Choo choo, car car

Here are some photos of our big 2 year old's birthday party. I was feeling inspired by Food Network Challenge's cake competitions and decided to try my hand at using fondant. It was lots of fun and easier than trying to smooth out frosting. Our theme was loosely "Choo choo, Jed's 2!" The train on the cake actually moved! I was quite impressed with myself. Jed is all about things with "whee wheels."

Amazing 2 Year Old

Well, this week we celebrated Jed's 2nd birthday. Wow has time flown by. Unfortunately I am still waiting on photos from the great event, but I will share them once I get them. It was a crazy weekend celebrating my Dad's 60th birthday and Maxton's baby dedication. But, it was wonderful to celebrate everything all together. Getting to my point for blogging tonight, though, is that Jed is much more attentive to our habits than I realized. We were having a rather hectic evening with getting the boys fed and Steve off to his group meeting. I came late to the dinner table and started to help Jed eat. Rather than taking the fork from me to take a bite, Jed grabbed my hand and then reached out to grab Steve's. He was indicating to us that we needed to pray for our dinner. In all of our hurrying to get everything else taken care of, we had forgotten to thank God for providing for us. The timing was uncanny in that I had just heard the state coordinator for Moms In Touch speak at our MOMS Meeting this morning. She talked about the importance of prayer in our lives and in that of our children. Even if it is just the habitual prayers that our children see us perform, they are still paying attention and we are instilling in them lifelong lessons. I was definitely blessed by my little 2 year old tonight in the midst of an otherwise chaotic evening.

Happy Boo Day - Delayed

Okay, so I'm a bit behind with blogging, but wanted to make sure I blogged about the boys on Halloween. This was Max's first one and Jed's second. We decided that we would just stay around home this year instead of driving all over town to see both sets of grandparents like last year. So, most of the grandparents made it over to our house to see the kids. Steve's parents actually took Jed around for a little bit while I fed Max. Then, after we all had dinner, Steve and I took the boys back out for a little more fun. I was a little disappointed that there weren't more kids out, but apparently they all go across the street to the more expensive neighborhood where they give out whole candy bars. Jed still had a great time. He got the hang of it pretty early on, asking for "num nums" before we would even get to the door (trick-or-treat was a bit of a challenge for him to say). Then, he would get really excited if they let him choose his candy, sometimes grabbing a whole handful. People were really generous, though, because of the low turnout of kids. Jed made a killing in candy. Some of the houses gave Max some candy, too. He was asleep for most of our time out. Steve was quite the trooper carrying him the hold time. We decided it was more fun to do that than to bring the stroller. Once we got home, the boys got in their cute little matching pj's and, of course, we had to take more photos. And, wouldn't you know, they both slept super well. Max didn't wake up for a feeding until 2am (which is better than the usual 11pm) and Jed slept in until almost 9am (which is better than 7am). Sleeping in was sweet! Even if it meant 3 hours of sleep in a row instead of 2. Gotta love nursing! Hopefully I can get more sleep for this next big weekend.

Fall Favorites

Fall is my favorite time of year. I can hardly wait for the heat of summer to fade and the leaves to start to change. It is so much fun to go to the apple orchard and pick fresh apples and pumpkins. This year, though, our attempts at getting to the orchard were over come by rain and our limited time schedule. So, Jewel Osco to the rescue for fresh Empire apples and a "Max-size" pumpkin. We went over to Steve's parents' house to carve up the pumpkin and enjoy a nice bonfire. It was a great night and the pumpkin seeds were terrific! I made up a batch of Chex Mix the next day and enjoyed looking out the window at the beautiful trees by the pond.
Jed was trying so hard to pick up the ginormous pumpkin. It was really cute!The pumpkin proved to be a problem even for Grandpa!It was really gooey inside. Gross!See, a Max-size pumpkin = ) My mom put my sister and I in pumpkins for our first fall seasons. I actually got stuck in mine and they had to cut it to get me out.
Jed's first bonfire with Grandpa Koss.