Clemson, Brene, Sunshine Charlotte

When I was in Illinois, Mark took Nathan to Clemson for a football game, and he met up with his college roommate Jeff, and his kids, and they all watched the game together. I can't remember the last time I have gotten happier sweeter texts from Mark while I was gone. It turns out that thing we all did in college, where we dreamed of the day we would be back in the fun college places we loved, with our college friends, and our college friends' future hypothetical children? Yeah, men do that too. And it's just as sweet and happy.

I love seeing Marky share his special joys with our kids. (The girls will get their turn next.)

I went on another road trip, too, just a quick jaunt yesterday to Charlotte to meet up with my sister and see Brene Brown give a talk downtown. We knew she would be good, but we weren't expecting her to be so funny. She was great. She is brilliant and sassy and somehow makes both her brilliance and her sassiness super... accessible? Yes, accessible is the word I think I want. Everyone should go and read all of her books, immediately, stat, post haste, yes right now.

A bonus of our night (besides our super ability to find the most flattering light for selfies, OBVS) was that we stumbled into the most random of random Mexican places for a snack before the event (like, random as in, they looked a little surprised to have customers at all, much less white lady mom types) and anyway it ended up being freaking delicious, but on top of that, a group of older men (post-work types? grandpa types? we don't even know) bought us drinks, and tried to buy us more, and just... whaaaa?

That is the first time a stranger has ever bought me a drink in public. It was not what I was expecting. They also did not speak any English. SO. Random adventures for the win.

This has nothing to do with anything, but look: here is Charlotte and baby Claire at the bus stop. She got lots of waves that day.

Also, it's a good thing she is basically a ray of sunshine (at least here) (ha), because this picture was taken the last time the actual sun was out. It's been over a week of rain. COME BACK, SUN.

I don't even remember anymore what this post was intended to being about when I started writing it but! This... (?) is apparently what it's about now! Hi!

Tigers, the Next Generation

Mark and Nathan took a daddy-son road trip to see Clemson play Furman (yes my Furman) this weekend. The girls and I hung out at home (and wore purple, thankyouverymuch) while they met up with friends to watch football and eat junk food and relive college memories.

And then a few hours before they were due home Saturday night, this cropped up on facebook and I almost fell over from all the adorable:

Nathan and his first friend Lucas, the son of Mark's friend from Clemson, standing together in their dads' happiest place at Clemson.

I'm totally framing this for their future dorm room.

(Word on the street is that Mark is still friends with Justin even though he let his son go to a game not wearing orange *gasp* but we will keep you posted as the story develops.)

Other People Holding My Baby*

We've had a steady stream of visitors over the last few weeks, besides just the grandparents.  I haven't been super on top of things when it comes to taking pictures of everyone who came to meet Charlotte (and bring us food, in most cases... I seriously have not cooked in a month), but fortunately Mark seems to have the camera ready at least half the time.  (Daddy for the win.)

our friend and neighbor Mary (and brother Hayes came too)...

EMU came with her daughter Annie and her unborn baby U2...

Another Nathan (remember when he could barely hold *one* baby?)...

Renee, who apparently makes Charlotte want to swan-dive...

Mark's Clemson roomie Jeff and his wife Crystal (and two of their boys)...

my friend Sally from church choir...

our friend and super-sitter Leanna (and Dan!)...
and their new daughter Gabby (Charlotte's future bff)

One of my Furman roomies, Betsy, also came to visit, but somehow we didn't take pictures.  And Mr. David (of orange shoelace infamy) was also in town and spent a few minutes sweetly soothing Charlotte (impressive especially considering he's apparently never really been around a newborn before).  Also no pics. 

And the handful of church friends who came with dinners seemed to sneak in and out before we could bust out the camera either.  So you'll just have to trust me... Charlotte has lots of new friends and we've felt very loved and cared for by everyone who has come to meet her.

*My Furman friend LP once joked that she could make a whole facebook album of pics of herself holding other people's babies.  So our friend Kelley actually did make an album of other people holding her babies.  I'm joining the bandwagon.  Look what you started, LP.

Sleepover in Millers Creek

The last leg of our road trip last week, after Mark and I spent a couple days in Asheville alone, involved collecting the kids and driving back up towards the mountains to spend a few days with my grandpa in Millers Creek. 

Which we had never done before.  Visit, yes.  Spend the night?  With both kids along?  Nope.  It's been only daytrips for probably the last ten years. 

