Penn's Keeping Me Sane

It's amazing how the little baby is the one that is the easiest at this point.  He's predictable, he's almost always happy or easily made happy and he hasn't learned how to disobey purposefully yet.  Ah, innocence.  Penn Rye rejuvenates me amidst a rough phase with Koen and Tavin starting to show his will.  Tonight I kept him front and center as I tried to keep it cool with the big boys.  He loved a snuggly moment with Koen after his 4pm feeding.

Big brother didn't stay so innocent though.  I had he and Tav play in the backyard while I fed Penn his cereal.  They had free reign to play in the dirt, etc.  I was really trying to be cool about whatever they were doing since at least they were safe, happy and enjoying some fresh air.  But doesn't this look like a kid that's trying to take it too far?  Yep, that's exactly what it is.

Turns out they decided to make a mud mixture and then use brooms to paint the mud on everything.  I saw them doing it on a few harmless things and Koen said, "don't worry, we are just painting the stuff that's black."  Ok, that doesn't sound that bad.  Five minutes later I looked out and they were painting mud all over the fences.  Not exactly Doug's favorite on the white fence.  So, then I put them to work washing it off.  Ugh.  Thankfully they thought that was fun.  All this time I'm keeping my cool because look at this adorable guy sitting in front of me!

Here are the mud-makers at work (this was before the fence painting fiasco).

Yeah, enough of waiting to see what was going to happen out there.  I had to put Penn down after carrying him around and doing the final preparations for dinner while keeping an eye out the back window on the big boys.  I decided to see if I could get a few cute pics of Penn while we were waiting for the boys to finish washing the fence.  Turns out, it's pretty easy to get cute pics of Penn Rye.  Too many to choose from.

And then I gave tummy time a try.  He liked it for about 10 seconds, then he did his loud squawking which is his newest development (will have to try and get a video of it soon...hilarious!).

Oh, Penn Rye.  I love all 3 of my boys sooo much, but you, Penn, are such a blessing in this more challenging time with the older boys.  Thanks for lifting my spirits all day long.