Big Brother

If Ephram were older and could express his thoughts in words, I am pretty sure he would say he has the world's best big brother.  However, since Ephram currently has only three words in his arsenal, he can't... so I will.

Charlie is an amazing big brother.  He is so gentle with Ephram and is constantly making sure that he is alright.  He often tells me that Ephram is sleepy or hungry or... bored.  So then I suggest that he play with Ephram.

Charlie is real good at playing with Ephram.  He can make him laugh just by glancing his way.  He loves to crawl around the room with his brother and read him stories.  He is currently trying to teach Ephram how to dance.

And one of Charlie's special big brother talents is his ability to cheer Ephram up.  Whenever Ephram is fussy, Charlie will start singing a very soft and gentle version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  He also tries to do the signs, which are very different than the "right" ones, but Ephram doesn't care.  9 times out of 10 it works.

I am so proud of Charlie and love seeing him grow into his big brother role more every day.  I just love seeing my boys interact!

 

My Little Book Worm

When I was younger I loved books.  I would read and read and read.  I would have stacks of books at the end of my bed and challenge myself to get through all of them in a night.  I remember staying up all night just so I could keep reading.  In grade school I won contest after contest for reading the most books.  And yes, I love books still...

So I am really happy that Ephram seems to love books too.  From the first book we gave him, he has been fascinated.  He has always been up for a read, and once he could move around and choose his own toys at will, books were often his first choice.

It is not rare to find Ephram among a pile of books like this.

He loves to read his books two, three or even four at a time.  He also loves to slide them into his mouth as he's turning the pages.

When he's not trying to eat them, he can be very gentle with them.  I love to watch him pick a book up, look at it with excitement and then carefully crack it open.

Sometimes he moves them around all over the house.  He eventually will stop, put it on the floor and open it up.  He gets so excited by the pictures, and will start babbling and pointing things out for me.  He is an excellent page turner when I am reading to him too.  It is so much fun to see him genuinely interested in something that I love too!

Coloring Handy Manny

Yep, Charlie still loves to color.  What could be better than coloring a really big page full of Handy Manny's tools?

Look Mom!

I'm really good at feeding myself now!  I can carefully pick up a single cheerio between my fingers and shove it in my mouth.

 But sometimes it is more fun to place it just between my front teeth and bite it in half.

I just love the crunching noise that makes!  And it's kind of fun to watch the other half fall back onto my tray amid all my slobber.

Sometimes I love picking them up by the handful and shoving 3, 4, or even 8 in my mouth all at once.  But you don't have a picture of that do you?

I love eating foods with my own hands, that's why I hit the spoon out of your hand all the time when you try to feed me.  I love cheerios, puffs, dehydrated fruits, crunchies, and many other things.  But my absolute favorite thing to eat are yogurt melts.

Now, onto learning how to use this spoon...

Only One More Year

Until I have to send my eldest off to Kindergarten!  Charlie started his new preschool in mid-September.  He was so excited to go meet his new teacher and classmates.  I could hardly contain him long enough to snap this picture.

Doesn't he look so old?  I can't believe he is almost 5.  When I compare him to last years picture he looks like a totally different kid...

Insert big sigh ... my little guy isn't so little anymore!  Back to the first day of this year's school...

When we got there the teacher had name tag necklaces for each kid to put on.  I had to grab Charlie back from running into the classroom to get this picture.  He was waaaaaaay too excited.  I felt a little sorry for the teacher and classroom helper when I realized that most of the kids were a little (read: a lot) hyper.

 

The kids turned their name tags into cereal necklaces during art time that day.  Charlie had such a great first day, he couldn't wait to tell us about it at home.  We are all loving his preschool this year!

Ephram's Play Table

With his newfound love of pulling up and standing, we decided it was time to get Ephram one of those little play tables.  We chose the Fisher Price one because he loved it when we were at the Zaniewski's.  I ordered it on Amazon and it was here two days later... It was love at first sight!

Ephram has played with his little table every day for the last few weeks.  He is really serious about it.  He drums with it, carefully pushes the piano buttons, flips the books, rolls the barrel in front of the books with precision, and pounds away at the computer.  It cracks me up that he mostly reaches across the table to be able to play with all of the stations... occasionally I will find him actually roaming around it, but he prefers to reach!

We Love the Park

I have done many, many posts about the park in the past.  Here is another one for you.  We really do love our park.  We love how close we are to it, how many walking trails there are to take, riding bikes to and around it, and playing on the playground.  Most of all we love the peaceful family time it provides.

When the leaves started to change, we took another one of our trips to the park.  We started out with a nice walk/bike ride.  It was a beautiful early-fall day.

After walking for a couple of miles, we headed over to the playground.  This was a big day for Ephram, as it was the first time I lowered him into the seat of a toddler swing.  He loved it!!!  (And has swung many times since this day.)

Charlie didn't play on the playground equipment very long.  He was much more interested in riding his bike.  This was actually the last day that he had this bike to ride.  We decided during this trip that he had outgrown it and went to buy a new one the next day.  Silly boy chose the exact same bike in the next size up.  He really likes his Lightening McQueen!  Anyway, Charlie and Andy rode around the park a lot this day - both on pavement and on trail.  I think Andy is trying to train Charlie to be a mountain biker!

Before we knew it the sun was starting to set, and we had to go home to eat dinner because we were all starving!  We said goodbye to the park and the beautiful early-autumn day.  I am so grateful for these fun family outings and hope that we continue to have a lot of opportunities to enjoy time outside together.

Ephram and Daddy

I figured it would be fair for me to post some pictures of Ephram with his Daddy since I just did a post about me and Ephram.

I love watching Andy interact with our kids.  I can't get enough of it... so I usually have plenty of pictures of him with the boys.  Here are a few from September.

Playing with the Boschee's

Our friends, the Boschees, came up to our house for fun and dinner this September.  It was the first time that we had all of our kids together since Ephram was born.  The kids didn't seem to notice this though - they jumped right in like they'd been playing together nonstop.  We sure wish that we lived closer together!

Natalie and Charlie built a castle with his mega blocks.  They had a little "help" from Ephram as well.  As for Ephram, I think Madison is his new favorite person.  If they did live closer to us, I know that we'd have an excellent babysitter in a few years.  (And I think Madison was just as enamored with him!)  I didn't get any pictures of Andrew because he holed up in our office with the two dads... playing video games, I'm sure!  We had a great time together and hope to get back in the habit of seeing the Boschees more often.

My Baby and Me

Right after Ephram was born, Andy gave me a tripod.  Our old one broke while I was pregnant and I really wanted a new one.  Tripods come in handy for all sorts of things, for me one of these things is to make sure that there are actually pictures of me with my children.

Of course, I didn't play with my tripod right away.  Nope.  I don't know why, but it took me until this past month to pull it out of its bag.  The first day playing with it produced some nice pictures.

One of the best discoveries I made in these self-portraits was that the camera's flashing self-timer light was very attractive to Ephram.  He was looking at the camera in every single shot.  And, although it isn't a smiley-happy look, I like his concentrating look too.

After I was done playing with it, Andy wanted to play with it too.  I think he was happy that I was finally using it.  So Andy took some more pictures of me with Ephram a few days later.

I love that Ephram will have pictures of him with all of his family members... and I wish I would have started using the tripod sooner!