Fun in the fall

Pictures from October

Wesley fell asleep IN MY BED while I read to him and Noah. Wesley won't fall asleep anywhere except his bed so this was quite momentous. He skipped his morning nap and was completely fried by 1pm. So cute.

I love Noah's expression here. This is how he is looking at Wesley most of the time. These two totally adore one another. So of course I had to get them matching PJs. :)

A very serious Wesley at Brown County State Park.

Look at all those leaves!

Surveying the landscape!

Noah and Wesley cuddling like buddies. Just prior to this shot, Wesley took a nose dive into the floor and got a bloody, fat lip. This is probably the 5th injury he's had today. He's on a catastrophe binge. I tried to take a couple shots of his sad little lip. He got over the pain real fast when I gave him some pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies.

Wesley

I rarely take the time to post about Wesley. You can scroll back to here, here, and here and find many posts about Noah over the years. But Wesley, not so much. I guess it is because he doesn't talk much yet or something, but I am going to devote a few minutes to my sweet little angel. I spent a few hours alone with him today and I absolutely delight in this kiddo. Here are some things you should know about him.

-When he walks, he doddles his head from side to side like he is sooooo happy with himself.
-He is constantly jabbering things I wish I could understand. He uses his tongue a lot when talking and it absolutely cracks us up.
-He loves walking. Tonight we just walked and walked and walked. I think he could go for a mile! He will walk for awhile, and then just take off running. So cute.
-He loves nature. Grass, trees, picking little berry thingies off of trees, inspecting cracks in the ground, looking at bugs, etc etc.
-He really thinks he is funny. And he is. I'm amazed at his sense of humor. I wish I could give you an example but it wouldn't make sense. You'll just have to trust me that he is very mischievous and knows when he is being so and he thinks it is hilarious!
-When he's in trouble, he will not look at me. He tries to change the subject by pointing at something or just lowering his head and acting like he's not aware of my angry face. He's way too smart.
-He likes to swing. I mean, what kid doesn't right? But he also likes to hit the ball off of the tee---that's his new trick this week.
-He is a picky eater, with shades of improvement. I haven't blogged about this and I'm not sure why. I keep forgetting or hoping it will go away. As many of you know personally, this has not been a pleasurable stage whatsoever. Here are some things he does like: chicken, fruit, beans (black, pinto, or kidney), waffles, breakfast breads, and sometimes pasta. Some unfortunate things he does not like are cheese, sandwiches, deli meat, hamburger, and other healthy things. I guess we'll take what we can get. There is no use in trying to force this kid. He looks to be more stubborn than his older brother. Yikes.
-He is a pretty good sleeper. He sleeps from 8pm to 7am usually and still takes 2 naps. They are dwindling down to hour naps, though so I think we're close to removing the morning nap. Yuck.
-Wesley loves to dance and clap. Any excuse he has to dance he'll use it.
-He absolutely HATES getting his diaper changed (and has been this way since birth--never going through that blissful stage where they actually like being on the changing table) by me. Oh, I say by me because apparently mee-mas and nanas are exempt from his wrath during diaper changes. Go figure. Anyway, if I sing "if you're happy and you know it" or "I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee" then he instantly quiets himself and delights in my singing and follows along with hand motions. He's such a stinker.
-And last but not least, the number one trait about Wesley is he LOVES BOOKS! He is obsessed with books and will let us read to him for over an hour. He never wants to stop and if he had his choice, that is all he would do. He is completely enamored with books and they are all over our house so that we can whip one out at all times. He will plop himself right in your nap and show no signs of wanting to move. I absolutely love this about him. It's a nice change from Noah wanting me to constantly play football with him. :)
Our sweet little boy is growing up. He has 6 teeth and is trying to say more words every day. He still mostly just jabbers though and I have to admit I love it because it still means he's very much a baby. I hope you feel like you know a little more about Wesley now!

Noah's Birthday

Here are pictures from Noah's birthday and birthday party. I hope you can see these because some of these pictures are adorable! (And yes, I'm aware that the square is overlapping the blog, but I wanted the pictures to be big enough to see.)

The Beach with Mee Ma and Papa

So we went to the beach when my parents were here and here's some photos of our time (click on it to take a closer look). This was on Lake Monroe and it was the most gorgeous day ever. We had the best time with Mee Ma and Papa. I'm so sad that the beach won't be open again until Memorial Day!! The boys are really growing up and enjoying more and more ways to get out their energy.

