December

I spent most of December after my birthday playing with my new camera.  It's been fun experimenting and especially so when I bought a new lens.  I'm glad it came before Christmas, though I'm sure it won't make that much difference in the quality of pictures when kids move so fast opening presents and playing with new gifts. 

These boys are very reluctant models which makes practicing a little tricky.

I bribed Ben with some candy if he would let me take a few photos of him showing off how cute he is at 3 years old.  He insisted on wearing the star wars shirt which I think is funny because it's the shirt Isaac was wearing for his 3 year old photos.

I do love this photo.  He's adorable.  And looking so big.

And then Isaac came out and helped entertain Ben and Ben imitated Isaac's faces.

We worked hard to get just 3 fingers up.

Isaac was in his preschool Christmas play a few weeks ago.  He was a shepherd and had the line "Shepherds heard the angels sing, praises to the newborn king."  He said it beautifully.  And all the rest of the time he had his hands in his mouth or nose.  What can you do?

I guess he did sing a little bit...I can assure you he knew all the songs because I had heard them for weeks before.  And Ben in the audience was singing along when he knew the words.  That was totally adorable.  Cute boys!

And Nora.  She is a gem.  I'm happy Jacob took a few photos of she and I together.  I love them.

Isaac and Ben have been playing with lasso's.  It's both good, and bad.  It sure keeps them entertained but it also lead to a broken little vase in our entry way.  Not fun.

We had a lot of snow recently and took advantage of the "snow day" to make cookies with our neighbors the Kackstaetters.  Thanks to Grace who made all the cookie dough and brought over her cutters and sprinkles.  It was very little work on my part.  And her girls are so cute!

I tried catching some good photos of Ben while Isaac was at preschool.  Some of them turned out well...some not so much.

This is not the exact moment the vase broke...but it did break from a similar activity later that day.

We also went to see Santa with our neighbors.

And Isaac wrapped a gift for a boy in his preschool class for their gift exchange.  They were supposed to choose a gift in the 5-10 dollar range and then write on the tag "to a boy from Isaac."  Isaac ended up getting a really cool remote controlled car.  I think it well exceeded the spending limit and made me a little annoyed.  Our 5 hot wheels probably looked pretty lame in comparison.  Oh well.

I love the pictures of the details of our Christmas.  

And I love this little family of mine.  This Daddy and Daughter are so cute.

Nora proves to be the most willing model.  So she has recently gotten a lot of photos of her.  I guess it makes up for the third child lack of photos she is sometimes prone to fall victim of.

I think I'm going to blow up this photo with the fingers in her mouth.  I think it's adorable.  

She has recently found her feet.  She only seems to grab them when she is naked or nearly so.  So pretty much at baths and diaper changes.

Phew...on to Christmas!

Ben turns 3

Ben turned 3 a few weeks ago.  Poor middle child.  I haven't even remembered to update this post since I uploaded photos weeks ago.  

I asked him how old he was:  I got this.  He is clearly not one and obviously confused about it.

We made our special breakfast cake for birthday breakfast.  And chocolate milk.  It was a hit for sure.

Isaac had a hard time with Ben's big day.  He wanted to play with everything and unwrap everything.  Poor Ben.  And poor Isaac.  Ben was so excited about everything he got.  And I don't think I caught the expression on camera at all.  So hard to do and it's such a good face he makes.  Eyes wide, biggest grin.  It's adorable.

I tried to pick out some cute clothes for him so he would look more dressed up for the pictures I knew he'd be in all day.  He wasn't going for it.  And the boots!  Oh I love this boy.  Can't believe he's 3.

Ben wanted everything to be the same as Isaac's birthday and the same as his birthday last year.  We had been looking at pictures and he wanted a repeat experience.  And so we have a car cake...again.

Luckily he was fine with getting different gifts than Isaac and than he had last year.

Uncle Kevin made this awesome Minon balloon.  He has mad balloon art skills.  The kids loved it!

See...total confusion about how old he is.  Still not 4 buddy.

All in all it was a successful day.  And Ben... we love him so much.  He keeps us laughing.  He is sweet and kind and so fun to see with Nora.  He's taking more interest in her now that she is getting a little more interactive.  He was so pleasant through the "terrible two's" so we are now seeing some of the less pleasant behavior at three.  He is learning to have an opinion and stand up for himself, especially when it comes to playing with Isaac, so we are seeing some fall out from that.  More fighting, some hitting, some tantrum and yelling.  The usual stuff.  But he also still has a lot of his cute and kind behavior about him.  He really is a joy.

Happy Birthday Ben!