What brings a 9 month old joy??

Snuggling and playing on the big bed- Matthew grabbed the camera from the desk when he heard the squeals and came and played camera man.

Sitting in the middle of the lego pile

Brothers- ( well most of the time)

Crawling- what a delightful new found freedom

Wrestling

Food

More food....more food and more food ( photo curtosey of Andrew)

His favorite is Rice Cereal- he screams with delight when he sees it come out of the pantry.

He also loves splashing in the water, playing with the door stops, crawling pel-mel to the fridge tyring to get inside before it closes, whining just to get picked up ( boy the grin on his face is a mile wide when he accomplishes this one)

A trip down memory lane

Sometimes do you have those experiencesthat flash you back two, five maybe ten years? It was a certain person, a certain color, something very specific that unleashes a huge wave of memories that come crashing back. I bought a loaf of useeded rye bed yesterday and made a sandwhich for myself for dinner ( we had gone to sunsplash yestday afternoon and evening- so by the time the kids were in bed, it was a fend for yourself dinner)
As I opened the bag of bread up I was overcome by that distinct smell of rye ( which had eluded my mind, motherbood would be to blame I suppose) and I was taken back twenty five years prior to my grandma's kitchen and dining room. There on the mustard yellow countertops was the rye bread sandwhich bowl. On special occasion, when we were very young she would get a rye bread basket. It was a LARGE loaf hollowed out with small hors de vour finger sandwiches made from the inside bread. I remember the ham and egg salad filings, but can't remember the others- Mom, Jen do you remember??? For some reason those small sandwiches were such a treat.
I learned to set a proper table at her house, for some reason Ialways thought it was a privilidge to set the table at Grandma's house. Always linen napkins. It was a casual dinner when the THICK paper napkins came out! We have been trying to to teach the boys on Sunday dinners about a few of these lost art forms- though I haven't pulled out the linen napkins yet for them.
I love when I have these quick poignant reminicing moments

The Ultimate PB&J(HC)

Andrew has concocted the ultimate PB &J. His sanwhich consists not only of the standard Peanut Butter and Jelly, but combines in the other two kid friendly ingredients of honey and cinammon and sugar. No sandwich is complete without all the ingredients. I've eaten my fair share of crusts off his sandwhiches ( what mom hasn't) and it is quite the combination of flavors in your mouth! To go along with this creation he has invented two new words to indicate in what manner the sandwhich is cut. To update your vocabulary............. if he asks for a sandwhich "hoy-ya, hoy-ya" the sandwhich is to be cut like in a cross (+), if he asks for the sandwhich" wa-ching, wa-chong" he wants it cut diagaonally (X). I have no idea where these things come from, definitly not my genes;perhaps Brian's .......??

Peach Picking

We spent part of Saturnday morning picking peaches at Shnepf Farms. Little hands love picking peaches- the peaches were so heavy the branches were hanging towards the ground. We tried to institute the rule that mom or dad needed to feel the peach before the boys picked it off, but that didn't work so well. It was just too inticing to grab a soft peach and just pull. Schnepf Farms is an organic farm so the peaches could go straight from the branch into the mouth! The peaches were delicious.. warm, juicy and sweet! Zachary fell promptly asleep in the backpack, so he just snoozed in the warm shade. Andrew is our peach king as was evident by the amount of peach juice found soaking the front of his shirt. ( Rule #1 never leave home without a full box of wet wipes) We had peaches for dinner, dinner plate sized pancakes with peaches and cream for breakfast this morning and Peach Dessert is waiting for us for dessert tonight.Mmmmmmmmmm!

This is Brandon typing.... On Saturday I had a birthday party. We went swimming in thier pool we had a delicious lunch of hot dogs, watermelon, chips, and fruit punch. We had cupcakes and cookies with ice cream. The ice cream had bits of chocolate cake in it and sprinkles. We opened presents, and swam some more, and played basketball in the pool with thier pool basketball hoop and I played on his Wii on bowling and for the party favors Parker gave out water bottles full of candy complete with its own ice stick that conects to the lid.