The first two pictures are from a trip blueberry picking. I found that the boys were able for it if the picking lasted about a half hour....just long enough to enjoy the berries. Nathan especially got into the picking part of it. The third picture is a favorite activity--ice cream cones! The last picture is proof that indeed one can receive help from a 2 year old! This was Nathan's idea and he emptied the entire silverware bucket.


We've had lots of traveling the last bit, between conventions, beach trips and funerals, the boys have been carted around a lot. They've been excellent, but our first cold of the season hit about half way through all that just mentioned. A few days or hopefully weeks, of normal, routine days will do us all well. Todays nap has lasted about 3 hours now, if that tells you anything!

The boys are slowly changing from calling their grandpa, "Ba-ba" to "Bumpa". The other day, Thomas called me "Bummy". I think that is a combination between Mommy and Bumpa. I love it when they confuse my name and call me everything but Mommy, it makes me feel better when I call them the wrong name.

Amanda MacDonald

Amanda on August 7th

In honor of a brave woman whose fight against cancer was long and merciless. Since her death, I look around at my house, my life, my children and think how come I'm so lucky? Yet, all through her illness, we never heard her speak of anger or even why me? She kept fighting for life to the last week of her life, and then just slipped away quietly. I met her in my teenage years and became good friends at that time. Our paths separated again after a couple of years, but we stayed in contact and always enjoyed seeing one another at conventions. Even though her life ended before she could enjoy many of the natural blessing that I first wrote of, she had her spiritual house in order and because of that, I know she had help through the door of eternity.

Pictures!

While I was rocking Thomas tonight, I was teaching him to say I love you. So as we worked on it word by word, Nathan pipes up in his bed and says "Mommy, I!" Encouraging Nathan, I asked him to then say "love" and he proceeded to say, "I'm sleeping!" Do they know just how funny they are?

The other day, I put Thomas in a time out at the bottom of our stairs. This was in response to whacking Nathan on the head with a truck. With time out being a new idea, Nathan walked around to the stairs to investigate. I called to Nathan to stay away as Thomas had been Bad! I could tell Nathan was still interested in keeping Thomas company, so I walked over to find Thomas spread eagle on the stair to prevent Nathan from joining him. I think they missed the point!

The top two pictures are the boys version of a tea party. The next picture is Thomas in a box of bubbles. Then, we see Thomas in his first and last time on a motorcycle. Some friends from my old place of work stopped by a Saturday in July. I was thrilled to show off my cute kids. The last picture is Nathan riding his Dad's exercise bike. Amazingly both boys can get the bike handle bars moving at a decent rate! Thomas has actually been able to do this since early this spring. This takes coordination and strength!

As I am sitting here getting ready for the day, I can here Tommy waking up. First, there was the stretch and 5 second sigh. Then, two-year-old singing. Then, Mommy?

Sometimes the singing is followed by "Nayten? Hi, Nayten. Nayten? Hi, Nayten."

It's one of my favorite times of the day.