And we call him "Baby Saver"

Oh sure she looks sweet and innocent, but do not be fooled. She has a wish, a desire, a goal perhaps, to plummet to the bottom of our stairs. Take your eyes off her for .15 seconds and she will be at the top of the stairs one chubby wrist length away from disaster. Sure, one could solve this problem with a baby gate, OR one could just enlist of big brother.

She is less than pleased when this flying toddler leaps over her and plants himself at the stairs.

High quality cell phone pictures really capture the action.

He takes his job very seriously. Very. He will literally run and throw himself in front of his dear sister (okay or sometimes grab ahold of the collar of her shirt) to keep her from going down the stairs. And he's quite proud of himself- he always shouts, "It's okay, I got Sissy!" And then he will go about his business of washing the dishes or whatever other task his mother really should be doing.

Bravo Henry, bravo.

She's got spirit, yes she does.

Little Miss E is all about the personality. This girl is in what we affectionately refer to as "full on turd" mode." She is everywhere and into everything and luckily has not figured out that her shrieks of joy give away her location every time.

It used to be that whoever was on bath time duty had it easy. Sit on the toilet and zone out on the ipad while Henry played. Now that we've thrown sis in, it's a whole different ball game. Goodbye to relaxation and hello to there is a slippery baby trying to drown at any moment. Her favorite bath game at the moment is to pull herself up and then promptly throw herself back down in the water. Oh the hilarity.

Say what? It's spinach/pea/broccoli mac and cheese night? Sign me up! And no, I sure won't keep my bib on. Mom has plenty of time to work on getting stains out of my clothes.

If it were realistic, I would install a playground swing in my living room. Scrunched up nose and squinty eyes mean this girl is loving life.

When they aren't pooping in the tub or shrieking in the wee hours of the morning, these two sure do warm my heart.

Sissy at 9 months

I'm beginning to think we should have named this dear child Sissy instead of Evelyn. Someone called her Evelyn the other day and it sounded so foreign. Sissy Denbrook has a nice ring to it, right? I mean, we live in Wyoming where people name their children all sorts of strange names so maybe we should just go for it?

This delight of a child is now nine months old. I would like to think that it is due to my superb parenting that she is the way she is, but alas I do believe it has not much to do with me, or what I do or don't do. This girl is just a dream boat of a baby. She's the baby that makes people who do not want babies, baby hungry. And she will probably be a terror of a toddler, but for now I will soak up all of her goodness- all 28.5 inches and 17 lbs of it.

She is one happy camper who loves to race crawl across the living room floor while shrieking or making other noises to show her excitement. She pulls herself up on low furniture and has fallen off numerous things way too many times. She eats whatever you put in front of her and loves that big brother of hers whole heartedly. She stills sleeps in our closet ( now, now it's a large closet with its own heat source) because she's my last baby and I want her close. Forever.

Bath time and eating cheerios are two of her favorite past times as well as taking every last magnet off of the refrigerator. Seriously, whose brilliant idea was it to make all those educational Leap Frog  magnet toys and why do I have them on my fridge at her level?

She also enjoys exploring the bathroom and all I can say about that is thank you Jesus for immune systems and that the toilet brush has found a permanent new home.

Big brother Henry is a great helper and is quick to grab tiny choke-ables out of her chubby hands, and is also quick to lift her onto the couch when my back is turned.

Life with these two is never dull, at times trying and always a reminder if what is truly important in life! That being said...a TV without scratches isn't really that important, right?

One day there will be jumping.

And possibly one day there will also be Christmas cards sent out of said jumping.

Until then, here are some of our recent attempts at a family photo. There was no jumping and unlike photo ops before, no strangling of babies. And no real winners either.

We call this, "someone forgot to put mittens on the baby and it's -15..."

And this one, "we are too tall and that's a really ugly background + where is mom's body?"

Then we have the look of disgust on mom's face and the escaping toddler.

And finally everyone is looking at the camera and smiling, but is that the head of a wild animal above Jake's head?

