Through his eyes

To him life really is beautiful. He is an observer of things that many pass by everyday without noticing.  To him it is important to try and capture that moment. He needs to do that. He finds joy in it.

Every afternoon when he gets home from work we have a special little ritual. As soon as they hear his truck pull up in the driveway, the children come running from all corners of the house to welcome him back. Many hugs and kisses later, after their most important and exciting news of the day has been shared, while he removes his boots and sheds all of the extra layers of outerwear, they disperse back to their various activities. 

Then we sit together, always. I make us a cup of coffee and we talk, just the two of us. We tell each other about our days, we reconnect. And he shows me his pictures. I get to see what he sees. He amazes me constantly with the beauty he brings home to share with me. He needs to do that. He finds joy in it. And I find joy in that he shares it all with me.

All pictures in this post were taken by Rodrigo (including the selfie- one of my favorite pictures of him ever). If you are interested in seeing more of what I get to see you can take a peak at his Google+ page.

Hunting for Coyotes

"Mommy, will you go to the woods with me?" asked Emmett.
"Sure, baby, why do you want to go to the woods?"
"'Cause we're going hunting for coyotes!" he replied.
"Well lets go then!"

I helped him find his hat and his boots (he had already put on his sister's sweater before he came to ask me to go outside...) and out we went. He grabbed a basket on the way out, and when I asked him what he was going to use the basket for, he told me "stuff".

We wandered through the trees, talking about things like birds and squirrels. He noticed how loud our walking was as we crunched through the dry leaves. "Walk like this Mommy" he ordered, marching with his feet raised high to maximize the sound. So we marched for a while.

He found nuts, chewed by squirrels and mice, and put them in his basket. He discovered a hole dug underneath the roots of a cut tree stump.

He rolled all of his collected nuts down into the hole and when I asked him why he did that he replied "just 'cause." Well that sounded like a good reason to me.

Then we wandered past a patch of moss, he collected a tiny bit and examined it closely then tucked it into his basket.

Eventually we found our way to the trampoline. He climbed onto it and began doing somersaults. Between the dry winter air, the wool sweater and the nylon trampoline mat he developed quite a charge of static electricity. His fine curly hair was standing on end. Claire saw us playing there and ran over to join us. After a few minutes of playing together Emmett noticed her hair...

"Sissy" he proclaimed "You look like a happy octopus!"

We never found those coyotes he was looking for, but I'd say it was a great trip outside after all!

Meanwhile in the house:

practically perfect in every way

10 tiny toes and 10 little fingers. Everything has been counted and exclaimed over again and again during the past 7 weeks. We are all smitten, and quite sure that she is practically perfect in every way!

Claire and Emmett came down with a nasty cold this past week. They are both feeling better this weekend, but now our poor little Violet is feeling a bit under the weather. She has a runny nose and a yucky sounding cough, but thankfully no fever! In those pictures of me in the green sweater holding her, I think her little face looks a bit sick, but she is so sweet I wanted to post them anyway.

In other news, she found her smile! Oh my, it melts this mama's heart to see it!