October 18

Today was Eli's dedication day at church! They always do one in May, and one in October, but the May one is always on Mother's Day, and that is totally not how I want to spend my Mother's Day. So we waited until today.

Chris' parents and my parents both joined us at church, along with my nephew Ryan, and the kids got to join us in "big church" until the dedication. It was all very exciting. My mom has some blurry cell phone photos that hopefully I'll be able to share at some point, but for now we have no photos of it. 

After church, though, all of the grandparents treated us to brunch. We spent some quality time at Barnes and Noble waiting for our table to be ready (party of 11!), and then we had a delightful brunch.

Eli totally missed his morning nap, but he brunched like a champ. He dined on scrambled egg and some of my pumpkin pancakes and apple chicken sausage, and he was as happy as can be.

Happy dedication day, Eli!

(Can you tell he is zoning out here?)

While the little two napped, Caleb and Daisy helped me make some spooky snacks for Caleb's Tiger Scouts meeting this Thursday. Since it's their last meeting before Halloween, we drew spooky faces and put creepy crepe-paper hair on the juice pouches.

Caleb did the faces, I cut the hair, and Daisy glued it on. They were so proud of their work!

After naptime was over, we had a few sunshiny hours, so we decided to make our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. 

We almost cancelled the trip because I was feeling grouchy and Daisy was being uncooperative, but we made it happen. Daisy ended up being totally cooperative for all of our pictures - it was Lily that wasn't so sure about the whole thing.

Oh, you know my kids are wearing color-coordinated outfits, and my girls are matching. The boys would be matching, too, but it is very hard to find matching baby and big boy clothes.

Eli is nearly 9 months old, and he neither pulls up to standing, nor stands when propped against something. I am mildly concerned, but hey - he was premature! That's basically a free pass for everything, right? Caleb tried to help hold Eli up, but it turns out that Caleb has no idea how to hold a baby. Go figure.

Daisy tried to help, too. It looked like she was mildly successful. All Lily could muster was a deer-in-the-headlights look. Oh well.

Oh. 

This picture right here is everything. I should probably print it out for those moments when I lose my cool with her. Goodness, I love my girl.

And this one, too. The whole trip to the pumpkin patch was worth it.

And this big boy. If we survive his childhood, I'm pretty sure he is going to be a fabulous man. I'm positive he will be an amazing husband and father.

These kids were so excited to find the "Punkin Tree" they remembered from last year. I was excited about the way the sunlight filtered through the leaves.

Maybe it's just that her hair is pulled back in two clips? I don't know, but Daisy is killing me in all of these pictures.

Lily didn't care about the "Punkin Tree". She wanted to snuggle her Daddy.

Fire engine.

Slide.

Swing. (Not too sure about that one.)

Smiling baby. They may not all be looking at the camera, and Lily's face is possibly dirty, but they are all happy.

My cutie pies.

And then we were done. It was past dinner time, and though the kids could have played for hours longer, we needed to head home. As we buckled the big ones into their car seats, I realized that I wasn't in any of the pictures today. For some reason, it was devastating to me. It was a beautiful day, but it was almost as if I wasn't there. So I handed Chris the camera, gave him a few instructions, and he took this picture:

I was there, too, and I made a baby smile.