Hangin in the hanger

We just watched Santa come into the Princeton Airport on a plane - total awesomeness! Lewis wasn't digging all the tricks on the fly by's though. "Tell Santa to hurry up and land!!!"

Now we're waiting in the hanger to see Santa and get out presents from him. Beau is "ice skating" while we play eye spy to stay entertained! :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXfr8kHq7hM

Lewis and his lists

Lewis loves lists.
He's actually slightly obsessed with them. He loves making chore lists and checking them off. An activity list for the day gets him pretty excited.

Now, I know that I like lists too. But, I certainly haven't taught him to expect a list for everything we do. We made a chore list once on a Saturday, and he was sold. He loved it, and now he initiates the lists.

The other day he got in trouble for pushing Beau over with his tractor because he was angry. I talked with him about it in his room afterwards. I asked him what he could do to make sure he never did that again. He considered and told me, "Well, I could make a list."

A little frustrated that I wasn't feeling real penitence, I said, "No. You need to do something in your heart because you won't have a list if you get angry at school, and you won't have a list if you're outside."

"Well, I could make one list for school and another to hang in the window..."

Today I was sick. Lewis made this amazing, wonderful, sweet list of all the things he could do to love Mommy. I love this boy!!!

Also, the little lines with circles under them after each caption are Lewis' exclamation marks. That is another obsession of his! (And mine, not so incidentally!)
He amazes me because he figured out what they were all on his own. One day he wrote something and put his little exclamation mark afterwards. I asked him what it was, and he tried to explain to me. Even though he didn't have the words for it, he knew that it went at the end of what you write when you're happy.
So there it is. He now puts exclamation marks after everything!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Beau reminisces about the show

This one makes me so happy! Can't get enough of that cute little voice! And, he loved that show SO much!

This is on the train ride home, reminiscing about the Rockettes Christmas show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FO27ktZEPQ

Sticks on the ice

We had a great family walk a couple weekends ago. It culminated in throwing sticks across the frozen pond. :-) Good fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH64fgv7tz4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOEnIwhHDSM

Sunbeep!

Happy Black Friday, from Beau!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiaTfX6sIEs

A flavor for Halloween

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXnaJbp6cz0

Here's just a hint of the kids trick or treating this year. We couldn't believe how much more independent they all seemed this year, running from house to house!

Halloween with our dear neighbors

We have such a wonderful neighborhood! We trick or treated with our friends Will and Ada from next door. And, our stop at Hillary's was a special one, of course!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween parade for Lewis' class

Lewis was a very cute little dragon today! :-)

The 2 year olds don't get to do a Halloween parade - it's a bit tricky at their age. So, the knight will be out again on Thursday!

Dancing with Baba

We love our Baba!!!

(Especially today on his 60th birthday!)

Here's a little you say tomato...or in this case, dance!

http://youtu.be/UO5FdbGyEqE

Adventures in dinner

You definitely missed out, not experiencing dinner at our house tonight!

We had beef lettuce wraps. Beau wanted to do the process properly, just like Mommy. And, rightly so, he wanted to spoon the beef and wrap up the lettuce all on his own. In fact, insisted might be a more appropriate word rather than wanted.

It was pretty hysterical!

After school love

The boys always have a lot of sillies and love to get out on the playground after school!

Farmer Lewis

Farmer Lewis is planting carrots in our living room :-)

Creative plane activities

Beau's idea...
Fine motor skill practice on the plane!

Mmm...fall!

Dressed up with no where to go!

These boys are so, SO cute! Beau has this thing at the moment about preferring to be shirtless when at home. He's also super into his hammer from all the construction going on here. And the train hat just never gets old. 

Lewis just came in and asked me for boots and a jacket and scarf. After I got him suited up, he announced he was going outside. It is pouring with rain, and it's almost dinner time, so we're not doing that. But, doesn't he look so cute!

US Open was AWESOME!

We loved it!!!
Go Djokovic!

Two!

This is so cute...I just love it!

Beau is really into trying to show two on his fingers. But, it's no small task for those little fingers to develop that dexterity. He's no quitter. And, he's got it!

So glad we caught this. In another week or two, he probably won't have to struggle through it, and it's so sweet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkY8vEsUMv4

Chilly little swimmer!

Beau was such a cutie pie in the chilly pool today! His lips were chattering, but he just did not want to get out!

Dinosaur museum!

Lewis worked very hard on building a dinosaur museum during his quiet time today! (As inspired by his new Berenstain Bears book that our dear neighbor gave us this morning!)

He's so pleased with it, and I'm so proud of him!

Last song tonight!

