The Company I Keep

These are the people I get to spend my time with, pretty much all day, every day.  After careful review, I don't think I would choose anyone else to spend my time with.  They are pretty fun. 

We have MANY moments of fighting, yelling, teasing, crying, chasing, and wrestling.  But sometimes this happens: a morning snack in the SAME chair, just because.

Occasionally, we pose for brother pictures.  Seriously?

Sometimes Henry and Ellis are gone, and it is just Sam and me at home.  I think Sam likes this individual time to play and sort of rule the house. Usually I am getting stuff done, and he just does his thing.  He likes to get out LOTS of stuff and "set it up."  He loves gathering items and putting them in bags, as if for a trip (lots of fun to unpack these bags).  He also loves gathering items and then asking me to choose my favorite of each type (car, guy, animal, etc.), and then he gives me my favorites as a present.  He also LOVES dressing up in costumes and accessories of all sorts.

Sometimes we have beautiful book moments.

Sometimes we make discoveries together or review our favorites together.  Sam seems to share Ellis' love for people and loves learning from Ellis the names of famous musicians, artists, scientists, etc. from books like this one.

And sometimes my boys will pose for a Mother's Day photo with me in the hammock they gave me as my Mother's Day gift.  Sometimes this involves a fair amount of bribes and/or threats.

And sometimes our attempts end in a tickle fight.

Mother's Day Photos

There is nothing I love more than being a mom to these three boys!  I adore them so much and feel so thankful to have them.  I can't think of anything I would rather be doing with my life right now than raising and loving these sweet boys.  Aren't they the cutest?

Words

* Ellis was really proud of himself for being able to spell this word, all by himself!  "Boston," of course -- but it's spelled exactly how Ellis pronounces it!  He has recently caught on to the excitement of putting sounds together to make words.  Maybe it's the English teacher in me, but I think the two most thrilling parts of parenting (so far) are watching your kids learn to 1) talk and 2) read.  Ellis can hardly contain his excitement when he reads a string of words - it's like he has figured out a secret code!  And Sam seems to feel the same way about speaking words!  How exciting when he can say "cheese" or "drink" and we understand him and give him what he wants!  Another secret code!  I can't think of anything more fascinating than watching these little people figure these things out and be SO EXCITED about them.

[*Wow, I just got a close look at that fridge picture.  It almost looks like I intentionally set up our fridge magnets to create an artistic representation of my life in its current state.  Nope, nothing is intentional about it.  This is my reality, complete with chaos, madness, worn out letters, and drips of who-knows-what running down my refrigerator.]

3.14

Happy Pi Day everyone!

I always like a good excuse to bake a pie, especially when strawberries are starting to go on sale in March. Yum!

Today I made couple of good discoveries about Pi Day:

1. If I want to be realistic, I should only try to make EITHER dinner OR pie. Not both. One year I tried to make chicken pot pie AND strawberry pie. Bad idea. Does anyone else ever try to do way too much and end up with a big pile of dishes and a grumpy family?

2. Pizza IS pie. Of course! What a perfect day to both order pizza AND make pie. Why did I not come up with that one earlier?

I'll bet you thought (for a second) that I was going to have some actual discoveries about the number Pi, or some other mathematical discovery. Um, we'll leave that to Ben for the next Ramble.

Did I mention that Ben and I are the only ones that appreciate pie anyway? Henry and Ellis both view it as a vehicle for getting more whipped cream (and a good excuse to sing "The Great Pie," the most catchy little Backyardigans song ever). They inhaled the whipped cream, licked one strawberry each, and scratched around at the pie. It was really hard to see their barely-touched pieces of beautiful strawberry pie go to waste. So -- did I dump them down the sink? Or did I polish them off while Ben was out playing soccer and I was alone in the house tonight? I think I'll leave you in suspense on that one . . .