The Jones' Farm

Last Saturday I had a photo session with the Jones family. I have known their family since moving to Searcy. Heather and I were in the same class at church. And then we were suite-mates our freshman year in college.

Her entire family invited my family out to join me for the session. We had a blast. The kids were able to see real cows and chickens and goats and pigs. And JR was invited back to help haul hay (which he did yesterday). The entire evening was a blessing. If you'd like to see the pictures that I took of the Jones family, they are up on my photography site. But here are a few I quickly snapped of my kids.

Naomi pointing to one of the many cows...


Gideon with the chick...


Naomi with the chick...

Funny Thing

Gideon has started taking naps again(!!!) because the kids have been getting up a lot earlier than they did in Tally :(.

Today, as I was cuddling with Naomi, Gideon went over to the love seat and fell asleep.

Naomi woke up and went over to him. Now, I didn't see it happen, but he fell off the love seat. I checked on him and he confirmed he fell and I told him that it was funny.

He proceeded to laugh for 5 min. and then fell back to sleep on the floor.

That is where he is at this moment.

That kid cracks me up.

Boys Trompin' Through the Woods

JR and G went on a walk today. G took our old camera along. Sometimes he talks about wanting to be "a photography". And when I handed him the camera, he told me he was going to take a picture of himself like he saw me doing last week. (Did I put my self-portrait up here? ... I don't think I did. It's my new fb profile picture.)

Here's the slide show of G's photos. I haven't edited them at all. They are as he shot them. :)



Is it just me, or are some of his shots really cute? I'm diggin' the one of his shoes (except for the camera strap hanging down in the photo. :)

Re-reading

Last night I was re-reading posts from 19 months ago.

You see... Naomi is the age that Gideon was when she was born. And I like to see how they compared developmentally.

However, what I found was a couple of really sweet stories about Gideon awaiting the arrival of his baby sister and a WHOLE BUNCH of me whining about being pregnant. Oi!

The sweet everyday stories are the reason I try to keep up this blog. I haven't been doing a great job of that lately and I know I'm going to kick myself, when I look back later.

Right now, my kids are playing quietly together with stacking cups. They are really starting to play together these days. In fact, last week they were in the backyard all by themselves and mom and I just watched them from the window. Gideon lounged in a chair and was explaining something to Naomi who was in the "cart". But they were actually talking back and forth! It was adorable.

That's all for now. :)

Happy Anniversary!

4
...years of marriage...

3
...states we've lived in...

2
...beautiful children...

1
...life-long commitment to bring Glory to God through our marriage...

Happy Anniversary, JR. Here's to a life-time more of them!

Ok, so... BYE!

Today JR and I dropped of Gideon at his first school experience. Carpenter's Kids is going to be great for him.

Naomi woke up first, as usual. And as I was getting her diaper, Gideon grumpily complained, "Hey, you guys are waking me up."

So I went over and kissed him and reminded him that he needed to get up to get ready for preschool. To which he replied in a deep, husky voice, "5 minutes." (He usually says "couple four more minutes, so I'm not sure when he changed phrases.)

He chatted happily all through breakfast while supervising my lunch-making process.

Yesterday he crawled up in my lap to tell me: "Momma, I'm nervous about keyschool (his word for preschool)."

I asked him why and he explained that he thought all the other kids would eat his lunch. (Thanks PBS and Veggietales for lessons about bullies. Apparently the only lesson that stuck was that kids would take his lunch.)

Anyway, he picked out his blue shirt with his name on it to wear. (a bonus is that the teachers will be able to remember his name ... which he finally says right!!! Up until this weekend, he was calling himself "Gieon" and sounded like a little french kid. But now he says the "D"!!!)

We got him ready and took some pictures:





And a close-up of his lunchbox. This is what we bought with his birthday money from his Grandpa. He LOVES it.


Naomi wanted to get in the pictures.

Thanks for that cameo, Naomi. Nice bed-head.

This is what G was doing while we waited for it to be time for school.


On his way!


Posing with Daddy:


In the car...



As he got out of the car he exclaimed, "I'm going to have so much fun at keyschool!"

Walking in...


Upon entering the classroom, he was shown where to put his lunchbox. Then he turned to me and JR and said, "Ok, so... BYE!"

And this is how we left him.


He's going to have a blast. And I would like to mention that there were no tears on anyone's part today. But I will admit that when I think about him beginning the phase of his life where I will only be one of the major influences does affect me. Today is just another reminder that these precious children that God blesses us with, are just on loan. They are never really ours to hold onto.

Gideon is God's. And God will be right by his side even when I can't be. :)

I don't usually convert my pictures to Black and White. (the scrolling header is an exception) And I don't usually get a cute picture of both of my children at the same time. But these pictures are pushing what is "usual" for me. :)

My Favorite Summer Memories

I didn't blog this summer like I had hoped. I was too busy trying to figure out the ins and outs of photo-editing software.

