Zoo Trip

A couple of weeks ago (or so), we went to the zoo with our dear friends, the Dew family!
It's hard to believe there are 8 children among our two families!

I tried to get a shot of them looking at the camera, but it didn't quite work out.  I like how it turned out anyway!
I especially love Nathan's sweet smile in this picture!

My carefree girl!

What is she thinking?

Love this sweet picture of Aaron!

Monkey see ... Monkey do!

Martin was helping this fellow to read a map!

Rosalie is patting Samantha!!  LOVE this!

I love this sweet picture of Rosalie, Natalie, Jonathan, and Nathan holding hands!

Ta-da!

I love this shot of Rosalie and Natalie trying their hardest to keep up with the boys!

Aaron with his favorite animal!!
We had a wonderful time checking out all the animals at the zoo while also spending some time with our friends!  We stayed a little bit longer than our friends did ... and took the children to the play area ...

Having a little fun in the playground area at the zoo!

Rosalie loves having her picture taken!

Can ya tell?

My boys are caught in a spider web!

Hanging on a bug's leg!

Weeeeee!!

Jonathan's Birthday

Oh, how I love to take a look back at how my babies have grown! Here is my special boy a few days after he was born in '06.

This is the first group shot after Jonathan was born!

Look how little they all were! Aaron was not even 2 yet...Martin was only 4 1/2!

Here he is on his 1st birthday!!

2 years old

3 years old

4 years old

And now he's 5!!!

Happy Birthday, my sweet Jonathan. As I am typing this, I hear your loud, shouting play voice trying to keep up (or be louder than) your brothers. I love your enthusiasm and energy. I love how you are so playful all the time! I love how hard you work and hard you play. I love that you would spend entire days outside if I'd let you! You are an amazing blessing to our family! I know that one day, no matter what you do, you will be the best you can be at it!

We love you, Jonathan and are so thankful for you!

Family Day at the Pumpkin Patch

We went to Dean's Farm a few weeks ago ... (you may have noticed that I am having a hard time keeping up with the blog!)

I love this look on Jonathan's face!

Rosalie picked her pumpkin!

Sliding down on the belly!

We love pumpkin patches and the fall!

More Butterfly Fun

When the next round of butterflies emerged ... we went out to set them free ... and one of them landed on Rosalie's toe. She was thrilled to death! She was ever so still and watched it carefully.

You can see that she is pointing to the butterfly in the picture above.

It slowly began to make it's way up her leg.

Eventually it was on her shirt.

She proceeded to get it on her finger ...

I absolutely LOVE the facial expressions that I caught of Martin as he held the butterfly!

Aaron got his turn ...

and Jonathan held it too!

Enjoying the Butterflies

Do you see the butterfly in the picture above?

All the children wanted to touch them and hold them ... and they eventually did.

Aaron is holding one of the butterflies!

I am pretty certain that Rosalie is pouting in this picture because she wanted to hold the butterfly herself! (and she gets her chance too ... I'll share another day ... in another post)

... and I got Jonathan pouting in this one ... because he too wanted a turn!

He finally gets his turn ... and yep ... all smiles now.

I love how closely he is observing in this picture!

Our Butterflies

We were so excited several days ago, when 3 of our butterflies emerged! There were 5 caterpillars in each cup, and we had more success with one cup than the other. All 5 of the caterpillars formed a chrysalis in the cup pictured above. However, in the other cup, 1 caterpillar died before forming a chrysalis, 2 of them started forming one and died before it was complete, and the other 2 did form a chrysalis.
We took them out to our deck, and prepared to let them go.

All 4 of the children were mesmerized at the transformation that had taken place!

Even though we all knew (most of us, anyway), that the caterpillars would form a chrysalis, and would emerge many days later as a butterfly ... we were still all amazed at the transformation that happened right before our eyes.
I'll be sharing more pictures throughout the week of each of the children holding and experiencing the butterflies!

Who is making him laugh?

After we had lunch the other day, I sent each of the children to their rest time space. I sat down to have my own quiet time when I kept hearing cackling coming from my bedroom. (Aaron's rest time space) I thought for sure that Martin had come downstairs and they were in their cutting up together. I quietly peaked into the room, and saw that the cackling coming from Aaron was because of a book he was reading.
I ran and grabbed my camera as quickly and quietly as possible ... and shot a quick video of him.
He was reading an Amelia Bedilia book. I love how much he loves to read. I love how much he just seems to "get" things. I LOVE to hear my children laugh!