New blog you should check out

On the right of my blog you will see a list of blogs I like. The newest one at the top, entitled 'The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks,' is absolutely hilarious. I always find the misuse of quotation marks and apostrophes (and other types of punctuation, but especially those) to be really frustrating and at times funny, but also sad because I'm often reminded of just how many people have very little knowledge of how to correctly use punctuation. At least in this blog I can laugh about it and not just cry.

TWO new nephews!

I started this week with three nephews and now I have five! Yay! Jimmy's brother David and his wife Charlotte welcomed Luke Aston Brock on November 20, and my sister Laura and her husband Matt welcomed Clayton Matthew Lightfoot on November 21! How exciting!

The absence has a purpose...

Hi there,
Well, I haven't posted for nearly two months and I suppose I should tell you why. I always post all of my good pictures on here so you can experience the joy of seeing my wonderful children in all their glory. :) However, I realized that with Christmas coming up, the Christmas presents I intend to give some family members will be more exciting if they don't see everything that's going on ahead of time. So...no new pictures until after Christmas. That, and since Jimmy is working (either for money, in class, or studying) a large portion of the time I have found it hard to find some uninterrupted time to work on the blog. So hopefully I can do that while he's taking a break when we're in Virginia for Christmas.

Anyway, thanks for putting up with me while I lag behind. I don't intend to give up the blog, I'm just taking an purposeful break. :)

Arthur's Picnic in the Park (and pancakes for breakfast)

On Saturday we went to Arthur's Picnic in the Park in Forest Park. Forest Park is a huge urban park in St. Louis (the zoo is there). It was FREE (the most important word in my vocabulary these days) and had basically all of the PBS characters you could imagine. I didn't exactly know what to expect but I knew that Nathan would enjoy seeing Curious George and Clifford and the Sesame Street characters. We got there about twenty minutes before it started which is a good thing because when we left (about an hour and twenty minutes after is started) there was no parking for literally miles. We saw that there were lots of tents--one for each PBS show represented. We headed straight for the Sesame Street tent and got in line but we didn't know what for. We found out that instead of walking around like we thought might happen, the characters would be sitting in their tents having the children sit on their laps and take pictures Santa-style. The line wasn't long so we decided to wait. We probably waited 30 or so minutes and Nathan and Isaac were perfect the whole time. We saw Oscar but by the time it was our turn, Elmo was there. Here are some pictures of our day.

Getting ready for some fun!

Self explanatory!!

Nathan didn't want to wear the hardhats they were giving out at the Sesame Street booth but Isaac wasn't so picky. :)

After the Sesame Street booth we decided that at over an hour and a half the lines were too long so we wandered around. Nathan got to play with bubbles, which he LOVED.

And take a picture with a panda!

Nathan also enjoyed a special treat of a hotdog.

(There used to be a picture of Isaac here but I just accidentally deleted it and I'm not using the computer it's on so I can't reload it. Oh well...maybe next post. )

Pancake Breakfast

We have started a tradition of eating pancakes every Sunday morning for breakfast since church doesn't start until 11:00. Nathan likes to sit in his daddy's lap and share. They're pretty cute. :) (Don't worry--Isaac was taking a nap, I didn't just neglect to take pictures of him at our family breakfast!)

Gulf Drive continued

So I thought I would post some more pictures of our apartment. I put some things on the walls in the boys' room so I thought I'd show it off. :) To the left is Nathan's half of the room. It's hard to see with the glare of the flash, but that 10-foot long poster is all animals. I bought it when I was teaching a unit on animals and kept it thinking I might have a child one day who likes animals. Boy, was I right!

This picture is of the back of the room obviously where the windows are. Those little squares all over the walls are actually postcards I bought at the St. Louis Zoo. They are--you guessed it--pictures of animals that they have at the zoo!



This is Isaac's half of the room which includes the changing table. The only part you don't see is the wall with the door and the closet but that's just not that exciting.




And THIS is perhaps my favorite part of our apartment. it's the corner of our bedroom. Our bedroom here is huge. Not by the standard of many of you (I've seen your bedrooms--they're much larger than this!) but compared to our bedroom in Long Beach it is really big. This is my little reading (or whatevering!) corner. To the right you can just see the bottom corner of the closet. The only thing on that wall are the two closets. To the left you can see the edge of the curtains. So that wall is just window. The wall opposite the closets is where our bed and dressers are and the wall opposite the window is just the door. Eventually we plan to put things on the walls in here (other than what you see) and possibly even paint but this is it for now.

Coming soon: A post about Arthur's Picnic in the Park!

At Home in Saint Louis! (And the END OF AN ERA!!)

Well, this is where we'll be calling home for the next 3-4 years! Welcome to our little part of Gulf Drive. Right in front of this door every day at 4:00 you can find a huge playgroup of toddlers, some infants, and their parents.

Our living room (view from the dining area).

View from the front door: other end of the living room and dining area.

Tiny kitchen that I LOVE. I should have waited to take a picture when there was nothing (and no one) in it, but hey, this is when I thought about it.

Looking down the hall. Bathroom in the middle, our bedroom to the right and the boys' bedroom to the left. You don't get to see them because they're not ready to be photographed. :)

Our little deck off of the dining area. Notice the herbs?? They excite me.

The most amazing invention of all time: the portable dishwasher!

Nathan has, in the pas few weeks, gotten several jobs which he can do well. Here he is helping daddy prepare the salad with a very focused look on his face.

Setting the table...

...including with napkins! Another job he has is putting away the silverware. While one of us is unloading the dishwasher we give him the silverware basket and he can do it all correctly (even telling the difference between soup spoons, regular spoons, and measuring spoons all on his own!).

And now some cute pictures of Isaac. :)

Final note: Yesterday, September 19, 2008, was the end of an era. NATHAN THREW AWAY HIS PACIFIERS! He'd only used them for sleep for a long time but yesterday he threw them away for good. I bought him a big box of Play-Doh with all kinds of accessories and told them that to get it he had to throw away the pacifiers. He said he wanted me to do it but Jimmy and I told him that he had to. Aside from having a little trouble falling asleep last night, the night was perfect. He's such a big boy!

Finally, some pictures! (Part III)

I'm pretty sure the person having the most fun in this picture is Matt...

Crossing the river into St. Louis, our new home!

Definitely happy :)

My mom decided to give Nathan the idea that he should wear differently colored shoes. Then that's THE ONLY WAY he'd wear his shoes for several weeks. And this is what he does when he's not interested in holding hands :)

Keleckely (a.k.a. Kelly, which Nathan can say correctly now) came to visit!

Nathan with our neighbor, Laine, who is 20 days younger than he.

What a big boy!

Finally, some pictures! (Part II)

Isaac and Grandma (Brock Gran-gran, as Nathan puts it).

Nathan and great-grandma making funny faces!

Nathan has a weird obsession with gloves.

Being a heron flying away with Papa.

With Aunt Laura and cousin Clayton who will be here in November!

Finally, some pictures! (Part I)

Nathan enjoying birthday cake.

Well, I finally got around to posting some pictures from the summer! I don't have much more to say than I said in the last post. Things are going well here in St. Louis. We're settling in nicely, like our church and our neighbors, and Jimmy has taught Nathan how to sing the alphabet in Greek which is quite amusing (he can sing it in English, too!). Enjoy the pictures! (As usual, captions go with the pictures above them and to get a bigger version of the picture, just click on it.)



This is the face Isaac had for the first few months of his life any time he was awake and Nathan was around. Who can blame him? Nathan's kind of a crazy kid.





Playing nicely with cousin Samuel!