One more!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqZjwk4lWOM

Lullaby and goodnight

Another of our favorite lullabies for Annabelle!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDn28KaDcQQ

All the tired horses

This is the boys' new favorite lullaby after Gogo taught it to them. They wanted to sing it to their new cousin!
(Born a few hours ago!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0_Rl_Qax4I

Lunch in bed...sort of!

Lewis came home from church and announced that he had no energy, and he couldn't even stand up, and he needed to have supper in bed. We decided to make a bed at the table instead!

Gwa!

Beau and I learned a Japanese frog song in our first day at music camp with Westminster. Lewis is in a separate class, so we taught him our frog song afterwards. Cute! "Gwa", is Japanese for "ribbit" (as jake can confirm!). So that's why Beau is saying that!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98_z2NO-W-Q

Train Mania!

This might be the coolest thing in a two and four year world, if I don't say so myself!

Our lovely neighbor, Hilary, gifted us her son's old train set a couple weeks ago. Huge, elaborate train tracks like this are becoming one of the most engaging parts of our summer!

Beau reading Lion hunt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHTIR3UehH4

Beau loves this book! I got him to read part of it to me on camera!

Lewis' Book

Lewis wrote his first book today all on his own! He had been wanting to write it all day, so I set him up with everything during his quiet time. Then, he told me the words, and I wrote them. He is SO excited about his book!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW12OCP0T8o

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAKE!!!!!

We love Uncle Jake!!!

We all hope you have a wonderful birthday! Miss you tons, and wish we were there to celebrate with you! 

Here are a few wishes from the boys that we thought you'd enjoy!

Introduction to Jake's Party

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dGECepZMYI

Happy Birthday Sharing Issues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWNoizIAMgc

Happy Birthday Take 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0VYokuHlFE

Happy Birthday Jake's Watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TmRGqpU8Qo

(Jake has been able to entertain Beau for ages since the time Beau was a tiny baby by handing over his watch. We spent many a happy sacrament meeting watching Jake work his magic by putting his watch on Beau, having Beau put it back on him, etc. So cute! We now have Jake's watch as a gift to Beau. It's alarm goes off every day around 11am, so if we're home, we have our daily "Jake's Watch" moment when we hear the ring!)

Beau and Ada, hand in hand

We have fabulous neighbors! Here's Beau with his little friend, Ada. They're walking hand in hand, having the cutest little time together!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnW85yH1-QE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZciIycY5q8

Happy Birthday Megan!

We love our Megan!!!
Hugs and kisses on your special day!
Xoxox

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWZ0ZpTU2C8

Reading Red!

Lewis and I just played a reading game with letter crackers. He just read his first word...red! (And then he read about 6 more words before his 4 year old, late afternoon attention span ran out!)

SO proud of him

Beau reads a story

Beau is getting so big! He mentions 'Salty' the train a lot...to help everyone decipher...and tells a great story!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcrevFYMEEs

Golden Sun NOOOOOOO

This just in...
Two cute videos from the boys playing outside this afternoon.

The first has Lewis beating out 'Golden Sun' while Beau does "sun dancing". Adorable!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSMYfaOGNas

The second showing us how Beau can certainly stand up for himself...and very cutely at that!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_kIJcUTOg4

In other news,
When I got Beau up from his nap today, he had his Paddington and his monkeys lined up along the side of the crib, and he was sitting alongside pretending that they were all sitting in a grocery store. He stood up and said, "Mommy, you sit down in the grocery store too. You come in the crib. Here, I help you!" Then he leaned right forward, put his arms under me, and tried to lift me into his crib.
SO precious!

~Norah

School picture

Is this little boy not the cutest!?!?! This little thing is such a sweet snuggle-bugs! We just love him...and so do his teachers! :-)

Sculpture, soccer, and the bunny!

Lewis had a really fun outing to Grounds for Sculpture with our friend Caroline last week. They loved it! Ou first Saturday morning soccer practice was last Saturday. I think we've entered a new phase that may last a long time! And, Beau was pretty fascinated with the Easter bunny at the Hopewell egg hunt.

Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Lewis just wrote this alphabet on my phone notebook basically all by himself!
What a hard worker and a smart cookie!!!

Lewis (also typed by Lewis!)

Oh my mess!

Beau just dumped almost every toy we own in this lovely pile while I was trying to write an email! Lewis, of course, was very helpful once he realized what the goal here was. :-)

Suited up for the rain

Here's Mr. Beau, all ready for our rainy day yesterday. He hardly goes anywhere without those sunglasses now...normally fashionably upside-down, as so! LOVE this little thing!

Prezzies from London

Lewis absolutely loves his new prezzies from Mommy's trip to London. He received his 'Soldier', as he calls him (really a beef-eater), from Auntie Fogo, and his Peter Rabbit from Mommy.

Posing

Here is Beau showing off two things...his favorite sunglasses that he wears all the time, and the diaper his brother so kindly put on him!!!