Saturday, October 30, 2010

Trick-or-Treat!

It's been a week of Halloween fun...carving pumpkins, making pumpkin chocolate chip bars, trick-or treating, and going to Boo at the Zoo. Here is, yet another, picture-filled post to document our fun!

Firefighter...
Pumpkin fairy...

Little cow...
It was really cold on Thursday for trick-or-treating, so we put a sock cap and mittens on Nat, which only added to the cuteness, if you ask me (notice the candy in both hands)!
Last night was Boo at the Zoo in Akron with Papa and Nana...it was fun, as always!
A little Nattie bootie...made me smile.
The Moser fam...
A clear sign that it was time to go...the one-year-old was getting restless. It's always nice to have grandparents around to wrangle the kids. :)

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Pumpkin carving + some other stuff...

For the last couple of years we've made it a Halloween tradition to carve pumpkins with Benny, and now Natalie. Since Daddy is still recovering from surgery on his wrist, we recruited Papa to come help out...Nana too! Papa did a great job and I even attempted one of my own (the less fancy of the three below).
Ben picked the first, Natalie picked the second and I guess Andy is stuck with my lovely work of art on the right. :)
While Papa was slaving over the pumpkins, Nana played with Nattie. They watched a little "Nightmare Before Christmas", which is always a favorite at our house around this time of year, and they pretended like they were going shopping with their fancy purses. Nana is nice and let's Nattie dig in her purse and put on her lipstick and perfume (which she still smelled like this morning). :)

This morning was one of those rare moments in time when my two oldest actually played nice together. While Andy was napping, we spent a solid hour and a half upstairs in Natalie's bedroom just reading books and playing with Natalie's basket of babies and stuffed animals.
I love this one of the two of them. :)
Finally, just a few random pictures from the last day or two. I made pumpkin chocolate chip bars today and Ben and Nat were loving the batter.
Just another attempt in my quest to obtain a cute picture of the three of them...
Tomorrow night is trick-or-treat time in our town and Ben is VERY excited to debut his costume. I think I'll have a hard time keeping him from wanting to put it on at 8 am. Thanks, again, Papa and Nana for coming to carve pumpkins with us...we love you!

Monday, October 25, 2010

This is the post that never ends.

Yes, it goes on and on my friends. You started reading it not knowing what it was and you'll continue reading it forever just because. This is the post that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on my friends.

Ok, ok...so I couldn't think of a better title and I realize that most of you will probably get bored and quit reading before forever comes...but whatever. I blame Blogger and Google for the length of this post. The upload feature from my photo editing program to the blog hasn't been working the last three or four days, resulting in photo backup on my end. Lord knows I don't stop taking pictures just because the Internet is being stupid. Oh..and He also knows that if I've captured a remotely cute picture, I must post it. And that, my friends, is the reason this is the post that never ends. Yes, it goes...

The littlest Moser turned eight weeks old on Sunday. He is, by far, my most smiley baby at his age. I love that about him. He is quite the little chatter box too. He has been an excellent sleeper for me and is only getting up once in the night and has even slept through the night a couple of times...yahoo! I find myself calling him "Walter" a lot (his middle name...after his Papaw who passed away a year and a half ago) and every time it comes out of my mouth I laugh a little. We just LOVE our little buddy.

I had the camera on timer and was trying to get Andy to smile. Ben was being a goofball in the background. I love the combination of their facial expressions (click on the photo to enlarge it).
I know I am extremely biased (feel like I always need to preface with that), but I think Nattie is getting cuter by the minute...not just in looks, but in personality too. It is just so fun to finally start to be able to communicate with her verbally. She does NOT stop talking/screaming/yelling (mostly at her big brother). Her speech is becoming more recognizable and she is starting to put two words together more and more. In addition to "luh you" and "tank you", she started saying "touch it" this week after Daddy let her touch his hurt arm (from his recent surgery). She has said "touch it" no less than 9,000 times since then.
When Ben is at preschool and Andy is napping, I get some alone time with Nat. I just can't keep from taking pictures of her cute face.

While we were playing in the front yard, she spotted the mail truck coming down the street and sat down in the middle of the driveway to wait for it to arrive at our house. She kept saying "mail, mail, mail" over and over and proudly waved to our mail lady. (Doesn't the sky look cool in these pictures? I didn't modify the color at all!)
She is the spitting image of her Daddy.
On Saturday evening, Mike and I took Benny on a date to the circus in Cleveland. It was a first for all of us and it was SO MUCH FUN! I'm pretty sure Mike and I enjoyed it as much as Ben did. He was, seriously, jumping up and down and smiling for the entire two and half hour show.
I think he was really in need of some alone time with us. As we were walking in to the arena (we were on either side of him holding his hands) he looked up at us and said "I love you guys!" I got to thinking how much his world has changed over the last year and half. He went from being the center of the universe for three and half years, to sharing his mom and dad with not one, but two siblings. It's good for him to learn that the world doesn't revolve around him, but it was fun, even if just for an evening, to let him feel EXTRA special.
Yet another example of how we go all out fixing ourselves up for family outings. We really like to rock the hooded sweatshirt, holey jeans, baseball cap look.

