Biggest & Littlest

This afternoon Penn and Koen were both up, but Tav was already down for his nap.  I had some fun capturing my biggest and littlest interacting.  Koen had developed some ball games with Penn.  Penn adores Koen (and really likes this ball).

Here's another version Koen cooked up for Penn.

Then I decided to get some pics (again, the outfits aren't quite right for a photo shoot, but it was fun having their faces so close and trying to get a few shots).  Ok, Penn you open your mouth, Koen you close yours...

Now Penn, you close your mouth, Koen you open yours.   Seriously, I didn't say that, but doesn't it look like it?  How did that happen one photo after another?

Some standard smiles.

These two are quite a pair.  Koen showers Penn with love and attention (and so much loud noise) and Penn just eats it up and adores his oldest bro.  Love it!

Home Church: Obedience

Oh my goodness!  We were grounded yet again!  This was the 5th week we couldn't worship with our community at North Way Oakland.  Ugh!!  Two weeks of not having the car (and so went to NW East End), then Tav was sick the next week, then I was out of town the following week (and morning services were cancelled due to marathon) and then this week Koen was sick.  Koen actually was better this morning, but had had a fever at least through midnight last night.  He still had no appetite this AM and was coughing up a storm.  He did end up having a turn for the better in the middle of the afternoon and then finally this evening his appetite was back, so I think he's on the mend.  Poor kid.  He was on the verge for a few days and then Saturday he was so not himself.  Very sad.  Anyways, he did perk up a little this morning for home church (and Tav was super excited, he loves home church).  Today we did obedience.  They watched a little Max Lucado show "Bee-having is Best with Buzby the Bee."  Then we had our singing time.  Koen is so cute, he likes to play his guitar while we sing (and it's hilarious, soooo hard to stay serious!).  We worked on our memory verse, Ephesians 6:1. Then we read about Adam & Eve and how they disobeyed God and got banished from the Garden of Eden (you know, light stuff). Then we made "Obedience Oatmeal Cookies."  

The point of the cookies was the follow-up of our memory verse...Ephesians 6:1-3.  If we followed the recipes (obeyed instruction) they would taste good (it would go well for us).  While the cookies were baking, the boys used the back of their memory verse papers to draw pictures of the Garden of Eden.  Well, Tav has a fettish with scissors right now, so he just cut up his paper into teeny tiny pieces. 

Well, the cookies turned out well (thank goodness), lesson learned hopefully (for the moment).  Lord willing we will be back at church next week, healthy and happy!

Mother's Day 2013

As we do with most Sunday holidays, we celebrated Mother's Day on Saturday so that we could do so together as a family (Doug works all day on Sundays).  At breakfast, Koen got to give me his homemade gift from school.  He has been dying to tell me what it was all week.  He brought it up at least once a day (do you know where I hid it? do you know what it is?).  Koen also got to take the pictures of me opening it himself (hence the blur).

I took a picture later of his card and the personalized mug.  So sweet.  He was so proud of himself!

While I hung out with Penn and got ready for the day, Doug and the boys had some creative card-making time.  Doug is so hilariously clever.  Check out these big cards I received with love notes inside.  I love being the only girl for all this little boy love!

Doug had planned about a month ago to have a Mother's Day brunch with our friends, Nate, Megan (the boys' godparents) and their boys, Alex and Andy.  It was a nice, relaxed morning of catching up, letting the boys play and enjoying delicious food.  This picture is quite impressive.  Every kid is looking at the camera (Penn was napping).  Thanks for the yummy meal, Douglas!

Koen snapped a picture of Megan and I with our littlest guys.  Not bad!  Happy Mother's Day, Megan.  I loved celebrating it with you and your family!

Nate, Megan and their boys headed out around noon.  Koen had actually felt under the weather all morning and totally fell into a fever during the brunch, so he stayed home with Penn and I while Doug and Tav braved the potential rain and chilly weather to visit the Friendship Folk & Flower Festival before naptime.  While there they picked up our vegetable seedlings for the year.  Then in the afternoon Doug worked against the clock (and the rain clouds) to do yet even more yardwork.  Doug loves working outside and he is so productive out there.  Here's some of what he did for us yesterday afternoon.  Transplanted the hydrangeas because they needed more afternoon shade (this is just one of five)...

He planted the tomato seedlings...

And the zucchini plants.

He also mulched, treated the grass (clover is taking over!) and some other odd jobs to get things checked off his list.  He worked right up until a few minutes before we left to go to an evening at our friends' place.  We don't head out of the city often for a family evening, but the drive up to the Wexford area was totally worth it for an evening with our dear friends, Dave and Linda and their three girls.  We met them when Doug first started at the church and we were in the same small group for several years.  Back then, their youngest was about Tavin's age.  It's crazy how fast time flies!  Their youngest is now a freshman in high school.  Their girls were so sweet to the boys.  Right when we got there we got the boys outside to feed the fish.

