Ice Cream (Wearing & Eating)

Snuggle Buddy

Oliver loves his Yia Yia and Papou, and they all enjoyed lots of snuggle time while we were visiting.

Porch Swingin'

Clothesline

I hung sheets out to dry on a country clothesline with a chunky baby on my hip. My life is complete.

Serious Building

Pardon my absence last week. We've been out of town 6 out of the last 9 days, and I was sick for a few of those days...so blogging had to take a back burner.

To make it up to you, here's a super deluxe post with lots of cute photos.

The scene: Ellis is building with his blocks in the living room. And it's serious business. So he can better see his blocks, he has borrowed a pair of glasses from Mr. Potato Head. Hammering with improvised implements, Ellis only breaks long enough to clean his glasses and get some nourishment, provided by his trusty assistant, Oliver.

Cute stuff! Enjoy!

Little Knights

Grandma just got home from London, and look what she brought the boys! Just in time to fuel Ellis' interest in knights and armor.

Grandma raised four boys, and has a keen eye for what little boys like!

Super Ellis

Who is cute as a button and ready for Halloween?

This kid:

Office Help

Does it involve tools? Styrofoam? Banging and other loud noises?

Then these boys are there!

They had a good time helping Daddy assemble some new office furniture... I think he could've done without the help for the most part--it certainly would've gone faster--but hugs from Ollie when he was frustrated made it all worthwhile.

Cultured Kids

Ellis has been borderline obsessed with mummies and sarcophagi lately, so we took a little trip to the museum to see a real mummy and its sarcophagus.  I was a little nervous that it would be scary to him when we got there, but he loved it!  I was pleasantly surprised at how well he did in the whole museum, actually.  He was really interested in the sculptures (and said cute things like, "Mommy, that guy's missing his head...and his arms!") and he loved the medieval armor.

I felt like Mother of the Year, raising little cultured museum goers.  Then we went to leave and the parking attendant said we didn't have to pay because we had been there under 30 minutes.  Oh.  Well, anyway, it was short and sweet and the kids loved all 29 minutes of it!

Giving the mummy his trademark thumbs up

I giggle every time I see this photo.

 

Please excuse the fuzzy pictures.  Without using a flash inside the museum, it got kind of fuzzy.  It was especially dark in the mummy exhibit, but I wanted to show you how excited Ellis was about it.

Tell Me, Honestly...

...Do I have any lipstick on my teeth?  Did I get it on straight?

My Little Farmer

Another Book, Papaw!

There are so many fun things to do at Papaw and Grandma's house ... picking goodies from their garden, riding the 4-wheeler with Papaw, and reading Corduroy and all the other fun books at their house, just to name a few.

The sweetest of all for this mama to see, though, is when the boys curl up with my dad in the chair and bring him book after book to read.

Ellis needs his tongue out to concentrate.  One of those kids.

So sweet.

A Look Back

It's been fun for me to see these new photos from back in April (that I just got from my friend). I'm usually the photographer, so it's been nice to see some photos of myself with the kids, too.

We'll be back to present time tomorrow.

[Belated] Birthday Pics

Hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Labor Day weekend!

I wanted to share with you some photos from my birthday weekend... which was a while ago, but I just got these photos from my best friend.  She's a busy mama herself and just had her second baby, so it took a while to get the photos to me.  Better late than never, right?

With my friend Elizabeth.  We worked together at our first counseling jobs out of college.

With my wonderful friends, Elizabeth & Kylene

With my friend, Kylene.  We worked at Ronald McDonald House Charities together and later attended the same grad school.  And briefly shared a last name.  

My true love.  We went to college together.  He shook my wet hand.  Romantic stuff.

With my mom and stepdad.  We go way back.