My Lil' Gymnast

Lil' D has no fear.

It is such a joy to watch him in his gymnastics class. 

The only class we could make it to is in the middle of library storytime. 

I love library story time. 

But HE loves gymnastics. 

And he's good at it.

Can't get better than that. 

Sheer happiness. 

 He's a super-front-roller. 
He does it over and over again and jumps up for the claps from all the parents with his little Osborn Family Smirky Grin.

He also runs like a wild man wanting me to tackle him. 

Which is wildly adorable.

The problem is, he doesn't look where he's going and ALWAYS slams into another kid.

 And we still hop on over the library right after gymnastics.

Every.Single.Week he gets down all the Magic Treehouse books and lays them out in rows (and sometimes piles). 

It keeps him occupied for a good twenty minutes and is easy clean-up.

Not sure how the librarians feel about it though.

You know, I try to whittle down on the pics but I want to remember every expression, every movement, every pose.  One day he'll be grown and I won't remember.  I wish I could freeze time.

Pre-Halloween 2012

For Family Home Evening this week, our activity was to make Halloween cookies. 

Cabe was by far the messiest helper getting sprinkles EVERYWHERE.  I'll be sweeping them up for weeks.

I really just took this to show our simple, cute, table decor, but Miss L makes anything that much cuter.  We are carving those pumpkins this Monday for another FHE.  We are also going to make pumpkin pie out of another pumpkin.  I've never done it from complete scratch, you know not using canned pumpkin, so I'm excited. 

We had to get our annual pic of the kids with pumpkins.  This has been an extremely difficult month, saved only by the fact that it's usually my favorite month and my favorite time of year. 

Mr. M's crazy face popped up again. 

This maze was the perfect size for these people.  They ran through it probably 20 times.  They kept loosing Lil' Guy but he always found his way out eventually.

They had little booths for pics, so we took advantage. 

And looking at this pic, I've decided I have montrous hands.

And the hub's hands look tiny.  Hehe.

I like how they looped their arms with dad.  Cute. 

 

I doubt this is the end of Halloween pics.  So many events this time of year!

Artwork Round Here

The love of artwork around here is amazing.  My kids will spend hours and hours painting, drawing, coloring, you name it.  

 

(Oh how her little smirk makes me smile)

 

 

Mr. M was telling a very silly story and getting really into it. I snapped this pic in the middle of it.

We had his parent teacher conference yesterday. He is doing amazingly well. We were cracking up because he scored some-what low in verbal development and re-telling. He's so darn shy! At home not one of them quits talking, EVER! And he can re-tell a story verbatim. Crazy kid.

He would also like me to inform everyone that he has a loose tooth.

 New-flash for the world, please.  

 

Later Miss L let him join in on her pic.  All was well for awhile then he painted something wrong and the world came apart.  Crisis was averted somehow but darn if I can remember what we did. 

The artwork is a love-hate thing.  I hate cleaning it up, or rather, getting them to clean it up.  I love how it entertains them.  I love their creativity and their enjoyment. I think it's all fantastic but I have it coming out of my ears!  There's artwork everywhere! 

Billy the Exterminator! Sort of....

C and I always sleep with different blankets.  That is because he is a blanket thief.  His little Mini Me, Mr. M, seems to take after him.  I checked on them in the middle of the night at the hotel and there was Mr. M, Lib's blanket under his head and the entire blue blanket wrapped around him.  I covered up her cute booty for the pic, but he had been hogging the whole thing.

When we found out we were moving to LA, the kids and I were a little sad.  We were really looking forward to moving closer to home.  One of the ways I cheered all of us up was to tell them I'd take them to meet Billy the Exterminator who lives a few hours from here.

 

We dropped into the office and he was off filming in Texas.  The staff did give us an autographed pic of him and Vexcon flashlights.

We were almost satsified but we are going to try again some time. 

 

I love this pic because of their sun in the eye faces....especially Mr. M's.

Benton, where the office is located, was gorgeous!  Next time we are going to do some more exploring.  The place where Billy took the albino rabbit is near there and we plan to go visit him too.

Next time, Billy.  Next time.

Pumpkin Patch

I'm pretty sure six-year-olds find it impossible to not do a silly face for pictures.

 And four-year-olds are really cute posers....when they want to be.

And around two-year-olds are just plain cute.

He spent quite a bit of time ranting and raving about finding the biggest pumpkin.  He had to do a victory dance when he found it.  

Some co-operate...some don't. 

He's a silly-magoo and I love it!  Silliness is the best.

I try to be in photos sometimes....you know...so there's proof I exist.  Miss L was no wanting to be in it with me apparently. 

But Miss M was all about it.  I love her adorable pose. 

This one is just randomly stuck here, but these two were too cute just sitting there watching TV together.  

Thanks for having us B family!  We love you!

Sunday with the B Family.

Some people were born to be moms.  Before I had kids, I thought I was one of those people.  Then I had them and realized I am rather selfish.  It is a work in progress for me to adapt to not being number one.  I've met people in my life who are born to be moms.  Ashleigh is one of those people.  She is so good at it.  Her focus is always her children and husband.  She's so unselfish and it comes to naturally to her.  It was a joy to watch her with her family and a good reminder to me of how I can be.

 

I've done the B family pics for a few years now.  This year we weren't able to get one, but we tried.  We thought we'd try on another day but never got back to it.

 

Let me preface this pic by saying I know the lighting is horrible.  We tried to re-create this picture in better lighting but by then we'd lost the attention of their little one as well as Mr. D kept thinking he HAD to be in their photos and that didn't help.  Anyway, I still love how you can see their cute personalities.

 

 They are such sweet girls.  I love to take photos of them because they are just so darn silly and full of personality.

 

Every year for 4.5 years we celebrated birthdays with the B family.  This year we've had to do every birthday with out them.  For Lil' D's birthday I was sad.  We didn't invite many people and those we did invite didn't make it.  I was a little bummed and missing our family and friends.  I told Ashleigh about it and she determined she was throwing a party for my baby.  She made him this nummy candy cake. 

And we enjoyed it!  We enjoyed the company even more.  Man, how I miss these people. 

The Lil' Guy opened his present from them.  All the kids loved his block/book present. 

I love how he always sits like this.  He's such a cutie. 

Thanks B family for easing my heartache a bit.  Now I miss you even more, but hopefully we'll see you here in the Bayou soon.

Our Road Trip to See Besties

Me versus three adventure!

The drive was easy (12 hours), the kids were great, we will do this more often!

We arrived in TX in the afternoon.  After greeting our besties we headed to Fiddlesticks Farm.

Miss L and Miss Molly were so cute holding hands. 

The kids (and adults) were so excited to be back together again. 

Miss Molly is so cute.  She loved all over Miss L and took care of her every need. She's also the cutest picture poser on earth. 

They are all such great kids.  It was amazingly fun to watch them together again and listen to their conversations.

 It cracks me up to call to all of them to get them to look over.  That's a lot of people!

 They are all so silly!

Miss Abby is a big girl now.  She's a sweet, pretty little thing.

We were only there a few short days but we crammed quite a bit in.  More posts to come.