They also have a great tree swing that Koen was brave enough to try out (despite the fact he was battling his fever still even on Tylenol!).  Alexa was his helper and they had fun together.  So neat to see our kids interacting with Dave and Linda's awesome girls.

Tavin enjoyed rolling through the grass.  He was quite the mover, so this is the only action shot I caught.

Their backyard is so lovely, I had to try for a picturesque picture of the 3 boys (despite their haphazard/sloppy outfits).  We didn't exactly get a winner, but at least the 3 of them are in a picture together. 

While Koen and Tavin played, Doug and I got some Penn time.  Here's a few self-pointing pics that turned out quite well (maybe I should try this with the pics of all 3 boys at once!).

We had an amazing dinner (Linda is a phenomenal cook!).  She didn't let me even bring a thing (my mother's day gift from her) and it was great to just enjoy their company, the food and the boys.  Koen, Tavin and Penn did great.  The little guys went down at their normal bedtimes and then Koen went to bed after the first period of the hockey game.  We stayed until about 10:30pm, woke up the boys, strapped them into the car and laid them back down around 11:15pm.  They went right to sleep and didn't have an issue.  What a great end to a wonderful Mother's Day!!  

Penn's First Breakfast

Penn is 10 and 1/2 months old and just yesterday he had his first solid breakfast.  I've put it off as long as possible as I just couldn't see how on earth I could fit it in on school mornings with bustling the big kids through breakfast and out the door by about 8:15am.  Penn has a huge liquid feeding for breakfast and has never seemed to mind not having any solid foods at the start of his day, but I decided that with his one year birthday approaching, I should probably let the kid chomp on some real food in the AM!  So, yesterday I decided to go ahead and get him started.  He just had a few handfuls of toasted O's and a mashed up third of banana, but he seemed pretty happy (and gobbled everything up, so clearly had room).  He looked a little perplexed as he chowed down.

Now I officially have a line-up of three hungry, healthy, growing boys at breakfast!

Silly Supper

While the big boys ate their dinner, Koen asked for me to make Penn laugh.  So, this is what I did.  He giggled and smiled and loved it and so did his big brothers.  Enjoy the smiles, laughs and I hope it brings some to you too!

Zoo Field Trip with Daddy!

Doug braved the wild animals and chaperoned Koen's field trip to the zoo (the wild animals I'm talking about are the rambunctious kindergartners, not the zoo animals!).  Here's his group of kiddos to keep an eye on.  Good luck!

They got to have a special class with the zookeepers and saw several small animals.  Here's Koen watching a duck go by...

They also saw a pancake turtle...

And an armadillo (you can't see it, but you can see Koen's reaction!).

The kids also got to walk around and check out all the big animals the zoo has to offer as well.  Doug sent some pictures via text so that Tav could see some of his favorites.

Doug had a good time with Koen (although I think all-in-all chaperoning was a lot more than Doug expected).  Here are the Melder boys (I think funny faces were a theme of the day).

Bayou Bound, Part 4 (& Back in the Burgh)

I think blogging has me running away with alliteration.  Look at that blog post title!  Anyways, yesterday was mine and Penn's last day in Florida.  In the morning, Penn and Eleanor hung out in their PJ's playing in the living room again. I just loved how comfortable he was with her.  Family is so important to me, so it's such a blessing to see the little ones together.  Penn looks like he's keeping an eye on his big girl cousin!

Little Miss Eleanor doesn't like to sit still for long for the camera, but she gave me a "cheese" on her way up.  Such a sweetheart!

Penn and I went out to lunch with Phil and Leah.  Penn's still in his PJ's (like I said, it was a relaxed vacation weekend!).  Look at my little guy (with an oatmeal mustache) with my big bro!  Pretty special!

When we got back, I had Phil show off his model seaplane for Tavin.  Koen will appreciate it too, but Tav has a thing for seaplanes right now.  I can't wait to show him these pics!!  

While Penn took a nap before our airport departure, I played in the backyard with Eleanor.  I had a special snuggle moment with her in her playhouse.  I already miss her so much.  She really stole my heart.  It was bad enough having my brother live far away, now I've fallen for his little girl too!

Soon after these pics, Phil, Penn and I left for the airport.  Our plane didn't take off from Florida until 5:30pm, so after almost Penn's full day in Florida, we had about 6 hours of travel.  Penn was amazing as usual.  I feel soooo blessed (especially after a packed flight from FL with a dozen screaming babies on it while mine cooed, played and ate happily).  We got home to Pittsburgh around midnight.  It was a long day altogether, but I was so glad we had so much of the day with Phil, Leah, Eleanor and Elizabeth and then could just cram our travel into the evening.  Thanks so much to Phil & Leah for the great hospitality.  I'm already brainstorming about when I can get back down to see you all (or should I say, "y'all")!