Growing Up

Gabriel still likes playing games on the computer, especially the games at pbskids.org. Here he is teaching his brother. Gabriel is moving the trackball and letting Ephraim click the button when it is time.

Cute Ephraim story:
I'm reading books to him before bed (Gabriel is already in bed). We read his favorites: "Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Do You See What I See, Trucks and Cars." As we finish the cars book, there is a page where you can name the ambulance, race car, snowplow, etc. I point to the first one (a firetruck) and ask him what it is. I don't know if he rolled his eyes, but he paused and said "cement mixer" with a straight face!! So I pointed to the cement mixer right next to it and asked him what that was. He paused and I saw him look all over the page and then say "pusher" (aka snowplow). I started giggling and asked him if he was teasing me and he got the cutest grin! He has got such a sense of humor already!! He loves teasing his mommy! :)

Odds and Ends

Ephraim took a rare nap on Sunday. He looked so sweet, I had to capture it! He is growing up too fast. I am in no rush for his 3rd birthday to come in March!!

I go through so much dental floss! Well, not me. Ephraim has discovered the lovely minty taste of sucking on a whole unwound roll of dental floss. And the fact that I keep it in mommy's bathroom drawer.

I am ready to get through the holidays and make them the best I can. I got in a sudden baking mood and whipped up a few apple turnovers for us the other night. Hit the spot with all this cold rain!

I didn't have any work this week, so the kids have been staying home with me in the afternoons instead of going to my parent's house. Since it was too wet to play outside, we took out the paints. This is Ephraim trying to smile for me--he was concentrating so hard on painting. I love the way his masterpiece turned out: so many colors in deliberate patterns.

Gabriel didn't want to look up either. He painted a sun, green grass and a green mountain. He still delights in destruction so after this photo the painting turned into an abstract manifestation of frustration or something using all the colors. We still had fun.

Picture Day

It was Picture Day at school today so I tried to get Gabriel to practice nice smiles in our front yard this morning. He's such a face-maker! :)

I told Gabriel to give me his "handsome" look and this is what I got.

Ephraim is just adorable!

Brotherly love!

Yay, group shot.

And happy birthday to daddy! Hope your day was great. We can't wait to see you this weekend.

Family Time

This last week we made some great memories. One of the nights, Gabriel looked at our modest stack of boardgames and started pulling some out. We played Phase 10 with Dice. The kids loved rolling all the dice. We learned about sorting and grouping by color or number. Even Ephraim could identify colors!

Gabriel learned that the W meant wild and that he could put the dice in number order.

Gabriel is very proud of our garden and likes to pick the lettuce. He wasn't crazy at first about the dinner I made, but then he wrapped it up in a lettuce leaf and it became a fantastic dinner! This was also one of the few times that I didn't mind that Ephraim copied Gabriel!

Of all the places in the playroom they chose to build their roller coaster train track tonight.... It couldn't have been on the huge floor or train table, it had to be on the treadmill! :)

Home Movies

I found some great videos on the old camera before I emptied it.

This was a month after we moved to the new house (8/28). Gabriel was the writer and director for this movie the kids made up. They practiced about 3 times before I grabbed the camera. You can hear Gabriel's whispered direction at the beginning. Ephraim got a little stage fright once the camera was on.

Ephraim is singing "Little Rabbit Foo-Foo" here. He is also learning "Twinkle Little Star" but the words are hard to remember.

Conference and Costumes

Some fun update pictures. Here are my boys watering our garden. My dad was great and built these raised boxes for us and planted broccoli, potatoes, and lettuce (and a stray tomato). Gabriel has been so sweet and says that watering our garden is his chore (he says it proudly). I love seeing him grow up and want to help more around the house.

For Halloween, Gabriel wants to be Link from the classic video game Zelda. I sewed a shirt (from scratch cut from an old t-shirt of mine, yes I'm proud of myself). He eagerly put on the shirt, hot off the sewing machine, and found a sword. I found a belt for him and he ran outside with the first hat he could find. While he played, I sewed a real hat. This past weekend, Paul made a really cool shield to match (on a high shelf now to preserve it for Halloween).

Last weekend was General Conference (when the prophet and apostles from our church speak to us and the whole world). I set up the living room and laptop and provided candy incentives to listen. Here we are Saturday morning. Ephraim LOVES doing somersaults and head-stands.

Of course, when one brother does it...

Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Tonight (with Link costume on, of course), Gabriel started building a "roller coaster" with the train tracks. He used all kinds of blocks and toys as stilts to hold the train pieces up. Creative little monkey!

Also, I don't know if I've recorded that the kids are getting along really well now. I think Gabriel has a little more patience and a little less hostility toward his brother. It also helps that Ephraim can talk more and has plenty of ideas for play of his own and WANTS to play with big brother. It makes me so happy to see them playing nicely so often instead of needing constant supervision because of fist fights and shoving and fighting over toys.

Capturing Dust - A Movie