Favorite Things Friday :: Cheese!

Nothing like some "cheese" to make your Friday! This was one of my favorite moments this week...Rylan started on his rice cereal this week and I just had to get some pictures of the moment. While I was taking his picture, the other boys had to join in with their funniness too.

By the way, Rylan isn't a fan of cereal so far!

Favorite Things Friday :: Communication

I just love how kids communicate! Our boys are very active communicators and are growing in their language and communication skills. I thought it might be fun this week to share little clips of them as they communicate in their individual ways!

Rylan communicates mostly with his eyes. He is a happy kid and loves his jumper. Some of my favorite moments with him are when his big brothers interact with him!

Haden is talking up a storm these days. He keeps us laughing! It's so fascinating to me how the parents of a two year old can know what he's saying, but everyone else is baffled! Haden definitely has his own language.

One of my favorite things he says goes like this:

Mommy: Haden, what are you doing?
Haden: This.

Cracks me up. I have tried to translate some of what he says in his little video clip. Most of the time he replaces "I am" or "I have" with "My"...for example, he says, "My eat some race car chicken." I think once we deciphered that replacement, so much more began to make sense!

We try to get Mason to share with us about his days at school. We laugh with his friends' parents that we have to pull information out of our kids! I have to say, however, when Mason is passionate about something he is definitely eager to share about it...especially his creations. He does a lot of creating with paper these days. He recently made an entire paper castle with a door that opens, a good dragon that can be pulled out to reveal a bad dragon underneath, and his own separate king crown (you can see in the video). He always has very imaginative stories to go with his creations and I love that he shares them with us!

Favorite Things Friday :: Painting Pottery

We have taken on a new project! We have three stone benches that we have set up in the backyard and have a plan for the boys to each paint tiles once a year that we can use to tile the benches. Painting pottery is a fun summer time activity we like to do and we are hoping that this will be a fun way to keep the boys'art and see the fun ways they change while they are growing up. Here are some pictures from our first year's attempt:

Mason + Love = Rainbows

Lately, I have been saying, "I have to tell you my rainbow story" to just about everyone I have talked to! I have decided that our blog readers should read it too...it's just so neat!

Over a week ago, Donald was out of town for work for the better part of the week. It was my first time to take care of the "bro trio" all by myself and it was the first week of school. Might be needless to say, but it was pretty intense here at home. When Donald returned on that Saturday, it took us a little while to adjust back to normal and Donald and I had a morning full of arguements. Mason, of course, observed our arguing.

The next morning Mason found me and had a picture he had drawn for us. On the front the picture had a drawing of:

Mason + (a heart) = (a rainbow)

On the back he had drawn a picture of the sun shining on a pot of gold. Next to the sun he wrote, "Daddy" and next to the pot of gold he wrote, "Mommy." He explained to each of us (separately) that Mommy was the pot of gold and Daddy was the sun shining on the pot of gold. He said that he was praying that Daddy would shine on Mommy and that Mommy would shine back on Daddy and we would grow and help each other.

Wow! This little six year old hasn't ever read Paul's words in Ephesians 5:20-25:

"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."


But this little six year old boy captured those verses so well in his little picture!

How wonderful to picture the covenant of marriage like a rainbow with a pot of gold and the shining sun. How amazing that he drew a picture of a pot of gold that needs and submits to the sun in order for it to shine on the gold and give it its beauty and its shimmer. How beautiful that he thought the pot of gold would shine back to the sun to brighten its rays. And how miraculous that God used a little boy (who's name, if you remember, means "builder of love") to paint a picture for us to remind us of His provision in our marriage.

And God didn't stop there...

On Monday, while in the car together, we saw a rainbow in the sky.
On Tuesday, while in the car together, we saw a rainbow in the sky.
On Wednesday, on his way home from work, Donald saw a rainbow in the sky and brought me outside to see it.

Three days God showed us a rainbow in the sky...completing His picture and thoughts for us...and creating a forever reminder of this moment of promise and provision.

On the fourth day I saw this sweet painting that was done by preschool children...a picture that serves as a reminder of the child-like picture drawn by our sweet six year old boy that God used to speak wisdom and promise into our lives.

Favorite Things Friday :: Ends and Beginnings

I have to admit that "ends and beginnings"--aka transition--is not one of my favorite things! We have, however, had a fairly smooth transition from the adventures and easy goings of summer vacation into the routine of school. Of course, with these boys, adventure and discovery have not been absent throughout our summer and into the past few transitional weeks!

We have seen and played with and taken pictures of Lizards...

And this "garden spider"...note that the moth in this spider's web did not fly into it on his own, but was put there!

Adventure and discovery have kept these boys constantly on the move...and being on the move in Austin during August makes for some very hot and sweaty boys!

Because of the hot days, some of our last days of adventure and discovery had to be inside. The picture below is of GG the Giraffe! He was the first member of the zoo in our house-consisting of a giraffe, lion, monkey, aquarium, entrance gate, and soveneir shop...all made of card board boxes! Oh what fun to live with our super-creative 6 1/2 year old, guided by the scientific and engineering minds of Daddy and Grandpa!

Our littlest guy is transitioning in his own little way too...he's movin' and groovin' these days in his jumper and LOVES it!

He is also learning lots in his exersaucer! Our transition from three at home this summer to two at home has been lots of fun. These two are learning more and more about each other and are having fun little moments of discovery together.



This was the first day of first great for our BIG guy! We have all been waking up early and walking to school and are having fun on this new side of adventure and discovery. I have started calling these guys my "Bro Trio"...I love how unique they are in their approaches to life, but also how well they do together as brothers. What a team!

And this guy is the leader of the pack! He is doing a fabulous job in his transition to first grade! He is reading and writing nonstop! He sets such a great example for his brothers and cares so deeply for them. And they are learning so much from this big first grader!

So here's to the end of a fun summer and the beginning of a new season of adventure and discovery!