dear blog...

dear blog,

i hate to tell you this way, but i think we should start seeing other people.  it's not you - it's me.  and i think we can still be friends!  but from now on i'll be spending most of my time over on instagram at www.instagram.com/drbls.  our followers can expect very regular photo updates over there* - and i even mean that this time!  some people might even find the number of photos that i post to be gratuitous!  my dear blog, i plan/hope/aspire to have the boys still get together with you once a month, maybe at the end of each month, to give our fans a more robust update in words and pictures from our other cameras.  but this is just not working out and i had to be true to myself and follow a path that made more sense.  i hope you'll understand.  and please remember this is not the end of our relationship, it's just a healthy change that will be better for everyone.

take care,
momma

*dear fans: you don't have to have an instagram account to view our pictures there. you can get an account if you want to make comments, but it's not necessary at all. no worries!

fall fun...

i'm glad it's still technically fall so that i'm at least posting these pictures in the same season they originally happened!  here are the boys enjoying a fire in the fire pit.  the boys love doing this!!  ben is fascinated with the fire itself and how it all works and luke likes to poke around at things and enjoy the excitement.  (i promise we are very careful and safe during this entire process - no worries!)  we did this several times this fall and it was always a big hit!  

check out how good and cute sam was being in the stroller for a very long time!  each of my children have loved chewing on buckles and nylon straps.  as babies, they can't get enough of a carseat or stroller buckle - is this strange?  are all babies like this?  why do i buy baby toys?  i'm telling you sam was probably in this stroller chewing on that thing for 30 minutes without fussing...

but who can resist that cuteness?  not us.  so eventually we had to hold him and let him enjoy the fire too...

ben loved to (safely) mess around with the fire and see how different things caught on fire and what happened as the logs burned.  he was really fascinated...  

and both boys loved the s'mores, of course!!

back inside we've been doing lots and lots of crafts and learning activities again.  it seemed like forever when sam was first born before i was really able to play with the big boys again and do fun things with them. so now that we're back on that, we're in overdrive catching up on lost crafting time!  :)

luke now really likes to paint and glue and get messy with things (although he doesn't really like to get too messy, so i'm thankful for that!)... 

and ben still loves all this stuff and is at his best when he's really focused on making something...

we also started doing "sensory boxes" which was a super simple and genius idea i saw online.  i just fill a plastic box with beans or rice or dry pasta and add tiny animals figures and some small containers and the boys love it!!  i change it up every few weeks according to the season or holiday and the boys play with these things for a long time!  they both love pouring, mixing, sorting, dumping - anything sensory-related, and this is a huge hit. 

meanwhile, sam continues to be adorable and chubbier and is content with some toes...

gotta love it.  stay tuned again soon!  i'm determined to finish up the fall pictures soon so we can move on to a few Christmas pictures and some updates on what's really going on now.  bye!!

holly was here...

well, the title says it all - holly was here for her annual fall fandango with the matthys family.  yea!!!  she came bearing gifts, as seen above.  and we all had smiles from ear to ear the whole weekend!!  (we even got to sneak away a bit for a little shopping and silliness without the boys!!)...

the boys LOVED holly - how could they not??  she even got to feed sam - ahhhh!

and even though we didn't take very many pictures with her (booooooo!), we had such a great time and will remember all the fun and laughter and silliness she brought to our home.  thanks for coming, holly!!!  but no thanks for leaving - this is what luke thought about that!!  noooooooooo!!!

but i can't say i blame her for leaving because check out this fire ant pile in our backyard!!!

it's a good thing gabbee wasn't here for a visit because the very sight of that thing probably would have made her break out!!  

and here are a few recent pictures of the boys from the week before...  ben with morning hair, luke making funny faces, and sam at seven months old and rocking the feathers...

see you back again soon!  sorry i'm not as creative as the boys on here.  i save my creative energy for playing with them during the day and don't know how they can be so funny up here on the blog usually.  i'll try better next time.  :)  - momma

early october...

hello again!  i have some pictures to share from early october when sam was just sitting up for one of the first times.  sitting up is always a favorite milestone of mine because they get so excited about seeing the world from this new perspective. they can participate in what's going on around them and play more, plus it's just so cute to watch them try and sit up those first few days!  here is sam out in the grass, and i'm so glad i caught this on camera because it's so funny!  he's trying to sit up and keep his balance while wondering what i'm doing with this camera and while wondering what is about to attack him!!

ben is such a good big brother to sam and wasn't trying to be mean. sam just got startled! but here's a cute one of ben trying to catch sam as he starts to go down...  

i love sweet big brother moments and we have a lot of them around here, which i'm so thankful for!  i know some older siblings (especially boys) aren't as excited about new babies, but ben and luke have loved every minute of sam and help me out a lot as much as they can. :)  here's one last picture of sam striking a pose...

and this is just a random one of ben looking like such a big boy!!  he's still only 4 but seems at least 6 to me!

also back in october we tried the classic baking soda + vinegar volcano experiment and the boys just went crazy for it! they started to be interested in volcanoes as we learned about dinosaurs, and this experiment was a huge hit. i love how the pictures really show their personalities. ben was really checking it out and analyzing everything...