I was trying to make Nat and Ben lunch today and Nattie was driving me bonkers, so I came up with a new way to contain her (she's sitting on top of the refrigerator, in case you can't tell). After I took her down, she asked to get back up. Please don't judge me if you stop by and she's hanging out up there. It works for both of us. :)
That's it, you made it...congrats!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Leaves

How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground

To lay a carpet rich and rare
,
Beneath the trees without a care,

Content to sleep, their work well done
Colors gleaming in the sun.

At other times, they wildly fly
Until they nearly reach the sky.
Twisting, turning through the air
Till all the trees stand stark and bare.

Exhausted drop to earth below
To wait, like children, for the snow.
by Elsie N. Brady

Monday, October 18, 2010

Friendship and a sugar high...

These are the faces of my best friends. We spent our college days at TU together and we've made it a priority to get together every year, even if only for a short weekend. It's just a special kind of friendship we have....one based on loyalty, commitment, and sharing the ups and downs of life. We're not really a bunch you'd hand pick to be friends, but somehow God brought us together and has allowed our friendships to grow over the last 13 years. We spent this past weekend together at my house and I LOVED having my friends around.

April, Abby, Me
Heidi, Jenny
This is why I love these people...they make me laugh. I'm pretty sure Mike thought we were total weirdos. I couldn't really disagree.
We made and ate an obnoxious amount of food in a 36 hour timeframe and I'm pretty sure I'm still on a sugar high... apple crisp, pecan pie, pumpkin chocolate chip bars, monkey muffins, white chili, baked ham sandwiches and a meal out to eat at Winking Lizard. It was good fall food and so YUMMY (Why did you all leave me with the leftovers? I am STILL eating!)!
The littlest babies of the bunch hung out with us too. Doesn't Reese have the cutest little smile? (Thanks to all the daddies who watched the big kids and to Nana too!)
Natalie holding the babies. How is it that she is the big girl already?!
We spent most of the weeked in our pajamas. We did manage to get dressed around 4:30 on Saturday and head to TJ Maxx for a three hour shopping spree. It was the only time we left my house (other than Winking Lizard on Friday night after we picked Abby and Jenny up from the airport). It's so fun to be lazy and just talk and laugh...oh..and did I mention...eat??
Thanks for making the trek to Ohio, friends. I'm so thankful for each of you! LOVE you!

Friday, October 15, 2010

And the ordinary stuff continues...

They love their little brother and both really like to hold him (even Ben, as of late). Ben talks to Andy in a high pitched baby voice that makes me laugh and calls him "Andster". Whenever Nattie wants to hold Andy she says what sounds like "toon" and I have no idea why. :) I have discovered that this is, perhaps, the only time during the day when she sits still, so I'm all for it.
Ben can read! He is doing a GREAT job sounding out words and has been showing more of an interest in reading lately. We have a LeapFrog video and book set that he is practicing with. It is so fun to watch him get excited when he figures out a word!
I don't have any idea why these two would be interested in taking pictures?? I gave them my old camera this week and it's been a hit. Nattie walks around saying "cheese" to everyone and Ben takes pretend pictures of Nattie and says things like "Oh, what a great photo!" (Jenny, when I read your blog post about Emma and her love for the camera I realized we must both be a little picture happy!)
This is what my almost 7 week old was doing this morning at 7 am...even after I had to WAKE him from his slumber so we could take Daddy to the hospital. He slept through the night for the very first time last night (total fluke...I'm sure!). Mike had a minor surgery done on his wrist this morning (to remove a cyst).
I'm sure I will get yelled at for putting this picture on the blog, but the blue surgical hat thing made me laugh...a lot. The surgery went well and hopefully he'll be using his arm again soon!
Finally, because I love their faces...here they are again, my kids.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Just some ordinary stuff...

Making pancakes with Daddy on Saturday morning (notice Elmo on TV in the background and Big Bird and Cookie Monster on the counter...she LOVES her Sesame Street friends right now!)...
My cute, blue eyed, shaggy haired, five-year-old...
I love the little flips in Nattie's hair now. People still think she's a boy (mostly the elderly...why is this??)...but I think she is beautiful (I'm not biased or anything...ha!). I told her this morning that she was gorgeous (because every one-year-old needs an ego boost) and all day she has been saying "gorgeous" in her cute baby voice.
Playing outside this morning waiting for Benny to get home from pre-K...I love how she is waving to her own shadow in the bottom left picture.
Another attempt at getting all three of them to look and smile at the same time...we are slowly but surely improving! :) At least nobody is crying in this one!
Just wanted to document this one mostly for myself...but one of my favorite things about Nattie right now is how her speech is developing. She still isn't putting a lot of words together yet, but she is starting to more and more. For the past month or so, whenever we say "love you" to her she responds back with a "luh you" to us. It is the cutest thing and makes me smile every time. I also love when we get a "pease" (please) and "tank you" (thank you).
Finally, a Benny story...the other night he and Nattie were taking a bath together and I walked out of the room to put jammies on Andy (don't worry...I check on them frequently and Ben would tell me if anything bad was happening...trust me). Well, I heard water being poured OUT of the tub (which is a common occurrence with these two). I yelled in there and said for them to STOP splashing water out of the tub. I walked in to find about 10 gallons on the floor and Ben said "Mom, I'm sorry, but Nattie encouraged me to do this." I asked him how so, and he said "She dumped a whole cup of water on the floor first and that encouraged me to do it too." Nice...well then, I guess that makes it ok....and what five year old uses the term "encouraged" anyway?