It was so fun though, and it brought back childhood memories of late(ish) nights in front of the Braves on tv and waking up to roosters crowing (not as cool now that I'm a sleep-deprived mommy) and just being in that house overnight.  It was kind of cool to see my own kids doing what I spent so many summer weeks of my childhood doing. :)

We did fabulous Millers Creek things, like hit the kfc buffet for dinner, drive the tractors, ride out into the pastures to see the cows, let Mark and his friend Justin have some guy time to go fishing while the wives and kids visited and played, and sit on Grandpa's front porch and enjoy watching Nathan and Anneliese run around together.

I think my Grandpa was so happy to have us there for a few days, and I loved that both kids had such an easy time with him even though we only see him a few times a year.  Nathan talked his ear off (I'm not sure that Grandpa could hear more than 50% of it... which might or might not be a blessing in disguise) and Anneliese couldn't get enough hugs.  It was all very very sweet.

driving the tractor

Don't worry, Mommy, I can totally climb backwards down these stairs!

no shortage of treats at Great-Grandpa's house

climbing a tree?  who is this child??



I probably didn't step in a cow patty less than thirty seconds
after reminding my husband and children to please avoid them.
Probably.
I definitely didn't get it all over my pants so Mark had to take a picture.

 

They both love the cows.  Anneliese called them puppies.  Many, many times.



*frantic waving* "puppy!  puppy!" *blows kisses*

riding a tricycle for (I think?) the first time

the tractor rides wore her out!

And clearly exhausting:

best road trip sight in the world: asleep at the same time

For more pictures of our visit, click here for the photobucket album.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Look!  A non-house related post!  Proof for the internet (and for myself) that I do so think about things other than renovation schedules and home improvement projects and moving logistics these days.  Occasionally.  Kind of.

Last week we went to a baseball game to see Clemson play NC State with some friends from church (the same friends who joined us last fall to see Clemson and State play football, actually).  I didn't get a picture of all of us at the game, but here's most of us (not me):

Natalie & Kyle, Mark & Anneliese, Another Nathan & Nathan

We had really good seats close behind home plate and in the fourth row.  And we got them super cheap (thanks, Groupon!).  As you can see by the way we're all dressed, it was cold out.  I'm sort of mad at North Carolina this week.  It's spring.  For real.  We should not be wearing long sleeves, much less jackets.  Hmph.

Oh!  And Anneliese had her first hot dog.  She eats anything we put in front of her, pretty much, so it was no surprise she was a fan of stadium food too (I mean... who isn't?  You either love baseball game hot dogs or you're a liar). 

lots of mustard... that's my girl

I'm not sure how much of this she ate vs how much Daddy actually got for himself.  :)

Despite the chilly weather (and the fact that Clemson lost -- badly), it was a great way to spend an evening away from working and house stuff and just have some downtime with our friends.  I think maybe we've started forgetting how to do stuff just for fun.  We'll re-learn in a month or so, right?

Whoa, There's a Tiger Paw! -Nathan in Death Valley

Eighty thousand people, two friends, junk food, loud music, tiger paws and orange everywhere!  What more could Nathan ask for at his first college football game?

Sometime this summer I decided I wanted to take Nathan down for his first game in Clemson.  Last week's game vs Presbyterian College provided the perfect opportunity for a couple of reasons.  First, the game would not be stressful (easy win), so I could make sure my attention was focused on Nathan without worrying too much about what was happening on the field.  Second, I knew that after halftime the crowd in the stadium would probably thin out a bit, so we could have a little more freedom to move around if we felt antsy.

A few weeks ago, one of my best friends, Jeff, decided that he would bring his two oldest sons, Matthew and James, along for their first game experience as well.  So all five of us piled into the car, flew our team flags on the windows, and made our way down to Clemson.  We were all decked out in orange and tiger paws and were ready for the game.

The boys were kind of in awe with all the people walking around as we entered the stadium.  Nathan kept saying whoa, there's a tiger paw! whenever he saw another one (which was frequently).  We got settled in our seats just in time to see everyone go wild when the team ran down the hill.  Nathan wasn't really sure what was going on and where the noise was coming from, but he got a smile from the folks around us by spelling Clemson at the end of Tiger Rag.  It took him a while, but he finally caught on a little bit to all the cheers. 

(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on youtube.)

I'm not sure that Nathan (or any of the boys) got much out of the game itself, though.  He enjoyed the punts and kickoffs because he could actually follow the ball for a little bit.  But I'm sure the highlight of his day was eating popcorn and cotton candy and washing it down with blue powerade. 

