Family Photos

As part of their Christmas gift to Mom and Dad, Tim and Holly arranged for us to have professional photos taken while the entire family was together in New Hampshire for Christmas. It was especially fun to get pictures of my parents with their three grandsons: Josiah is 3 years, Micah is 6 months, and William is nearly 3 months.

Eyes and Ears

We miss you, Jesse! I meant to more carefully note Josiah's comments today in order to document his chatter, as I'm sure you're missing daily doses of his articulated foolishness. Sadly, all that comes to mind right now is a comment more funny than quaint, uttered over lunch: "Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be a caterpillar feeder. I want to feed caterpillars." Of course, he's in the motherland of descriptive speech. "I feel like one of Nebuchudnezzar's henchmen" was uttered by my mom, mostly to herself, whilst stoking the fire yesterday.

William, for his part, continues to chat, coo, and sigh delightfully. He's such a sweetie! I'm including some photos of him, as he's been woefully underrepresented behind the lens this week; I imagine you're anxious to see more of him.

Busy Boy

Josiah certainly has enjoyed his grandmother's attention today...and observing it is just as much fun for me as a procession of our childhood toys are marched out from storage at intervals throughout each day!

I captured some of today's events on camera, but not pictured activities include Josiah and Nannan baking banana bread, choosing fabric from the stash for making a stuffed dinosaur tomorrow, playing with marbles and duplo blocks, and reading lots of books.

Making spinners and trains out of Tinker Toys.

Listening to stories and looking at the accompanying books with my old Fisher Price record player and Disneyland records. (What a blast from the past for me to hear several of those old stories again!)

Hearing the story of the first Christmas retold by Nannan with accompanying reenactment. The soft nativity set is one Mom whipped up out of scraps nearly 30 years ago. The stable is made of a Light Bright box I received as a Christmas gift as a little girl about Josiah's age!

Learning to play Snood on the computer. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. :)

The Snowman

Today Josiah constructed his first snowman. Well, really Nannan did the job, but Josiah sure enjoyed being a part! The rest of the week is supposed to be bitterly cold (single digits and teens Fahrenheit), so my mom very kindly and bravely took him out for some snowy fun.

Cousins!!

The boys and I have traveled to New Hampshire over a week early for Christmas. A few hours after we arrived on Sunday, Kara and Micah joined us and stayed for a day. We were excited to have all the cousins on this side of the family together for the first time!

Micah, at 6 months, has just started solid food. He definitely enjoys his spoon and the feel of oatmeal on his face. :)

Josiah and Papa were quick to introduce Micah to the wonderful world of trains!

Some of the Greats

Great-grandparents, that is. We were so delighted to have my paternal grandparents visit us this past week, and I think it's fair to say they were pleased to be here too. We celebrated a little, early mini-Christmas and had fun with the boys.

William proving that he's worthy of his name with Great-Papa, Bill.

Sharing smiles and coos with Great-Grandma.

William

We went to the pediatrician this week for Will's two-month check-up. They're a bit concerned about his excessive hair growth.

Sorry...couldn't resist. :) That was William being cuddled on Auntie Erin's shoulder last week over Thanksgiving! In any case, he's doing great. He feels like a little peanut compared to how ridiculously enormous Josiah was at this age, but he's already pretty big by most baby standards: 90th percentile for height (nearly 24 inches) and 95th percentile for weight (nearly 14 pounds). He's a ready smiler and loves to coo and chat with us these days. Super cute!

Here are some photos of him this past month.

5 weeks

6 weeks

8 weeks

almost 9 weeks

Fall Leaves

I know, I know. I've been terrible about posting for the past month. William has doubled in age (and practically doubled in size too!) since my last update. Over the next few days I'll try to get up some new pictures...

A few weeks ago we enjoyed a little raking and fun jumping in the leaves one sunny afternoon. Josiah enjoyed showing big leaves to Will. I took this photo of the two of them, and after I turned aside to put the camera away, Josiah announced to me with great happiness, "Mom! He licked it! I showed it to him and he licked it!"