a cute brother pic

Today, we (the littles, Mom Meade, and I) went to the Y and had line dancing class. As usual, it was a blast and continues to remain one of the highlights of my week. :o)

When we all got home, the weather was GORGEOUS so the boys and I decided to have a picnic outside and ride bikes and scooters and such.

We had such a sweet time playing outside and the boys were just bein' so cute, so I ran inside to grab my camera to snap a quick, cute pic of the brothers.

If any of you are familiar with how little boys operate, you will understand that there's really no such thing as a "quick, cute pic" of brothers. ;o) So here's a little insight into the picture saga...

I ran inside to grab my camera. I was gone probably 12 seconds. I came back out to photograph the littles and they were nowhere to be found. While I was gone for 12 seconds, they managed to devise and perfectly execute a plan to hide from me. I found them like this... hiding behind some bushes. I'm beginning to think they just might have a very profitable future being spies. :o)

Then, I got a sweet pic of Jasper.

Then, I brought Brode over and told them that if they took a nice picture together, I would give them a piece of candy. Which was a mistake. Because they got super excited. And this is them, super excited.

For some unknown reason, I told them to stop acting so excited and just smile nice. If they needed help smiling, I told them, think of monkeys. Why I did this, I'll never know. So, naturally, they started thinking about monkeys. And sounding like monkeys. And moving like monkeys.

more monkey noises.. "oh oh ah ah!"

and more monkey noises... "oh oh ah ah!"

So then, I told them to stop thinking of monkeys and start being excited again. To think about candy. So then they got excited and started throwing pine straw. For a long time. And had great fun.

So then I asked Jasper to just grab Brody's face and make him smile. So he did.

So then I gave up on trying to get a nice, quick, cute pic and gave 'em the candy.

Then, Brody saw that the camera was still out and gave me the biggest laffy taffy "cheeeese" in the whole world.

And then, when I had given up all hope of getting a nice pic, Grandpa pulled in the driveway, and viola! I got the best pic of the day.

minion

Andrew recently made a startling, but oh-so-perfect, realization.

Brody is Jasper's minion.

And it's so, so true! Jasper tells Brody what to do, and Brody just runs around in circles, half obeying, half disobeying, and laughing his head off the whole time. Brody speaks a lot, but it's mostly garbled language that makes no sense to anyone. He falls down, runs into walls, rolls around on the floor, gets into trouble, and grins that crooked grin of his the entire time, just like a minion.

Brody occasionally gets mad, really mad, and you can almost see the smoke coming out of his ears. But normally, he's infectiously happy, a little coo-coo, totally mischievous, slightly ornery, and oh-so loveable... just like a minion.

christmas!!

Christmas was just wonderful!! Absolutely wonderful! My little brother Cade spontaneously drove down for a day and a half, and Nate and MB and Henderson were here, too. It was so great! I have lots of pics of our time with Cade on my other camera, which hasn't been downloaded to the computer yet, but here are a few pics from the SLR.

The boys got new (to us) scooters for Christmas and love them to pieces, especially Brody. Brody cries violently when he has to get off of it. Also, in the first few pictures, both boys are sporting new christmas outfits, Jasper has on his new Christmas boots from Grandma and Grandpa Meade, and he is also wearing the key to Cade's house (which cade gave him as a christmas present) around his neck. It got so hot outside, that Jasper finally took his shirt off and scootered topless for a little while. :o)

birthday :o)

Thank you, Love, for a truly wonderful birthday!! It was precious!

our ohio trip

our ohio trip was so lovely! The Lord was so gracious to us and the drive up and back went so, so well and the littles did such a great job up in ohio! It was such a joy to see everyone and to get so much time to spend with family!!

Some pics from the family photo shoot at the cabin...

thankful things.. to be continued...

Our internet was out for a little while, so I wasn't able to get on here and update my thankful things. But I had SO many things and SO much to be thankful for!! I can't wait to continue those things soon! However, right now, I'm so busy I can't think straight... So now is not the time for a long blog post.

But...

before I forget this minor, sweet detail of life, I wanted to record it so it might have a chance to live on in my memory.

The boys have been sweet... so very sweet the last few days! It's been such a joy!

They've been playing together so well and seeking each other out for encouragement, high fives, games, etc. It's been totally precious.

This morning, after we finished breakfast, Jasper was trying to convince me that Brody was truly a baby Dromaeosaurus (his word, not mine) who wanted to drive a car. This sort of thing happens often, as Jasper is obsessed with dinosaurs right now and can name each one by their real name, so I didn't really notice Jasper's chatter until I happened to look over and Brody was sitting in an empty Amazon box, pretending to drive a car, and roaring like a dinosaur with the hugest, ornery grin on his little face. Jasper, meanwhile, was jumping up and down in great excitement, saying, "SEE!!! SEE mom!!! Brody really IS a baby Dromaeosaurus driving a car!!!!!!" and Brody just drove and roared and grinned and drove some more.

It was just a really sweet moment, watching these two brothers play together. I'm so thankful!