...and luke was just excited and eager!

ben got to pour the first time and luke was content to watch, but i also like luke to get to do as much as he can at his age, so he had another turn and did everything himself too.   but they both loved it!

now that sam is older we get to do more fun stuff like this again and i'm so glad for that! and that's all for now!  i'll be back again soon with more october and some november.  bye!

management change...

hello everyone!  it's me - MOMMA!!!  so... it's no secret that the boys have dropped the ball on updating the blog often enough. they think life is just play, play, play all the time (can you imagine their nerve?) and they just won't take the time to sit down at the computer and do this one responsibility. i keep telling them they're never going to make it in this world if they don't embrace technology more. forget playing outside. forget making and building things. forget reading books. i'm begging them to please spend more time on this computer and more time watching tv and getting facebooks and twitters asap. but they're just not into it right now. so - they've asked me to temporarily take over and announce this management change and a policy change on this blog. i'll do the posts for a while and i'll make them short and sweet and more frequent - a few pictures at a time and a few days between posts. get your google readers ready!!

so - - let's do this.  :)

the boys really got behind with the pictures, so i'll come back in a couple days and start catching us up (all the way from early october - yikes!), but here are a few from last week to get us going.  check out my two little indians!!  i can hardly stand it...

i love these little boys so much and we had a great time last week learning about pilgrims, the mayflower, the first thanksgiving, and indians. the indians and squanto took center stage in their mind, so we fashioned up these outfits and hats and wore them around for several days!  it was so cute!!  here's luke doing a little indian something-or-other...

and here are the boys eating some deer they had just skinned and cooked over a fire i'm sure...

and here is my sweet baby making a funny mushed peas face!!  he's eating solids very well and has liked everything so far - woohoo!! i'm thankful for that!

and he's really starting to get his hair back - even enough to be spiky!! and as blonde as ever...

he is all smiles almost all of the time and we just can't get enough of him. his little giggles and cute faces bring joy to our whole family...

and those extra rolls are helpful too!  he was pretty skinny there for a while but has finally joined the matthys baby boy club and gotten with the fat program. yea!!

okay.  i'm signing off on my first blog post. i hope i can be as entertaining as the boys and get some pictures on here a lot more often for all of our adoring fans.  :)  see you back again soon.    - momma  :)

at the zoo...

whoops.  sorry it's been a while but we're back with some zoo pictures and then we'll have to do several posts in a row in the next few days to get caught back up again!!  but first, as promised, our fun at the zoo from last month on one of daddy's fridays off...  we had a great time and i was even slightly more interested in the animals than i have been any other time!  i do think animals are really cool, but i don't need to stand there and stare at them for hours (or minutes!) like momma and luke do.  if they're doing something especially cool or exciting, then i'll watch for a minute or two. but if they're just standing around (which is usually the case) then i'm good with 30 seconds or so.  but anyway, i do like to see all the animals and this was an especially good visit.  i even pet a snake - whoa! sorry no pictures of that, but trust me, i did.  

and here's me and luke watching the elephants.  i think momma would still be standing there watching them if we hadn't dragged her away!  

but if we had stayed at the elephants all day, we would have missed having lunch next to the giraffes, which was super cool!  we really liked watching them reach the tall leaves...

and we even got to feed the giraffes some lettuce leaves - so cool!  that was one of the highlights of the day.  sam really liked the giraffes too!

he says "thumbs up to giraffes and to the zoo!"

don't mind me while i play it cool in my stroller and continue reigning on my awesome baby throne...

after seeing the "normal" zoo favorites like lions, chimps, zebras, etc... we made a stop at a special exhibit in town just for a short time - the DINOSAURS!!  now these guys were definitely up my alley and i could have stayed around them all day!!!  check them out (they were so big and so cool in real life)...

i thought they were totally awesome. luke thought they were half scary and half awesome. and sam thought they were totally scary!!

but here we are right as we saw the t-rex!!  (you should have seen our reaction in person!)...

the t-rex was huge. it was awesome. it was scary. it growled. i thought it might eat me. i didn't even care. but i did stay in the stroller. it was the bomb. i want one.

after the awesome dinosaurs, we moved on to the petting zoo, where luke felt a little more comfortable (and definitely sam, too) and finished off the day watching some ducks (boring)...

so - best zoo trip ever. and it spawned a huge interest in dinosaurs for me and luke, so we've been doing a lot of dinosaur things lately. and on a completely unrelated note, here are some pictures of me and luke playing in the rain.  actually, it started off with me running and playing in the rain, which i love to do...

then luke thought he wanted to run and play with me, but he sometimes has a strong aversion to getting wet from the rain, so that created an internal dilemma for him...

...but thankfully the running and playing won and he came out to have fun with me after all!

good times.  and we hope to be back soon with pictures from our visitors and more of little sam, who is now six months old and not really so little anymore!  see you soon - bye!!  :)