Showing Our Colors

This week, we've been gearing up for fall (and not so incidentally, Halloween).

A friend of mine gave me some darling baby pjs with a glow-in-the dark skeleton--I then spent more time than I'm willing to admit scouring internet sites looking for matching pjs for the bigger kids (in case you were wondering, we finally found some big enough for Andrew at OshKosh). They were a big hit, although Oliver didn't much like posing for the camera. Evelyn wore hers to preschool on Friday. I wish you could have seen her, balancing on a short brick wall near the doorway, chanting/singing (with her friend Sydney, also in pajamas), "We're cool girls! We're the cool girls!" Nothing like skeleton pajamas to show how cool you are. (I wish it was that easy as a grown up).

Aunt Sarah sent us this darling onesie for Oliver, so of course we had to take pictures. (Thanks, Sarah!). My favorite is the bum: "I've got a loaded booty." Since Oliver is still in the newborn stage where he poops with great regularity, this is singularly appropriate.

 We decided to try something new (for us anyway) for Conference weekend. Instead of trying to keep the kids quiet and contained in one room for two days, we decided to listen to conference on the radio (on Saturday) and head up the canyon. The colors were gorgeous--although when we got to the top of the mountain, it was pretty clear that the colors had already passed their prime. I thought it was funny (if unplanned) that Andrew and Evelyn coordinated with the scenery . . . Oliver was a champ and slept the whole time (funny how the movement of the engine will do that), except of course when we stopped to feed him.

 In between sessions, we stopped for lunch and then took a short hike. You can see Oliver, below, in his handy wrap (I love it--it's called a Sleepy Time Wrap, very similar to a Moby wrap), on his first ever hike (which he also slept through).

You'll notice something new this blog: more pictures of me! Or, I should say, any pictures at all. I was really moved by Allison Tate's Essay, "The Mom Stays in the Picture" about the importance of documenting ourselves in our children's lives, even if we look less than perfect. (I'm not the only one; apparently there's a new crusade to do just this). I've always avoided the camera because I don't love how I look most of the time, but I think Tate makes a great point: we need our children to see tangible evidence of how often we were really present in their lives. A lost of my childhood memories are shaped by the pictures of those events, so even though my children know I'm there for them now, I think this will be helpful in the future.

 I made Dan pose for a few pictures for the same reason.

 Me again--the blue hat on my chest is Oliver.

And, to finish, some random pictures from the week.

Oliver's head looks much more proportional to Evelyn's, a sure sign that he's growing. Also, you can see how much lighter his eyes are than Evelyn's. We still don't know what color he'll end up with, but Evelyn and Andrew were both clearly dark brown by this point in their infancy. It's kind of fun to wait to be surprised . . . (And, for the record, despite our clone children, blue eyes are a real possibility for this kid: my mom and Dan's dad both have blue eyes, which means both of us carry the recessive gene for blue.)

Also, apparently Andrew struggles with school pictures. Here's the one from last year.

 I guess this year he was trying to compensate for the wide-eyed surprised look with the slanted eyes and closed smile (that, or he's self conscious about his teeth, which are in all stages: baby, missing, just coming in, and adult).

Two pictures of Oliver in his car seat, just to highlight how much he's grown in the two months since he came home: on the way home from the hospital and a week ago at Andrew's soccer game. We love this baby and his fat cheeks. (And now I'm off to enjoy the last session of conference!)