THREES

Me @ 3 months old.



Me @ 3 years. (It's okay to laugh - I do, after I cry about it. I blame my mom for this one. You don't put the chubby kid in a high necked moo-moo.)

Me @ 33.

Happy Birthday Jonas

Belated Halloween & Last Soccer Game

I'm getting caught-up on my posts. Hopefully I'll get a little video up in the next couple of days of Jonas' 3rd birthday.  

Our halloween was quite fun.  The kid's all had special costumes this year. Paxton got an outfit from the Disney store; he looked so handsome as Prince Caspian (from the Narnia series).

Charis wore a "little red riding hood" costume my mom made for me when I was her age. 

And Jonas was a bear. So cute. My mom made that costume for my older brother when he was Jonas' age. So it's about 37 years old.

My kids put up these hilarious home-made halloween decorations around the house. This first picture of Pax posing by a ghost kills me.

Then of course, no halloween is complete without a couple of zombies in the house...

Our day started with a Halloween lunch party with our book club friends. 

One of the little girls had organized tons of games that she beautifully orchestrated. I was so impressed with her kind leadership abilities at the age of 9. All the kids had so much fun. The night of Halloween we attended another party with our unschooling friends. You can see the pictures here. Ginger hosted and did an incredible job with homemade bean bags for games, personalized glasses for everyone, hand made spiders, pumpkin pie and more.

Pax finished his first season of soccer. Not to be his last I'm sure. He really enjoyed being a part of the "Fireflys". 
We loved his coach. She kept the practices fun and low key. I never heard her yell at a kid or shame anyone. She was only encouraging. That was so perfect for Paxton.

He made his first goal on the last game! It was so cool to watch him improve over the season. He began timid and scared of the ball. And became much more confident and bold by the end. He got the "most improved" award.

I love this picture of him on the sidelines with his little friend Ethan. This is such a Pax face.

FAMILY

I started this post a week a go. Since then, SO much has happened.  I'm tempted to delete this and just write about the more recent stuff (like Bates Nut Farm, Jonas' bday, Legoland, and Halloween just to name a few). I had witty and interesting commentary planned for each of these photos, but you'll just have to make up your own commentary...

mom + sisters

good friends at the James concert at House of Blues

love this pic

my awesome family celebrating Chris' 21st bday

pig racing @ the pumpkin patch

my beautiful mother-in-law and cute husband

best friends forever (the Brent's kids)

a Jr. High visit

Caleb's best friend from Jr. High contacted him recently. It'd been about 10 years since they had talked but apparently that didn't matter. Because, before I knew it, him and his wife and 3 kids were road-tripping down from Seattle to stay at our house for a week. 

I was a little unsure about the success of such a visit. Would they still be BFFs? would I get along with his wife? would they mind our weird lifestyle? how about the fact that they'd all have to sleep in one bedroom? I settled on the notion that they must be low-key people if they were willing to do such a trip at all. 

I'm happy to report that we are all now BFFs. We all got along surprisingly well. Our families meshed perfectly.  The guys have so much in common it's creepy. Even down to random things like hating mayonnaise and vinegar.  They have started 2 business projects together already (did I mention their mind's think alike) and have plans for us to all live together by the beach some day.  

Caleb took a day off work and we went to Legoland together. I thought this picture was cool...

All of their kids are adorable. It was fun to live with other kids for a while. Their "middle child" is one of the funniest kid's I've ever met. We're still saying things he said, like, "where's my cute guy dad?" (Hear this said with a raspy 2 year old voice, as he refers to his new, large-eyed stuffed animal.)

Their baby is too cute. She ate sand for the first time at Moonlight Beach! It was a proud moment for us all.


I'm so glad they were able to come, and that our visit only vaguely resembled Jr. High. We are definitely hoping to visit them in the near future.

my middle child

We try hard to avoid the middle child issues with Pax, but he kinda fits the stereotype. It's intensified by the fact that Charis is the classic first child and Jonas the stereotypical baby. Paxton has the most easy going, un-opinionated personality; so the other two get heard more. But its been cool to see him grow in this. I hear Charis talking him into things (all the time) but I also hear pax saying "no!" a lot more. Sometimes I want to scream at him to "hurry up" (with charis it's "slow down") but when he wants to cuddle and kiss I don't mind the slowness.



He is the classic example of a kid who needs positive affirmation. and lots of it. He cannot function if he feels we are angry with him. he completely shuts down. And simple tasks become impossible for him. Until realizing this, we weren't big fans of the positive affirmation method. Charis and Jonas don't respond to it (overly positive talk). But Pax lives for it. ("Pax, you can do it! You can put on your socks all by yourself. You are good at it!!)

His soccer team, the Dragonflies, has been such a good experience for him. He seems to really like having an activity that only he does. Until now he's never wanted to do a class or anything apart from Charis. It's really cute to see him be an important member of this little 5 year old team.  I feel like he's grown up so much in the past month.




He lost his first tooth this week. Bottom middle. He was working it for so long and it finally came out (after so much wiggling) and thats it. There's been no more mention of it. We keep forgetting about the tooth fairy thing. Ooops! Tonight she (he?) will appear.

I love my middle child.

hair hair hair hair long beautiful hair

Has anyone actually watched the entire movie "Hair"? I know the bits I saw were enough to satisfy my hippy curiosity. That is a weird movie.

I gave Charis a cute bob. She likes it. Especially poofing it up with her hands. But I think she secretly still wants long hair to her waist. 

Paxton got a serious chop. The kid is so dang cute you'd think I couldn't give him a bad cut. But I did. The first try. I just wanted the bangs out of the face for his (first) soccer game tomorrow. But it was so mullety. I just had to go with the butch. But I like the short hair on him. He kept looking at himself in the mirror and making cute faces. Then he wanted lots of hugs. Love that kid.

Jonas got a trim too. Not too drastic. I don't have a picture of it, so I'll just post this one instead.

But who is this chick with the long beautiful hair? oh yes. That is me. I let my sister do me up with her hair extensions, dress and heals. I know. That does not even look like me. Caleb was freaked out. I was freaked out. 

A few more...