"Baby's" first school portrait

awww, what a cutie pie! sorry....
Charles had his 1st school pix taken last week. I originally dressed him in a gorgeous Irish aran sweater that my cousin sent me from Switzerland but he wasn't having any part of it this morning, so quickly switched him to the sweater I knit him last year. So glad his teacher had the sense to make sure he wore it for the photo because she told me he didn't want to wear it but she said "I'm sure your mommy wants you to wear your sweater." A good remembrance anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

We are so grateful for so many things. The gluttony was executed at our good friends, Dave & Kim White. Charles was saying "Mac & Nora" the whole way over. That's how much time we spend with them! ha ha.
Caleb & Clay were with there mom this year...but I got to spend it with BOTH the babies I was involved in pro-creating.

After our traditional prayer, which is a reading of a proclamation written by Abraham Lincoln: text to follow... I've been lax in my duties of emailing it out to most of the people I know in the hopes of it catching on...




Tomas...the life of the party! ha ha.




The traditional reading of Abe's proclamation...I still choke up SOMEwhere every year...

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S

THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION OF

1863

It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.

We know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war (in 2001 &2 we inserted "the TwinTowers")which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?

We have been the recipients of the choisest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness or our hearts, that all these blessing were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands (since 2001 we've inserted..."such as our soldiers stationed in the Middle East") , to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father Who dwelleth in the heavens.

(signed) A. Lincoln

October 3, 1863

Forget the "Joneses"...try keeping up with Charles

Charles & I walked to the park & he was taggling along behind me. I stopped to look at a leaf ...because I was looking for leaves in the shape of perfect hearts...While I was deciding if the leaf was perfectly shaped enough, Charles suddenly got awfully quiet. I turned around while saying "why are you so quiet?..." and this is what I found...this one took him oh...maybe 5-10 seconds. Rememer, he's TWO!!

Where's Waldo?

You've seen the books right?
Well, Charles was sitting at the helm commanding his minions so I took a couple of steps away to focus and take his picture. A couple of steps. What was that, 2-3 seconds? When I pointed to shoot, this is what I saw.

"First" Hair cut

Actually, Steve chopped some curly locks himself once before...yesterday it was "boys time out" and Daddy took Charles to a professional. He was VERY good as he sat on Daddy's lap quietly the whole time.

BEFORE: (I don't know what the face is for...I said "Let's see your face!" and this is what I got...ha ha




AFTER

Per your request....

You can all thank my big sister for lighting a fire under me....
again...grab a cup of java!!! We've got a lot of catching up to do!!!!

Charles LOOOOVEs to help me around the house! Here he is "helping" me change the sheets on my bed. And you wonder why it takes mommies so long to get things done!

It's HARD work some days. Here's the scoop. Charles has been calling Clay AND Caleb "K" for the longest time. I don't hear ANY distinction...Steve says he does but...nahhh. Anyway, for a couple of months now we have been trying to get at LEAST a second syllable out of Charles when he's saying "Caleb" but he was having nothing of it. He does have a few 2 syllable words but, nothin' doin' in this case. Perhaps because he loves his brother's equally...??? Anyway, in Sept. we went to visit a friend of ours in Reno and his girlfriend had a pet bunny. It's name was Constantine. Yep, no problem for little Charles to say "night night Constantine" everynight for
3 days. Soon upon our return, I was playing w/little figurines from a few months ago...the King Tut exhibit. I said " 'This is Queen Nefertiti' can you say that?" Charles blurted that out too. No one thought much of it until Caleb got wind of it. One day as he was going out the door to shoot hoops in the park and Charles was begging to tag along with him, Caleb blurted out "Dude, you can say 'Constantine and Queen Nefertiti but you can't say Caleb??!' " Not even that phased Charles much as he retorted "walk! ball!"
Alas, Steve worked Charles hard this week and now!!! we have it!!! Caleb is officially "Cu-be!" It comes with the head nod EVERY time.


For our special Saturdays...we went to Tahoe (again!) and Charles went on his first bike ride.


