we tried...

We all had on our red, white and blue and decided we would attempt a family picture. Sounds easy, it wasn't. Getting two young kids to look at the camera at the same time is just about impossible.


Lily not looking and Marshall doing who knows what with his mouth.

Marshall telling Lily to look at the camera, apparently forgetting that he was supposed to look too.
Almost a good one, except Lily and I are out of focus. Soooo close.
Eventually we gave up and just took one of me with kiddies. Maybe next time we'll get a good one of all of us. I doubt it, but maybe.

he loves to read

One of my favorite times of day is either before nap or bed. Marshall picks out several books, we snuggle in his bed and read. Such a sweet time to snuggle and unwind a bit. Today I was getting Lily down for her nap and told Marshall to pick out a few book and wait for me in his bed. I walked in and he was "reading" his selections. He has many of his books memorized so he was audibly telling the story.




He spotted me and said, "Mom, I'm tryin' to read here."
And he went right back to it.

6 months

How have six months already passed? Here's our best girl at half a year. She really is such a love. So smiley and giggly and she just has a sweet disposition. She goes with the flow and is happy to watch her brother or cousins and beams when she gets attention too. Her brother was playing "BOO" in these pictures. Her reaction didn't let him down.

those eyes...

they just get me. Some days they look extra blue...today was one of those days.

messin' with your kids

Why am I just now learning how fun it is to mess with your kids?

Marshall has started the questioning. He asks SO.MANY.QUESTIONS. I really don't mind the questions (most of the time). I know this is how he learns and it's good that he's inquisitive and interested in what's going on around him. But sometimes, just sometimes, I am all done with questions.

It just so happened that earlier today a tree feel across the only road that leads to our house. Scott had tried to go out earlier this morning but had to come home until the tree had been removed. As we were heading out tonight Scott was showing me where the tree had fallen. Of course Marshall wanted ALL the details. We thoroughly explained it all to him. His questions didn't end there though. A few (and I do mean few) of his questions: "Why did the tree fall? Who did that to the tree?" What happened to the tree? Why couldn't daddy get out? Daddy had to come home? Who moved the tree? Where is the tree? So daddy had to come home cuz the tree was in his way?"

I was pretty much done talking about the tree so I told him, "Actually, Daddy's new car has a special button. When he pushes the button wings shoot out and his car flies. Daddy was able to fly right over the tree that was in the road. Isn't that amazing?" He looked at Scott and said, "Can you show me that special button?" (He would respond with yet another question.) Scott's new car has a button on the dash that opens the door to a small storage compartment. He told Marshall that this was the special "jet turbo wings" button. His eyes got huge and he asked Scott to push the "turbo" button. Scott proceeded to push the button and hit the gas simultaneously. The look on his face was priceless. I was so glad I had tossed our small digital camera in the diaper bag earlier this afternoon. I grabbed the camera and watched (and took pictures) as he held on for dear life every time Scott hit the "jet turbo" button.

I think I was helping develop his imagination...and maybe messing with him a little too!



Notice the tight grip on the side of his car seat.

fishing

Scott and Tom planned a surprise for all three boys on Saturday morning. Scott ran to Dunkin Donuts and got a dozen donuts and Tom went to the bait shop and got 100 crickets for their first big fishing trip. By big, I mean across the street to Pop and Loni's to fish off the dock. It worked though, Marshall caught a fish on his very first cast. Scott said he wasn't particularly interested in touching the fish but he was happy to pose with his catch. It worked out that they just walked across the street because his two year old attention span didn't last much longer than this first catch. I think more than anything he enjoyed this time with his daddy.

catching up

I've been playing catch up on the blog. Keep on scrolling for lots of updates on these two!