An excuse to get creative...

Ok, so the leaves in the backyard have been calling my name and saying, "Please come and make something out of us!" Due to my lack of creativity, I have been ignoring their plea until the other day when we were outside playing on the swingset and I saw a leaf that was so beautiful (bright red and shaped like a star), so I just had to come up with something to do with them.

JD likes to pretend he's the king of his clubhouse, so I decided to make a crown for him. He helped me to gather leaves and cut all of the stems off of the leaves by himself. We then worked on his crown together, and when it was finished, he loved it and wore it with pride. It may not have been the most impressive fall project, but it was fun nonetheless.

Davis was all too interested in what we were doing with our big bag of leaves, and he simply wanted to dig in and eat a fist full of leaves. I had to block him at one point from crawling over to where JD was cutting paper and leaves on the kitchen floor, and he gave me a look of genuine frustration which I captured below. He is too funny!

Our next photos will be from our trip to Disney and Sea World, so stay tuned!

Two of my greatest gifts!

I just can't explain in words how much I love my boys. They bring an immeasurable amount of joy to my life and I simply don't know how I ever lived without them. They are becoming the best of friends and their faces just light up when they see each other first thing in the morning. JD says on a regular basis, "Mama, I just love having a baby brother." and "I would pick Davis of all the babies in the world because he's the best." Even though JD still has to be reminded at times that he can't play roughly with Davis (at least not yet anyway!), Davis seems to take it all in stride and thinks his big brother hung the moon.

Just a side note...JD is growing SO much these days!! He eats like a grown man. I used to be able to get away with feeding him one PB&J sandwich at lunch, and now when he finishes one, he says, "Mama, I can eat another sandwich." and he does! For breakfast, he usually eats 2 bowls of oatmeal, a banana, a cup of juice or milk, and then less than an hour later, he tells me that he needs a little snack. The funniest was the other day when he had JUST finished a pretty sizeable breakfast of eggs and oatmeal, and we left soon after to run an errand and as we passed by Wendy's, he said, "Mama, will you stop there and buy me a hamburger?" I just cracked up laughing and reminded him that he had just eaten breakfast and that I would get him a hamburger for lunch. In the picture below where he is wearing the red shirt and sitting on the floor, notice his mouth full of food. That's the norm lately! He is shooting up like a weed, so I guess his body is requiring some extra fuel.

Davie Mavie!

So our sweet little "Davie" is crawling EVERYWHERE...fast! He just loves his newfound ability to get from one part of the room to another at turbo speed. He is into everything, too. I love to see him exploring the house and finding the simplest things so fascinating.

He is such a precious baby boy! His little personality just cracks me up how he is so painfully shy. If a stranger speaks to him, he either hangs his head as low as it will go or turns his face into my shoulder and then peeks to see if they're still looking at him. Lately, he LOVES playing with JD's big wooden puzzles, and bathtime is still his all-time favorite.

He has 4 teeth now...2 on top and 2 on the bottom. If he's trying to let me know that he is ready for his nap or wants to be changed or picked up, he will crawl over to me, even if it means crawling to another room to find me, and chomp on my ankle. It doesn't hurt, but it's just his little way of communicating with me right now.

Speaking of communicating...the sweetest thing happened today...I was upstairs packing for our trip, and he crawled over to the bottom of the stairs and pulled himself up on his knees using the bottom step and loudly said, "Mama!" Of course I dropped what I was doing and came and scooped him up and kissed him all over. Although he has been saying "Mama" for some time now, it was so neat to hear him call for me like that.

It's so much fun getting to live these moments that I experienced with JD all over again.

Fall, Friends, and the Fair!

Last weekend, I was visited by two of my dearest friends, Stacey and Melissa, who drove all the way from GA and VA to see me. Melissa brought her 3 year old little boy, Jeremy, with her, so he and JD had a grand time playing together.

The Dixie Classic Fair was in town, so we were able to go and watch the boys enjoy some rides together. We also visited a pumpkin patch and used the opportunity to take some cute photos. Finally we ate dinner, roasted marshmallows, and drank hot chocolate on the deck as the weather was delightfully chilly. The boys played until they reached meltdown status, due in part to the fact that neither one of them had a nap.

It was a great weekend, and I cherish the memories that were made. I miss you Stacey and Melissa!