Family pictures

One of my colleagues is a great photographer and she was so nice to offer us a Family Photo shoot. William was not cooperative at all that day so I didn't know what to expect, but they turned out great. I'm really impressed!

Sigh... I can't stop looking at them!

PS: Russell is trying (very persistently) to convince me I should get an iPhone 4s for Christmas, instead of the DSLR camera I've been coveting for months (years possibly). What do you think? I know the iPhone has an amazing built-in camera... but still!

Priceless picture

I don't know what was crossing his mind when he did this, but I'm glad I happened to have my camera on hand. This is just priceless...

My boy the tree hugger:

I bet this will make his Daddy very proud.

Halloween crafts and Joshua's preschool art

I love all the cute handprint art ideas you can find on the internet lately.

Josh is not very interested in crafts, not very into drawing or coloring, but he likes painting and cutting with scissors. So a few weeks ago we had a finger painting session (I'm not talking about a recent failed attempt at converting his angry vibes into artistic ones).
The result was very cute and he liked it so much I decided to do it again with his friends during their preschool class (although this time the result was not as... clean).

The happy munchkin playing "Cacahhhh" (or Coucou i.e. peekaboo in French)

He made some cute art at school too:

Now I need to find a cute way to display his art in his bedroom. He's also started drawing letters recently (E and O are his favorites so far), and he can recognize and name all the letters in his name. He loves to look around him and identify letters when we're outside... He calls them "my J", "my O", "my S" (sometimes it's Sammy's S), etc...

Fall fun

Every year since we moved here, we've taken the kids to Cottonwood Farm for some fall fun and cute pictures.

I love this place. They have animals and little wagons that kids love to pull and sit in. They have a straw maze for kids and a corn maze for older ones, they've got super old steam engines and horse rides. It's just the perfect place to spend a morning with the kids.

Joshua was 10 months old the first time we went. He wasn't walking and could barely stand. We still managed to take a picture of him standing by the height chart board. It is the 3rd year we're here now. I can't believe how much he's grown!

William was 3 or 4 months when we went last year, so we didn't get to take a picture of him by the height chart but I got one this year.

Josh at 10 months, 22months and 34 months (almost 3)

William, 15 months

Josh, Will the pumpkin and Elsie

Afraid of the big cow

very excited about the sheep

posing in the straw maze

William and Evan

Sadly the fun ended in a drama (major Mommy-freak-out-embarrassment in the parking lot when Josh hit me IN THE FACE!, and screamed after I stopped him from running in front of a car). I hate it when he's so excited, he gets completely out of control.

Playing "tak, do it"

Man, I love listening to Joshua talk. I keep telling myself I'll have to write down the funny things he says... and of course I don't write them down and I forget them.

I videotaped him a few days ago talking about our trip to Waterworld (2 months ago but he still remembers lots of details!) but I can't figure how to upload the video, so this will have to wait a little.

He mixes up French words into his sentences pretty often and the result is always very funny. I always thought it would be convenient to have him learn French first so that nobody would understand the awkward/not so politically correct conversations we have (like our arguments about who has a penis, a vagina, or wheels). However I haven't been so lucky as to avoid these awkward public discussions. Although today he fell on the ground and came to me saying "Mom, kiss ma fesse", which sounded really sweet (Mom kiss my face) but he really meant "Mom, kiss my bum".

I also love how he mispronounces certain words. Yesterday he started playing "tak, do it" with William and me. After a few minutes I explained to him that he was supposed to say "Tag, you're it". He hesitated a few seconds and agreed maybe I was right about "Tag" but it was definitely "Tag, do it".

Today he started holding an Hawaian necklace he'd found in the toy box in front of his mouth, and told me he was playing the "trunket". The trumpet I asked? No, the trunket... The same trunket-Hawaian-necklace was transformed into a tail a little later (that's the magic of a kid's imagination).

I'll have to add to the list of funny things Joshua says later but I can't ignore the little munchkin who's licking my feet to get my attention any longer.

pictures and their stories

The last few weeks have been pretty uneventful, if you omit the numerous potty accidents, the skateboarding accident (no pictures it was ugly), the kids breakdowns and such...

However we took some pretty cute pictures of the kids so here's a little slideshow of our last few weeks:

Russell took that first picture of Joshua in the rocks at the playground with his iPhone and I loved it so much I tried to imitate the setting with William (although it took me several attempts-having to lay in the gravel myself-to get this shot). Mine is darker but I guess I could edit it. I love my kiddos and their cute little smiles.

Here's William being his usual self (i.e., silly, smiley, overly active). He was jumping the little step and feeling very proud and powerful : )

 Josh playing in the toy car with Jackson and Bethany

Every Wednesday for the last 3 weeks, Josh has been going to a "preschool co-op" with some of our friends. We take turns teaching and hosting our little group of 4. This week was my turn to teach so I took a picture before the kids arrived.

Joshua's "homework": He obviously didn't listen to my instructions and started coloring over all the Os (his favorite letter), then followed my instructions for a few seconds and eventually decided it was more fun just to scribble the page...

On Tuesday I almost completely lost it after Joshua pooped and peed his paints AGAIN. I was so mad I had to go lock myself in the bedroom and stuff my head in a pillow! When I came back down, I found out Josh had colored the entire length of the apartment with crayons. Good thing I had just taken a zen break, I didn't strangle him, but I had him rub the floor until the marks were all gone (ok I helped him). And yes... he is half naked (remember the poop incident).

Today was a lot more peaceful. No toilet accident (although we ALMOST had one). We enjoyed a very inspiring conference from the comfort of our apartment. I just love Conference week-ends. On Saturday we set up a play tent in the living room and told the kids the story of King Benjamin teaching his people in their tents. Then we watched conference on our computer sitting in the tent (or the couch).

rolling in the leaves after conference

listening to the prophet "in our tent"

Oh and Josh started a new... "game": identifying if people (or lately things) have a penis or a vagina. It's very embarrassing when he does it out loud at the playground. Yesterday he made us crack up when he said: "Cars not have vaginas, cars have wheels".