My Sweet Boys

I have been SO blessed to have two little boys who ADORE each other.  Truly.  These last two months, or so, as Elliot has begun crawling especially, they have had a blast together.  At the park on the blanket:

In the swings:






In the bath:

And in our own backyard:


Where I caught them talking:

And Oliver going in for a hug:

And then Oliver spotted me taking pictures... Needless to say, he was less than thrilled:

I came into the living room some weeks ago to this scene... oh. my. heart.

And, because I thought they were hilarious, let me share a few outtakes from a cold evening in the backyard.  Oliver was determined to hug Elliot in the bear suit:

The Great Grapefruit Harvest, Round 1

One of the random (but cool!) things about our new home is that the yard is full of citrus trees.  We have one clementine:

Two grapefruit:

And six orange trees:

For a lot of the year, it means decomposing, squished, bug-ridden, half-ripe fruits on the driveway. :(  And we had multiple orange crops, which are unfortunately so sour that they're only good for marmalade or in lieu of lemons.  But around November/December, we get to enjoy the grapefruits and clementines. which. are. amazing. woah.

So mid-November, Oliver and I did a first go at the grapefruit trees.  Mom stood on the ladder and pulled them down, and Oliver carried them in his red bucket:

All the way to the big collection bucket, where he dumped them in:

It filled up quickly!

And Oliver stretched after our hard day's work:

We enjoyed these grapefruits immensely (and this was just a mere fraction of what we eventually harvested!).  Aren't these ruby reds gorgeous?!?!

Yay for these little treats and the fun lessons for my kids. :)

Zoo Boo and Halloween, Too!

I'm sure you're getting tired of zoo posts, but we were very impressed by the zoo's event for Halloween.  Though the animals were not in costume, everything else was decked out.  Oli and Daddy enjoyed seeing the animals:



Elliot ate the program:

And both boys enjoyed the pumpkin patch:




I had a great time with these guys!

The Sunday before Halloween, the local elementary school had a costume parade (where Elliot won a prize, by the way!).  We went down their with our friend, Cinderella (aka Kyla):

And we stood on stage during the contest part:

For the evening of Halloween, we headed down to the block party with our own little Tigger and Roo:



How precious are these boys?!?!



Oliver was very shy, at first:

But he soon got a hang of the idea that people were giving him treats:



Yes, he refused to wear his hat for the entire trick-or-treating process.  Bummer.

Elliot was an angel... or a Tiger, however you want to look at it:

We are very blessed to live in a great neighborhood.  Our block all eats dinner together outside and then the adults retreat to their front porches where they give candy to the kids.  It makes the whole trick-or-treating thing way less scary.  We had a great time!

Family Christmas Photo Shoot

To save money and time this year, we opted to take our own family pics.  The tripod and remote were a new thing for us, plus we made the mistake of going for late afternoon sunlight (a good thing) which meant taking pics immediately after naps (apparently not a good thing).  Though the boys were rested, they were GRUMPY.  But since the sun was setting, we couldn't waste time... not the best combination.  Anyway, here's a collection of some of the pics we got - some good, some bad; some edited, some not.  Some funny, some sad, and some with my baby's face covered in snot. ;)

We started on our new front porch.  This one made the back of the Christmas card this year:

This one, however, did not:

A few more came out pretty good, I thought:

And awkward, though it may be, I love this progression:

How hilarious is Oli's face here?

We then headed over to Rice University (surprised?) to take a few more:

Melt your heart much?

Of course, there were plenty of times when only one kid cooperated... Love Elliot here:

And Oliver here:

We got a couple other decent ones, but I definitely think I need to learn more about self shooting before trying this again:

We finally landed on this one for the Christmas card this year...

And after about 15 minutes of shooting, the boys were, of course D-U-N done.  So we played a little:

Good, clean, family fun!