We made it through three quarters of the game.  Not bad for two 3-year-olds and a 4-year-old.  I think we could have made it through the whole thing, but we decided not to push the boys' limits, so we left before they got miserable.  Nathan enjoyed the car ride back, sitting between two friends, watching the movie Cars and eating a cheeseburger.  A rare day full of junk food, but a fun one for Nathan.

It was a great experience, and I can't wait to take him back again  next year.  I'm glad we could share the experience with our friends, and I hope we can make it through the whole game next time so we can run on the field together with the boys afterwards.

For more pictures of our dad-son trip to Clemson, including pics with Grandma and playing t-ball with the Jones family, click on the thumbnail below.

by mgoetts

C-L-E-M-S-O-N!

The boys are in Clemson today.  Mark is taking Nathan to his first tiger football game (apparently we're very very excited about this).  They're meeting up with Mark's friend Jeff and two of his sons, and all going together -- something they've talked about doing since they were roommates in college. 

Two dads, three little boys ages four and under, and ninety thousand other people (not an exaggeration).  A recipe for... something.  Right?

For the first six months of our marriage, Mark was finishing his senior project, so we made our first home together in Clemson.  (I worked at a little sports shop and made important decisions like whether the t-shirts we carried should be orange with white tiger paws, or white with orange tiger paws.  Oh yeah, I hit the big time in my first post-college job.)  So I know firsthand how crazy Clemson is on game days.  While the chaos can be fun, I'm secretly glad for a couple of days at home with sweet Anneliese this weekend, away from all the orange nonsense.

Anyway, on game days, lots of parents would show up in the store with their kids in tow, all decked out in orange, dressed up like little football players and cheerleaders and tigers, chubby cheeks painted with paws.  They were cute.  But some of those kids could finish the fight song (watch this) and spell c-l-e-m-s-o-nnnn... before they could even spell their own names.  Little sweet brainwashed team-spirited toddlers.

Obviously, we made fun of those families.

And apparently now we're one of them:


(If you can't see the video embedded above, click here to watch it on youtube.)

Happy game day.  And, um... go Tigers.

Greenville, SC: Old and New Friends

Today we took a little road trip from Charlotte down to South Carolina. (Yep, that's right: we have officially mastered the art of taking a road trip from our road trip.) We spent most of the day in the Greenville area, near where Mark and I each went to college.

First, we went to see my friend Kelley. Wait, I take it back. First, we sat in a monster traffic jam for waaaaay too long, then we went to see Kelley. Her twin boys Owen and Ryhs were born in February (joining Kiran and Sienna, the two daughters she already had... supermom what), and although I saw her just days before they were born, I hadn't gotten to meet the babies in person yet.

Also I was excited to meet (drumroll please...) my internet soul mate, Erin!! In case you don't remember, Kelley "introduced" us and we have bonded online over our travel dreams, our cloth diapers, our cute engineer husbands, our baby daughters, and certain pregnancy symptoms which shall remain unnamed in the interest of keeping the "yick" factor on this blog as low as possible. And yes, in case you're curious, Erin is every bit as awesome in person as I hoped and dreamed she would be. And her daughter Brenna is precious. So much hair!

So the three of us had a fun time chatting and cooing at each other's babies, and even though the visit was much much too short, I loved every minute of it. And between the three of us, we have seven kids. (Four of them are Kelley's. Still. You should be impressed.)

Sienna, Kelley, Owen, Kiran, Rhys, me, Anneliese, Nathan, Erin and Brenna. Whew.

After our visit with Kelley and Erin, we went to go see Mark's friend Jeff and his family. (They are one of the families we went to the beach with last summer.) We let the boys play together for a while, and then Mark went with them to their t-ball game (Jeff is the coach) while I went and had dinner with another Furman friend, Ryan. We had a lot of laughing and catching up to do. So we did. And it was good. Even though we didn't take any pictures.

To see more pictures (including Nathan playing with the other kids and eating his first ice-cream sandwich) click below on Kelley and Erin and me.

by mgoetts

Nathan and Lucas

Well, the silly one and the serious one are at it again. Our friends Justin and LeAnn and their son Lucas were in town this week -- the boys hadn't seen each other since we were all at the beach in August, so they were both very excited to have someone new(ish) to play with.

They giggled a lot, they hugged a lot (and enjoyed it more than this picture shows, I promise), they ran around the house together, they spent a lot of time negotiating over who got to play with which racecars. Mark took them to the kids museum yesterday morning, and they did great even though it was pouring outside and neither one of them loves the wet and cold.

