Pumpkin Patch

When Ryan and I first met this exact group of people, there were no kids. And then one little boy came along a few months later. And then eleven months after that, Coralie arrived.

Today, there are this many kids:

Actually, we are missing three newborn babies that were present but not pictured.

This whole group of friends doesn't get together very often (see: sheer number of kids), but when we do, it's a lot of fun. They are all good people, every one of them. They are loyal and interesting and devoted to each other. I think you're pretty lucky if you can surround yourself with these kinds of people.

***
As the Bond family, this is our fourth year to come to this pumpkin patch.

In 2008, Coralie was about eight months old:

In 2009, Coralie was about one and a half:

In 2010, Coralie was about two and a half, and Madeline was about two months old:

(Madeline is under the blanket.)

And in 2011, Coralie was three and a half, and Madeline was one.

(Two apologies I need to make to my children here: Coralie--I am sorry your pants are too short. Madeline--I am sorry we didn't take more pictures of you.)

Memories and traditions make this heart happy, and when you include my kids in them? Fuh-get-about-it. I'm on top of the world.

Lately

A few updates on the girls:

Coralie finished her first session of swim lessons. I'm not really even sure what to say except that I am really proud of her and that she still has a loooooong way to go. The place where she takes lessons has very specific levels with very specific skills that must be demonstrated before a swimmer can move onto the next level. Out of ten skills in Level One, Coralie can cross off three. THREE. At this rate, she'll be in Level One until she starts driving herself to the lessons.

Nah, I'm just giving her a hard time. She is actually doing a great job. Her teacher describes her as "timid and shy", which she is there. Her main obstacle is that she doesn't like putting her face underwater, and that is sort of necessary for most components of swimming.

Where she is not shy is at home. Somehow, and I'm really not even sure how, she has come to be my fashion guru. It all started when she asked to pick out a shirt for me. (Okay, fine.) But then she started commenting on my yoga pant/t-shirt outfits saying she didn't like them and that she liked my other shirts better. (Ouch. And also, is it really that noticeable that I don't dress very nice*?) Then she started intercepting me on my way to my closet so that she could pick out what I should wear. Inevitably, she prefers very fancy, frilly clothes. Yeah, I am not wearing those, so we compromise on something between a dry-clean only shirt and a college t-shirt.

Madeline, on the other hand, remains nonverbal. Well, I should say that she isn't speaking English, but she is verbal enough for our whole family. She grunts and jabbers and whines and laughs from sun-up to sun-down. :) Her little pointer finger gets quite a workout during the day, too. The result: she is pretty good at communicating what she wants. With Coralie, I remember working on teaching her signs and forming her words. Poor Mads-- she gets half the attention Coralie got and therefore has had to develop her own language to tide us all over until she starts talking.

She is also walking most of the time now. It's super cute, and she grins from ear to ear (literally. . . that girl has the widest mouth I have ever seen) when she nears her destination. Man, she is a beautiful child.

I was thinking the other day about how irritating a kid this age can be--they're still so dependent but want so badly to be independent--but when I go to sweep her up during one of her grunt- or whine-fests, I find myself immediately kissing her little cheeks and giving her a tight squeeze. And I think, wasn't I annoyed with her one second ago?

And then I got a little poetic and thought, maybe this is a parallel for how God feels about us? No matter how frustrating we can be, he just wants to give us hugs?

I do love my girls, and I think they're the most brilliant, perfect, gorgeous children ever created. And if that is any indication of how much God loves us, we are very loved indeed.


*I am almost certain that "dress nice" is the correct usage here. "Dress nicely" would refer to how I get dressed as opposed to what I dress in. However, I have been away from grammar rules for awhile now, so correct me if I am wrong.