This Moment

This Moment,
This Hour,
This Day,
and This Phase
will all pass by
too quickly...
So I take MANY pictures to capture "this moment"!


My precious 7 month-old Seth Vaughan!
So incredibly happy, so smiley, so content!
So playful, so interactive, and so alert!
So loved, so loving, and so delightful!


My handsome 2.33-year-old Daniel Cole!
So gentle, so charming, so kind, and so full of energy!
So loving, and becoming so independent!
So talkative, so happy, and sometimes, so serious!

My beautiful 3.83-year-old Luke Bennett!
So curious, so structured, so analytical!
So independent, so polite, and so helpful!
So silly, so ticklish, and so treasured!!!

We love them SO much! We are SO blessed and SO thankful to be their parents!
I will cherish these days forever and for always!

Seth's Been Busy

Where, O Where is my baby Seth going?!?!
He thinks that he is Mr. Big Stuff, and has started many new things just in the past couple of weeks!

Like... Crawling! In pursuit of some paper... he eyes it...

...decides to make his move...

... inches closer and closer -- commando-style...

... SUCCESS -- paper retrieved!

Another crawling attempt, this time on hands and knees.

Out watching his big brothers and Daddy fishing! He was fascinated with what the big boys were doing!

Putting on a little show before bed time(little ham!) -- he enjoys his "alone time" with just Mommy and Daddy after his brothers have gone to bed.

Pulling up to tall kneeling and standing! This little musical table has been a favorite with all 3 boys!

Hands and Knees crawling again.

Playing at the park on a beautiful sunny day! He laughs so easily and just enjoys watching whatever is going on! (I am sure this will only last a little longer, pretty soon he will want to be down chasing the big boys, so I will enjoy this phase while he is still contained!)

Teeth! He cut 2 bottom teeth (finally... he has been working on them for several weeks, but really was never very fussy about it!)

Such a sweet face!

Hands and feet "bear walking" -- this is another one of his forms of "crawling"/moving forward to get something he wants!

It's like baby yoga or something!

And another one of him standing at his little music table!

He eats any Gerber food that I feed him, and a few table foods! He can feed himself puffs and yogurt melts (a few end up on the floor). He can drink from a straw, but prefers drinking straight from my cup with help (we may just skip the sippy cup altogether!) He has started to babble "mumummmmuuumm" and "dddduuuuu" at me and Daddy -- super cute and melts my heart!!!!

I think this is all happening WAY TOO FAST!!! He is changing into a mobile little one and not a stationary baby! But, it is so fun to watch each and every phase of development and see him doing all of these things for the first time!

A New Park

We LOVE being outside and playing at the park!!!! Any park -- the boys are pretty easy when it comes to choosing a park -- any park is fine with them! It is all about the time spent OUT SIDE!!!! But I like to change it up and try new parks, and we are very fortunately here in Temple to have many great options. So we found this new little park (Jackson Park) tucked away in the historic district of Temple and played for the afternoon!

Oh, it was sunny, in the mid-70s, breezy and just beautiful that day!!!

This park had an interesting play area with several different things to climb on and through, etc. It had rope netting to climb on, this really tall tongue looking slide, and a rocking seahorse. Plus it had a walking trail with HUGE pecan trees and a little (dried) gully area with some pretty stone bridges. It is one of the oldest parks in the city and is made from land that was donated by 2 families who were part of the founders of Temple -- the McCelvey's and the Scott's (interesting little history lesson!) Anyways, we had a great time getting some vitamin D and playing out in the fresh air, and I got to take some cute pics of the boys in action! We will have to visit this park again soon!

Fishing and Playing!

So every so often, the city stocks a couple of fishing spots (ponds, creeks, etc.) with some rainbow trout (a species of fish that is not native to Texas), so we took the boys out fishing to see if they could catch some! (They are fairly small fish, so they are a great size for Luke and Daniel to reel in!)

Getting all set up with all of the fishing gear -- the boys are "helping"

But it didn't take long until they were busy running and playing on this little hill behind us!

It looks pretty big, and like they are pretty far away (and you can see the moon way up in the sky), but it was really just the camera angle ;)

They ran UP... and ran DOWN!!!

Many, Many, Many times!

Daniel had some strawberries in his mouth! (looks like a little chipmunk!)

They had fun entertaining themselves and playing together --
waiting on the fish to bite, of course!

We weren't having much luck... So we found some other fishermen who were having better luck that night, and the boys went over to check out their trout (in the bucket).

Daniel sat and squealed at the "fishies, floppin'" for quite a while!

One of the older boys was so nice and he let Luke reel one of his in and proudly display it for a pic! (This guy was flopping all around and ended up on the ground a few times -- hence all the dirt and grass on him.)

It should be noted that we did not have the right kind of preferred bait to catch these little trout -- like what the older boys were using -- so Robert got some at Academy and took the boys back out the next night and they did catch a couple -- just didn't get any pics of that!

Snow Day

Well, the old saying, "If you don't like the weather in Texas, just stick around cuz it'll change!" has proven to be quite true in central Texas lately! We've had some beautiful sunny days in the 60s and 70s and some FREEZING, gray days in the teens and 20s, and everything in between!

Here are some pics of the boys playing in the ~2 inches of beautiful white powdery snow! It was fun waking up to the blanket of snow, bundling up to play in it, drinking hot chocolate, and then watching it all melt away in the sunshine that afternoon!

Daniel all bundled -- a little like the kid on "Christmas Story"

Seth watched with Pops from inside

Staying pretty warm

Luke making snowballs with Daddy

Playing with the last little bit of snow in the shade

Too busy playing to look up for pictures!

Like our multi-purpose plastic buckets and shovels?!?!