They're both kind of daddy's boys, and last night Mark had told them they could ride along to go pick up Justin from his work thing -- he went outside to move the cars, and both Lucas and Nathan looked so forlorn, watching him get in the car and start driving it without them, that I just had to take a picture. Is it wrong that their sad faces make me laugh? Poor babies.

And of course Mark came back in and got them; he keeps his promises... so they got to have the outing with their beloved daddies after all.

Yay for sweet friends, even when you're just two years old!

NOW who looks silly and who looks serious??

For more pictures of Nathan and Lucas this week, click here.

Weekend of Celebrations

Our family spent the weekend gallivanting around the Carolinas, celebrating a whole bunch of our friends and families. Here are some highlights:

1.) Baseball Birthday Party -- on Friday night my friend Kelley celebrated her birthday by reserving a rooftop terrace overlooking the Greenville Drive's stadium. We had a fun gathering, and for a celebration bonus she told us she's pregnant with her third baby! I think Nathan's favorite part of the party was riding the trolley to the stadium. (Another thing that goes to add to his repertoire!) Or maybe the matchbox mail truck we bought him on the way there, to keep him occupied (which totally worked all weekend long, by the way). This picture is Kelley, our friend Lauren and me, enjoying the rooftop terrace.

2.) Nathan Rides a Power Wheel -- on Saturday morning Mark and I took Nathan to visit Jeff's family. Yep, that's one of the families we went to the beach with a few weeks ago. Which means Nathan was reunited with his friends Matthew and James (and baby Luke), this time on their home turf. And their home turf has power wheels. Can I just say there is something a little disconcerting about seeing this thing driven by 2 two-year-olds? But... they had fun!
I don't think Nathan knew quite what to think about it, honestly; he just sort of stared at James the whole time in awe.

3.) Baby Shower/Tailgate -- a few Furman friends who were in town for Kelley's birthday gathering decided we should also have a little baby shower for our friend Merritt. So we surprised her by inviting her to a tailgate on campus and then giving her gifts instead of focusing on football. (Because... did we ever really care about the football? Incidentally, another good distraction from the game itself would have been the band doing the Thriller dance at halftime -- I marched, in this band even, and I can assure you *I* never got to do the Thriller dance. For the record.) My favorite part of the shower was blindfolded pregnant Merritt, swinging away at a pinata. When she made contact, it terrified Kelley's baby daughter Sienna. Which probably is no indication of her future as a mother. ;-) Watch that video here.

4.) Dinner with Ryan -- I got to see my friend Ryan!!! Which is exciting because both of our lives have taken turns for the chaotic this year, and we have not done a great job of staying connected. Despite his brand-new canine child, he was able to get away at the last minute and meet Nathan and me for dinner, and it was really good to get a visit with him, short though it was.

5.) The Law Family -- Mark's fourth Clemson roomie, Joe, offered to let us stay in his house in the Greenville area for the weekend, even though they were out of town for part of the time. (Oddly enough, we also lent out our house to a friend of a friend while we were on the road this weekend! Yay for a bad economy encouraging us to all be a little more generous -- and cheap!) Mark, who went down to Clemson for their football game while I was doing the shower/tailgate, did get to see them some after the game. And we had a short visit Saturday night, and went with them to church in the morning, which was nice. They have a daughter (almost 1) named Vivian, and Nathan hadn't been away from her for five minutes after we said our good-byes before he was asking to kiss Vivian. I think he thought she was pretty. :) Unfortunately I managed to take zero pictures with the Laws, which is a bummer since we don't get to see them very often. :(

6.) Furman's Lovely Campus -- we also got to spend some time wandering around at Furman. Nathan liked the belltower, and the swans (who clearly know that toddlers mean breadcrumbs; they followed him around the edge of the lake for quite some time). He had fun telling us (over and over again) which were the white swans and which were the black swans and which were the ducks.

7.) Engagement Cookout -- we stopped at my sister's (Ashley) fiance's (John) house in Gastonia on our way back to Raleigh. They were having a cookout and pool party to celebrate their engagement and let the families meet each other. We had a fun time together, swimming and laughing and being happy for the two of them as they get ready for marriage. And then, as you can probably assume, Nathan slept all the way home!

For more pictures of our fun weekend, click here for the webshots album.

