a rolling stone gathers leaves

Did you know you can just give your kids old grocery sacks and let them go gather leaves and they love it? No fancy entertainment necessary. Of course you'll have to keep the sack of leaves for at least a week, longer if your kids' memories are like steel traps. "Where are my leaves?" and then you'll have to pull out the sack from the corner with the old, molding leaves to show how much you care. But it's a small price to pay for childhood bliss and my kids knowing I value their contributions.

My kids like to wear boots. Miranda won't wear socks with hers and Sammy LOVES these green boots and wants to wear them constantly. When we catch a whiff of them...plasticky stinky kid feetness...Fernando says we should hide them but I can't bring myself to do that because soon he'll outgrow them and I'll miss him in them so much.

We actually did make a nice centerpiece that day with leaves in a glass bowl. So the harvest did not go unappreciated.

Miranda lasted longer at gathering than Sammy.

They are growing up. I think Sammy will feel the biggest change when Miniman arrives, but he is so giddy about the arrival that I think the transition will be swallowed up in the excitement. He likes to hug the belly and talk to his brother in there. I have to do the voice of miniman talking back, of course. He's really funny.
I think it will be fun for Sammy to have a brother. He'd be a fun big brother to have, in my opinion.

And Miranda will be a big help too. The other day my Grandpa Baugh noticed her roaming around at a family gathering and said, "She's looking like a girl now."

You can see it in this picture. She is.

Then on Sunday Fernando helped her put her hair in a ponytail (I know! A dad who can do a ponytail?! Nice.) and then she looked like a girl again, not a toddler. So he started getting a little sad about it, and then of course I'm pregnant so it didn't take much before I was crying and even Fernando was getting a little man-emotional about it. And of course then we started talking about when she was a baby and before long she was crying too and saying, "I'll always be your baby!" like we were in a movie (she is really good at absorbing and dispersing emotion)(I call it Emotional IQ on some days and dramatics on others). The only thing that dried us up was when I said, "But you know what, I'm really glad you're so mature because you'll be the biggest help when we have miniman," which led to a discussion about being the oldest (by all three of us who are all the oldest) and we were able to pry ourselves out of the loss we felt for our little baby girl who is now getting to be a real big girl.

And speaking of BIG girls...

Miranda took this picture. Sorry about the saggy pants. I'm not ready but I think I'd better have this baby one of these days. With these big kids around I hope I can remember how to take care of a litte tiny one!