Feeling Blessed with the Season

Lately I have been feeling so blessed for so many reasons.

I love the beautiful fall weather that we have been having. We have been outside a lot enjoying it.
We spent the weekend at home playing outdoors with the pumpkins from the garden and raking leaves.
Kaleb enjoyed carrying around little handfuls of leaves.

Saturday morning I had the opportunity to take some family pictures for some wonderful friends ours.  The weather was beautiful and they are beautiful, very photogenic people.  I loved the images I captured.  I swear I could have stayed outside taking photographs all day.

Jessica was home for the weekend with her new boyfriend, who is a very handsome and kind young man.
We were so excited to have them here. I still have a hard time believing I have a daughter in college.

Kenton spent the weekend running the combine. Something all farmers look forward to each year.

We had my parents and Kenton's mother up for supper Saturday night.  Good food and family make for good times. Dad is feeling better after his surgery. He is now able to get out and about and do a little more and work some on the farm again.

Kyle continues to be healthy. He seems happy and content, busy with football on the brain most of the time.

I am looking forward to camping at the lake soon, thinking sitting around a camp fire with a cup of hot cocoa sounds so relaxing.

We are looking forward to celebrating Halloween with little Kaleb.  We got his costume.  He was scared to put it on at first but he is warming up to it.  I have been reading about Halloween to him and got out his little pumpkin and talking to him about "trick or treating".

I got some fall planting done this past weekend also. OK, well it was only about half a dozen irises but still felt the excitement of what they will become next Spring!

Hope you are all enjoying this beautiful time of year and feeling the blessings that come with it.

He

He is now 16 months old.
He weighs 26 lbs.
He still wears a size 6 shoe.
He can say several words, most recently he tries to say "color".
He hates going to the doctor and screams as soon as we go back to the room.  I don't know why because he hasn't had too many traumatic events involving doctors.  Not near as much as Kyle anyway, who never screamed like Kaleb does.  Jessica might have though.  That has been so long it is hard to remember.
He is a good eater and likes to graze most of the day as well as have his meals.
He is still very busy.  The more tired he gets, the more busy he gets.
He likes to sort things and move them back and forth.
He still doesn't sleep well at night.
He loves to ride his rocking horse.  He gets off and gives it a kiss when the galloping sound stops.

He loves to color and do his sticker books.  We had to buy more stickers since last month.

He even holds his crayons correctly.

He likes to play with Kyle's old stash of little cars and trucks. 
He has gotten to ride in the combine with both Kenton and Kody.  Since then he has been playing with one of Kenton's toy combines and the John Deere tractor that Gramps gave him.
He occasionally tries to give the cats a little kick to get out of the way.  I guess that he has seen me do it a time or two.
He pretends to talk on the phone.
He likes pumpkins.
We have his Halloween costume picked out.

The other night the sun was setting and the moon was already out.  I showed him the moon and he seemed very interested in it as he kept pointing to it.

He is enjoying the beautiful weather as we all are!

Figuring Life Out - One Thousand Gifts

I st arted reading the book, One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp this weekend.  So far I am loving it.  I really was inspired by the You Tube video promoting the book and wanted to share it here.  Watch it and I hope you all go out and enjoy this beautiful Sunday.  I am so thankful to have such a beautiful day at home with my boys!  Live in the moment and enjoy!

The Reasons I Do It

  God Gave Us You.....

I spend a lot of time taking pictures of our family, scrapbooking and even journaling.  It has always been important to me.  I recently found two wonderful videos that not only inspire but explain why documenting our lives is so important.  I hope they inspire you as much as they did me.  The first one is from Paper Coterie is a recent interview they had with one of my favorite authors Kelly Corrigan.  The second is from Becky Higgins promoting her product, Project Life.

http://www.papercoterie.com/pages/beginanywheremonth/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a75xtRoxBZM&feature=player_embedded

Girl's Weekend Art-A Dream Getaway!

I would love to attend the Art on the Farm at Na-Da Farm Life.  A great weekend of relaxing with a group of artsty girls, including one of my favorites, Jeanne Oliver.  It would require a plan ride but doesn't it look lovely! http://nadafarmlife.blogspot.com/.

He

He is now 15 months.
He weighs 25 lbs.
He eats mostly table food now and only occassional  baby food.
He was into playing with the Fisher Price doll house and toys a few weeks ago.  Now he mostly just climbs on it.
He enjoys coloring and has discovered stickers.  He spends lots of time pulling stickers out of his sticker book and placing them on other pages.
He also likes to play with the wooden puzzles.
He loves to sort and stack things, laundry, magazines, just about anything.
He loves to watch the Baby Enstein Farm Video, especially before he goes to bed.
He helps feed the pets every night.  It is so cute to see him carry out the dog's food and dump it into the food bowl.
He likes the Sprout  Channel on TV, the Wiggles, and Sesame Street.  When he is watching Sprout at night, he smiles as if the host, Nina, is talking just to him.  He cries when she says "Good night."
He dances.
He climbs on everything and everybody.
He high-fives, blows kisses and says "Hi" to people when we are out and about.
He is growning so fast.  He continues to bring joy to our home and brighten every day!

Doing the Laundry

Doing the laundry was never so much fun!  Kyle helped me take these pictures of Kaleb this past week.  Kaleb had so much fun playing with the clothes pins!  Hoping to get some of these printed out soon.  Looking forward to the next month or so as outdoor scenery will hopefully be great for taking some more photos!