Beach Trip Highlights

Some highlights from this week's toddler-filled trip to the beach:

Nathan, who loves matchbox cars but is rarely allowed to play with them at home (because they never fail to produce tantrums when playtime is over), fell in love with this Mack truck from the Disney Cars movie (a favorite of Jeff's kids). He barely let go of it all week.
We took the boys to play mini-golf (a Myrtle Beach staple) for the first time, for all of them. My official recommendation on mini-golf with toddlers? Don't do it. Wait until your kids are five for this activity. On a cool day (or better yet, at night). While they were into it for about one or two holes, after that they just lost interest. And it was so hot that they combined disinterest with crankiness. And then added in a dose of I-want-to-throw-my-ball-into-the-pond. Also, they cheat. Toddlers cannot be convinced to hit the ball with their sticks instead of their hands, it turns out. Or to hit their own balls. Or even just to hit the balls at all, instead of throwing them. Mini-golf FAIL. It was funny (afterward) though.
One of my family's favorite places to eat in North Myrtle is the Duffy Street Seafood Shack -- kind of a hole in the wall, but the food is good and not too expensive by Myrtle Beach standards. Especially if you get there before six -- then you can load up on awesome peel & eat shrimp for 30c each - YUM! And Nathan loved it too, of course -- shrimp man that he is. Recently he wants to dip his food in whatever sauce we have on hand, so he ate cocktail sauce for the first time as well. And pregnant woman that I am (ok, I do it even when I'm not pregnant), I had to get some fried pickles to go along with our meal. They give you whole pickle spears at this place! Anyway there is just something about some simple seafood after a day at the beach that goes over really well around here! (We might or might not have eaten at two different locations of Duffy Street two nights in a row.)

I played video games. Crazy, huh? Normally I don't like video games at all, and I have even been known to make fun of people who love them. But we had Guitar Hero at the beach, and it was actually really fun. I was not very good, for the record (the picture below was surely taken before Jeff and Justin made me look really dumb at video game guitar). But it was fun.

All our husbands were rock stars in their own right, getting up early with kids, feeding kids, entertaining kids. And all the moms might have even gotten some actual rest (I know I did) on vacation. Is there a better sight than all the men in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner? (This is normal in my house, but I don't expect other people to be like Mark. But I have to give credit where it's due -- Justin and Jeff were awesomely helpful all week.)

We had a great view from our balcony! And yes, Nathan is wearing exactly as little as you think he is. ;-) We had to let him "go free" for a little while due to the sand rash in his diaper area.

It was a great trip! Here are all of us together at the beach. Anyone who makes a comment about how insanely pregnant I look should be reminded that telling a pregnant woman she is huge is no less taboo than telling any woman she is huge. So... feel free to tell me how great I look, but remember that words like glow and cute and sporty and all belly are most welcome, even if they're bold-faced lies and I had to fish out there in blogworld to get them.

Left to right: Jeff, Matthew, James, Crystal, Luke, LeAnn, Lucas, Justin, Nathan, Mark and (Beanie and) me.

To see more pictures from our trip, click on my cutie family, below.

by mgoetts

Fun in the Sand and Surf

We've done a lot of stuff here at the beach, but it seems our favorite is still just... the beach. Nice to sit outside in the sun and breeze and watch our children having fun. Nice to splash around in the water to cool off. Nice to just be outside and enjoy it.

One of the boys' favorite things to do this week has been hole digging. That's seriously the first thing they do every time we get out on the sand -- start digging a hole. Then at least one of them will climb in and insist that we bury him up to his neck in the sand. Note: apparently this game is not just for kids.

James and Jeff buried in the sand, while baby Luke "helps" dig.

(I was actually a fan of this hole-digging, because once the kids -and Jeff- dug themselves out of their hole for the day, I could use it to put my belly in... a rare opportunity for me to relax on my tummy!)

Beanie in the hole!

Even Nathan would help dig (crazy but true, the boy will touch sand! --just don't call it dirt), and haul it away in one of the many dump trucks we've had on hand. Which is a lot. You take five little boys to the beach, you take a plethora of dump trucks.

I mentioned earlier in the week that Nathan even enjoyed the ocean itself -- he's spent part of each day sitting in the surf giggling as the waves lap up around his legs. What I didn't know at the time was what a nasty sand chafing this would give him... in his boy parts. Let me just say it was really bad, and Mark and I felt really bad for letting it happen. I guess the swim diaper, with the swimsuit (including its mesh lining) was the perfect trap for sand to get all up in there and just rub him raw -- quite literally raw, in some patches. So the past two days we've skipped the swimsuit/diaper combo, and just slathered him down with vaseline and put gym shorts on over that. Sure, more sand gets in there that way... but it can also rinse out. And the vaseline seems to be protecting his skin from chafing in the process. I think we will never go to the beach without vaseline again!

