These are a little blury cause I tried to enlarge them.

Brandon and John

The photographer and the filmmaker

I was sitting in church today thinking of all the cute things my boys have done lately. It's easier to do that in church when someone else is wathcing them, liestening to them and answering all their many questions and channeling their energy into something productive like learning about Jesus!

We had our children's primary program where they all get up and do a presentation on what they have been learning about in Sunday School the past year. My boys did well, I am always a little unsure about how their performance will go as they don't love to do it. They did well though, Tyler said his part great, he is getting better and better at reading plus we went over his part with him each night. Brandon got up there but his teacher said his part for him (even though he could totally say it at home for us). I thought that was great though, at least he got up there! We were proud of them. Brian's parents and sister were there to watch, thanks for coming guys!

Ok, so what I was thinking about in church after that was how much faith my boys have in what we teach them both at home and the things they learn at church. Here are some cute examples. I don't really keep a journal about my kids because it hurts my carpal tunnel to write, typing is somewhat more comfortable. I hope this blog is around for a long time or I will just print it all someday.

Tyler was looking for his shoe the other day and I was getting kind of impatient (what? me?) and telling him to hurry and find it cause it was time to go. I couldn't find him and so I was calling his name getting a little more irritated...I walked into his room and found him kneeling by his bed saying a prayer to himslef so that he could find that shoe. It was about the cutest thing ever. I repented then and there for getting so mad and helped him find it soon after!

As we talk about scripture stories and teach the boys about Jesus, we always get this response from Brandon who normally is pretty irreverent and obnoxious at times. "I just really love Jesus, I mean I just really like him, mom." He gets all serious and starts pouring out his little heart about Jesus, so cute. Shock and amazement come over me sometimes because I often feel like teaching him anything is pointless because he doesn't follow basic rules like minding, having good manners and being nice.

Ethan does really well during prayers, has for a while now. He is more reverent than Brandon by a long shot and folds his "eyems" great and closes his eyes and says amen! He AMAZES us lately. He is a little chatter box the way that he talks now. He knows all his colors and shapes and he is just 2. My other boys did not progress so quickly. He really listens and watches what his brothers do. That has both positive and negative affects...

He also has an alter ego named, "Puppy". Every 15 minutes or so throughout the day he will drop down to all fours and sort of make puppy sounds. He will crawl around for literally like 30 minutes this way. Sometimes I perfer "Puppy" to "Ethan" because "Puppy" minds so well! He doesn't say words and so doesn't require much. He is just content to be wandering about. Here is the biggest plus that I see in all of this, we don't have to get a dog!

We are getting excited for Halloween, we went to the pumkin patch last weekend and had a great time with Grandma, Cathryn and her boyfriend John. They took some great pictures for us and helped us with our kids! We did walk over to where they were shooting pumkins out of a cannon and it is so fun to watch. Ethan, however, didn't like it that much becuase it was really loud. He dug his face into my shoulder and told he was "scaried". "I am scaried" he told me. He also tells me "I are poopy, mama" or "I are tinky". If I look at him and ask, "you are?" He will respond, "ya, I ARE!" Here is another cute thing he says, he loves fruit snacks and asks for "moot naks". I could go on and on with the things he comes up with each day.

Ethan is going to be Winnie the Pooh, Brandon is going to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Tyler is Spiderman. Brian is going as busy and I am going as tired! He and I are just so tired at night and busy all day. Such is life with 3 kids I guess. We are trying to enjoy the time that we have together, he is out of town now each week from Mon-Wed so things are a bit crazy at times. Well, here are some pics, enjoy. Cathryn is getting pretty good at taking and editing pictures and John has his own really nice camera because he is a big time film maker here in central oregon....kind of. Future big film maker.