Treasure Hunting

Grant has gotten pretty interested in Geocaching this past year.  The concept is that you use an app on your phone with GPS to locate a cache.  Some of them are just canisters with a logbook that you can sign but others are containers with items inside left by others who have come along and you can leave something yourself in exchange for something from the box.

And it turns out, there are plenty very near our apartment, so he started with those.  He often took Kendra with him and she was always excited to go "Treasure Hunting" with Daddy, those a couple of times we all went out together.

Just another reason to look forward to warm weather again--there was one across the street we never did find and it's bugging Grant all winter long.

A Day at the Park

Man, it's been a loooong, hard winter, amIright?  Woof.  But these pictures bring hope that I will see their faces rosy with exertion from playing outside in the warm sun again...

This summer, Paxton will be chasing his siblings around at the parks but this time he had to be content to observe.

But he still had a pretty good time that spot, too.  It's been pretty bitterly cold the past couple of days and we're due for a huge snowstorm in another couple of days, but if we can just hang on...we can get back to a shining sun and green grass and shorts weather again!

Birthday Boys

Earlier this week I spoke with someone whose wife had given birth to their first child two and a half weeks ago.  As we talked about parenting a new baby, I told him that my experience was that days are long but years are short.

My, do the years go by so fast.

In June, Elliot turned two.  Our sweet, sweet boy...

Isn't it nice to have siblings to test drive your new toys for you?  Luckily, Elliot had plenty to keep him distracted.  Our birthday parties are simple but they seem to enjoy them.

And then just three months later Paxton turned a year old (and our second child in a row to do so with a younger sibling on the way).  The first nine months of his life, Paxton was not impressed but his personality really lit up at about that point and he's been really fun to get to know.

Time sure does fly!  But we feel really blessed to be at a point where we are measuring our lives by events in theirs.  It's already going by startlingly fast!

Siblings

With three small children in an 1100 square foot apartment, things can get a little...intense...sometimes.  But we've kind of hit the jackpot with these kids we've got, they do pretty well. 

Kendra does extremely well learning how to live with her little brothers--because I feel for her.  Younger siblings can be annoying, especially at her age.  But they can also be awesome and she spends a whole lot more time on that end of the spectrum with them.

No lie, I walked in to check on them and they were just holding hands, watching a show.

Elliot does pretty well as an older sibling, too.  My boys are pretty good buddies.

Kendra and Elliot also do a pretty cute thing with Paxton.  When they hear him crying after he wakes up in the morning or from his nap, they'll go "help" him.  It actually is helpful for them to go in and entertain him so I can quickly get the dirty dishes into the dishwasher before we unleash him because he'll "help" me unload all the dirty dishes if I open the thing while he's roaming.

He seems pretty satisfied with the situation.

We are definitely satisfied with the situation, too.