Freeze

I've officially decided that Nolan can stop growing and stay right here at six months old.  I mean, I think I want him to keep growing up EVENTUALLY, but right now?  I can wait.  It's a good age.  He's also in the 99th percentile for height, so he can hold off and settle down for a bit.  I'd be happy if he froze right here for the next three months or so.  He can solidly hold his own head up (yay no more carseat in the shopping cart!), eat and enjoy some solid foods, has a strict napping schedule,  is the happiest baby you'll ever meet, and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, sleeps for 11-12 hours straight through the night.  Can I get an amen?

He's also somewhat mobile.




Make that a LOT mobile.  He army crawls his way wherever he wants to go, whenever he wants to go (which is ALL THE TIME DON'T STOP TO CHANGE MY DIAPER WOMAN LET ME MOOOOVVVE) and still startles me sometimes when he's suddenly right beside me, or when I go to check on him and discover that he's not where I left him.



Where are you going, bay-bee?




He's usually trying to chase after his big brother and sister (Brooklyn can often be heard running around saying, "Come an' get meee No-an!") and he's already discovered that their toys are the best ones.  He can usually be found trying to play with whatever they are playing with, and it's only a matter of time before he figures out what "No no No-an!  That mine!" means.


Unless the older two are napping.  Then he gets free reign.



And still possesses the biggest blue eyes that you ever did see.


Family Photos - Twin 2.5 Year Olds + A 6-Month Old Edition!

So many favorites.  I tried to keep this short.  I failed.  Here we go...

Favorite Dock Shot:


Favorite of Brooklyn:


Favorite Twin Pic:


Awwww...

Favorite of Nolan:


Those eyes, tho...

Favorite Real Life With Toddlers Family Pic:


Favorite Real Life With Siblings Pic:


"No-an, look!"

Favorite I'm Glad I "Splurged" On a New Blanket Pic:


Totally worth the 9 bucks...

Favorite (and Only) Nolan Sitting Up Pic:


Favorite of Mommy and Baby:


Just Kidding, This One, Too:


Favorite Pics of My Guys:



Favorite This Is How It Would Look if We Only Had One Child Ha Ha Ha In My Dreams:


Favorite But I Wouldn't Trade Any Of Them (Usually, Most Days) Family Pic:


Favorite Holy Crap It Was Crazy Windy:


And The One That Actually Made Me LOL:


BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Favorite of the Siblings:


Or Maybe This One:


Favorite Where Everyone In The Picture is Actually Looking and/or Smiling In the General Direction of the Camera:


Favorite Girls Only Pic:


Favorite With Daddy:


Favorite (Like, Seriously, We're My Favorite) Couple Pic:


Many thanks again to Prall Photography!


Post (Labor Day) Weekend


The day after Labor Day means it's back-to-school time around here.  It's an exciting time of year: seeing all the first day of school pictures! getting back to routine! OMG the BUSES!!!1!!!!!1! (we live near a LOT of schools...).  Even if around our own actual home, it's pretty much more of the same.   Meals, snacks, playdates, naps, baths, repeat.  Though we soon will have some of our own routines starting back up again...storytimes and toddler activities and our own little classes.  We have one year left with no school, before 2 out of the 3 get shipped off to the Big Kid World of preschool.  In some ways I can't wait (preschool for 2-year olds, anybody?!?!? Just take them, PLEASE! ), but it's mostly good.  We'll be hanging out right here.


(Though possibly still working on our letters and spelling, just the same.)


(Caden: "k-c-o-s spell sock!"  Me: *dying inside from suppressed laughter* ".....yes.")


(Big sis is still excited to push baby bro in the swing.)



(In case you can't tell, he clearly hates it.)

My dad used to make me ice cream cones with drizzles of caramel and chocolate syrup flooding the bottom.  As a HIGHLY INTELLIGENT child, I figured out where all this goodness was hiding, and decided to eat my ice cream cone from the bottom up.  For some reason, from then on, I was banned to the front step right next to the hose when eating any and all ice cream cones.  THIS very front step, in fact:


The tradition continues.  Though they haven't quite figured out the eat-your-cone-from-the-bottom-up trick quite yet...




(Yet...)


(Working off all that ice cream on a Labor Day family walk.  I mean, Tyson and I worked it off.  The kids either rode or were carried.  Slackers.)



(Brooklyn: "Bye-bye!  Gettin' groceries!"  Baby and all.  And it's not even our baby doll.  A sweet neighbor girl lent her to us and Brooklyn has spent approximately the past 24 hours with this baby by her side and though we've tried to drill it into her I'm not sure she understands the crucial part where she has to give the baby doll back...)


(Also at this particular grocery store, the green beans were suspended in mid-air.  Apparently.)


(Ice cream again.  Because it was a holiday weekend, after all.)



