Twelve Month Weston

 Here is a whole bunch of Weston photo love. One year old. Can you believe it?!?

Yes he climbs. Yes I'm nervous.

Okay, he's a third child and this happens a lot. At least his high chair reclines.

He loves this apple sauce. He sees no reason why he shouldn't have every single one he lays eyes on.

More climbing.

Birthday present from grandma is entertaining for the older brothers as well.

I mean, I could just eat him up.

We celebrated his birthday a few days late, this was post-cakesmash. I think he's flexing for the camera.

He discovered the crumb catcher in his high chair to be a great source of food. If only we could find it now. . .

He loves oatmeal. Which is unfortunate in times of caring about his appearance.

And here are a whole lot videos for the die hard fans.

Birthday Video.
You can tell it's a third child by the way we happened to remember to record something at the end of all the festivities....
Notice his one, almost two teeth. All my boys have been late teethers. I don't mind a bit. 




Some Twelve Month highlights. The second clip of him in his crib is how he tries to talk us out of naptime or greets us when we come to get him after he wakes up. He could be crying for fifteen minutes or even an hour, but as soon as we walk in, he stops crying immediately and begins talking to us, explaining that he had been awake and crying, and he is still in his crib, and that we should definitely pick him up right at that moment.




I know. There's a lot of videos. But don't say I didn't warn you.
Here is Weston waking up his brothers. He tries to steal Mason's toys all the time.




I think this is my favorite video. He was doing this adorable lip-pucker thing when he would talk and I caught it on video. I was in the middle of drying my hair. It's a miracle I ever get my hair all the way done. I love love love this adorable little chatterbox. Here he has two teeth.


And last, but not least,
Swordfighting

Misc September

Caught them watching the theme song videos to old cartoons like "Duck Tales" and "Tail Spin."

Love the arm tuck.

"Mom, take a picture of my fire beard!"

"Mom, take a picture of me making this face!"

Offering me a picnic of chocolate chips and meat.

Mormon Night at Rockies stadium. It wasn't that full. But I did meet a guy  from the Netherlands sitting behind me. He was excited to speak Dutch to somebody. He's been in the US for decades. It was fun for his grandchildren with him to hear him speak Dutch. I can't remember the last time I practiced. It was fun. The game was fun too.

Spiders in our basement. We hired the summertime bug boys to take care of them. Ew Ew Ew. But I haven't' seen any since we sprayed.

Justin was teaching Mason subtraction.

Justin sent this to me from their trip to Walmart. Dream on, my love.

Justin still buys me flowers when he goes grocery shopping. He gives the bouquet to one of the boys (usually Donovan) to give to me. I will never be able to adequately express my appreciation for a husband who recognizes the power of beautiful flowers in a relationship.

Donovan got these enormous bowling pins for his birthday and we finally blew them up.

He likes to play his own way.

He was just doing this for fun. I love my boys.

I was trying to dry my hair, but Donovan wanted to take pictures with me.

So we did.

I honestly don't know if I got around to actually drying my hair.

He was telling me a story and had the best smiles, so I snuck a photo. It's so hard to get his real smile in a picture. Isn't it perfect?!

This is more like what I get when he knows I'm taking a photo.

I don't even remember what he ate here. Maybe a chocolate doughnut?

I made this for Weston out of an old oatmeal container and it literally entertained them for half an hour straight. Why do I buy toys?

It had been a while since I'd used our stereo so I put a CD in and the boys couldn't get over how cool it was that noise was coming out of the speakers. We usually have Pandora playing on the TV or phone or ipad for our music. What kind of world are my kids growing up in that speakers are cool and unusual?! They think CDs are movies. That's my fault. I'll work on it. 

Some videos:
The boys have a hard time saying goodbye to Justin every morning. They do pretty much the same routine every day, which involves Justin walking back for more hugs at least once. Sometimes two or three times. Weston even gets into it.



Both Donovan and Mason have learned to play with cars in a dry tub. Weston just likes throwing miscellaneous items into the tub. I love Donovan's laugh in the beginning of this video.

Music Class

One of my friends hosts a free music class every Friday. The boys think it's the greatest thing. I took a few videos to show Justin what we do in there. The pictures I take are rarely in focus since they are moving around the entire time.

Horse and buggy.

We Done Learned Em Somethin

One of the coolest perks of parenthood is witnessing the development of your kids' minds. When Mason began kidndergarten, he didn't even know how to draw a basic picture. We would have drawing time and he would scribble and call it either a tornado or a racetrack. He was reading okay, but would get frustrated if he didn't know a word and just gave up.
At the beginning of Preschool this year, Donovan kind of knew his letters, but he would guess a lot of the time. He would draw some shapes, but not much. He usually would copy Mason and just scribble. So I was curious what he would do once he was separated from Mason.

This was on the wall of Mason's classroom for orientation. I am so proud.

He did this on his own a week later. It's a monster.

And this is the letter E by Donovan. I was so excited when he showed this to me! Also pictured are my toes and ankle brace. I broke my ankle at the beginning of this month while running. Stress fracture/old injury getting revenge.

Donovan's Preschool

We are doing a co-op preschool with Donovan and one other boy who is a little older than D. Donovan loves it. I usually schedule a lot of play time during preschool, but both boys will keep asking for more learning time. No complaints about that. I have to do a lot of improvisation in those cases, but that's fine. We go on a lot of field trips. The point of this preschool is not so much academic as social. Here are a few pictures of some of our adventures.

Indoor Pool Time!

D loves this donut floatie.

Museum of Nature and Science! Weston has a whole different experience here now that he can walk. We come he a lot since both Deborah (the other mom) and I have memberships.

This must not be from a preschool day since Mason is in the picture, but I'll add it anyway.

They built a rocket to go to the moon.

Safety First!

Justin Coaching Soccer

Mason played soccer again, and since Justin's schedule is almost normal and regular, he volunteered to co-coach with our friend. Mason is quite a team player. He gets out on the field, runs around after the pack of kids surrounding the ball, and sometimes knows what is going on. If he notices that his team scores, he gets excited, and he considers it a score by him since it is his team. Can't complain about that, I guess. But what he gets super amped up about is snacktime at the end of the game. CapriSuns are called "soccer drinks" in our house. We are debating whether he will play next season.

Can you see how Mason's shirt is over his head? He literally ran around like this. A few different times. In a few different games.

Backyard Play

We know the warm weather will end soon. Last year it snowed a few times in September and regularly in October, so we are ready this year. It did snow already this month on the 12th, but it was gone by the next day. Bring it on. We are milking the warm weather for all it's worth.

We added a swingset to our backyard, and we LOVE IT!

The boys get to break the "up the ladder, down the slide" rule when it's in our backyard. They think I'm such a drag at public playgrounds when I enforce that rule. Tough.

There's this baby swing that has no strap for between the legs, so he could just slide right out by arching his back, so we rarely use it this way, he's usually got his legs going through the holes in the back.

And here is the big guy walking through the grass like it's nothin.

So much fun!

Mostly. I love D's face.