Grown up

Where has time gone? Next month Daniel will be a year old. A whole year.

My life has changed so much since he came into it. The next person who says "I guess it's just another baby for you" (because, after all, he's number four) will get beat over the head by me.

Isn't he just adorable?

And the birthday girl is getting so big too! She helps empty the dishwasher-that's her one chore. Although she's not always fast, she always gets it done!

Even the doctor said "I can sure tell that you are four now!" (Which was mostly because she didn't cry after her needle.)

I am so blessed!

Church

The kids are playing church downstairs before breakfast. I could hear Nathan reading the scripture passage: "If you nose causes trouble, cut off your nose. If you ear causes trouble, cut off your ear." ...."okay, verse 12" .... and then Matthew and Melanie start singing.

Wonderful Weekend

The weather was perfect today for raking. I spent over two hours outside with the kids. Chilly enough to work hard without getting too hot. Just an occasional breeze. And sunny (a bit).

The kids asked me almost every day this week if we could rake again. But they had to wait 'til Saturday. The warmer the weather the happier Daniel is lend a helping hand ('til his naptime).

The bigger kids love helping too. But sometimes I wonder just how much help they're giving. Although a boost in one's spirits is a big help in itself, so I won't complain.

These are tigers. Scary one's too! But I was even scarier (after checking over my shoulder to make sure no neighbours were looking) when I transformed into an even bigger tiger-then they raced away like frightened whelps, tales between their legs.

Nathan, however, sedately raked during this entire performance, for wildlife or not, he had work to do. "I work hard, just like Daddy." (You sure do!)

And life indoors?

Daniel is now feeling confident enough with his walking to perform for the public. He thinks he's pretty funny when he does it now, and so does Matthew! But he still finds crawling to be faster most of the time, especially for long distances when he's sure to fall anyways. He usually shuffles sideways when he walks.

Peaceful moments

My slumbering angel:

I like how he pulls his doggy over his head for this sunny nap time. Just like his mommy.

A day after the birthday party I found bundle of balloons in the bedroom.

It wouldn't have surprised me to see Curious George hanging tightly to the end of these...but he was nowhere in sight. But, later I did see a balloon man trying to sell them.

It is nice seeing them get along. They do actually get along sometimes!

Every now and then Nathan will surprise me by volunteering to "read" to Matthew or Melanie if they're tired and I'm busy.

Composition

This morning, while driving somewhere, Melanie made up a very nice song. I can't remember all the lyrics, as this was her longest one yet.

It was about:

her dancing up in the sky
on the rainbow
which was pretty and
daddy wanted her and the other kids to
dance night and day.

She even included random words like "generation" in the intro to the main theme of dancing. I don't think she has a clue what it means.

When she was done she asked me what I thought of it.
"It was a nice song wasn't it mommy? It was about dancing and being nice and mommy and daddy wanting us to dance night and day and we did it. Wasn't that nice?"

Fabulous Four

Melanie is very excited to be four.

She wandered around in the morning saying
"Yah! I'm four. Yah I'm FOUR."
(For practice maybe?)

After all, who doesn't want to get spoiled for a day or two?

Melanie was so enthusiastic about her present.
"Oh yah! That's JUST WHAT I WANTED! Oh I like it!"


So of course we had to give her time to play with it before bed too!



And she just loved being sung Happy Birthday to.

Walking!

Hard to catch this guy in action, he's not the posing type.

But he is the multi-tasking type. Amazing little guy! (I'm not sure I know of any other males who can suck their thumbs AND learn to walk at the same time.)

Jack-o-lanterns

After planning to do this last year (and maybe the year before too?)

Daddy decided to help the kids make jack-o-lanterns.



Apparently this was a bit of a Halloween tradition for him, as a healthier (and more pleasant) alternative to trick-or-treating.

Our church has a dinner and sing thing planned for that night, and since the pumpkins I bought were rotting already, the pumpkins were carved early.

Daniel and I missed out on the fun,

but we found a bit of solace in each other's company.


The eyes on Matthew's jack-o-lantern don't let in enough air to keep a candle lit when the lid is on. But he doesn't mind. As long as it has a candle too, the lid can be off!


Whose face is the cutest?

(Of the pumpkins, not the kids.)


Despite the protected table, there still was some cleanup involved-mostly pumpkin seeds which were quickly tracked through a few rooms upstairs.


They're all lit!

(But only for as long as it took me to take the picture.)

Daniel learned a new trick yesterday;

he managed to get quite a few of these up the back of his shirt.
And this morning he had five peg puzzle pieces stuck in his one piece pajama. I'm sure that was fun crawling when the pieces were working their way down his pant legs!

New toy

Daniel is thrilled with the new toy we got today.

We are the third family that this rocking horse hopes to live through. He has been carefully fed and groomed by previous owners. I hope I will be able to say the same for my offspring, and that we can pass it on again too.

An aside: similarities between kids

Daniel looks like a mixture of Jamie and Bradley here to me.

I was hovering over Daniel as he was rocking madly on this new toy of his. Meanwhile, Philip was urging me (as per usual) to give him some space, as "he's doing just fine on his own!"

Which he was.

Nathan and Melanie spent this time thinking about all that fun they missed out on, all because they were born too soon and have grown up too fast to enjoy this great toy. But they are also enjoying Daniel's enthusiastic enjoyment of his rocking horse.

And Matthew? He's far to busy making use of other opportunities to waste his time here. After all, he had a quick turn, and well, there are many other things to accomplish before bedtime!

Favorite Fall Pastime

The weather couldn't have been better today. My absolute favorite. Warm (not hot) with a touch of coolness. Sunny. The smell of fall in the air.

We didn't have many leaves collected on the ground yet, but since conditions were perfect, we decided to finish filling up the last bag from last year anyways.

We did collect more than I expected. The kids were able to hone their raking skills in preparation for the bigger part of the fall leaf collecting, although they will have to fight me for a turn with a rake.

That could get scary.

What hard workers these guys are! An Asian grandfather who walks past our house regularly gave me the thumbs up when he returned with his grandkids on his way back from picking them up at school.

But rakes and hands are not Daniel's style. If he's going to help out, he's going to go all out and have all the appropriate machinery.

A moment outside

Eating cucumbers in the fall air.

These kids are all cool as cucumbers.

Three bugs in a boat:

Nathan was bossing Melanie around to shove him and Matthew through the yard. She seems quite willing to accept all his demands. Matthew is just there for the ride. He has retired the role of intermediary between them.

One farmer with his pitchfork:

He'd just been teasing me. He was offering me the toy, then pulling it back when I grabbed for it. Stinker!