Christian:

Whenever I go to the park, I frequently find Christian off in his own world running around with a stick in whatever nature area he can find.   Even in the "Sansom park" which only has a strip of nature 3 feet wide and 50 ft long of only weeds and broken wood scraps, Christian will migrate there to become whatever make believe he has become for the day.  

                                         

Not to ruin it for you, but Christian's going to be a ghost for halloween.  He is so dang excited, I woke up yesterday to pitter-pattering of feet and a "ooooooo" sound as he ran all around the house after having rediscovered his costume.  He was horribly disappointed that Stephen and I couldn't rig up a costume for a small party last night, nor did we go trick or treating.  I explained to him that like Peter and Susan in Narnia, people can get too old for trick or treating.  He took it quite soberly. 

While he often does the traditional cowboy, pirate, or king--when he suggests being a scientist or professor, I know he's been playing too much with his dad.  A little overly eager to introduce him to Narnia, we made the mistake of letting Christian watch the film.  He LOVED it, and has me tell him the story over and over again.  I finally got sick of telling him the story and got the book from the library  He got it and the same day sat perfectly still as I read him 90 pages of it straight (literally half the book).  Stephen is intent on not learning the story so that he doesn't have to take his turn on recounting every detail.   A tad violent though it was, it's fun to see him make believe about it.

For a while Stephen and I were starting to worry about his social development.  While we live around a decently large population of families, most three year olds are in a full-time preschool.  When we tried introducing him new places he would often be grouchy and unfriendly.  Worried, we tried to find more people for him to be friends with, but it seemed to backfire.  Recently, however, we have backed off and have seen him seek out his own friends.  I was surprised to see him seek out older kids for friends.  He can actually pick up friends with quite ease when he's not pushed to and given the alone time to make believe that he needs too.  He keeps asking me how old he has to be to do certain things like use a real hammer or walk by himself to church.

An old picture I found of us.  This is me implementing tickle torture:

Simeon:

Simeon is developing into his own.  He really starting to love books and it's fun to see his face light up when he spots one of his favorite objects (train, bus, or baby).   You know you've been hanging around your two year old too much when he's not even with you, but when hear the familiar *beep beep* of a lowering bus and you coming you want to point and shout "BUS!!!" then smile to whomever is near.  I love this kid.

(Please ignore my male patterned baldness . . .)

Joshua:

Apparently Joshua doesn't want to be the youngest, so he refuses to be the fat chunker and/or red head I've been longing for in a child of mine. That said, his cheerful disposition (despite having me for a mother) might just make up for his lack of fat rolls and ginger locks.  Christian loves to sing him the lullaby song and if I leave him on the ground doing tummy time I can almost count on Christian being right there in his face singing away or Simeon will be giving him a friendly poke.  Joshua is sweetheart, but honestly on a Sunday like today, I'm simply delighted to have at least one kid that can't run away from me yet at church.