Walk to the Trout

It was another gorgeous Saturday, so we set out for a walk to the Trout....
with our favorite Texans, Clark and Abbey.
After drinks at the Trout, we headed back and pit stopped at a park. Luke had lots of fun spinning Daddy as fast as he could.
Meanwhile, Caleb was in heaven with Abbey. He loves slides and swings.
And Luke loves anything that gets him attention!

Saturday in Dorchester

It was a beautiful Saturday and we had a great time walking around this little town.
Here they are perched in an alcove (is that the right word??)---a little indentation---on the outside of the town's Anglican church.
It was (of course) a gorgeous church. The artwork on the wall on the right side of the picture is from a very long time ago.
Caleb is all about imitating his big brother. Here he is in the middle of a patch of daffodils beneath a cross in a beautiful church yard, lifting up his shirt and saying, "Tee-tee." (Just for the record, Luke did not pee in the church yard.) :)

First glimpse of Baby #3

Saturday morning, February 9, 2008......we saw our 3rd baby today on an ultrasound at the JR Hospital in Oxford. Chris held Caleb in his lap, Luke held my hand ("to help me be brave"), and I laid on the table as we all stared at the screen waiting for a glimpse of this little person who will forever change all of our lives. He/she was laid back sucking their thumb with feet kicked up in the air. What an incredible gift from God families are! We look forward to meeting this little one in August in Alabama.

In this picture, Chris is rolling his eyes at my sentimentality, but here we are leaving the hospital after seeing our littlest one.

Breakfast on the kitchen floor.....

I'm sure this will all come out in therapy someday anyway, but some days I serve breakfast on the kitchen floor in one dish for all. Here they are sharing sausages, the final course.

Our Amazing Caleb

So, we all have nicknames around here......silly nicknames, I should add. But Caleb's is actually fitting of his personality. He started out as Caleb-Rooney which was then shortened to just Roo and which is now becoming the most fitting nickname in the house----"THE RASCAL ROON." He is so wiley and cunning at times it is hard not to think it's just cute. In this case, he dragged the yellow chair across the den and into the kitchen thinking all along I wasn't noticing. Then he positioned it just right for the sink and began splashing and drinking the dirty water around the dishes. All the while he would cut his eyes around to make sure I wasn't watching. (I did stop him from drinking the dirty water, by the way, but then I would go back to not watching.) :)
In the meantime, Luke has a terrible cough and enjoyed some orange juice and fruit on the couch while watching Peter Pan. When asked who his favorite character was, he said, "the crocodile, of course!"

Enjoying some sunshine....

My handsome guys under our favorite tree.
It has really struck me lately that Caleb is now the exact age that Luke was when we first moved here. I don't know how many countless pictures I have of Luke in this same coat (as what Caleb has on) on this same play-set only it was the fall and not the winter. Caleb, however, is so independent. Two and a half years ago, I had to climb all over this thing to get Luke up and on it. Once on it, he would have been fine but he struggled with all the various methods of scaling up to the inside.Caleb does it all on his own. And, while I used to walk around the sides to "make sure Luke didn't fall off," Caleb manages fine with no protective hand behind him. Funny that I'm falling right in with the stereotypes of how parents treat first and second borns.

Our Amazing Luke

Luke amazes us in many ways, but this is a new phenomena as of the past 2 weeks. Without anyone making any suggestions to him to do so, he has decided he likes to put out his next-day clothes each night ("in the shape of a person, of course" he says). We asked him why he wants to do this and he said it was so he could get dressed really fast in the morning. Does he need to get dressed really fast in the morning? No. Have we ever hurried him to get dressed in the morning? No, he gets up PLENTY EARLY to get it all done. He is a funny and interesting kid full of his own ideas. And, by the way, he alternates his 2 pairs of shoes every other day. But he wears the same shirt every day until I tell him it has got to be washed (then I accidentally forget to wash it for a week just to give us all a break!).
Getting ready for bed is equally fun with GREAT books like this new discovery Dr. Xargles Book about Earthlets. It's the story of an alien giving a class to fellow aliens about what humans are like. Luke's class at school is learning about outer space (they've converted a corner of the classroom into Mars) so he's really fascinated by aliens. (This is not to give the impression for a second, however, that he's not still TOTALLY obsessed with Spiderman.)