Another Week...

It's been another week, and what a week it's been!  Saturday night Brandon started crouping and Micah came down with another cold, so I kept both boys home on Sunday.  Thankfully we were able to stop the croup from getting worse with our wonderful nebulizer (best medical investment we have ever made).  By Tuesday morning Micah was working so hard to breathe that it was time to take him in to the doctor.  He has severe brochialitis and the only thing that kept him from being admitted was the doctor knowing we had a nebulizer at home and knew how to use it.  As it was, it took two hours in the doctor's office, three steroid treatments and two albuterol treatments to get his breathing better and to the point the doctor felt we could safely go home, after I promised to get him up every four hours for the next 48 hours to give him a neb treatment along with another five days of steroids. 

By Thursday we were all beyond exhausted so Brandon got to go to Grandma's house for the day so Micah and I could get some rest.  I'm still having to give Micah a neb every morning and evening and Brandon still can't run without doubling over and gagging from coughing so hard, but all in all I think we're on the way out of it again...at least I'm praying so.  Fall has just begun...

Anyway, all that to say I didn't take many pictures this week.  But I will tomorrow!!  There's a pretty well-known photographer named Scott Kelby who has organized a "World Wide Photo Walk" where different groups get together all around the world and take pictures for a couple hours.  Any photography level is welcome and it's just a time to play, practice, and learn from each other.  There's a group in La Conner so I'll be going on a two hour photo walk tomorrow.  I'm so excited!  What will be even more fun will be seeing all the pictures from around the world.

Our friend left today.  He has found a permanent home and we are so happy for him.  We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him, though.  It was a neat experience.

Now on to the few pictures I did take this week.

Brandon actually did help with the sweeping.

Micah was "big" helper too, getting rid of our orange driveway.

Sunrise this morning.  It was spectacular!

God is such an artist

That's our week. 
Blessings on your weekend.

Happenings

In the midst of all the craziness of decisions, we have been having some fun.  Thursday was Bryan's work's summer BBQ.  One of the much anticipated activities for Brandon is seeing the excavators and what's even more exciting is he usually gets to ride in one.  Well this year he got to control it (with help of course) and he was through the moon excited!! 

Love the look in his eyes on this one!

Very serious work learning excavators.

Yep, I'd get my feet out of the way too with Brandon controlling.

In it with his daddy.

Yesterday I made my favorite type of cookies for this time of year...pumpkin chocolate chip.  My children have definitely inherited their LOVE of chocolate from me.  ;)

We also picked all our apples yesterday in readiness for making applesauce.  They were starting to fall off the trees so we picked them instead of letting them go to waste.  Hopefully I'll have a chance to make it this week.  Brandon actually was a lot of help once he got the hang of it and we figured out a system that worked for him.  He of course loved being a helper.

And that's what's been happening in the Korthuis family...at least the parts I've captured in pictures.
Blessings on the rest of your week.

Brandon's "BIG BOY" Pictures

That's how I sold it to him this morning and he was excited about it from then on.  Of course, telling him he could wear his conductor outfit for his pictures didn't hurt anything.

Here are my favorites:

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I was actually quite upset when this picture turned out so blown out
I couldn't even recover it, but the more I look at it, the more I'm falling in
love with the stark contrasts and the pondering look on his face.

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He wanted to take pictures as Captain Brandon too, but at this point he was pretty worn out and had lost his enthusiasm.
"Mommy, I'm all done taking pictures.  I just want to play."

 And here are some just for fun...

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It looks like he's saying "Choo, choo" here, but really he's telling me the story of how Thomas crashed off the big track.

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Because no photo shoot of Brandon would be complete without a jumping shot.

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"Mommy, I'm just all done."

Grandparents, I'll be sending in a picture order at the end of the week, so if you would like some prints please let me know.

Blessings on the rest of your week.

Sweetness!

"Here's your coupon, Mom."

"Labor" Day Weekend

Ever find it amusing, ironic, utterly absurd that "Labor" day is a holiday?  Not only is it a holiday, but it's a day most people do nothing?  I've wondered about that for years.

