Late fall lately

Stu and I finally got to use a gift certificate that Nana sent us for his birthday last year to a new-to-us Argentinian steak house.  It was really good!  It was also nice to dress up fancy and go out without the boys (very rare for us these days).

I worked one weekend, so Stu had the boys.  The ended up at the Museum of Life and Science, one of our favorite spots (so thankful for our membership!).

We recently started nannying a newborn to help out a friend of Stuart's from work because they couldn't get baby girl into their daycare of choice before they had to go back to work, but also because it will provide us a little financial cushion when I take off time from my nursing job this spring for our own baby (no paid FMLA for this per diem!).  All that is to say:  we have all been adjusting to having another person around every(week)day.  Good practice for when Markers joins us, but also some growing pains.  So, we've been sticking pretty close to the house.  Above, we ventured to our favorite park down the street, Piney Wood.

We have mostly neglected our fall garden, but look at it!  All the greens!  And pea blooms (though now the peas are sad because we have had our first frost).

James has been *really* into sword-fighting lately.  Above, with Aunt Kay Kay.

Samuel got stuck here behind the couch.  Sweet boy.

Threenager.

"Mama, I need napkin." - Sam, after coloring on his face

Swings after church a few weeks ago

JAMES WRITES HIS NAME (mostly).  Can you tell I'm proud????

Sometimes everyone just has a sad day and your all-time favorite coffee mug gets broken.

More sword-fighting

Sunset over our lake (during our walk at 5pm...)

Lunch after Christmas shopping with Mema

We had our anatomy scan/ultrasound to check out baby Markers at 22 weeks.  We did not find out the sex!  But everything looks perfectly healthy.  Keeping this prayer near my heart, as it's impossible to separate this current pregnancy and anticipation of our new person from the two babies that we lost.

Impromptu donut shop outing with our people (Casey, Ez and Pax)

And we thought this little person had sprained his wrist, but pretty quickly he was back to normal.  Poor guy is rough on his body.  That's for sure!

Like I said... Rough (busted eyebrow, with almond butter to compliment).

My most handsome loves in church this morning (minus Sammy, of course)

And Stuart took some photos of me on the deck with the boys when we realized that there are ZERO photos of me and both of them from the past year (or longer?).  Goal: more photos of me with my people.