Halloween greetings

Just Another Sunday

The Brelands are visiting! Yippee!! Which calls for Sunday dinner. The star of the meal was this:



homemade artisan bread. Isn't she beautiful? Let's just take a moment to look at her. Sighhh....she was just as yummy as she is pretty. I'll be blogging more about her next week. Along with her sister Frenchie, also homemade.

Maybe November will be all you can eat carbs month. Sounds good to me!

So then I turned my camera to my favorite men. Remember how excited Dace was to have his photo taken this week? I thought i might get lucky twice. NOPE! Here is attempt #1:

and attempt #2-

Okay, Dace. I can take a hint. I'll leave you alone.

Here's my second munchie. He's teething. He just cut his left upper eye tooth (or baby fang as i call them) and the right side will be through any moment. It has not been pretty. During the day it is okay but he turns into a bear at night. I think we were up 6 times with him last night. I didn't get asleep until sometime after 2 because he was in our bed for a while. Needless to say, it took almost 50 minutes for me to get my sorry butt out of bed this morning.

Here he is with his favorite Dace sippy cup. No, he doesn't know how to drink from a straw but it is a nice soft plastic that he loves to chomp on. Anytime he spies it on the floor, he beelines over to it, scoops it up with his chubby little paws and hunkers down for a little chew.

He's content in this moment.

Like the mohawk? I ran a comb through his hair once after his bath and it stayed like this for the couple hours before he went to bed. crazy. No product was used in this styling.

If you could look closely, you would see that Zade (or zay-zay as he is now affectionately being referred to) is still wearing a third of his supper. This kid HATES getting his face washed. I thought I had gotten most of it until I saw this picture up close. A lentil facial is good for the pores, right?

Out on the porch watching the sunset. Here's hoping for a better night and a more pleasant awakening to start the week.

Dace's Funny Faces

I had my camera out this morning and Dace actually requested to have his picture taken. Be still my beating heart! So I just started snapping away while he had his fruit snacks. It was more like an acting class, me shouting out suggestions for him to do but at least I got some solo shots of the kid!

do happy

do surprised

do stinky

do mischievous

And this is Zade doing chub-chub. It's what he does best.

Zade's first word

Dace drawing

This has been on my dresser for 3 months. I finally got it scanned today. Dace has been spending a lot of time drawing in the office while Dallin works on the computer. This was his second picture he brought to me telling me what it was- mama, rawrrrrr!

the inspiration.....


the sketch....
Not too shabby for a 2 1/4 year old. okay, okay, it's absolutely brilliant! I'm glad you feel the same way I do! Looks like we have an artist on our hands.

Speechless

All I can say is, he can walk faster in them than I can! ;)

For the Love of Bathtime

Zade is very much a human clock, or alarm clock rather. He likes to stay on schedule and be exactly punctual. He likes lunch at noon, dinner at 5 and to be in the bath between 6 and 630. He does not approve when you make him wait to go 'swimming'. (why we call bath time swimming, I have no idea. I'm sure it comes from my childhood or my parents baby talk or something but i love it and so do the boys. And oddly enough, they always know whether we are talking about swimming as in bath time or swimming as in ocean or pool. smart boys.)

In November, 2008 I posted a similar vid of Dace getting ready for the tub. It is priceless. The excitement he manifests when he hears the water start to run kills me every time. If you go to the right side and go to the archives, pull up 2008- November. It is the third entry down....anyway....Here is Zade getting ready for his tubtime. It's a gooder too.

Photography practice

It might seem like Zade has taken over the blog. But Dace is going through this phase where he does not want his picture taken. I can sneak one in when he's playing but he won't stop and pose for me. Zade is a willing model, on the other hand. I'm trying to find a bit of time each week if not every couple days to improve my shooting skills. I was playing around with natural light and focusing on the smallest details of little Zayzay's face. These are my favorites. No retouching yet, that's a whole other tutorial.

I love the hint of concentration.

I love his cheekers and his perfect little bow of a mouth.

I like the light and the look in his eyes. And the slightly raised eyebrows too, of course.

Suzanne took a picture of Dace like this when he was a few months younger. Zade looks so much like him and the shot is almost identical.

I love just about everything about this one.

Sunset on May River

This is the bap-bap stroller. Dace is in love with it because it's like his own little train. We have been walking down to the river after dinner lately to look at the boats and see the sunset. Dace loves the boats. He'll be excited about it all day usually requesting the walk even before his afternoon nap- "Mama, uh water, uh boats?" That's his little question to go to the river.

This is him looking up at me. I think he loves me....yup, he does.

"Mama, white boat!"

Dreamily looking at the sunset, thinking of the warm bath and warm bubbas that awaits him at home.

A precious father/son moment.

Improvement Needed

I'm sorry but I have been a slacker this week. I haven't blogged since last Sunday and have hardly taken any photos OR videos all week. The photos that I did take are mostly blurry. I think my camera needs to be cleaned and I still have so much to learn to get the pictures I want.

anyway, Zade got his first tooth 2 weeks ago and his second last night. He is loving picking up Cheerios off his tray and stuffing his whole fist in his mouth in order to eat them. He's been introduced to a sippy cup as well. Dace is talking more every day and tomorrow we are starting a new potty training method. More to come about that later I am sure. The weather is finally cooling off here and we have been biking almost every morning and going for walks and finally enjoying the outdoors once again.

He did get some in his mouth....I think.

Chillin' after Conference.

Those cheekers just kill me! I want to gobble them up!

Dace in his new vroom-vroom shirt.