3 Hansome Men

My plan was to get family pictures taken the second week of November (since Trae turned 6 mos. on the 13th), but unfortunately our family (or at least two family members at any given time) was sick the entire month! After waiting for us all to "get better" to no avail, I finally decided to just capture the boys sick or not...

Unfortunately, we got a lot of this:

A little of this:

 A few favorites like this:

And some nearly-perfect such as this:

P.S. That gorgeous header picture of Trae on the road is my creative sister's work, not my own! She amazes me- without ever taking a class or using any special lense, she has such a great eye and pure raw talent for photography! Great job Mandy! 

All About Traers

I have a lot of catching up to do!!

Trae loves to hang out and watch his brothers play and is constantly full of smiles!

He has a deep, throaty little laugh and loves to hear himself "talk." 

Here he is chillin' at 4 mos:

 Our boys usually do really well with solid foods. We add rice to the bottle at 2 mos. (recommended for extreme reflux cases), so I usually start spoon-feeding them right at 4 mos.

I realized I may have jumped the gun when I started a week early this time.
Trae didn't do so well at first.
He cried and gagged :(

So we waited, then tried again a week later-
right on his 4 month birthday.
This time he ate like a champ! It's amazing what how much difference a week makes!

4 1/2 mos. old & lovin' his fingers:

Rolling in some Sand Hollow sand. (Seriously, at 4 mos. this kid could roll like crazy! We couldn't turn our backs for even a second!) 

Already a water rat like his daddy & oldest brother!

First Haircut @ 5 mos. old:
About time to cut off the little mullet!

He reminds me so much of Hunter in this next shot (who, by the way, was a wonderful photographer for us!)

5 mos. old & so stinkin' cute:

Seriously, whether it's the old couple behind us at Walmart, hostess at the restaraunt, or the Target checker (who got in trouble for leaving her til unattended until her manager came over and became distracted as well), we can't seem to go anywhere without random strangers "oohing" and "aahing" over this handsome guy!

He is just so squeezable I can't help but gush!

Pumpkin Patch

Yeah, so I'm finally trying to play catch up.

We went to the pumpkin patch about a month ago.

Here's our little Traers at 5 mos:
My favorite:

Bloggin' About 3 B's

 Trae's Blessing 

Trae was blessed to follow his older bro's examples, be generous & kind, prepare for a mission & marriage, seek after an education, and live his life so that he could bring people unto Christ. 

During his blessing I felt so strongly the fact that he is meant to be here in our family, at this exact time, and that his life has meaning and purpose.

Obviously, I feel that way about all my boys, but I think Heavenly Father wanted to remind me that He's mindful of me and my little family and wants to make sure I don't forget how important this third boy is!

I truly am so grateful for this little guy and am vowing to quit grumbling about how much I want a daughter and instead open my eyes to these three amazing blessings I have right in front of me everyday ;)

Kyler's B irthday:

Kye's 4-year-old birthday was, in his words, "aaawe-sooooome!"

He loved helping mom make his star wars cake.

 Note his backwards shirt.

Kye loves to wear his clothes backwards pretty much all the time. Once he even wore his shoes backwards and walked uncomfortably around the library with his toes clinging akwardly to the back edges. He gets extremely offended if I tell him to switch his clothes around so most the time I figure it's not a battle worth fighting. . .

  He's quite the goofball, alright!

 We started his birthday celebration with a small friend-party on Friday. I didn't have to plan much (bonus of a summer birthday) because I figured we'd just give the boys squirt guns and let them "have at it."

 Their favorite part was "attacking" mom.

Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of them pegging me with water balloons, which was the highlight of Kye's day ;)

He says "that was my favorite part of my whole birthday!"

Saturday was spent riding horses at the fair, followed by eating at his favorite restaraunt, Arctic Circle.

He started his birthday morning eating birthday waffles. Currently, Kye's favorite foods are: waffles, pancakes, juice, corn dogs, hamburgers, and fries.

"But my favoritest is corn dogs," he states, wanting to make sure I record that.

 I made the mistake of setting some presents out on the table the day before, because once he saw those, he could think of nothing else! He was quite the trooper, though, and minded well by waiting until morning without a single peek. 

He woke up shouting "Now I get to open my Star Wars Things!"

And luckily, he did get oodles of Star Wars Legos, which is all he kept asking for as he excitedely counted down to his birthday all month!

Anoher thing he couldn't wait to do, was dig in to that cake!

At four years old, Kyler is still full of never-stop-going-energy. He loves to make everything into a sword, gun, "laser shooter," or anything else that can "destroy bad guys." Kye is so creative, funny, charming, charismatic, dynamic, and has a wild imagination! He's still constantly keeping me on my toes!

I love having his loud humming and true-to-life sound effects as background music each day!

Happy Birthday Kyler!

Hunter Begins First Grade:

Hunter was "a little bit excited and a little bit nervous" to start first grade.

I woke him up bright and early, by whispering, "Hey bud let's get up and get ready, k?"

He popped right up, took a deep, wake-me-up breath, and said "Okay, I'm ready to start school now."

 We walked into his school and had to walk past the kindergarten area to get to the first grade hall. "There's my old classroom, but I won't be going back there anymore," he stated sounding much too old and wise

He stayed pretty close to me as we walked down the hall searching for his classroom.

(I probably should have checked it out beforehand, but I'm still playing the "newborn baby card" for oversights such as that). 

But as soon as we met his teacher he pretty much ran into his classroom, leaving me in the dust.

I was able to follow him in and get a few pictures- which I am mighty proud of considering the fact that both hands were full; the first was fighting to hold on to an excited little brother named Kyler-boy (who thought he needed to explore the classroom and have a desk of his own as well), and the second lugging a heavy fifteen-pounder (why I didn't bring a stroller is beyond me- see "newborn-baby-card" above) who didn't complain when mom had to finagle him into some crazy postitions between her legs and torso in order to get things done. :)

When it was time to leave, mom was having a way harder time than Hunter.

 As you can tell by the look on his face ("C'mon and get out of here already!"), he was getting sick of me blubbering over him. Thank goodness, he's considerate and kind-natured and just kept nicely saying things like, "Bye mom, I'll be fine! Have a great day, I'll see ya later!"

Hunter is adjusting well, even though the last two mornings when I told him him it was time to get ready for school, he said "Again?! But I just need to play more!"

I may be having a harder time adjusting...

We've missed Hunter tremendously this week!

The first couple of days we walked him to the door and lingered much too long.

Each day, Kyler gets to a point after lunch where he'll start asking "When is Hunter gonna be done?"

I went to eat lunch with Hunter on Thursday, not only because I wanted to see how everything works, but because I really needed a "Hunter fix!" His teacher just smiled knowingly at me and mentioned that she felt the same way with her own children. Our lunch date helped so much, I think it may turn into a weekly occurence ;)

Phenomenal Photos!

 Handsome as can be!

 Chunky Monkey!

 Here we have Hunter playin' in the rain:

So Munchy!

Just look at those kissable cheeks!

Ah I just love this little guy so much!