Family photo shoot

A rarity - I had my entire immediate family in one place this past weekend! We did a birthday-treat photo shoot (a first for all of us, I think) and the photographer, Amanda Reed, posted a few preview photos on her blog: Lovely family session. Can't wait to see the rest!

(As a mild correction, Pasha wasn't hunting for bears - he was actually being a little bear and in a seemingly separate line of imaginative play his big stick was his "hunting drill.")

Jack is one!

Big brother bird and little brother bird

That brotherly awe just melts my heart!

Snow time

Sledding! 

 

 "Let's do it again!"

Then...

And you get...

Inside..

 Woo hoo!

That's the fairy tale version. In reality there was an absurd amount of "I want to go home now!" and "Get me out of here" and "I don't want to wear my shoes!" (For that one I just let him go ahead and take off his boots and socks and take a few steps in the snow - much more quickly resolved than trying to explain to him that he wasn't going to enjoy the sensation.) 

I must admit, the three-and-one-half year old experience is putting some long-favored conceptions to the test. (Like, would it really be so bad if I just went somewhere else for a few years until this whole growing-self-awareness thing resolved itself?)

Here's Dyadya Zhenya with the "I can't believe you're complaining about something again" look on his face: 

My funny looking children..

... Because it's fun to embarrass them (or it will be, when they get old enough to be embarrassed!)

Craw-Lin

Seeing Jack-Jack crawl was the best part of my birthday! And I finally caught in on video, after many attempts over the last couple of days involving Pasha's "help" or Jack just looking really pleased to have everyone staring at him and forgetting all about crawling. It's definitely a unique approach to the task!

Parsnip peekaboo

Look at the size of that parsnip! I fell like Бабка за Репку trying to get it out of the ground. It's the only one to grow from dozens I sowed, but hey... It really grew!