Last weekend we went to some batting cages. We thought we could fool Caleb & Clay into believing the ENTIRE world does not revolve solely around Charles.



And JUST yesterday...we kicked off the holiday season with opening day at the nearest pumpkin patch...


There was this slide structure...Steve went down once since I am usually the photographer...but...well...to his credit, he spent most of this week crawling around under houses...he took over the camera after one run..





And, ALL the boys...

Special Saturdays

I feel like I'm getting my act together after 2 years! Update: Steve took all the kids to his mom's in Idaho for 10 days and I stayed home and went to work every day. BEST VACATION EVER!! ha ha...I missed everyone dearly, really I did...but sleeping ALL night long and getting up 1/2 before work and NO COOKING was also...in a word AWESOME. I cooked a package of chicken thighs the first night (about 20 pieces) and never cooked again. I had that for lunch and dinner every night. I watched chick flicks, I walked around in my underwear...tmi? well, I AM in a house full of teenaged boys so you'd be surprised how one would miss that luxury of just running out of the bedroom to grab a cup of coffee w/o having to think about a robe or anything.

Did I have fun? That's what most people asked me. Like I'd go out clubbing or something. Actually, I spent most of my time purging. Since going back to work, I just have 3-4 hours to focus on my family and all the many relationships going on under 1 roof. Difficult to spend time just spending time when there's ALWAYS picking up, cleaning up, preparing for tomorrow, folding, putting away etc etc etc !!!!! A gal could go crazy. I spent 10 hours alone the first day just in the office, which was pathetic. I had about 2 years of papers that I need to file stacked in corners. 2mm of dust on top of book shelves, knick knacks that used to adorn this room piled lining the top of the bookshelf b/c since it's been redefined, there is nearly NO wall space. Things that hung on the walls now lined the book case---out they went. Here's the honest before and after.

Every day (almost!) I came home, had my chicken and dove into another room. I took FIVE boxes of stuff to the Goodwill and filled the garbage can twice. This was box #1, box #2 also came from this room! ha ha

My neighbor came over for something and commented on how busy I'd been. And when Caleb came home he asked if I'd bought a new kitchen trash can...I replied "Nope, I cleaned the one we had." That was a great reward. Caleb is a 16 yr old boy...so you moms can appreciate the depth of that comment!!


Here are some of their Idaho pix. Clay picks out his OWN clothes now so we, as parents, are NOT to blame for that florescent t-shirt...ha ha.

Steve's twin sister, Stacey, and Grandma Judy. Gotta get Judy to smile for the camera more. Grandma Judy looooooves Charles and he loves her.


Since their return a couple of weeks ago, we have maintained and my creative juices and enthusiasm for life are brewing once again. It was a truly liberating 10 days.

I have a calendar and any time I come across a freebie magazine that has a calendar of events in it I circle stuff I might want to do, cut it out later THROW THE MAGAZINE AWAY, and tape it to my calendar. When the weekend hits I have a host of stuff to do to get me out of the house. I'm even thinking about my photographic skills and scrapbooking again. I have SO MUCH free time on my hands now that I'm tripping over crap in every room of the house!



Last Saturday only Clay was around. We sent to an Eskaton village 25 yr. celebration in the community. We had ice cream, got and gave a lot of attention & joy to some "old folks," saw some art, listened to some music and played.



After that it was off to a library that had a turtle and tortoise exhibit.
This is someone else's little girl, she was kind enough to snuggle up to me as Charles was having NOTHING to do with the live turtles. Which is really surprising because he LOVES animals and he loves petting zoos. I actually think that he's more fearful of small animals but not the large ones. These, by the way, are full grown Greek turtles. Some of them are 3-4 yrs old.



Then it was a back-to-school bar-b-q with our good friends, Dave & Kim White...
Charles loves bubbles and balloons....





Here Charles is showing Daddy how cool it is when you shout into a balloon and it kind of echos back...


Here's Daddy showing Charles the cool effect when you shout into someone's belly...

and true LeFevre form...getting everyone all riled up the day before school, the moment before bedtime, in the middle of dinner....you get the idea