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!

Mutual Interests

My boys notice each other more every day.  With every new game they play, every laugh they pull out of each other, and every mutual interest they discover I smile.  I am smiling a lot lately.  Even when they watch TV.

I love how Ephram crawls up to Charlie, sits next to him and scoots up as closely as he can... all while giggling.  And I love how Charlie throws his arm around his little brother and says, "This is Dora, Ephram!  Can you say, 'Swiper, no swiping!'"  Even if I have to remind him to be gentle with his baby brother - it's the thought that counts right?  I was so glad to have my camera sitting next to me this day, and I snapped a quick picture from behind them.

Then I decided to get brave and venture out in front of them to try to get a picture that included their faces.  I was sure that once I moved Ephram would break away from Charlie and crawl toward me, so I was super quiet.  But when I saw how they were sitting from the front, I actually smiled bigger.  Look at Ephram's little hand resting on Charlie's lap.  I love that they want to sit next to each other.  And I hope they're always friends and that they always can find mutual interests.  Even if it is TV.

 

And as a side note, I'm so glad this picture came out.  Because once he heard the shutter close, Ephram was off to try to grab my camera.  And the moment was gone.  Lucky me, that I live with these two and get to see these moments every day.

Taking Flight

Coincidence?  After the air show both boys took a lot more interest in airplanes.  Both those that zoom through the sky and those that fly only when a human hand supports it.  Charlie pulled out toy planes that he hadn't touched for several months.  And Ephram?  He would scream at any forced seperation from this toy plane.  Perhaps we are raising future pilots?  Or passengers at least...

Playing with the Zaniewski's

In the beginning of September we headed over to our friend's the Zaniewskis for a fun playdate.  I am secretly loving the fact that Candice is temporarily a stay-at-home mommy and that we can spend more time during the day together.  Well, I guess I can't say I am secretly loving it now that I've put it up here on the not-so-secret internet.

Tanna and Charlie have always loved each other, but it is getting more fun to watch Tanna and Ephram start to interact too!

First Piggy Bank

Charlie loves Toy Story.  His Toy Story obsession started two years ago, when it was quite difficult to find enough Buzz Lightyear paraphenelia for a birthday party since it had been years since the last movie had been released.  Imagine his joy, and mine, when Disney announced Toy Story 3 and the shelves of every store were suddenly stocked with his favorites.

One of our family's favorite foods is Shredded Wheat.  And they just happened to be doing a special promotion that involved eating lots of their cereal so that you could collect codes to get free stuff.  Not just any free stuff... but Toy Story 3 free stuff!  We ended up eating 13 boxes of the cereal before they disappeared from the shelves.  And no, I didn't buy extra for the promotion... we just go through a lot of this cereal.  Charlie noticed that his favorite Toy Story characters were on the cereal box, but I didn't tell him about the promotion.

Then one day Charlie got a box in the mail.  Imagine his glee when he opened it to discover his very own Hamm, the piggy bank in Toy Story 3.  He became even more excited when we showed him how it could hold money... although he struggled with why it didn't come right back out!

Charlie is enjoying using his piggy bank, and was happy to reunite him with the other Toy Story friends he already had... Rex, Woody, Buzz, Slinky Dog, RC... the list goes on.  We hope he is starting to learn about saving money, and look forward to watching him spend it in the future!

First Shoes

Ephram recently graduated to the 12 month clothes size.  We headed out to buy a few things to supplement those we'd already received, and a pair of soft shoes magically made their way into our bag.  I had held off on buying shoes before because they weren't really necessary... but now that Ephram was pulling up and getting more and more restless with being held in my lap I felt it was time for some foot protection beyond socks.

He loves his little shoes!  He's already almost outgrown them though...

Vintage Aircraft Weekend

We found out about a vintage aircraft show being done close to us over Labor Day weekend and planned to spend a day there.  It was one of the best air shows that I have ever been too.  Even though it was overcast and threatening rain, we had a great time... and I think the cloud cover actually made it easier to watch the planes.  (Not to mention more interesting pictures!)

This plane was at the entrance to the main hangar. 

There were several information booths that we stopped at.  Charlie liked this propeller he got from one, and the "I Love Airplane Noise" sticker from the Museum of Flight center.   He left with several stickers that day... which is heaven to a four year old boy.

After perusing the booths, and getting a huge free sample of kettle korn, we headed over to the viewing area and watched the end of the first fly-by group.  Once the last planes were in, we had a special treat as Boeing landed their new dream liner.  Then it turned right around and took back off.  We tried to impress on Charlie how neat it was that the plane was so big.  All he cared about was that it was so LOUD.  Again, four year old boys.  :)

Between the booths and the viewing area there was a field that had several planes on display.  We spent quite a bit of time looking at these Stearman planes.  Some veterans that flew the planes in WWII were on hand to talk about their experiences and explain how the planes work.  It was all very interesting, especially when we watched them start to "push" because they were going to be flying soon.  In fact, one of my favorite parts of the air show was watching all of the planes be pushed from place to place.  I was imagining what it would have been like to be on an air field all those years ago, right in the middle of all of that movement instead of confined inside airports as we are now.  When the Stearman planes were starting to be pushed away, we wandered onto a portion of the tarmac that had been roped off for viewing planes that were going to be flown in the next grouping. 

Then we realized that we were all hungry.  We headed back over to the booths and purchased some grilled food from the Lions Club booth.  It looked really tasty.  (I was good and stuck to my uncrustable and granola bar so that I wouldn't overdo my sodium.)  They had tents set up for eating, which was fortunate because it started to sprinkle.  We were lucky though because the rain stopped pretty much at the same time we stopped eating.  Ephram enjoyed eating puffs in his stroller too!

After lunch we headed back over to the tarmac, and briefly looked at the historical WWII area they had staged.  Of course, the picture below further reinforced to Charlie that some cars have eyes and can talk... like Lightening McQueen.  :)

I tried to get picures of the tarmac just to remember how many planes were there, but this was only about 1/3 of it.  I need a wider-angle lens for my camera!  There were a lot of people there too, despite the overcast weather.

 

And it wouldn't be a blog post about an air show if I didn't put in a few pictures of the demonstrations we saw as well!  The first picture is of the group of Stearmans we spent awhile admiring.  I had many, many more pictures but decided not to bore everyone with 20 pictures of planes in the sky.  :)  We had so much fun tracking the planes in the sky and then watching them perform their tricks!

After a few hours on the field, it was time for us to leave.  We watched the planes on our trek back to our car and as we were driving away from the field.  We will definitely make this show an annual tradition!