Next Generation

Back in early September we went to a park with Grandma and the cousins.  I took the camera so I could practice some action shots, and here are the results!  (It makes me miss summer…but we’re almost to the shortest day of the year, and then it starts heading back that direction!  There’s hope!)

This park has a playground with a huge slide:

I got A to do a little photo shoot with me:

The other two joined in for some of the shots as well:

We had a picnic lunch…

…then climbed some trees…(I love her expression on this one! =)

There’s a great fountain, made intentionally for kids to play in, I believe!

E wasn’t too sure about it at first, and sat watching his cousins for a bit.

E joined in eventually and had a great time!

E had so much fun he was the last one out.  He was very sad to go.  We’ll definitely have to go again next year!

Joel already posted some of our pics of block-building on his blog, but here are some more with the little man.

Joel had a great time building Manhattan…

One of the things we did to celebrate Gr. M’s birthday (almost two months ago now…) was go to The Coffee Cottage for a free birthday drink!  It’s also a favorite source for steamy milk and yummy pastries.  Here are some fun pics Joel took that day.  We also went hiking and to Lincoln City, so I’ll put that post up next, hopefully.

Sometime in October we visited a farm called Baggenstos.  The kiddos played in the hay maze, E’s older cousin went with Grandpa through the corn maze, and we went on a tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch.  (Or at least the place where they put pumpkins out in a big field…they didn’t actually grow there, but hey–at least it’s on a farm!)  We had a great time!  (Again with the point-and-shoot, but it’s better than nothing, eh?)

E’s learning to say “Cheeeeeese!”

“OK, now do a NICE smile, E!”

Rock climbing!  Yessss!

No “cheese” this time…

A had fun startling the kiddos:

More “cheese”:

What could be better than a tractor ride?

E’s been getting into drumming on everything.  Pumpkins are good for that.

A charming shot of his little cousin:

We didn’t buy any pumpkins because we grew some in our yard–but then we never got around to carving any anyway!  I might cook them up and make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins with them, at least (if y’all in the area are lucky!).

Here are some pics from a while ago of E and his cousin finger painting with Grandma.  They had a great time!  (Sorry the quality isn’t up to our usual level…this was with my point-and-shoot.  But you get the idea anyway…)

And one more, just for the cuteness factor:

We had a little dinosaur this Halloween!  Joel was unfortunately sick, so he couldn’t go with us.  E and I had a splendid time anyway.  The first shot is of E when he first got his costume:

The afternoon of Halloween we had to have some way of keeping him occupied until it was time to trick-or-treat…

Here’s the back of the costume:

Yay, all dressed!

First stop: The Coffee Cottage, where they gave out free hot chocolates or apple ciders to kids in costumes.  Here he is waiting for his drink…

and trying it out!  Mmm…tasty.

We trick-or-treated around downtown and he got basically a full pumpkin’s worth of candy.

We went home for dinner and photo ops.

Then we traipsed over to his cousins’ place.  These two are next to impossible to get a photo where they’re both looking and have a pleasant expression!

I was experimenting with the flash, and when I edited these two shots I thought they looked cool even though it wasn’t exactly what I meant to do:

Darth…

Let the trick-or-treating begin!

Getting a little tired, but still gung-ho.

Also present were E’s cousins’ cousins and some neighbor kids (and their parents).

After a long evening…

E only had 2 pieces of candy all evening, but was up until after 11!  He had a great time…now it’s just a matter of getting rid of the candy without a hyped-up kiddo.  *sigh*  It’s a rough job, but somebody’s gotta do it!

My cousin and his wife  just had a baby girl today!  We got to go see them in the hospital this evening.  Joel couldn’t be there, but I brought the next best thing–his camera!  Welcome to the family, KC!

I think it’s high time for a new post on here, what do you think???  Sorry, I don’t have any pictures.  But I thought I’d let you all know that E learned to pray out loud this last week.  We were at Tween Camp at Twin Rocks, so I don’t know if all the prayer going on there had anything to do with it, or if he just got to the age where he realized he, too, can pray out loud.  Anyway, I hadn’t really been praying with him at night regularly lately, but one night he said, “Let’s pray together!”  He was laying down in his bed in the Lodge, all cozy, and he closed his eyes and folded his hands (where did he learn THAT?!).  It was so cute.

I said, “OK, do you want to pray out loud?” and he said, “Sure!”

He started praying: “Thank you God for Twin Rocks, and for the beach, and thank you for Derric, and thank you for Nate, and thank you for Leslie, and thank you for Twin Rocks, and thank you for Grandma and Grandpa, and thank you for Daddy, and thank you for Twin Rocks, and thank you for Mama…”

It was amazingly cute, and it warmed my heart.

At the same time, I have to wonder what it is that we’re teaching this little guy that “prayer” is all about.  Being thankful is great, but hopefully we can teach him that prayer is more than that.  But I think it’s a good place to start!

We know we’ve hit the toddler phase because E has now started asking the infamous, “Why?”  He seems to have just learned it.  Now we’re in for it!  It’s cute so far, but I know it will get more taxing once he realizes he can ask it about EVERYTHING!

Another new thing is that he’s started “reading” stories he knows.  Before he’s had conversations with us about such stories, generally at bedtime, when he’s trying to distract us from putting him to sleep.  And he could fill in words in stories he knew.  Tonight, however, was the first time he actually sat down and read a book to me, reading the words on each page.  He got most of the way through the book that way.  He also added the things we generally say to explain the pictures.  This was a library book, too, so it wasn’t just a book we’ve had around forever!

Then we were reading “Curious George,” which we HAVE had around forever, and which he loves.  It’s a book with about 7 stories in it, and Joel and I pretty much have them memorized at this point.  But it has long, fairly complex sentences, and some words I’m not sure he has encountered elsewhere.  So tonight we were reading and I left blanks with a lot of the words and he filled them right in.  Then he “read” me the next story, and although it wasn’t word-for-word, he got the major concepts, and usually “read” at least one phrase from the page word-for-word.

(This is apparently something he inherited from me, because I hear stories about how I wouldn’t let my parents skip pages or even sentences because I remembered how it went.  So I guess I’ll have to stop doing that…or at least doing it all the time so he doesn’t know what he’s missing!  =)  )

For a while now, E has been aware of the music genres jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, and bluegrass. Tonight out of the blue he told me he wanted to listen to “jazzrocknroll.”

I said OK, did he want to listen to jazz, or rock ‘n’ roll? He thought for a second, then said, “Jazz.” I typed in “jazz” on iTunes and told it to shuffle those songs, but when the song came on he said, “Not going listen that!”

I asked him what he DID want to listen to, and he thought again and said, “Miles Davis.” So we listened to Miles Davis for the rest of the evening and he was quite happy!