Autumn Falling

We love fall.  It’s the best time of the year, save for the most wonderful time of the year, which follows shortly thereafter.  If fall could last longer, we would allow it, but the snow has come early.  Fine, whatever, because this year we wised up and took outdoor family pictures in the fall, before everyone’s cheeks flushed, noses froze, and core tempertures plummeted like in last year’s pictures.  Behold, the best time of year:

I’d like to see how long we can continue getting family pictures with me holding all the children.  I can’t see it working when they’re all full grown adults, but when is the “tipping point”?  Anyhow, our kids have learned to be adorable and photogenic. 

  

The tipping point is when Elia's piggyback choke-hold is strong enough to K-O Dad

The early fall included a Joseph OBX vacation to the same house as last year in Southern Shores, NC.  We are very proud of Elia who finally conquered her fears by floating in the house pool with a life vest, feet dangling and “swimming”!  Both she and Sophia proved to be fun cousins for Lily, and Ezra managed to not fall down the stairs a single time.  The girls really enjoyed wearing the headbands from the game HedBanz, even if it was only for a fashion statement.  All relaxed deep into a week of delicious food, family games, and sticky sand.

Sibling adventure to Where the Sidewalk Ends, OBX

Elia's 7-second abs routine

Speaking of fashion statements

We found the only book he'd sit still for, hmm...

Elia had her first extracurricular this fall (the first of thousands if she’s like us), a North Canton art class!  She loves drawing pictures and decorating coloring books.  She’s advanced into other forms of artwork with some inspiration from Home Depot Kids workshop and the aid of things like scotch tape, scissors, and a few other next generation, PG-8 craft supplies.  She completed Geography Level 1 with Dad recently, having progressed through an atlas sticker book and learning her continents, oceans, countries, and even some landmarks.  She may remember a few things if you quiz her.  

Most importantly, she asked almost every day to go outside and go for a bike ride this summer, this fall, and (perhaps even moreso) when the first snow came down recently, a nature-lover if I’ve ever met one.  We’ve started trusting her to play nicely and not leave the backyard even when we’re not out with her, which is a huge milestone for everyone.  Especially when the snow came.  She’s also a great mom to Ezra, frequently humble bragging that she can carry him when necessary.

1/2" of snow is enough when you're only 3ft tall.

Sophia is following closely in her sister’s footsteps, but still retains a bit of the “goofy cute little toddler” aura, which hopefully never wears off.  The one exception is that Sophia, having eaten about 21 months’ worth of food less than her sister, has probably spent three times as long chewing it all.  She is a much calmer kid, but definitely will fight those “I do it myself!” fights for her rights.  Sophia is quickly learning all of her states and memorizing a 26-pack of alphabet Bible verses along with Elia, and her favorite is “The bwead one is my favwit!  Mian shahw not live on bwead alone but on evewy word that comes fwom the mouff of God!”  Children have mind-blowing capacity for memorization. 

When they can’t go outside, a typical night with Dad and the girls involves several rounds of, “Can you help me put this on?” as they dress up in princess outfits in order to feed their baby dolls, put them in bed, and sneak off to the ball.  Then, an alternating bout of fiction vs. non-fiction library book read-aloud, where we take an in-depth study of the Princess Encyclopedia followed by a summary of the water cycle, or anatomy & physiology.  And then Computer Games.  It may have all started less than a year ago when Elia watched me play “the fishy game” on our laptop, and soon she developed adequate touchpad control and clicking skills to play too, like build your own house or pizza mini-games online.  And Sophia just tells me what she wants on her pizza because she has spazz jazz fingers all over the keyboard.

Ezra is a simple man.  He just wants everything in his mouth.  If something is too big for the mouth, he settles for smacking it with his tiny baby hands.  He’s gotten better at pulling up on chairs, tables, and cabinets, so that he can reach more things to put in his mouth.  When I get to do an upstairs project, he’s especially fond of following me around and helping me smack things.  When Ezra grows up, he really wants to get to go in the bathroom so he can stick his hand in the potty.  We continually block his routes, but he knows the two paths to the bathroom and, when we’ve barricaded one door, is wise enough to baby-tank around to the other.

This is how we baby proof

We jubilantly celebrated his first birthday, where he found cake to be the perfect victim for both smacking and putting in his mouth.  

"Wait, you're giving me cake?  How much cake?"

I don't understand this tradition any better than he does.

In October we took the simple man to Houston, Texas to see the beautiful landscape go to Heidi’s wedding.  He and I made two halves of a spectacular (read: forgivable) DJ for the wedding while Mom played the bridesmaid.  We made time for walking all over downtown Houston, visiting Galveston, and spending an evening in, no really, the seriously most amazing tourist location in town: the Children’s Museum.  Erin and I were astounded at the countless fun kids exploration activities and knew Elia and So could spend all day there.  Ezra loved putting all those new toys in his mouth. 

  

Frequent stroller naps

Again with the beer fascination, what's with this kid?

Autumn has been numerous trips to the Akron Zoo, neighborhood trick-or-treating through the chilly rain getting hot chocolate after, and hayrides at the church Fall Fest.  It has been carving a silly owl pumpkin, trying pumpkin seeds for the first time, and making fresh pumpkin beer bread that tasted like a forgettable dream.  It has been Dad-lessons on being sneaky and spooky, a few weeks of open screen windows all day, and sunset bike rides before DST set in.  And we’ll look forward to it again next year.  But first, the most wonderful time of the year awaits our adoration.