Raisch 1st Annual Pumpkin Carving

(Very spontaneous move on my part...$1.99 pumpkins at Aldi today.  Devon played along wonderfully)

Lets get our toboggans on and go wash off the pumpkin (since mom bought a dirty one) and get the plastic tarp paper (since it's too cold to carve outside)

Waiting patiently on dad to find the carving tools from a few years ago (that's how long it's been since we've carved a pumpkin)

"Think dad will let me use that big knife to help?"  (And, yes, while waiting to get started, he saw Devon's hearing protection ear muffs and wanted to wear them)

I'll help scrape a little, but please don't make me put my hand all the way down in there

"You're doing a great job, dad."

And, skip to the finished product (sorry, no pictures of carving...after helping scrape, I went into the kitchen to get dinner going and left the boys to carving).  Fine job boys!  And, thank you Aldi for a cheap pumpkin and pumpkin carving kit (eyes included).

As I write this, the house is smelling yummy as the pumpkin seeds are roasting in the oven!

Peanut Butter

I do believe my son may have his mother's love for peanut butter...

Tonight I decided to make a peanut butter, banana, chocolate chip cake towards the end of little man finishing his dinner (hence the yogurt all over his face as well).  He played in his chair the whole time with the various cooking utensils I'd hand him.  Then...then I handed him the spatula with the last little bit of peanut butter and the empty peanut butter jar.  Wow, the deliciousness (and fun)!  We then of course had to go STRAIGHT to the bath :-)

birthday cake!

On Triston's actual birthday, Devon's mom, dad, and grandma came over and my twin sister and her family came over to celebrate and enjoy some dinner and dessert with us.  Below is a video of Triston enjoying his cake!  Sorry, it's a little long (3min).  This was his 2nd b'day cake, since we had his big b'day party a couple weeks ago when some of my family was in town.  He knew exactly what to do with his cake this time :-)

I can't believe a year has passed already.  What a true true blessing it has been!  

Triston David Raisch, it is a joy to be your mommy & daddy.

Exploring...

"Exploring" was a nice way of saying, "I'm going everywhere and getting into everything."

"I don't know how these spilled, but they sure are yummy."

box under the kitchen table...hours of fun

Every day pulling up on things easier and easier and better and better.  He's starting to push things in front of him to help him walk

"another chair to pull up on!"

"you guys still back there?"

"maybe I should go play with the recycling stuff mom and dad keep meaning to take outside"

"or maybe I should try and chew on this table leg"

Under our supervision, he's climbed up the 1st 2 steps by himself.  Can we say BABY GATE SOON!

Granny Lynn's halloween treat

Below is a video we took of Triston and Devon enjoying the Halloween treat sent to us from Granny Lynn

Smiles and moves

It's been a little while since I posted...and in true "new mommy" fashion, I'll be writing mostly about our little 8month old. Yes, Triston will be 8 months tomorrow! I can't believe it. I told someone yesterday that the first 3 months went by fairly slow, but now...now time is going by too fast! He is growing and exploring and moving and, and....so much so fast! He keeps us smiling non-stop. His favorite game is peek-a-boo, and now he's taken to being the one who's doing the "hiding." His smiles and laughs are true medicine to the soul. He's babbling all the time with us and starting to copy some of our intonations. His new sound that he's discovered he can do is a little growl. A growl has never been so cute. A little over a week ago he started crawling, and now he has pretty much perfected it. He hasn't realized he can crawl from room to room yet, but he's just about to do that. I'm looking forward to the day when he comes crawling down the hallway to see me :-) He plays mostly all over our living room. It's amazing what he goes for...essentially anything he shouldn't touch. He has books and toys all over the room, but he goes for the books on the bookshelf, the lamp cord underneath the end table, etc. I'm sure he is beginning to recognize the words "no" and "no touch" but he's showing no signs of understanding what they mean, ha ha. It is a JOY to spend days with him.  He's already starting to pull up on stuff!  And a couple times I've gone into his room and he's standing up in his bed.  He's getting so big so fast!   Below are a few pictures from our recent weeks.

Playing outside watching the crew replace our roof

Daddy and Triston.  Amazing how these two have my heart so much.  (sorry about the terrible background!)

Trying to eat the grass while playing outside :-)

Family self portrait

Wearing daddy's App hat!

Ok, so our "playing" outside turned into a little bit of a photo session

I took this pic this morning.  Instead of crawling around this, he crawled under and through it.  It was pretty impressive.

Is he learning to smile for the camera?

This was his first day crawling.  I walked out of the room for a minute and when I came back in he had found this bag (it's the bag I take to/from work with all my pumping stuff)

He loves to crawl up to this mirror and play with the baby

And try to kiss the baby

Thanks for reading my ramblings!!!

a few ramblings

It's been a month or so since I've posted, so thought I'd just ramble a bit.  All is going well with life in Shelby, NC.  Devon and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary several weeks ago.  Triston spent the night away for the first time.  It was definitely harder on mommy than Triston!  He had a wonderful time with grandma and grandpa and Kimberly, Jamie, and Lily!  And Devon and I had a wonderful time enjoying our day.  Funny how easy it is to forget how things were before a baby.  And Triston continues to grow right before our very eyes.  It is  a m a z i n g  !!!    I still am awed that God is giving us the honor of being his parents.  I know everyone says the love of a child is a kind of love you've never had before...they are right.  There are no words to put on how much love I have for this little 6 1/2 month old being. 

Well several hours have passed since I started this post and now I cannot remember things I wanted to ramble about.  Probably good for all of us that things got busy for a while and my memory is bad :-)  I'll put a few pics from the recent weeks.

I know this picture was in my last post about our visit to Wisconsin to see relatives and for Triston to meet his great grandpa.  We are so blessed we were able to go less than two months ago and see him, as he passed away from a short battle of lung cancer on 9/5/11.  We love and miss you, grandpa.

Go App!

Love this picture of my boys! Triston was getting to play in daddy's jeep a little bit... 

and he liked it!

Thanks to a chilly couple days, we discovered how cute these cheeks are in a hoody