beautiful autumn

Brett found this baby owl in our tree. It stayed for a long time and was very cool. The kids (Blythe and Ethan) stayed watching it for about 2 mins (which is a long time for 2-year-olds)!
One thing about Rayen is that she knows how to relax! Maybe she'll teach the rest of us how to slow down and enjoy life in the moment.
We went up the canyon to take band photos of Brett. But these two are cuter than any of the band members!
Beautiful girl playing outside. I love this snowsuit thing because I can cover her hands, so that she can't pick up the leaves and eat them.
Here's Ethan at about the same age in the same snowsuit thing. He's one month younger than her in the picture. I forgot how he always used to stick his tongue out! I have to say, too, he's cute--but Rayen is beautiful.
I actually got him to sit still for a picture with her! It's a good thing I have a nice camera that takes photos quickly because I got these just before he yelled, "I'm done!" and ran off.
Ethan, in theory, wants to play golf often. However, as you can see by the next series of pictures, he loses interest fast. It's hard to maneuver giant clubs! (My camera snaps pictures off quickly, so this all happened about 5 seconds.)


"This is too hard, Momma! You do it!"


A few nights ago, Ethan came up to me and said, "I want to cuddle with you." This is unusual coming from our boy who is all elbows and knees when you try to grab a hug from him. I was looking forward to a good snuggle! (I'm not a very physical person, but my baby girl is teaching me how nice it can be.) We got under his covers, but almost before my head even touched the pillow, he was up again! "I'm done! Let's read stories!" -sigh- At least I got a millisecond of a cuddle, I suppose.

We've been talking about families and how we're related to certain people. In the bath last night, Ethan started talking about it again. "Remember your sisters? Grandma Laurie and Grandpa John. And remember Daddy's brothers? Blythe and Lizzy."

Ethan is very much a 2-year-old. I read recently in a potty training article that if the child's first response to anything you say is "No!" then they are not yet ready to train. Yesterday, I got tired of all the no's and said, "Please don't just say no to me." His response? "No...okay?"

fun days

This is what we like to look at when we go to the zoo!
Our beautiful girl just sat in the stroller, eating, for the whole zoo trip.
We got fingerpaint recently. Ethan had a lot of fun painting suns. "And here's a 'pot for a blue sun! And there's a 'pot for a lellow sun!" If a word starts with 2 consonants, he doesn't say both sounds.
The other day Ethan woke up and said, "I was thinking about going to the store and getting some donuts. I was planning on that." He's a smart boy, using my own words and phrases to convince me to do things. Heh.

At one point when he was being naughty, he said, "I'm fighting you!" Then his eyes lit up with an idea, "We're fighting till the end!" He's been listening to Queen a lot.

round two

I thought Ethan was lucky enough to not be sick with the rest of us, but last night he started thowing up. Wow. A barfing toddler is way worse than a barfing baby. It requires way more cleanup. At least I'm over the sickness myself, so that I can handle taking care of him.

a new milestone

Ellie had real, big kid throw up last night. Poor baby.

e squared

We went to the zoo in beautiful Fall weather recently. But Ethan got tired from walking, so I had him hold Rayen in the stroller. He's a good big brother (when he's not torturing her!).
Ethan gets so dirty so quickly! This was just going from the house to the car--I don't even remember him touching anything on the way.
We have a new family tradition--eating In-N-Out in the back of the van. I won't take the babies inside to eat when Brett isn't with us, so we go through the drive-thru and eat it in the van. It's a fun little picnic.
My beautiful little girl.
And my handsome grown up boy. He's so big!
Rayen has added a new sign to her vocabulary, it's a combination of MAMA and MILK. It looks kind of like she's signing ORANGE to the side a little. And she says "go, go, go!" Brett thinks that's her name for Ethan right now.

smartest.children.ever.

Ethan spelled his first word today. He took his foam bath letters and found the G and the O and stuck them up on the wall, "G-O, go!" What a suitable first word for him.

Rayen says 2 words now: Momma and book (she actually says "gook," but she crawls over to the bookcase saying it over and over.) She's also does one sign, but I'm not sure what it is. It seems to be something like HELP or MORE. Or a combination of the two.

Ethan has been on a Queen kick lately, singing cute medleys all day long. When he sings Bohemian Rhapsody, he sings "Mama, ooooo! I mean to make you cry. Is that a dune buggy? Mama..."

When he plays with his cars, he likes to organize them. He organizes them different ways each time: sometimes by color, sometimes by type (convertibles, trucks, etc), sometimes by make. One time I went into his room after he'd been playing and he had all of his cars (more than 100) set up in one big line. "They're all set up!"

Rayen is busy busy busy. She moves around so much I can barely keep track of her. Except she's so noisy I always know where she is. Especially if someone isn't doing what she wants. She and Ethan get into yelling tug-of-wars over toys.