(Brooklyn never wanted to cooperate for ice-cream eating pictures.  "Say 'ice cream'!" and she's all like yeah, I'm busy actually eating it, fool.)

And now onward to fall.  The best time of the year.  


And also quite possibly the most delicious.


We got a head start on that this weekend.


(Apple mosaic tart with salted caramel)


And the eating up the leftover caramel with apple slices was an absolutely terrible idea, just as Deb said.  A terribly delicious idea.


Read, Watched, Listened

I love reading just about everything, watching comedy and documentary-type things, and have recently embraced the podcast.  I also enjoy hearing about what other people are reading, watching, and listening to.  Here's my two cents worth.

Read

The tagline is "for the woman who feels she is both too much and never enough".  The authors help work through the reclaiming of these words, both"wild" and "free", and what they mean to us as Christian women.  It's a testament to the season of life I am in right now that I can say that I both loved this book, and at the same time cannot remember anything about it.  I have approximately zero takeaways from it.  I found it so encouraging and enjoyed reading it each evening after long days with the kids (aka each and every day), and yet I'm pretty sure I forgot all but the most blurry of details by the time my head hit the pillow.  I'm glad I purchased this one - I will definitely be reading it again someday!

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT.  First things first: I refused to buy it.  I borrowed my brother's copy of the book when he was done with it.  The whole we're-releasing-the-script-because-it's-a-play-but-then-going-to-market-it-like-it's-the-eighth-book just smacked of WE WANT YOUR MONEY to me.  I enjoyed it because, well, it's HARRY POTTER, and also, the writing is just so dang good.  J.K. Rowling has a clear gift, and Harry Potter is a phenomenon for a very good reason.  The dialogue is fantastic, but, y'know, as a play, that's pretty much all there was, and I missed the details and descriptions from the books.  I also found the entire plot to be repetitive (you have the entire magical world at your fingertips and - wait - Polyjuice Potion AGAIN?!?) and predictable (I figured out Delphi's parentage WAY before it was "revealed").  It was also pandering: all the going back-and-forth through time to give you different scenarios...it seemed like they wanted to give every possible fandom a taste of what could have been.  And yet, I still enjoyed it.  Unlike the original books, though, I will probably never read it again.  Anyway, tl;dr...if you're a Harry Potter fan, you'll enjoy reading it, but it's not life-changing or anything.

A re-read for me.  It's quirky, intelligent, and easy to read.  The perfect summer novel, and one of my favorite books.  The characters are funny and relatable, and the structure and writing of the book is unlike anything I've read before.

I suppose in retrospect it should have been obvious - clearly I didn't read the description closely enough when I put a hold on it from the library - but this is a cookbook (and pseudo-memoir).  I never really wrapped my head around the idea of reading a cookbook until lately.  Probably because the only idea in my head of a cookbook was my mom's random Betty Crocker and church cookbooks stashed in a cabinet growing up, occasionally pulled down to make a trusty favorite.  No prose; just recipes.  Why on earth would you "read" something like that?  I stand corrected.  I'm already all-in to the author's ideas on the importance and structure on family dinner, but enjoyed reading her thoughts and copied down several recipes from the book that we've already tried ourselves.  The Fish Presents and Chicken with Bacon-y Brussels Sprouts were both winners -  I could eat the bacon-y Brussels sprouts everyday just on their own.  Meal planning had been feeling a little stale lately (no pun intended - ha!), but this book and some new recipes helped rejuvenate what was feeling like such a chore.

Watched

Michael Pollan's book in documentary form.  You should ABSOLUTELY read the book before, (or after, it doesn't really matter), though the documentary stands just fine on it's own.  It explores how we as humans have harnessed the elements of fire, water, earth, and air to transform our food, focusing hard on one food-item per episode (bread, cheese, etc.). It's fascinating, and ties in to his other works as a commentary on sustainability and eating local.  Michael Pollan is also just incredibly well-spoken, and I enjoy listening to him.

Mostly, though, I watched more than my fair share of the Olympics this past month.  (USA!  USA! USA!)

Listened

A short (15-20 minute) podcast by two sisters-in-law that focus on how the truth of the Gospel relate to our work as moms.  I love that the episodes are quick and easy to listen to, so I can usually listen to them in one chunk (though not always...#momlife) while getting ready in the morning or cooking dinner in the evening.  They touch on a lot of topics, and while with the time limit aren't able to go very in-depth, they are challenging and thought-provoking and I find myself pondering topics I may not otherwise have thought about.  One of my favorite episodes is #11: What is Mom's Time Worth?.

Talking to writers?  Yes, please!  It can get a little fluffy for me when they talk about their process and...I don't know.  If you listen, you'll know what I'm talking about.  They can just be a little dreamy and frou-frou for someone as realist as me, but I do enjoy listening to some of my favorite authors talk about their works and their process.  The first episode I listened to is one of their most recent, with Glennon Doyle Melton (can't wait to read her new book very soon!).