So, instead, I will share some of my top summer memories. In no way will I pretend this is exhaustive... so I will probably add to it as I think of things. :)

"There's no people there!!"
One evening after we first moved in with Debby, we were all 5 in the car heading home. On our way we stopped at CVS to pick up some of Debby's prescriptions. The drive-thru to the pharmacy wound us around the bldg. and around the back. Before we got to the window, we came to a dumpster that had an opening like it was the window. I guess JR wasn't paying attention, b/c the first time we drove around, JR absent-mindedly slowed down and rolled down his window before realizing he was at a dumpster. When he realized his mistake, he said, "There's no people there." And G cracked up. I mean, C-R-A-C-K-E-D UP. I've never seen him laugh so hard without being tickled. Well... we proceeded as normal to the real window. But when we realized they didn't give us everything we needed, we had to pull back around. When JR got to the dumpster, he intentionally rolled down the window and pretended to order some fast food. And mid-sentence, he exclaimed, "Wait, there's no people there!" Again, G lost it. For the rest of the summer (and even sometimes still), we will pull up to dumpsters (or mailboxes) and "order". Gideon still finds it hilarious.

TCBY Fridays
Mainly at the beginning of the summer (more-so than the end of it) our family would eat a small Friday night meal and then treat ourselves to TCBY. The had $3 parfaits on Fridays. :) Most of the time Debby would join us. And about half of the time, the Mosiers were also there. It was a great family time of fun. Gideon would (all on his own) feed Naomi bites of his ice cream from his spoon. I can't tell you how adorable it is to watch your 3 yr. old son share his ice cream voluntarily with his 16 mon. old little sister. He would give her bites from the back of his spoon. And she would just look up at him adoringly and say "tantoo". Also, we ran into another family that had an 8 yr. old girl named Georgia. When G met her he introduced himself, so she in turn told him her name. When Gideon found out her name was Georgia, he exclaimed excitedly, "I call my Momma, Georgia!" To which she replied... "Why?" And G had to admit that he didn't know. (I thought that was hilarious.)

Seeds Family Worship
All summer we have been listening (almost exclusively) to Seeds Family Worship CDs. I CANNOT say enough about these CDs. There are 5 of them and they are all songs from Scripture. If you have visited our Prayer Support blog, you will have heard "Cast Your Cares". (Which is Gideon's current favorite song.) Our entire family is blessed the entire day when we begin our mornings and fill our days with these scriptures put to song. And how wonderful it is to hear our 18 month old (b/c she started doing this last month) begin to recite Jeremiah 33:3 and Phil. 4:6-7. (I think N's favorite song right now is "Call to Me".) BUY THESE CD'S FOR EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!! In fact, the CD's come packaged so that you have an extra to share.

That's all for now... I'm sure I'll add more later.

Hodge-Podge and Lodgeing

So, I guess I'm trying to make up for lost time. :) Monday I plan to post a "Favorite Memories of the Summer" post.

But for now...

I am loving the fact that Naomi's hair is growing long enough to do things with. Here she is yesterday.



and from the front:


Here are a two pics of my favorite people on this planet. (Notice that Naomi is wearing big-girl underwear.) She calls it "unweer" and cracks me up every time.




Here are some pictures that my dad took this morning of the kids eating their breakfasts.




And Papa being artsy and getting the reflection...


And for those of you interested in seeing our "digs" here at the "'rents house"...
The kid's room:










The bathroom they share with my cousin Elaina...


And you go up the stairs...


to the room/apartment/formerly "Gigi's Attic that JR and I share...
















Our bathroom (smaller than our closet)




and the view out over our room from the bathroom...


So... as you can tell, we are really roughing it here. :P

Playing at the Taylor's

Last week, after Mom and I finished up round-one of "Scrooge" children's auditions, the whole family headed out to Mike and Vicki Taylor's farm.

This farm lacks for nothing. Good people, good food, horses, gardens, playgrounds, a pool... you name it, it's probably there.

Here are some of the pictures I took. At the end of the short slide-show, you'll see Naomi on a rocking horse. She LOVED it and rode it most of the evening once she discovered it.

(We've got lots of pictures of just the rocking chair, Keith, if you were looking for a project. :P)

Gideon's Preschool Preview

Gideon and I headed out to check out Carpenter's Kids this morning. We took a picture of G standing by the car to mirror the pic we have of JR standing by the car.

I haven't figured out how to put the captions with the flickr slideshows, yet, so you'll get the run down here.

Picture 2 shows him with his new friend, Shelby. She is in the class above him. And don't worry, Madison, no one can take your place as G's best friend. In fact, on the way home from the preview I asked him what he was thinking about and he was thinking about Madison. :)

Picture 3 is Gideon when we first got to his classroom. He went right to the puzzles. I was surprised, after talking about making new friends for WEEKS, he didn't talk to anyone.

Picture 4 is another view of G keeping to himself. But the little boy in green looking at the camera is Joe Burchfield. He is the middle son of my friend, Heather. Heather and I hung out some in highschool and were suite-mates our freshman year at Harding.

The last picture is of G with his teachers. Miss Anna and Miss Brittany.

After we left he was back to talking about the crafts he'll make, the puppets he'll see, and the objects he's going to take in for show-and-tell. I know he'll love it at Carpenter's Kids.

Pictures

Here's a slide-show of pictures from our first week in Searcy.


These are from the 2nd week (when everyone was sick):


And last week, the kids and I went to Alisa Davidson's house to play with her reflectors (photography equipment that will be in my future). So I snapped some pics of the kids enjoying her fresh-picked tomatoes and big back yard.


From those pictures, I put together this story-board.


Hope this helps those of you in acute cute withdrawal. :)

My New Web-site

I'm really excited about my new photography web-site!

Check it out. The link in the side-bar works. Or you can type it in manually (to get used to going directly to it--hint hint).

www.DLifeful.com