An attempt at a *cute* Christmas card photo...

 I took these pics at the end of October when we were visiting Jut's folks.  Their yard had a tremendous amount of beautiful fallen leaves and my mind I thought, "Great photo opportunity!"  I really wanted a cute pic of the kids in all the fall leaves.  I thought it would make a nice picture to send out in our Christmas cards...Instead, I captured this...

 

E has quite the face...not really a *cute* pic though...

 

X studying the leaves and bushes...interesting, but not what I had in mind...

 

X really didn't enjoy the multitudes of leaves...it was too difficult for him to walk (and he didn't have any shoes on because Jut forgot to put any on his feet before we left and I didn't pack shoes because I assumed he'd be wearing some when he left the house!)

 

My pics of them together...tended to turn out something like this...or E pushing X over or X climbing over E or one of them running away...

 

 Jut got involved to see if he could get a cute pic out of them...hmmm....not very successful

 

 So, this was as good as it got...my cuties in the leaves

Not really a successful photo shoot...We took X in to get his 1-year pics taken and tried for a couple of pics with the kids together there too...That was also a miserable failure.  X took 2 good pics by himself and then decided that he was scared of the flashes and bawled the entire rest of the time.  So, now I've stolen my dad's camera and am trying at home...Oh the joys of parenthood!  :)

How quickly time flies

Happy Birthday!!!

X at 1 year...

Happy birthday to my little guy!  He's already a year old.  Wow!  It doesn't seem possible.

We celebrated today with some cake and ice cream but the real party will be this weekend.  I will add that it was a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, chocolate cake.  Not the greatest cake in the world but I think I over baked it, which didn't help it too much.  However, X dug right in and enjoyed it.  I bought him some vanilla coconut milk ice cream and he really loved that!

X gave up crawling at the beginning of the month...he decided walking was the way to go.  He's working on running but hasn't quite mastered that yet.  We had a missions conference at church one night and when he had a couple of hours to practice his walking skills in a huge gymnasium...crawling was over.

Tooth #8 broke on Saturday, October 30th.  It was the bottom second right one.

For X's first Halloween, he was a chick.  We went to a truck 'or treat at a local church and one of the cars had a couple of real chickens in cages and he thought that was great.  He would have stayed and screeched that them all night, I think.

His vocabulary hasn't grown too much this month...too busy mastering that walking, I think.  But, his newest word is "bite"...or it sounds like bite to me and he says it when he wants to eat what you are eating.

Otherwise, I think it was a pretty quiet month around here for X...busy for us but quiet developmentally.  Jut's dad got diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer a couple of weeks ago...so between Jut's retreat in Colorado at the beginning of the month and spending time with his folks...its been a busy month.  Hopefully, this month will be a bit more low-key.

Related?

We dubbed this sweater the 'walking sweater' when E was a baby.  I've pulled it out again this fall for X...and we mainly use it when we go out for walks.  Both kids were about 10 months old at the time the pics were taken.  Can you see the resemblance?  :)

Then and Now

Then (February 2009) she fit in the cabinet so nicely...she'd climb in just for fun.  She'd read some books...but just be her generally goofy self.

 Now, she doesn't fit in it so nicely...and she hops in it so that she can eat her sucker without little hands pulling it out of her mouth.  It is a safety zone for now...however, that probably won't last too long.

She hardly looks like the same little girl.  But, she had fun playing in the cabinet for a long time today away from the reach of her little, somewhat pesky, brother.

A day outside...

 I captured this day about a month ago...but just found the pictures tonight while I was going through Picasa looking for something else.  Enjoy!

 X loves eating sidewalk chalk. So yummy.  E loves drawing with sidewalk chalk.  So pretty.  They loved playing together with it!  So fun.  However, I loved it when X toppled over onto a colorful circle shape and changed his face into a beautiful pastel pattern.  So colorful.

After X's face was mostly cleaned off, we wandered over to the neighbor's steps.  She had pretty flowers and I couldn't pass up the opportunity for some cute pics.  I didn't get the perfect picture but we had fun trying!  E didn't do anything (that I remember) to X with that stone in her hand...even though it looks like X is keeping his eye on it.

Bible in 90 Days

Earlier this year a blog that I follow mentioned starting the schedule to read the entire Bible in 90 days.  I thought it sounded like a cool adventure but I wasn't up to task.  However on July 5th, I decided that it was time.  I embarked upon the quest to read the Bible straight through in 90 days in conjunction with Mom's Toolbox.  On Thursday, September 30th, I finished...on Day 88.  It was a great feeling to make my goal.  I rarely was on schedule during the weekly check-ins but the most I ever fell behind was 4 days.  I read quickly and spent 40-50 minutes most days reading.  I usually had to break it up into two chunks...one during 'rest-time' and one after the kiddos were in bed. It was a great way to get me back into the habit of having daily time devoted to my spiritual life, which had been very hit-and-miss since X's arrival.  I forced myself to spend less time on the computer and doing other 'trivial' things...sometimes that included some housework.  It was difficult to manage on some days but I always managed to find a way to do it when I made it a priority.

It was a great adventure.  I'd never made it through Leviticus before and when you only had to read it for a couple of days...its seemed much more manageable.  It was very interesting to read all the OT history in such a short time span.  I found myself wanting to beat my head against the wall with the antics of the Israelites, but then decided that God probably does the same things with us....wondering why we can't seem to figure it out either.  The prophets were difficult for me but it was still much more interesting to read them with all the OT history so fresh in my mind.  It made it more clear.  Reading all the Gospels in a week was eye opening also...it allowed me to see the whole picture so clearly.  Reading the entire Bible in 90 days gives a greater understanding of it all together and showed just how truly amazing God works everything together.

Mom's Toolbox is starting another 90 day read on January 3rd.  I highly recommend the program.  I needed the accountability that the website provided to keep myself on track and on schedule.  There is a weekly check-in and twitter discussion of the week's reading (however, I don't tweet and didn't use that tool).  I was assigned a mentor to help keep me focused on my goal.  Amy @ Mom's toolbox does a great job with encouraging everyone to be successful with the reading.