Gentle Years

The boys are both able to wear short sleeve shirts now-how exciting!

These shots are just of an afternoon at home while PB was taking a nap-she was sick and couldn't get well without some sleep-and the front yard-still with winter hanging on.

One afternoon this week RB and MB came home with us and the older boys refused to come inside.  It was just too nice out to sit on the porch and bask in the March sunlight.

MB stayed inside with me.  Doesn't he look happy?

The pictures really speak for themselves

It is rare and special to have all four kids at the house at once.  Here are some pictures from Sunday-both a morning visit by GB and PB and their children, and then an afternoon visit by RB alone.

Okay, but seriously-the top photos are great grandparents of G-yes, the woman is American Indian; two of his great grandmothers were.

The second photo is of my grandmother-she is the second to youngest girl in the picture.

We've been playing around with old photos and were actually photographing photographs with our camera, hence the flash over my great grandparents' faces.

Now, on to the intended photos:

The weekend actually began with a rainy Thursday night.  We got pizza and rented Madagascar so the boys could see the characters from their Happy Meals.  Also, I dance around the house with them-we all wear different plastic pails on our head-singing, "I Like to Move it, Move it", so they love that tune.

Then there was shopping-tis the season-first for gifts for a great niece's birthday (I think she's turning 13), then for the mundane things like groceries.  Those trips were with Mom, then with PB.

And last, we had BB's christening followed by about a three hour nap!

RB and Aidan went to the community center for tot time yesterday.  RB was so exhausted that he took a three hour nap.  While Aidan wasn't that tired, he also volunteered for naptime after lunch.

The boys needed to learn the difference between soft sand and wet sand when it comes to making sand castles, but they didn't need any instruction when it came to throwing a ball back and forth or throwing rocks in the lake.

Yesterday all three "kids" were together-it was time to update our cell phones and replace them with newer versions.  Seems strange to think that our first cell phone was the one that GB got before heading off to law school in New Orleans.  Now we all have our own.  GB and LB got the fancy versions-with keyboards, etc.  The rest of us got plain old cell phones and don't know our own ring tones yet.

This afternoon we paid a visit to GB, JC, and BB.  The top photo is of RB holding his little cousin, BB.  Then he's getting a hand from GB at putting the ball in the hoop.  Below he is trying it on his own.

Little kids are just so adorable when they are learning to talk.  RB is actually quite articulate, like his mother-when she was at her two year check-up, the doctor asked if she could put three words together and she said, "Mommy, I want to get down now!"  RB's sentences are getting longer every week.  Here are some of the things he has said this summer:

When it was time to go home and he didn't want to, I walked over by the slide that he was playing on, and he pushed me with both little hands and said, "No, Mammie, talk Mumma".

He loves animals, but especially the cats and Mangus.  Today when he woke up from his nap, thanks to Mangus, he said, "No, doggie, that's RB's blanket".  Then later when he was tired again, he chased the dog around the house, saying, "doggie kiss" and "doggie hug".  If the dog sat for even a moment, RB lay down on the floor with his head on the dog's belly.

No is not his favorite word.  His favorite words are truck, car, bike, jeep, and choo-choo.  Usually the first thing he says when waking from his nap is, "Mammie's car, or Boppy's bike, or Boppa's truck".  And, of course, he loves to say, "RB go ride in Mammie's car?"

He has a halt before saying Mammie when talking about my mother.  It is definitely different from when he says my name, but you would have to be around him a while to recognize the difference.  Today we were in the grocery store; Mom was using one cart and RB and I were using another.  Mom said she could hear him all through the store.  He kept asking me where his great grammie was.  When we went by the end of an aisle, he got all excited to see her.

Possession is a new thing for him, as is talking in the third person-he used to look at a photo of himself and say, "That's you!"  Now he says, "That's RB!"  He also has a better understanding of relationships.  If I make the mistake of asking, "Are you Grammie's boy?"  he answers by saying, "No, Mommy's boy".  If I tell him that Mommy is my baby, he corrects me by saying he is Mommy's baby.