This Time of Year

I just made a big old Facebook album with lots of recent Fall pictures, but Facebook doesn't allow the rambling blog entry feature that I so enjoy.  Yet I find uploading and arranging pictures on Blogger to be quite a pain.  Hannah, do you have some tips?  Anyway, here's some more detail on a few of the pictures.

Owen and Caelum are so dang cute together.  Caelum finds all of Owen's antics to be hilarious.  Owen has taken to 'speaking' for Caelum.  For example, tonight I said, "Caelum, I've got a surprise dinner for you." Then I got distracted concocting his dinner and Owen said in a funny high-pitched voice, "What's my surprise, Mommy?" I asked Owen what he said, and he replied, "No, Caelum wants to know, 'What's my surprise, Mommy?'"  I was confused because when Zach and I impersonate Caelum he has a really, really deep 'Bruski voice.

 

Caelum's quite the little firecracker.  At the ripe old age of nine months, this kid is climbing out of the bathtub, sliding down the "big slide" over and over again, saying, "bye bye" to Daddy in the morning, and brushing his hair with a hairbrush.  Caelum is very brave and mobile.  He is keeping me on my toes and keeping us very entertained.

Owen has changed so much. He's such a little boy now, and not at all a toddler.  He's tall and lanky, and he talks or sings incessantly.  In the morning we go over, our "gameplan" for the day and he very seriously lists out what he wants to do: "Park first, then store, meet Daddy for lunch, naps, Daddy comes home, eat dinner, watch a movie!" Once a week we go to the library and get a huge stack of books and then read them over and over everyday.  Owen loves to read and can recite some of his favorite books as we read.   He is a tender-hearted ball of energy.

We've had lots of fun fall-related activities.  There is a farm 15 minutes from us that has lots of animals, hay stacks, tractor rides, and random activities for the kids.  And lots and lots of pumpkins.  Owen is all about Halloween this year and we're going to try to scrape together a Bob the Builder costume over the weekend.

Zach was an alternate juror for a week, which meant driving an hour to Ventura everyday.  We went with him on the first day and explored while Zach sat and read his book.   We went to a park, took naps in the car, and then met Daddy for lunch.  After lunch, we went to a children's museum in Oxnard and killed a couple hours there.  Then we ran a few errands.  By then the kids were very cranky and I was done with living out of the car for 11 hours.  But we really had fun and got to change up our routine.  Plus bonus time with Daddy is always worth it.

Owen playing restaurant at the children's museum. He made sure each plate had a coordinating cup and spoon. Soon a little girl sat down and waited to be served.  So he made her some chicken.

Every six months or so, we try to give camping a go again.  The last time we tried, Owen did not go to sleep, but that was soon after Caelum's birth, so it was time for another attempt.  The weather has been fantastic and the nights are cooling off.  Zach got home early one Friday (because of jury duty), so we picked up some burger meat and buns and "camped" on the patio.  It went great and gave us confidence to do a real trip soon.

Owen helped Zach gather wood

He was outside with Daddy the whole time

Caelum, already looking tired, only participated in the eating outside part of the evening

I slept outside until about 1, at which point the baby was crying and I went inside. I was not sorry to go since Owen's little limbs were everywhere!