Merry Christmas!!

From our family to yours:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Fall Foto Fun

Our pastor {and friend} Brad took some pictures of our family....and {we think} they turned out great so we thought we'd share:

Singin...

Pilgrim's Progress

We got anxious after 2 vacant home comments ;-) Which I still feel were mostly unwarranted and ridiculous. And so we decided to knock out some projects this fall to spruce up the homestead.

Tim painted the front of the house, put up new shutters, added a tier to the front flower bed, painted the front door to match the shutters (navy), installed a new storm door (not pictured), and we mulched the front beds for plants in the spring...and it just looks so nice and warm and inviting...and inhabited!! I pity the fool that makes any type of home comments to me now....!!

We have spent some time outside on beautiful fall days...We raked the leaves into a big pile at the bottom of the slide. The boys LOVED it!! And the camera loves pictures on crisp & sunshiney fall days!!! Enjoy!!

My Levi Boy

Couch Time

Lots of couch time has been accumulated during the last weeks of not feeling well. Both boys alternated in falling asleep while watching some videos from the library. You know they're sick when they can't make it through a show!

My poor babies...but-OH!-so sweet when they're sleeping!

Sickies

We have been hit with a bout of sickness this October...which has meant lots of days in jammies. We are desperately hoping not to relive "The Plague of 2009" .... please pray for our health!

Gramps

Levi loves his GRAMPS...If I ever mention Gram and not Gramps, he has to make it a point to say, "GRAMPS!" Between sickness in both of our houses at different times, we hadn't seen Gramps for a while....so the boys were very happy when Gramps came over for an impromptu visit. Levi brought him over a book to read him and Gramps just couldn't say no!

When Momma Needs A Break...

She sends the boys out to cut the grass!!

FALL DAYS

Double Deuce!

Aunt Brittany turned the big 2-2 on the 22nd of September...so we had a little birthday celebration (mine was the 14th)...

Fall Routine

We hit the ground running after vacation...and it has been so much fun! Literally, the week we got back, we started fall story hour at our award winning library, our MOMS Konnect! playgroup through our church, and CBS School (which Mason sometimes calls BS School--HA!).


Mason loves his 'pre-school'! He has made lots of new friends and comes home with lots of stories and anecdotes from his morning. Early this summer, we made a painstaking decision to not put Mason into our local co-op pre-school for the fall term. It would have meant we would have been unable to do CBS and with Tim's 24 on/48 off schedule, it would have meant less family/daddy time and we decided that was more important. CBS (short for Community Bible Study) meets once a week...which allows us time for impromptu family field trips & play dates and also allows us to be involved in the library story hour and not be rushed to get out of the house 3 days a week. They have an excellent children's program and it also has an excellent adult program that I am really enjoying! I was second guessing our decision a couple weeks ago, but am now so assured that it was the right decision for our fam!

And, just as a side note, Mason and I are working extra hard on our letters, numbers, cutting, and other 'pre-school skills'. ... so don't worry for a second that he will be behind!!

Here are some pics for you to enjoy!

::Mason's first day of preschool::

:: Priceless ::

:: Brothers sharing, a rare-but-more-often-occuring moment ::

obx 2009

more details about our 2009 vacation to come...but here are some (of the far too many) pics that were taken. my sister did a professional photo shoot of our fam so i am excited to see those very soon....think white t-shirts and khakis...

uncle phil and his nephews...

mason dancing to the beat of the waves next to Gram

...wading...

my brother matt soaking in the sun

tim & boys digging

Snip Snip

Levi got his first haircut today...about time considering he is 19 months old! He wasn't so sure at first, but then he just sat their nonchalantly with an expression like...Hey Mom, this is what big boys do....

Of course, it helped that big brother was in the booth next door showing him what to do...

uh....I'm not so sure about this...

all cleaned up...and checking himself out in the mirror!

CORNHOLE

a blank slate ...

... stirring the paint ...