Lily and Wyatt's 1st Jack O Lanterns

Lily and Wyatt's 1st Jack O Lanterns!

Auntie Val carved the pumpkin with the star eyes and I carved the one with the crazy mouth. Ryan was in charge of camera duty and Lily and Wyatt took care of being cute!

Wyatt and Lily experiencing the pumpkin innards for the first time!

I put a table cloth on the floor and Wyatt did NOT like that. He refused to step onto the table cloth so it took him a little while to get into the fun. Lily, of course, was in on the action right away! She was sticking her hand into the pumpkin, carrying around the "gick" and even eating the pumpkin seeds (oops). Wyatt did eventually enjoy putting his hand into the bowl of pumpkin innards and even had fun flinging it around; He too tried eating a pumpkin seed.

Enjoying the finished product.

Wyatt likes to put his fingers into the different facial openings (a little dangerous with lit candles inside). Lily likes figuring out the puzzle of putting the tops back on the pumpkins. Thankfully neither of the kids is afraid of the pumpkins and they enjoy having them lit. The continually go to the kitchen table and point at them. I think Lily would like to carry them around like she does with her little pumpkins. Kids find joy in the simplest things!

Fun Fall Films

Here are some movies of Lily and Wyatt enjoying life. I must admit that I think you will enjoy the last movie the most, but unfortunately there are two less humorous movies in front of it. Please forgive my camera work...I am not very good at filming when I am moving.

Fall Frolic

I was driving past the park today and saw all the fall leaves beginning to cover the ground. It was beautiful and I decided that I should take Lily and Wyatt to explore. Last year at this time they were only 6 months old, not exactly the age of leaf playing so this was their first experience with leaves. Oddly enough, Wyatt seemed to enjoy it more than Lily; I put him down at the park and he just took off. They would both pick up the leaves and just look at them. The awe and wonder of one year olds is a good reminder of how we should view God's world.

Indian Summer

What a beautiful weekend that God gave to us! We thoroughly enjoyed the warm weather this weekend as a family. Yesterday morning the kids and I ran a bunch of errands with Grandma. Ryan was feeling good, so we were able to have some fun family time out on the town Saturday night...Applebee's and the toy aisle at WalMart :) Today all four of us were able to go to church...3 of us ended up in nursery, but that was okay we had fun playing with the other kids. Tonight we took full advantage of the Indian summer and went to Grandma and Papa's house to swing, although Wyatt didn't want to swing and Lily was in the swing for all of 5 minutes. The kids had fun watching the neighbor's dog play frisbee. I hope that you were all able to enjoy the great weather this weekend.


Lily and Wyatt walking with Grandma and Papa, trying to get up onto the big deck.

Lily had fun touching the pine tree in the backyard and Wyatt had fun exploring with Papa.


Look out, here comes Lily! Wyatt is watching the neighbor's dog run in the yard.

18 Months and Doing Well

We just got home from the doctor and he said that both kids were "doing well". The ear infections are all cleared up -- YEAH! I shared with him my concerns about the kids lack of words. He asked if they were understanding directions, jabbering, making animal noises, etc. Since I was able to answer yes to all of those things he said that he was not concerned and that they were doing fine. They did have to get 2 shots (one being a flu shot), but now we are done with shots until they are 4.

THANK YOU, GOD, FOR OUR HEALTHY, HAPPY KIDS!!!

Here are the kids stats from today:

Lily:

19 lbs. (3%)

30 1/4 in. (10%)

Wyatt:

24 lbs. 12 oz. (30%)

33 in. (70%)

A Little Like Mommy

I have to share a funny story about Lily with you and it will be funnier to those of you who know me and my need to have everything picked up and put away.

Lily has taken to picking up every little thing that she finds on the carpet and bringing it to me to take care of. She has the innate ability to find the most minuscule crumb or fuzzy and pick it up. She is also much better at picking up toys and putting them in the right place than Wyatt is. Lily also hates having anything on her hands, she will wipe them off herself and she loves to scrub in the tub.

All that being said, today I asked her to go put her milk cup in the kitchen. She would walk to the kitchen and them come back holding the cup. The kitchen counter is still a little out of her reach, so I figured that she would just set it on the floor in there or put it on the dining room table. After about the third time of going to the kitchen and coming back with her cup I heard a weird noise. I was sitting on the couch with Wyatt and turned to see that she had opened the dishwasher and put her milk cup in there all by herself! Apparently she is a bit of a neat freak like her mommy!

Little Elephants

Okay, so I was not sure if I wanted Wyatt to be the chicken for Halloween. I decided to try the elephant costume and I think that it is better. Ryan and I thought that it would be more fun to have our own "herd of elephants". Besides, we figure that we will only be able to dress them alike for so long.

The Elephant and The Chicken

In my opinion, the laughter of children is one of the best sounds in the world; especially if you are a mom and it is the laughter of your children. I hope that you enjoy the following video of Lily and Wyatt. I hope that it makes you smile. It is filled with laughter.

The reason for the costumes is probably obvious -- Halloween. We don't plan on taking the kids trick or treating, but there is a Halloween Parade at Ryan's work and we will probably go and see their cousins. We were planning on just having Lily be a Bear's cheerleader and Wyatt be a Bear's football player because we had those outfits in the house. We didn't want to spend a lot of money on Halloween costumes that they were only going to wear for a little while, but Old Navy has them on sale. Besides...we think they are pretty cute!

Pumpkin Patch

I brought the kids to a farm stand today to see the pumpkins. Lily loved it, Wyatt did not (he still isn't feeling very well). We got some little pumpkins to bring home, but we will hopefully go with Ryan this weekend and get some bigger pumpkins to carve. Hopefully we will get better pictures of Wyatt and some of the kids together too.