At one point we did have all five boys out running around in the surf together. (Well, baby Luke was crawling until someone plucked him up -- I'm telling you that kid would crawl right into the ocean if no one stopped him; he has no fear.) It took pretty much all of the adult manpower we had on hand (except me, I mean, someone had to take a picture) to stay within an arm's reach of the boys, so close to the ocean. They were having so much fun, though -- they would run and squeal and giggle as the waves chased them towards the beach, then turn around and race back the other way as the waves retreated.

And Mark and I have had our own adult fun outside at the beach, too (no, not like that).

Mark has been building sand castles (yes, even when no children are around, so he can't use them as an excuse -- he was doing it just for his own fun), and I have been borrowing Matthew's boogie board to catch some waves. It's good because it's shorter than an adult board, so my belly doesn't get in the way. (Plus, who wouldn't want to rock a boogie board with Disney Cars characters all over it?) But I did get some funny looks (not the least of which came from my own husband) -- apparently people aren't used to seeing an eight-month pregnant lady riding waves in. Even in Myrtle Beach. But Beanie really liked it! She's not used to being suspended belly-down, I guess, and she kicked like crazy the whole time. She kicks a lot whenever I swim, but especially on the waves! The beach... what's not to love? (Besides that whole chafing thing, I mean.)

The Serious One

We're past the halfway mark of our beach trip with Mark's Clemson roomies and their kids. Today is our last with all three families -- Jeff's family heads back to Greenville tomorrow, Justin's family heads back to Millers Creek on Sunday, and we're headed towards Huntersville (en route to Raleigh) on Monday.

Our trip has been exactly as chaotic as we predicted, and 99% happier than I had worried about. I cannot believe how well-adjusted these five little boys are. Loud? Yes. Full of energy? Yes. Whiny and argumentative? NO. I feel like at least one of them should be acting like a pain, but.... nope. Besides a few reminders to share toys, and a few tears when beachtime is over, they've really all been delightful.

Five little boys play inside.

It's been a little weird for Mark and me to see how Nathan acts in a group dynamic like this... a rare opportunity for us to see Nathan with other kids, when we're present enough on the sidelines to observe, but not so present he really knows or cares we're around (and thus mostly ignores us in favor of his friends).

And get this: Nathan is the mellowest of the bunch. That's right, my son the chatterbox know-it-all who argued last month with the ladies at church about the difference in Moses and Jesus, is actually incredibly laid-back. Who knew???

Five little boys play in the sand.

Although it seems like he talks nonstop at home with the two of us, and always seems busy busy busy, it turns out he's actually not that loud or that busy, compared to other kids his age... well, these kids, anyway (and apparently they're normal). He's far more complaisant in a crowd than I would have predicted. Mark and I had been thinking that he has more of my personality (hello chatterbox) but after seeing him with all these other boys... I don't know, he seems an awfully lot like Mark.

Five little boys eat lunch. (Why is Jeff doing all the work in these pics?)

Nathan is also the most stuck in his routine out of all the kids here. Not sure if that's him or just that Mark and I have created that environment for him, but the boy is a creature of habit. And is less willing to be flexible about that habit than the others. I find myself alternating between feeling grateful that he's in a routine that provides a lot of sleep, and jealous that I can't flex the routine a little more when needed (we do have wiggle room, but no more than an hour or so off of any activity, I would say). C'est la vie. What I call inflexible, others might call predictable... I'll just be happy with how he is; unpredictable would be so much worse. :)

Because Jeff's boys have each other, they haven't gravitated towards Lucas and Nathan as much as Lucas and Nathan have gravitated towards each other. You can tell these are two boys who are currently the only child... and you can tell how much they would each like an everyday playmate.

This picture of the two of them makes me smile. I bet Nathan is thinking: seriously mom can I take these glasses off now? I have a dump truck to fill up with sand. And I have six grownups to talk to about the dump truck I am filling up with sand. And I bet Lucas is thinking: yay! Another picture! Cheese! Can I have some more goldfish? Let's go play, Nathan!

And as LeAnn (wife of Justin, mommy of Lucas) pointed out, the shot kind of captures their personalities -- the serious one and the silly one. Which I guess is true, as much as it surprises me. For all the grins and giggles and chatters we get out of Nathan, I think he really might be "the serious one."

Which, including some surprisingly impossibly loud and excitable days, is a lot like his Daddy.