and am I ever behind on alot of things... Christmas cards not being the greatest of them. I have so many posts to get together to share. My goal is this weekend. We've been busy and having lots of fun this November even in Matthew's and my old age. That's right we each had a birthday early in this month. And we both had to do the math to remember how old we were turning. That is definitely a sign of getting old. Another sign is when we have to pull the calculator out to do the math... but wait, where did we put that calculator again?

Anyway, I promise to try to be a better blogger and will begin by bombarding you with posts just as soon as I get a free moment. That will hopefully be before January:)