Quiet-ish mornings

Every morning, after McKay kisses us goodbye and leave for work, Tyler, Jamie, and I carry bowls of steaming oatmeal topped with brown sugar and frozen blueberries to the dining room table. Jamie reigns over us from her high chair smearing oatmeal on everything in reach; Tyler picks out all his berries, puts them on the table, and carefully spoons out the top layer of dissolved brown sugar on top ("DON'T STIR IT MOM!!!"), eats it, and leaves the actual oatmeal more or less untouched. I sit back in my chair and look out our dining room window, which I would show you if I knew where our old camera's cord was.

Our backyard is magic in the morning. The sun at 7:30 just starts to filter over the trees into our yard through all the leaves.

This is not our backyard, but this reminds me of it. I love sitting there for the ten minutes that Jamie will let me, just soaking in the goodness of green and light and life, thinking about big life decisions that have to be made and diving into some good news:

A friend from BYU whose blog I stalk regularly shared her wonderful idea/goal for this year, and I am doing my best to keep up:

http://alicianstephen.blogspot.com/2011/08/goals.html

I am almost through with Acts now. I'm amazed at how much more sense the scriptures make when you read them more than a chapter at a time. Also at the gems I never noticed before like Acts 17:27-28.

Que soul resonation.

Typical conversations

Daddy: Tyler, do dinosaurs eat their mommies?

Tyler: No! They eat leaves!

Daddy: Oh, like these leaves?

Tyler: Yeah! And then they turn it into poop!

(At this point, Tyler finished putting an expired driver's license into his "purse", zipped it up, and announced he was going to the store to buy wheels.)

I love this boy.

Practicing our snooty faces

With the much needed weather cool down these last few weeks (hello, 80s!!), the babies and I have started running again! We've had our double jogging stroller for a year now, but it was always such a hassle dragging it up and down three flights of stairs in our apartment, and as soon as we moved into a house it soared into Satan weather. But now we can use it!

Our route takes us one street north of our neighborhood into a community called Highland Park. This is the Big Deal, the Beverly Hills of Dallas. This is where the rich people live, like President Bush (when they aren't at their ranches or whatever).

For 2.7 miles, these are the lovelies that greet us:

I love it! Even more than looking at the architectural goodies, I love pretending that I live there, waving nonchalantly when we pass people. Of course, we run at 10AM, so most of the people we pass are Guatemalan nannies and landscape day laborers, but hey, it's a good time.

Tyler and Jamie get so excited for our run every morning. Tyler likes to walk the first block of the route, and he likes to wave at the elderly people walking their poodles. We keep a sharp eye out for tractors and trucks along the way. Jamie squeals when she sees the stroller, and runs to grab a handful of shoes out of her room.

Speaking of shoes, this girl is seriously crazy about them. We keep them in the bottom drawer of her dresser, and she muscles it open, rummages around, grabs a few, puts them on, takes them off, walks around with them, and discards them around the house.

We probably won't ever live in a neighborhood like this, but we can dream.

And plan on trick-or-treating there. Can you imagine the size of candy bars they must give out!?