Placemats

Finally after a month of saying I would do it, I finished the boys' placemats today. Two years ago Noah's preschool made laminated placemats for the kids and I loved the idea. So now that he's older and we've moved away from family and friends I thought it would be a great time to make new ones. Wesley also needed one so I could make sure he remembered his relatives since he's still so young. They are great because they just wipe clean.

Wesley's little song

Sweet boys

My boys are very sweet and we've been having a lot of fun. Here are some recent pictures. My two little squirts.
What is my crazy brother doing?
Noah's first day at camp
Oreo face
Oreo face II

A little delayed

So I apologize for not posting this sooner. I cannot believe we haven't been videoing Wes walking. He's getting better and better everyday although still crawls a lot. I think he figures which mode is faster and picks that one. :) Anyway, our baby is growing up!

Catching up

There are lots of cute pictures of the boys recently so I'm doing some catch up. This is my current favorite picture of my sweeties. Their faces are sort of serious yet sweet. Mmmm, I could kiss their cheeks off! This was on the Forest Park train just a week or so before we moved away. Daddy with his boys. I cannot remember for the life of me where this was.
Wesley entranced in a book that Mee-Ma is reading him.
My big boy getting his teeth professionally cleaned for the first time. I was so proud of him. He did such a good job! And Miss Amber was the best hygenist ever!!
My Daddy, or Wesley's Papa snuggling during milk time.

Papa's Garden

I am so proud of my dad's garden. It is seriously a bounty of fresh veggies and fruits. He works hard and gains much satisfaction from it. Noah is always very interested and got to pick blackberries this year. The onions were already picked but the blueberries weren't quite ready. It was a special time for these two "men". :)

New memories

Here are some pictures that I've taken the last few days. Noah and Wes enjoying some icecream from the local shop Bruesters.

Noah's new friend and neighbor. They had fun in the sprinklers.

Noah doing flips on the neigbors' trampoline. He was having the time of his life.
This is Betsy. She is one BIG dog. Kinda freaks me out, actually. Although she is apparently as tough as a mouse.

Wesley's 1st birthday

So I've been looking back and I am TERRIBLE about posting pictures and updates about Wesley compared to how I was with Noah. I will tell you the single most contributing factor is that it is no longer fast or easy to upload mass amounts of pics to Blogger anymore. It was with Noah! So I'm forced to post a slideshow instead which probably took just as much time to make. Sigh. Anyway, my baby is 1 year old. I cannot believe it. We missed his checkup today so I'll have to give you the stats next week when we rescheduled the appt. Let's see, here are some charactistics of Wesley at 1:
-Determined
-LOUD
-Talkative and just now saying mama. Been saying Daddy and nana.
-Very strong, fast, and into everything
-Loves to climb. He loves to climb up our slide and then slide down on his belly.
-Daring yet careful
-A pretty good eater
-Opinionated.
-A little sober
-Very attached to his mama
-Just now realizing it is hard to capture smiles on camera compared to when he was little.
-A good sleeper
-Has the most kissable cheeks!
-Loves to mimic sounds that he hears

That's about it folks. I looked back at the posts when Noah was one year and I'm realizing THEY ARE SO DIFFERENT!!!!!! Noah was so smiley and always going to different people. I'm sure the difference with Wes is for the past 5 months he has been with me 24-7---no preschool, no nothing. And the 7 months prior to that, he only left me for 10 hours a week. Still it makes me a little sad that he's not as friendly yet as Noah was. I'm sure he'll come around :) But he loves his brother and wants to be near him all the time. Those two crack me up! Alright, here is the slideshow if his party. And I just realized we didn't get one picture of Daddy!! Ah. Well, it's usually the other way around, so go figure.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Pics from Cali

I am totally confused as to what is going on with my picture posts but this is Wesley playing on the beach. His first experience. Next is Daddy and Noah on Uncle Paul's scooter that he putts around campus on.


This is Braeden Wooton and Noah. They haven't seen eachother since Noah was 18 months old. They had fun.

This is little charmer, Ethan Begin. He is a split between mommy and daddy as far as looks go. But he's a cutie!