Cuz yo mama is cheap part 2

A little over a year ago someone had the brilliant idea that I should get my Masters. One day I will go back to work (or at least that's what I tell Jake) so it seemed like a good enough reason to pursue that golden piece of paper that would one day bump me up on the pay scale.  And I only had Henry at home and we lived in the middle of nowhere so really what else was I going to do with myself? Get pregnant, have horrible morning sickness, have a new baby, spend a summer in Oregon..and yes start and finish that dang masters program is what I ended up doing. It was definitely not fun and I wanted to quit about 700 times (let's be honest the work wasn't  hard, but it sure took up a lot of time). Now remember I am cheap, so to save our family mucho buckaroos I finished my two year program in a little less than two semesters. Now my personal hygiene, the state of our house and well-planned (or planned at all) meals may have gone out the window the last month or two of my program, but I AM DONE! So to answer the many people who have asked if I have graduated yet, yep sure have! And now I can put that degree to good use by...staying home with these two loves.

The Boy is THREE!

Somehow it has been three years since you were born.  Three years since your daddy came home from work with pizza and beer ready to watch football only to find me laying in bed thinking that I just might die. Who knew labor pains could be so painful!

At three years old not only are you as tall as four year olds, but you talk like one too. You are a constant crack up and at times a little embarrassing (can we please get over asking people if they have a tummy or breasts?) While you have never tasted one, you love beer and will try and order one whenever we go out to eat. This definitely makes me feel like a successful parent.

A good friend of ours once described his daughter as having strong desires, and you my friend definitely do as well.  You know what you want, how you want it and when you want it. Please and thank you. I do believe this will make you a successful adult, but I do believe it will also make me fully grey by the time I'm 35.

You love to play trains, sing and do any kind of craft project and jump over and off anything you can find.  This includes your sister. Yes, you not only repeatedly jump over Evie (thankfully you've cleared her head every time) but you are also tempted to leap off her as well.

Henry Denbrook James, as you call yourself, my life would not be as joyous or memorable without you in it. I love your spirited enthusiasm and zest for life and am blessed by you daily (minus those moments where you poo on the floor).  Happy Birthday to you!

Aw, but a wee little babe. Four days old and I'm pretty sure our house was approximately 57 degrees.

 Mmm, there's that sugar-less banana loaf cake I made you for your first birthday!

The big two year old. Look you finally have hair!

3 years old and eating birthday pancakes!

Cuz yo mama is cheap.

It's true, I'm cheap. Most of the time I like to say I'm frugal or thrifty, but sometimes I'm just cheap. Halloween is not my favorite holiday. I know, I know shame on me. I do love to see kids all dressed up and cute and I, myself, have had a few great costumes but overall not a fan. And especially not a fan of spending money or time on costumes.

Henry was in love with Sesame Street last year so it was only fitting that he was Cookie Monster. Okay, so yes he was in love with Sesame Street but mainly a friend  gave us a Cookie Monster costume for free so then mama really liked Sesame Street too. If our friend had given us a princess costume then we would have rolled with that as well.

Oh and that pumpkin bag thing...yeah the wind had blown that into our neighbor's yard a few days before and when no one else claimed it, we did.

This year Henry wasn't so much into Sesame Street, but the costume still fit (okay maybe it was a tight fit over the big old noggin) so Cookie Monster it was! And man was he excited. Or maybe he was just excited because this year he knew what candy was.  And his mama was excited that it actually fit since the darn thing took up a good chunk of space in our checked luggage.

And we got Sis' costume on clearance last year for $2. If she had surprised us and been a boy, then he would have been a ladybug as well.

Halloween was all sort of fun for Henry. He loved trick-or-treating with his cousins, although he did repeatedly say, "Uncle Brian my arms are tired." Apparently we need to add some weight training to his exercise regime.

Looks like we have a little work to do in the jumping department. Jumps like his mama, I suppose.

So the real question is...will the Cookie Monster costume be as cute next year when it's a belly shirt on him?