Amateur Photography

I thought this would be a good blog post to follow the last one. Amelie likes to take pictures with the camera. Often, if I can't get her to let me take one of her, she can be persuaded with an offer to take one herself first.

Here is a selection of some of Amelie's recent photographic efforts. She took this one of me:

A slightly blurry one of Sam with a thumb sneaking in.

This one must have been an accidental selfie.

There were many pictures of our lamp. A close up:

Also feet. There were many pictures of the floor.

More lamp.

There's brother!

Dada on the couch.

Bare feet this time - plus it looks like James sneaked in for a look at the viewfinder, too.

Professional Photos

We had fall professional photos done with the incomparable Rhiannon Trask of Lollipop Photography. The plan was to use them for Christmas cards and gifts, but I couldn't wait, and I figured you'd want to see more than the one picture that made the card anyway. Ha! I have to give a shout-out to our friend Kara S who called to let me know there were new mini session slots available -- they fill up fast! 

James may hate me later for this, but I think it's hilarious.

Two years old is so big!

No sad-faced baby this time :)

Four years old is pretty big, too, huh?

Amelie's shoes hurt her feet, so she took them off.

Thanks to Nana Jana for Amelie's tights and to Grandma Mary for James's shirt.

PJ Day

Amelie's class had a pajama day at preschool on Monday. This is what she wanted to wear: 

You would not believe how dirty she was when she came home. She was wearing long johns underneath in case they decided to play outside, but I was not expecting the state of the knees in the sleeper.

James wanted a picture, too, even though he actually had to get dressed (they didn't do the PJ party in the two-year-old room).

Amelie Says / James Says

Amelie may have figured out that some advertising is deceptive. About the cereal in her bowl she said, "Why are these so small compared to the picture?" 

I was getting Amelie ready for bed and I asked her if she wanted socks, to which she replied, "I only wear socks on special occasions."

The kids have been getting along and playing together (for a long time!) a lot better lately. Last night Amelie said of James, "I like him now." 

The kids were having a jumping contest, so Sam was telling them about the time he broke his foot having a jumping contest. He said, "You've never broken a bone, have you?" and after I said no, Amelie chimed in with "Nor I!" (we couldn't figure out which book that must have come from).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sam figured out that James thinks it's an "eye-brown" instead of an "eyebrow."

I was reading the kids the most recent National Geographic for Little Kids and when I got to the page about an arctic fox, I read, "Blah blah Arctic Fox blah ..." and James argued back and forth with me five times that it was a "Dog! That a dog!" 

James calls Amelie's favorite show "Wild Wild Wild Wild Wild Kratts." 

James has a pretty impressive vocabulary, but he's only been saying short sentences, mostly three-word strings. Until this gem, "I wanna arshmellow an a doughnut, too, Mama."

I asked James, "How ya doin', Bub?" and he said, "I name JAMES!" like I didn't know.

On Nana Jana's birthday, I called and attempted to have the kids sing "Happy Birthday" (they cooperated before she picked up the phone). James started the conversation out by saying, "Whatchoo talkin bout, Nana Jana?" which was promising, but then he just kept yelling "Talkin bout Jana!"

Even More Videos

Amelie plays the vibraphone. I was telling my friend Liz L that the vibraphone serves the same function kid-wise as drums (an instrument to bang on) but that the sound is much more pleasant.

And here is James the ghost:

More Videos

Here's that "Big Splash" video I was talking about.

And here's a very long video of Amelie playing with some math tiles. I was going to see if she'd count, but she wanted to tell me a story about how the tiles were the kids at her school, and one of them was the line leader, and our not-yet-put-away groceries were Columbia's downtown.

How James Felt about Snow Last Winter

I looked, and it seems like I never published these. The camera tells me they're from January 7th, 2014. They may be the only pictures I have of James out in the snow from last winter. He wasn't exactly a fan.

Why isn't he wearing gloves?!? I have a vague memory of him crying because his gloves got snow on them until I took them off, but clearly he's still upset. He did that this winter, too - got upset when the gloves had snow on them - but he didn't stay upset with the snow in general. 

Plus this weird animation - it wasn't snowing! (And it certainly wasn't snowing sideways!) 

First Snow*

Well, technically there was a dusting Saturday (and Amelie went out in it for a tiny bit) but Sunday was the first day that it snowed and stuck.

Amelie wanted to taste it.

So then Sam and James tried to taste it, too.

Amelie may or may not have licked some snow off of her plastic table. To be fair, she did give me a warning mischievous look (above).

James kept wanting to come back in and take off and put on his outerwear.

This is a far cry from the way James felt about the snow last winter.

All Dressed Up

We were ten minutes ready before we needed to leave, so Sam took some pictures. (Then we were late, go figure.)

Plus it snowed later on, so I have more pictures of that to upload later. 

No Baby Buffaloes Here

We left the smaller Buffaloes at home and went to a wedding last weekend (and Samuel Buffaloe, esq. officiated) but didn't manage to get any non-goofy photos. Oh well, this goofy one is pretty sweet.

Videos

I wanted to get Amelie explaining her complex Halloween costume on video, but right before trick-or-treating was probably not the most distraction-free opportunity. She does a decent job!

Here's James eating cotton candy for the first time at the Heritage Fest in September. Sorry about the loud wind in the background.

Playing Outside while It's Still Nice

I'm such a pessimist about the Fall turning into Winter - I keep saying "You have to play outside now! We're going to be cooped up all winter!" But we've lucked out with some really mild weekends. I took these after church last week (or maybe the week before).

I don't have much to say about this set, so I'll probably just leave you with a photo overload, but doesn't James look like he's up to no good?

One of the other parents caught him at the bottom of the slide, which I thought was kind of funny - I just let him bump on the bottom. It's not steep and the ground cover is very soft. We all have different tolerances for boo-boos, though, and I suppose James might look a little younger than he actually is.

Amelie likes to make houses out of the woodpile.

Because I guess she needs more variety than the playhouse they already have.