how to torture infants

my sweet mother thought it would be a great idea to get a pic of all four grandkids, two under the age of six months, sitting on their sister's laps on a BRIDGE. aislyn does not grasp that she has to actually HOLD her arm in place for grayson to rest on it. and braidyn will hold mali as long as she wants and then she's kinda done. both babies slipped and slid all over the place, mali actually made it to the ground. anyway these are hilarious, i had to share. i'm actually laughing so hard i'm crying.

daddy and grayson

we did a family shoot yesterday with my entire family (haven't done one since september of 1993, taylor was about 5 days old and looked like a tiny growth coming out of someone's arm, weird). my dear friend elaine shot for us, and this is one of my favorites!

better late than never

here's a quick costume pic. courtney and i did this yesterday finally so we could put to rest this year's halloween costumes finally! grayson and mali did SO good for pics. we had to coax the older ones a bit! and of course, their prize was m&m's. :) here's to our flowers and baby caterpillar.

baby got style...

that's all. i was just diggin' her "running errands with daddy" outfit. :)

me & my boyfriend at the punkin patch

here's a quick shot from the pumpkin patch today. there will be more to come for sure, this was just one of my faves. we're going to use it on the tables at their wedding in 20 years.

debbie do crafting....

i think that if my grandmother was still alive, she would laugh at this title. she used to tell me that when my mom was little, around 2 (aislyn's age), she wanted to do everything by herself. if you did in fact TRY to help her, she would declare "DEBBIE DO! DEBBIE DO!" until she got her way. my mom is a crafter and was recently in a craft show where she sold her beautiful fall and christmas decor. there were a few things leftover so i went over today to take pictures of them to put on craigslist and see if she can't get the rest of them sold. this is one of her little fall pieces. my dad was trying to get me to take pictures of the 473829473829743 plants my mom has in her house, to see if those would sell on craigslist. :) anyway, back to the title, i told my mom i was going to set her up an email... debbiedocrafts@hotmail ... and i think there is nothing that my mom detests more than being called debbie.

lazy fall days

lyss and i were hanging, husbandless, in the backyard yesterday and i pulled out the camera as therapy. HA. i liked a few shots, so i thought i'd post 'em...

and now...half of her face..

someday i will learn how to make eyes pop! (not literally dad, you could give us all a lesson in that...) but until then, this will have to do. i have some gorgeous eyed kiddos. thanks kenny. :)

sentimentalness..or lack thereof

my sweet husband is not sentimental. i am. he is not into details really. i am. he doesn't sit there and think about feelings for too long. i do. so basically what i am saying is that he is a man and i am a woman. but i ache for the day that his feminine qualities come forth if even for a brief moment. that was a preface.

so, we're hanging out a couple months back, just talking, and i start thinking about my newborn son and i begin to voice my thoughts by saying "you know, its just crazy to me that our son is fully sustained by ME. i mean, all of his meals come straight from me!" (now, don't get me wrong, i understand that our God is responsible for this and ultimately He is our sustainer). but it really hit me hard that our son's life, his ability to thrive, is dependent on me. i just realized the beauty and the order in that and it just took my breath away. so kenny says " i know!" and i thought, oh my gosh, he's going to say something so beautiful right now, he's going to recognize the difficulty of breastfeeding and give me kudos for being faithful to it, or he's going to talk about how God created the mother to be able to feed her baby and the baby to be able to drink from the mom, or he's just going to be sentimental for once! i got so so excited, just anticipating the next words to fall off of his lips so i could remember them forever! and they did. and i will. and they were... "i mean, he's like a parasite!"

end of conversation.

my little blue eyed manchild

just a couple fairly new ones of my stinkerbug...

happy birthday sweet girl!

september 29th marked aislyn's 2nd birthday, we can't hardly believe it. in the morning we took the kids to dixon's apple farm (i will probably post more later) and in the afternoon we had a little windy park party. it was a long day, that's for sure. grayson could not understand why the apples didn't feel like his soft squishy blanket. that "session" lasted about 15 seconds. aislyn, you are our little pride and joy (most of the time) and we love you DEARLY! happy special day angel face cuddle head pumpkin boo...

the best dollhouse ever...

was made by alyssa. LYSS, aislyn wants you to know that she absolutely loves her new toy and she can't believe you MADE IT! its too precious. i caught kenny playing with her in the dollhouse, and when he realized that i was taking pictures (when am i not?) he gave me this sweet face. my sweet kenny, he's such a good daddy. and his baby girl sure does love him. and so do i.

just the two of us...

here's a new one. grayson really likes his tongue, not unlike a post a couple years back of aislyn entitled "licky licky". :)

lil' gray

just a new one of grayson, except that its a few weeks old now. he is getting cuter and cuter every day, and a little less worried looking! he laughs at aislyn all the time. she truly entertains him now, its super cute. today she stuck her tongue out at him and he did it back. and then they did that and laughed for like ten minutes, it was great.

pirates

aislyn recently came across this hat, that i can only imagine is from a christmas set from last year, and decided for a couple days that she would wear it all day long. i think its hilarious. kenny thought she was trying to be a pirate, so he joined in the fun with his hat. even though i don't think he looks like a pirate at all.

boredom...

maybe its the smell of fall, or the VERY slight nip in the air, but i have not wanted to leave my house at all for a couple weeks now. i found aislyn just like this, in the kitchen, bored out of her MIND today. i think we'll have to take a trek to the outside world tomorrow...

aislyn sayings....

i have no pic to post with this, but its so funny that i just have to blog it so i remember it later. i use this as my diary. and well.. my baby book quite frankly since i have YET to get one for either of my kids. i put aislyn in time out the other day, for either hitting, yelling, some sort of disobeying, i forget. when kenny or i get her out of time out, we talk about how Jesus says to obey mommy and daddy (and she says "JeeJee obey mommy daddy", its too cute- she actually starts yelling that when she's ready to get out of time out). anyway, this time i thought i would introduce the word sin. so i said "and when you disobey mommy and daddy, that's called sin. can you say sin?" so she said "sin". then she pointed to my eyes and said "eyes". and then she pointed to herself and said "eyes-sin" which is how she says her name...aislyn, just without the "l". it was just too much, and i have NO idea if that made any sense at all being written and not expressed through my voice and hand motions. but at least we'll remember it later. kenny and i wonder...did we prophetically name her "i sin"? HA. we just think she's brilliant basically.

hilariously posed photo

this was taken a couple months ago, i forgot about it. aislyn won't ever actually pose and look at me, but my dad said "put your hand on the wheel, and then look at mommy." and she did.

first baseball game

my mom's sister, aunt deann, came into town for the weekend (yea!) and got to meet her brand new grand niece and nephew for the first time. we packed all the kids up and went to the baseball field to watch one of uncle t's fall ball games. this was grayson and mali's very first baseball game. clearly they had a ball...

LOOK at the camera

my little brother took this one. as mentioned in a previous blog, braidyn is my camera looker and aislyn is NOT. this picture makes me laugh, because braidyn is insisting that aislyn look at the camera by holding her head and trying to turn it around.