Fall Days

We got a small nibble of 'fall' this weekend. Saturday morning at the park it was only 74 degrees!!!! And only 80 when we left. A miracle! With the beautiful Miami breeze it felt absolutely HEAVENLY. We, of course, enjoyed it with the ENTIRE city at the park. (I had no idea how full this park was with soccer and football games on Saturday mornings. Good to know.)

Racing from the tree to mom. Will's favorite part is yelling "GAH!" to mimic me yelling "GO!" to them. His speech is the best. (Oh yeah, and we are all about parks that have this rubber bottom. Then you don't get as many puddles and mosquitoes from the continual rain here.)

Oh, this picture. Lately Ruth and Will are so great at playing hide and seek. Usually they just sit at opposite sides of the bed and lean around the corner and start yelling and laughing hysterically at each other. At the park they found a tree. They make me SO happy when they have so much fun with each other. There is nothing better than siblings!

Molly is the greatest in the mornings and just looks beautiful all the time. We made friends with a Brazilian lady and her Colombian husband at the park since their son kept playing with Will. The husband could NOT get enough of Molly. At first he just talked to her a lot, but then he kept looking at me to kind of check that it was ok, and then pretty soon he was playing with her feet and cooing and holding her hands and touching her cheeks. He really was the sweetest guy. His little daughter (she was walking pretty unsteadily, so probably about a year old) was the CUTEST little baby. Always fun to make friends in Miami. 

I love those saggy cheeks! 

This park has rubber and turf. Win-win.

I thought it was so interesting that depending on the area of city that each team was from, their ethnicity was different. This team was from Overtown.  

Ruthie used to wear this dress. So sweet. Dressing babies is the best.

Those shoes! I think they are the cutest little things. Look at her poor mosquito bite. So sad.

The mornings have been so BEEEE-autiful that we went on a walk BEFORE church. It was gorgeous. Take a look at that man and his kids. Best picture in my entire life. Will was trying so hard to push like daddy. So sweet. 

Those aren't our houses in this picture, but that is what ours looks like. There are about twenty buildings with five houses per building in our complex.

Best father/son picture.

This next picture is my new favorite. Sterling was in charge of doing Will's hair and decided it was too long to spike, so Will got his very first parted-do. Doesn't he look like the perfect little man? I love it!

We always have to stop at every set of mailboxes and wave at every car.

Waving.

We're both really good at closing our eyes. 

 Parents: A Child's Perspective

Flower Princess:

I can't get enough of those pictures of Ruth. I'm glad I made her stand there when I saw the pretty flowers. She was a little ornery about it, but hey, she still gave me a smile! I hope I never forget this stage she's at--pink tights, pink sparkly shoes, bows and ribbons. She loves it all and is so incredibly sweet, too. I've decided that what makes 3 yr olds hard is that they can act so responsible and grown up and then they throw this tantrum that seems to come out of nowhere, but then you remember they are only three. Ruth LOVES helping and some of the things that she does are just so endearing. Today I walked downstairs and Ruth had come inside from the van by herself, shut the van door, taken off her shoes, and set them side by side on the top shelf of our shoe rack. I saw those shoes sitting there and I almost got a lump in my throat thinking of her doing all those little actions all by herself. What a sweetheart. 

Also, those pictures of Will. Where is my baby going and why is this big boy replacing him? The missionaries were laughing so hard the other night because he grunted to us and we asked him if he wanted milk "uh-uh", so we pointed to something else and he makes this trill noise in the back of his throat, so I said 'say please' and he signs it, and then we gave it to him. Quite the interesting conversation! But I love his little 'ok' that sounds all garbled. When I tell him he can't do something, or he has to wait, he has this eyeore-ish-'ok' and toddles off. Kills me every time. He is also big on high-fives. Today at the splash pad he would run under some water, barely get wet, come feet-slapping back to me and high-five, grinning the entire time, then repeat. Over and over. Love that.

Here's your Jew joke for the day: We had some friends over for Sunday dinner the other night (luckily my pulled pork turned out DIVINE) and he does a lot of singing because he is doing his PhD in choral directing at UM. So they were singing at this Jewish service (oh my gosh I had no idea how big the Jewish population was here...it's CRAZY! Have I talked about that yet?) and he said people would walk in and out for certain parts of the service, and at one point several people got up to leave. Also, they were all supposed to be fasting. So the rabbi gets up and says "You better not be going to lunch! You can eat a doughnut, but only the middle!" HAAHAAAHAAA. I'm still laughing about this.