Annual snapshots

Last fall Jesse and I took photos of the boys and wrote up some super brief text to (kinda-sorta) capture their interests and personalities at that moment in time. Over the weekend we did this year's version. I'd like to think we'll carry this little tradition forward throughout their years at home, but for now I'm satisfied just to have managed two years running!  :)  They're not at all professional-grade work, but I like 'em anyway. 

I'm printing out each year's pic as a 5x7, and with any luck we'll have a little book of them eventually.

Threescore and Ten (halfway there)

I turned 35 on Friday. (Jesse was reminded before he left for the DR that if he ever kissed a 34 year old again, he'd be in big trouble. Ha!) He made it home late Friday night, and Tillie put together a really lovely birthday brunch on Saturday morning to celebrate.

I am well loved and have a feeling that 35 will be a great year.

(How couldn't I with a kiddo like this in my life?!)

All In The Golden Afternoon

Today I was home with the boys all day. Well, Josiah had school this morning, but when it's only a half day for half day kindergarten...he was barely gone before it was time to fetch him again!

Actually, before getting to the golden afternoon part, let me stick a few earlier pics from the day in here. 

I cut some circle holes in a box for a beanbag toss game this morning. Both boys enjoyed it...

...although William was somewhat hampered by the fact that he liked to hog all of the beanbags. Made throwing a little tough. He wanted the entire pile in his arms even when Josiah wasn't around, just for the challenge of holding them all? Who knows.

Josiah has been doing a great job keeping up with his little chores. As you know, his one "special job" yesterday was moving over some laundry. Today's was unloading the dishwasher, which he did surprisingly well.



But moving on to the afternoon: We went off to find a little adventure. It was cold and blustery but bright. Since both boys enjoy bridges (William especially begs me to pull u-turns to go back under or over bridges when we're out and about...) I thought we'd find Neff's Mill covered bridge, not many miles from here but which we've never seen. We found it just fine and it was quaint and lovely, but the road was super narrow and the landowners all around seemed clearly uninterested in tourists stopping to actually get out—there was nowhere safe to tuck even our little car seeing as the side of the road was pegged with stakes and such. The bridge itself is one lane and all wood. We had fun driving through (three times, since we did the obligatory u-turn twice!).


Stymied from getting out there, we carried on to the park in Strasburg and had a ramble through the wetland paths instead. It was a great nature walk. The boys enjoyed seeing berries and birds, sticks and stones, and their pockets were well-filled by the end as any little boy's pockets should be on such an occasion.

Milkweed pods certainly stole the show. They were a new wonder for the kids. You can see the front pod in the photo above has been divested of its silken contents. Many little parachutes made it into pockets:

Others were carefully inspected at various stages of development:

And lots were simply scattered to the wind!

Plenty of fun. :) What these pictures don't show is how chilly we were getting or the fact that William actually wanted to be carried most of the time, but we obviously had a wonderful time anyway. Oh, and before heading home for hot chocolate with marshmallows, we took a 20 minute stop at the playground.

And there you have it! Wish you were here with us, Daddy!

This and That

We're happy to know you're safely in the Dominican Republic again, Jesse. We hope all goes well these next couple of days and are thankful that this will be a record short trip!

Our first full day without you went just fine. I spent much of it at work, both boys were at school for the morning, and your parents had them for the afternoon. The camera wasn't out until evening...and frankly, as you'll see below, what got documented probably doesn't particularly bear memorializing. But the whole point of these posts is so you feel like you're here with us, right? Goofy and inconsequential—it's the stuff of life right now.

We had fettucine for dinner. The boys wanted their noodles long, because seriously, where's the fun in bite-sized pasta?

After dinner, Grace read the boys a couple of Mr. Men books while I tidied up. Nice! (For non-Jesse peekers into the blog...Grace is a sweet HOPE intern who just moved in with us on Sunday for a couple of months.)

Once William was in bed for the night, Josiah was doing a few last-minute jobs and chores with me to make sure he earned his allowance. I heard muffled yelps from the mudroom while he was meant to be taking out the dried clothes and moving over the wet. He swears it was unintentional.  

And - these last two photos aren't from today, but you haven't seen them so I figure I'll stick them in here. Monday was momentous as Josiah lost his first baby tooth (ack! I feel older by the minute!) and yesterday the boys were great as I went to vote. I love that voting picture.  :)