More of Owen!

Brothers!

Adam usually wants to be in all the photos I am shooting. However, this last photo shoot, I really wanted him to take some pictures with Owen and he did not want to. After a lot of bribing, I finally got him in a matching shirt and we got a few -- then Adam was done.

Owen photo shoot

Today my photography club had a little photo shoot and Owen was the star of the show. I have lots of pictures to share over the next few days, but here was one of my favorite!

Owen eating

or trying his best to eat . . . It gets hard since mom won't put any food on my spoon. Watch the video and you will understand why!!!!

The High Chair

We have so many places for Owen to sit -- the backpack, the bouncy seat, the exer saucer, the jumpy thing, and today he loved the high chair.

He is just so cute. (warning : picture overload)

Elephant Steps

We had a little field trip for Adam and his school buddies. The place is called Elephant Steps and it is in Norwalk. We had such a good time discovering this fun place. It is unfortunate that it is closing this weekend. . . for good. But at least we had a chance to go there before it was gone.

Here are some pictures from our adventure!

Owen sure gets a worried look when I put the camera up in front of my face.

The Backpack

Owen loves me.

His eyes light up when I walk in the room. He tracks me at ALL times and knows where I am. He smiles at me with so much sweet devotion. In a perfect world I would just hold him all day long.

Oh . . . wait. I do hold him all day long. He insists. Thankfully I have "the backpack".

Owen waiting at the dentist

"Sitting up asking "is Madelyn done at the dentist yet?""

Looking down

My friend Keri took some beautiful pictures of a little boy looking down so that his eyelashes were the focus of the picture. So here are my little boys and their eyelashes that I love so much.

Owen movin'

It has seemed like an overnight transition. Owen can now sit unaided. He can roll both directions. He can lay on his tummy and pivot around in a circle. He is so close to army crawling. His primary motivation is to reach phones, ipod touches, and remote controls. It makes me wonder what motivated babies to crawl before all these electronics existed. Here are my favorite pictures from today.








Adam was busy building quite the train tracks while Owen was going after the telephone!



and I just can't help myself -- yet another few bath time photos. Owen is just so cute when he is taking a bath. I can't resist!

"old school"

Owen just keeps growing

He is smiley and happy all the time -- but he especially loves to be held! Here he is helping daddy talk on the phone!

Things they love --

Today I am documenting some of the things my kids love so that I will always remember them when they outgrow them.

First, Julianne -- she loves bunny. This bunny was a gift from Deann and Jason Moore when Julianne was born. For about 2 years it sat on a shelf in her room and went relatively unnoticed. But then one day, she just had to sleep with it. . . and she has slept with it ever since. She loves it. One day while walking through town she spied an identical bunny in the windows of the whitney store only it was 10 times larger. She has said she would never replace bunny -- but that she wouldn't mind if bunny had BIG bunny around too!




Next, Catherine. She loves stuffed animals and books. She has never been able to settle on just one favorite. Her bed is a constantly shifting arrangement of as many stuffed animals as her mother will tolerate. These ones have been there since Christmas and her birthday. The pillow pet dog, the porcupine webkinz, and the fureal penguin.



Then, there is Madelyn. She has had this littlest pet shop stuffed penguin on her bed for a couple of years. But the newest addition to her favorite things is the silly yellow minnion from Despicable Me. She loves the movie and loves this plastic blow up minnion.




Adam is the first of our children to become attached to a blanket. His original blankie was finally moved to "museum" status (meaning it resides in a drawer for safekeeping and emergencies. We have been able to find acceptable replacements so that blankie can be appropriately cared for (laundered). It never goes anywhere with him, but always resides on his bed, crumpled by his pillow waiting for bedtime. Adam also has a new love -- DINO DAN on nickjr.com. HE IS OBSESSED. He watches the webisodes, prints out the pages, draws and tracks imaginary dinosaurs all over. He doesn't however appreciate me calling him DINO ADAM.





Owen, is just getting into favorite things. His first toy that he shows any interest in are these little linkies that I can hook on his car seat, swing, stroller, etc. . . He loves to eat them. I even keep a pacifier hooked on -- but don't be fooled he DOES NOT like his pacifier. If you try to give it to him, he will get mad. REALLY MAD. Just ask the ladies at the gym this morning who tried. Now if he puts the binkie in his mouth all on his own he is happy as can be just chewing all over it (but not sucking on it).





Next, there is me. I am loving my new lens -- a 50 mm f/1.4. I traded my 35 mm f/1.8 for this one (and some change) and I am loving it!!!!




Last of all is Trent. He currently is loving the sun. He has gone 7 days without shoveling snow. I found him on google the other day looking up "how long does it take for snow to melt" Our 10 day forecast does not predict any snow. So he may have time to pursue some other things. He is also loving BYU basketball games with Jimmer Fredette and reading articles like this one.

I could just eat him up!

It is just so fun to have this baby of ours around. He is cute all the time.

Another fun filled snowy day

The kids headed off to school this morning with the BIG storm looming. It was supposed to start around 4:00 this afternoon. Imagine all of our surprise when it started snowing heavily around 9 am. I abandoned hope of making it to the gym and headed down to the basement for some quality treadmill time. By the time I got back upstairs (exactly 42 minutes later -- which is the length of one episode of 24 that I watch on my iphone's netflix app while on the treadmill) it was apparent that the snow was not going to stop for a while. The phone quickly range informing me of an early dismissal day. I don't mind delayed starts or early dismissals because those don't eat away my summer days.

The boys and I hung out at home. Owen was so cute. He was so smiley and happy that I just had to take his picture. Adam thought he was so cute too and would lean in to kiss him. As soon as Adam got a little close to Owen, Owen would start to cry. It was so cute. Adam tends to be a little "in your face" with Owen. We are working on helping Adam understand boundaries a little better.







The girls got home and we just hung out. I saw the mailman drive by so I sent them out to get the mail. It was already starting to get dark so I sent both Julianne and Catherine. They quickly brought me the mail and then went right back outside. They had decided to surprise their dad by doing all the shoveling. Madelyn was not about to miss out on the shoveling fun. All 3 girls shoveled for nearly 2 hours. Trent was so happy for all their help. He got home around 7:30 and the girls were so excited for him to see all their work.













Of course by 7:00, the "big" storm had finally arrived. All their shoveling efforts have now been sufficiently undone by mother nature.

The only question that remains . . . will we have school in the morning?

Sisterly Love

I was trying to get a photo of Owen (because he was looking so cute) and Julianne was helping me hold him and reposition him. She was trying to get him to smile and being so entirely sweet. I caught this moment right at the end. Owen had had enough. Julianne was loving him anyway.

Beautiful Day, Beautiful Kids, Happy Mom

Here are some more pictures taken with my new lens on a stunning fall day here in Connecticut.

My poem

I have a love-hate relationship with the fall --
I love how it looks, how it feels;
but I hate that each day means our winter draws near
oh the dark, oh the cold, my heart reels.