Lately I've been looking at things differently, from lots of different angles.  This year we were no exception.  I had all kinds of things I wanted to get done this weekend, but when it came down to it, we did nothing except play.  So after turning it around in my head lots of different ways, I've decided labor day is a time to rest from labor in order to appreciate more the fact that God has given us the privilege to labor, to have labor, and to find fulfillment in labor.  So, we rested, played, and enjoyed being a family this "labor day" weekend.

Here are the pictures, cause they say so much more than words ever could.

I'll start with earlier in the week, though...

We made it to our park this week.  We went to Hillcrest Park in Mt. Vernon since we were down there shopping all day Tuesday.  This, however, is the only photo from the park.  I spent time playing with the boys instead.

Friday, the sun slowly started coming back out again, so we went to the city park in the afternooon.
Micah was quite enthralled with watching kids "appear" out of the slide and Brandon thought it
was pretty funny to be the one to surprise him.

Friday evening we went to the "boat" park for supper with some friends with whom we have not spent time with in a very long time.  It was good, fun, and relaxing.  She also has a Nikon camera and let me play around with her 300 lens/borrow it for the weekend.  It was fun taking pictures from a different perspective.

Sunday afternoon we decided to walk to Bender park for a while.  Brandon has not been able to do the monkey bars on his own, and always wants me to carry him across, which I've been doing so he gets the muscle memory figured out.  Well, Bryan and I were watching Micah and I turned around to see what Brandon was doing and he had swung across three bars all on his own.  Then dropped cause he realized what he had just done...

So I said, "WOW, Brandon!!  You just did all by yourself!!  Can you show me how you did that?"
So he did it again, and again, and again, but only to the first three bars.

I love the look of joy and excitement on his face as he realizes he's doing it by himself.

He took a break for a while and played with us again and then he went off to do it again.  Only this time, he made it just about the whole way across.

Looking at things from new perspectives...

 Monday morning I left at 7:30am to go shopping by myself...such a treat.  When I left it was pretty foggy at our house so I grabbed my camera and stopped along the Hannegan to take some pictures. 

In the afternoon we headed over to Bumpa and Grandma's house with high expectations to do very little.  The most ambitious thing we did was to drive four-wheeler out to the river to go fishing.  It was a perfect afternoon.

All three of these boys got fishing poles for their birthday.  Bumpa is definitely the seasoned fisherman of the group and did lots of teaching to Bryan and Brandon.  Brandon has been telling everyone all week that he got a fishing pole for his birthday and he was going to go fishing with Bumpa and Daddy and they were going to be BOYS together!

His pole had to be "set-up" so Bumpa taught Daddy how to string it and tie knots.  Brandon tried to wait very patiently.

Just about can't stand the wait any longer...it's so hard when you're so excited...

Meanwhile, Micah was playing in the rocks and mud and thoroughly content.  I love this next series of pictures...

"Oh, maybe putting that chunk of mud in my mouth wasn't such a grand idea."

"Blllaaack.  Mommy, stop laughing at me."

Still waiting and trying to learn and asking all kinds of questions.

This picture cracks me up.  It reminds me of the Bernstein Bears book "Bike Lessons".  "Is it MY turn yet?"

 And another favorite series.  So precious a memory having Bumpa teach him how to fish.

"I can do it myself."

From then on, someone would cast it out for him and he would reel it back in but at the end of the day
the fish just weren't biting.  It was the first thing he said to me this morning, "Yesterday we went fishing
at Bumpa and Grandma's house but the fish weren't biting so we have to go another day."

Father and son fishing.

A different generation of father and son fishing.

Grandma taught Micah how to throw rocks in the water and he was all about that!

While all that was going on, I was playing around with my camera and the borrowed 300 lens.

See?  I caught the moon...

And that concludes our labor day weekend. 
Praying you had a weekend of relaxing from your labor so you too will be refreshed for what God has called you to this day and week.
Blessings