Call It What You Want...

It was bedtime, and the boys were doing prayers. Well, the two bigger ones. (The little one was already asleep.)

Tim asked Mark, "What are you thankful for?"

The first thing, Tim doesn't remember.

"What else are you thankful for?"

Tim remembers this one. Mark said, "Jesus."

And cars.

"I wasn't even feeding him" the answers, Tim insisted. "We were reading from the Bible story book, but we were reading in the Old Testament."

Yeah, well, he's doing something right.

(Okay, Grandma Sarah, you can get up and get that tissue to wipe your eyes.)

After a dearth of posts, I am now burning up the Internet with all my posts.

Today was the perfect fall day -- sunny, breezy, upper 50s. So off we went to the apple orchard to pick the perfect fall apples.

Mark wasn't sure at first that he was excited about riding the wagon out to the orchard to pick, but sitting on Daddy's lap helped. By the time we got out to the apples, all was good.

Picking apples is hard work. The ones on the ground really look fine. Except for the worm and bug and rot holes, that is. We're picking Jonagold apples. Oh, except I think that's a Gala tree. Never mind...

Mark picked out his very own pumpkin. And tried to lift it.  (Too heavy.) We were cowards and didn't go out to the pumpkin patch to pick one out. We'd already had enough fun out in the orchard, and apparently the orchard's pond had spread out to include a lot of the pumpkin patch when we got 2" of rain this week.

Adam slept through the fun at the orchard, riding in the Baby Bjorn cuddled up close to Mommy and covered up to protect from sun and wind. But he woke up at the other pumpkin patch place where we went for lunch (tenderloins, chili and warm cider). He had a really big smile -- too cute -- and when I tried to take the picture, the camera turned itself off and told me in less-than-kind terms to change the batteries. Of course. so I got this one instead.

Now we have somewhere between nine and 10 pounds of apples (mostly Jonagold with a few Gala thrown in) and a nice big pumpkin.

Happy Fall everyone!

Wouldn't you???

It was an evening just like every other evening: I was taking clothes out of the dryer (now in the family room closet), Tim was playing with Mark at his train table (in the same room). Adam was up in bed already (hard day -- first shots), and Mark was saying "Ready, GO!" over and over, when he stopped and said "Daddy" and turned and gave Daddy a big hug.

He wasn't done.

"Mommy," he said, running over to me with his arms outstretched. I bent over for a big, two-armed hug.

"I love you," I said to him (like I do every time I can).

"I love you," my little (big) boy squeaked. He even used different inflection, to make me think he was saying it, not just saying it.

It was even better because we'd had a rough morning today. Maybe I bought it with Teddy Grahams after supper. Whatever.

What a nice way to end the day.

First of all, there's the big boy and his vehicles.

We're on a walk a few days ago, and we walk past one of a gazillion driveways in our neighborhood, one of probably a zillion with cars (even dark-colored ones) in the driveway, and Mark says "Gram-pa car". So I called to ask just what kind of car my father drives (because *I* don't know). Mark knows, though -- Chevy Lumina. Which is the car we passed.

Then he was playing in the window the next day and he announced "P-S! P-S truck." It first made me pause because that pairing of letters sounds a lot like his word for a certain body part that he is fairly proud of, and I wasn't sure what sort of truck was out there that pertained to that... He said it again, even pointing out the window, so I looked. There, coming to the door, was a man in brown, bearing a package from the UPS truck. Yes, he even had the brand of the package delivery company correct. My friends who work for UPS would be proud.

Lest you think I'm just going to tell stories without including any pictures... HA!

How could I possibly be this lucky????

And then there was today, when Mark retrieved my shoes by the door and walked through the living room in them. I wanted to laugh out loud but needed to get across the room, into the kitchen to get the camera, get the lens cap off and the flash ready and then get back into the living room before he lost interest.

He ended up traipsing all over the living room before the giant shoes got all tangled around his feet, but he never fell down, and finally untangled his feet only by taking them out of the shoes.

Just thought you needed another dose of my cute boys. And my bragging, I guess...