Hawk Sighting!

Check out this hawk!  On Saturday, Mike and Peter were out in the carport working on putting up the Christmas lights.  This hawk came swooping through the carport above their heads and perched in the apricot tree in our backyard and I managed to get a picture of it before it flew away.  I think it's a broad-winged hawk but that's a fairly uneducated guess.  Pretty neat though eh?

Beware!

Peter comes up to me yesterday as I am washing the dishes.  He proceeds to bite me in the bum.
Mommy:  "Peter, WHAT do you think you're doing??!"
Peter:  "I'm an alligator, Mommy.  I'm eating you!"

Sweet Kid

This morning at breakfast, Peter says to me, 
"Mommy, you are really cute. I like you very much, I'm exciting about you!" 
And proceeds to give me this goofy grin:

I kind of needed that today.

Happy 3rd Birthday Peter!!

This past year has been another one filled with so much learning and growth.  You've gained 2 inches and 5 lbs in the last year (compared to 5 inches and 8 lbs the previous year), but it has been your vocabulary and your personality that has grown by leaps and bounds!  We love teaching you things, having hilarious conversations with you, and watching you learn about the world around you.  Sometimes your observations make us laugh and laugh and laugh!  You're all done with diapers and soothies, sleep in a big boy bed, sit with us in church, and like to help out with your brothers.  So much so in fact that I have caught you several times trying to toilet-train your poor younger brother - pants and diaper at his ankles bawling in the bathroom.  You want to do all the things you see Mommy and Daddy doing - whether it be cooking and baking in the kitchen, going to get groceries, play with the tools in Daddy's workshop or figuring out how to use the nail clippers to cut various things that are not nails...  Although you are a strong-willed child and often stubborn enough to drive your parents up the wall, we love how you ask us for hugs and kisses and how you love to cuddle.  We greatly look forward to what the coming year has to bring for you and all the fun that we will have!  Happy birthday Pete!

Mid November

Well, time just marches on here and we're busy as can be.  Life is full with three little boys at home, and the days are filled with playing and laughter, tears and frustration, hugs and kisses, diaper changes, laundry, cleaning, cooking, feeding, and a myriad of other random things.  How blessed we are!  I have to say that having three kids has kept me quite house-bound, as I'm not quite sure how to manage three very young children who want to go in different directions and are liable to become stubborn or upset at any moment.  I'll have to brave it one of these days but for now, it's the limits of the property for me as even in the evenings Nathaniel tends to be quite fussy.  I'll miss these days some year in the future right? 

As you can see by the posts that have gone up lately about the older two kids' antics, they keep us busy and laughing.  The phrases "partners in crime" and "monkey see, monkey do" have become much more real to me lately, as Peter and Aaron tend to get into lots of imaginative trouble together.  Pulling chairs up to the kitchen counter to eat sugar out of the sugar bowl or splash in the sink, or climbing up to the buffet to play with the crystal glasses (!!).  Sitting on the bathroom floor discovering what's hidden in the cupboards under the sink, breaking into the cold storage room downstairs and throwing toilet paper rolls around, or discovering what happens when you try to microwave a travel mug.  Whatever trouble one child can get into on his own, two can get into much more trouble than you would think if trouble is a proportional thing.  It's more of an exponential relationship I think, and I worry about the days when I will have three little boys thinking up ways to be "creative" when Mommy has her hands full. 

Nathaniel is not quite so much of a handful yet and is relatively easy to keep in line.  He is a fairly happy baby, aside from evening fussiness which can be expected, and he of course would rather be held during the day than spend time on his own.  His super cute smiles and sparkly eyes just melt your heart and he is very easy to cuddle and "talk" with.  At his 6 week visit at the midwives, he weighed in at 13 lbs 5 oz, and 24.5" long.  According to the scale at the doctors when I took him for his 2 month visit, he weighed 11 lbs.  Yeah, our doctor is a bit out of the loop and seemed quite surprised when I told him there was no WAY Nate is only 11 lbs.  My guess is more around 15 lbs, but I'll have to wait and see if I can get him weighed at the midwives office again before I know for sure.  He has been doing very well at nights, going down around 10 pm and getting up once or twice to nurse before 8 or 9 the next morning when he is up for the day.  Certainly nothing to complain about there, especially considering how Aaron used to be up for the day regularly around 5:30 am.  I am certainly appreciating the extra sleep - it has been a very long time since I have been able to sleep more than two hours in a row.   Nate also naps quite well during the day, and although we don't have a strict schedule in place, things are getting more regular and predictable.  This is important when there are three little people's lives to coordinate.  

Anyways.  That's life here for now. Enjoy the pictures!

After Aaron's naptime, Peter went in there, dragged his crib across the 

room to his own bed, and they started having an enthusiastic jumping fest   

Nate with his Oma and Opa

Raking the leaves on a beautiful sunny day

My serious little guy

Having tons of fun playing in the leaves!

Aaron loves it too!

Reading a book with Aunt Lauren

Ummmm... how do I start cleaning this up?  And this isn't even close to 

the worst diaper I've had to deal with from this little guy... he's quite 

the expert at poop explosions.  Either he really likes baths, or 

dislikes my clothing choices and wants to try on something different. 

Such a sweet smile from my little guy!

Mussche family picture a few weeks ago

Grandma and Grandpa with their SIX little grandsons!  What a blessing!

Nathaniel and his cousin Lucas, born almost a month apart

I love this picture!  Must be lots of fun to wear Mom's sweater!

And here is a progression of pictures..
trying to take a photo of all three boys together

Not too bad, everyone is looking at the camera...

And another one, maybe getting a little more wiggly...

Agh!  Time for some Mommy-intervention to save the baby!

Potty Training

I knew there was trouble when I heard the bathroom door click closed, and then Aaron start bawling on the other side of it.  Peter had closed the door on him, and was standing there in the hallway with a guilty look on his face, trying the knob and telling me that it was locked because Aaron had to go pee.  Aaron's wails just got louder as I went to go dig up a screwdriver to open the lock.  When the door finally was opened for him, he was standing there with his pants around his ankles and his diaper at his feet... I guess Peter is trying to do the potty training for me, haha!!  "Aaron has to go pee, Mommy!"

I just sneezed, and Aaron said "Gezundheit"... love it!  He's starting to talk more and more, what a fun stage.  In other Aaron news, I finally just found the juice cup he lost a week or two ago.  I knew it was somewhere in the house and had looked all over for it several times but I figured he hid into some random box in the basement.  No, he had a more creative hiding place - he tucked it under our box-spring just where the cloth lining is separated from the frame (Kitty did that way back in her time - she liked to sleep inside the box-spring).  I think it was a pretty lucky find!  I certainly don't look INSIDE the box-spring very often!!

 

 

Baking Cookies

Peter and I were baking cookies together this morning, and we were sitting in front of the oven watching them bake.  I was explaining to him how the heating elements make the oven hot and bake the cookies, and then the heating element turned off. 
"Mommy, where did the red line go?"
"What do you mean?  Oh, I see, it turned off..."
"It went to the grocery store, Mommy.  It went far away"
Allllll righty then.  Didn't know my oven was that mobile but I guess you learn something new every day.