merry christmas!

love, the sivyer boys

thanksgiving at the farm

the friday after thanksgiving, my mom and i went shopping while steve and the boys spent the morning at the farm running around doing all manner of manly things (you know... climbing rocks, going on the homemade zipline, exploring the nearby springs, checking out freshly killed deer, chopping wood... man stuff)  the boys came back with a whole lot of stories and these pictures... the only pictures from our entire weekend, as it turns out.  so, thanks steve for the documentation!

sweetest boy ever

this is from thanksgiving.  titus was the first of all three boys to get hand, foot and mouth disease over the holiday.  he was sad and clingy for a while there, and i snapped this one night after he (finally) fell asleep.

grateful

there is, of course, so much to be thankful for... not the least of which is this, one of the most recent additions to this year's thankful tree:

yes, baby number four is a boy.  four healthy boys in five years!  God is so good and we are extremely grateful.

at eighteen months...

sweet little titus:

::  weighs 22 pounds (10th percentile) and is 31 inches tall (25th percentile).  still a tiny thing, but he can hold his own.  he is one tough dude.

::  is picking up several words a day.  he follows me around all day repeating the last word of each sentence i say.  and pretty clearly too.  our house is beginning to become a pretty chatty place.

::  still uses a pacifier.  we were in the process of taking it away when we found out about the new baby.  needless to say, between the exhaustion and the nausea and the general busyness of caring for three little boys, we decided to keep the pacifier for the sake of my sanity!  he has been known to carry as many as four around the house, switching them in and out of his mouth as he sees fit.

::  is obsessed with shoes.  he spends much of the day bringing me one pair after another for him to try on.

::  can run.  he has been working on it for a few weeks now, and he is officially a fast mover.  anything to keep up with the big boys.

::  loves to brush his teeth.  when he isn't trying shoes on, he can usually be found with a toothbrush in his mouth.

::  colors all the time.  and has figured out how to click a pen.  needless to say, we have ink on our walls and our couch.  i am trying to learn to see those spots and smile at how they remind me of my mischievous third son.

::  is still a cuddler.  i have really appreciated this over the last two months, since most of my on-the-couch sick time was spent cuddled up with sweet titus.

::  loves his brothers incredibly.  it is such a joy to see the three of them growing closer each day.

halloween!

i am sure that by now it is no secret that i love halloween (or at least more specifically, halloween costume making).  i love that once a year i get to pull the sewing machine out and make something incredibly fun and imaginative!

this year, gabe was insistent that he wanted to be a knight.  realistically, this may be my last year to make themed costumes, so i went ahead and decided to make ezra a wizard and titus a dragon.  all three boys wore their costumes well!  ezra spent the entire night pounding his staff and shouting, "you shall not pass!"  gabe was a brave protector of the three princess in his presence.  and titus has a pretty killer roar.  

we spent the evening at the home of some friends trick-or-treating, eating dinner together and watching halloween themed movies on the lawn.  danielle (from http://ohsnapphotog.com!) took pictures of all the kids and our families for us!  

into the woods

a couple of weekends ago (can you tell i am pregnant and still sick?  posting regularly... not really.  but dont worry, i am almost out of the worst of it) we met steve's parents at the ochlocknee river state park to do a little camping.  on our way there, i swore up and down that i was going to take a million pictures, but once we arrived, i had a migrane headache (thank you pregnancy hormones!) that lasted the entire trip!  so, there are only a few pictures from my camera.

we took an early morning drive through a gorgeous pine forest.  it was amazing!  we even got to show the boys a couple of deer!  they loved the whole trip, of course (riding the waverunner, splashing on the beach, sitting on the stand up paddle boards, pretending to water ski, sleeping in tents!), and can't wait to go again!

for more (and more varied) pictures from the trip, check out john and ofie's album!

away

a couple of weeks ago, steve was away at a conference.  so, rather than try to battle it out at home by myself  with three boys and morning sickness, we packed up and headed to madison to hang out at my parents house.  i sat on the porch and the boys ran around in the yard all day.  it was lovely as always.