See Coen Dance

Coen has some mad dancing skills.  In this video he's a little self-conscious because of the camera.  You should see him really cut loose.  Silas likes to dance too.  He mostly does the head bop and diaper bounce.

Here is a video of Silas walking from a couple weeks ago.  He is really moving now.

On another note, Coen has a clock in his room now.  He always asks what the clock will look like at the end of quiet time.  For the last 5-10 minutes I can hear him chanting, "Go big hand, go big hand, go!"

Holy Moly Sweet Potatoes

Some of you may know that I am a very enthusiastic gardener.  Some years my yield just doesn't measure up to my enthusiasm.  But this year!  Well, first of all, check out my spring garden.

I believe I took these pictures in June.  Notice the lovely row of beets and the nice little hills of sweet potato seedlings I had just planted.

Proof that picky eaters do make exceptions for purple-skinned vegetables.

And don't forget the carrots!  If you read my blog last year, you should know by now how excited I get about growing purple vegetables.

I turned most of our spinach into this spinach pie.  And it was delicious.

 This is my other garden in the spring.  We had lots and lots of lettuce and BROCCOLI!  (Before the worms got to it, that is.)  You see those little marigold plants?

This is a picture of those marigold plants a few months later.  Notice how they are larger than my (rather large) one-year-old.

And remember the sweet potatoes?

Tonight we dug them up.  All 45 pounds of them!!!  It was like a treasure hunt.  There was lots of, "Wow, look at this one, Mom!" 

Proud mother of two children and 40+ lbs. of sweet potatoes.

It has been such a satisfying, bountifully blessed year for our garden.

Homeschool Preschool

I have been teaching Coen little preschool lessons three mornings a week while Silas naps.  He loves it.  On Monday he was very upset that we weren't having it, so he volunteered to be the teacher and make a lesson.  After I put Silas to sleep I showed up in Coen's room to be the student.  He declared, "We're learning about robots today!"  Sure enough, he had cut out square paper robot heads and little paper robot bodies.  My job was to glue them together.

Silas is still crawling, no walking yet.  His favorite game lately is to take off crawling after a ball, yelling, "BAW, BAW, BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!"  He also likes to pull things off the kitchen table, now that he can reach the top.  It's really bad when he's in his high chair.  Whenever I leave the room for a minute I return to find that he is holding my glass of water and is very pleased with himself.  This kid has some long arms.

I'll try to put up pictures soon!

The Shining Moments

 I've collected some happy little pictures in the last few months that show bits of our life without any real storyline.  So here it is in a very hodge-podge state.

 

Snuggle time with Daddy.

 

Coen always insists on looking at picture books in bed.  It's really fun when I can hear him "reading" the books out loud to himself in there.

 Coen has "quiet time" every day in lieu of a nap (he has refused to nap since last summer).  This is how I found him at the end of quiet time one day.  I burst out laughing, took a picture, and then told him never to do it again...

 Silas my eating machine.  The little device he's holding is quite ingenius as baby gadgets go.  You can lock a piece of regular food in it and then baby sucks it out of the mesh bag part.  It's like having the baby strain his own baby food!  You should see him kick his little feet in anticipation when I put a chunk of frozen banana inside.

 Coen is trying out my new sunglasses and carrying my gym bag so he can pretend to go to school.  After strapping on the backpack he says, "I'm going to school now.  You miss me."  (As in, he instructs me to miss him, this is my part in the game.)  He then goes to the living room, waits a few minutes, and then "calls" me to say he's coming home.  (Probably he's noticed that Dad always does this on his way home from work, since Conrad never gets out at a predictable time.)  When he comes back it's my job to ask if he had fun and tell him I missed him terribly.  He can't wait to be five, because he knows five-year-olds go to school.

 Silas wakes up bright-eyed and well-fed and somehow in my bed, once again.  He usually wakes up for just one feeding around 4 a.m. and quickly falls back asleep, but sometimes we are not so fortunate.

 I told you he was my big eater.  This is Silas eating my Ensign magazine.

 For the last few weeks we've all been taking turns being sick.  Here are my boys recuperating and watching a movie on the big screen.  Coen always holds hands with Silas when they watch movies, it's very cute.  Silas will stare at the screen, but sporadically look at Coen as if to say, "Do you still find this interesting?  I guess you still do.  Well if you find it interesting then so do I."

 My parents bought Silas this bouncing station for Christmas and he LOVES it.  You can tell how excited he is by how loudly he bounces.  It's like every time he sits in it is the first time.

 Coen decided Moosey was coming to church and needed to dress appropriately.  I let him borrow one of Silas' old shirts and he was very upset with me when I suggested I might need it back.

 I honestly don't remember why I took this picture, but it shows Conrad as my handsome doctor husband, so I am including it.  :)

Did I mention he also plays basketball?  You know, once in a while, when he happens to have an evening free and the guys at church are playing.  Coen was thrilled to come with me to watch Daddy play.  Later, when Conrad was watching March Madness, Coen wanted to know if that basketball game was at a church too. 

Time to Move Further South

We had SNOW on March 23rd (isn't that the second day of spring?)  In TENNESSEE.  I just wanted to note that for the record books.  Coen and I ran outside after breakfast to play in the cold stuff before it melted.

Snow in our purply phlox.  (Somehow we can only ever find one mitten at a time.  I promise I bought him two.)