Even though the media coverage has died down since Katrina and Rita struck, and Ashton Kucher and Demi Moore's wedding is making bigger headlines, people's lives have been completely unraveled due to these hurricanes and THEY NEED OUR HELP.

My friend Jen is managing a blog that has a TON of information on what still needs to be done and how you can help.
[link(http://gracedavis.typepad.com/katrinablog/)]PLEASE go read![/link]

i've often told people that i love the "back-to-school" time of year. i don't know if it's the excitement of starting something new, or the excitment of new faces, or if it's just a leftover excitement of my new school wardrobe when i was in high school...but i just can't seem to shake the excitement that i have at this time of year.

it's also autumn: hands down, the best time of year. you'll never convince me that there is something more beautiful than a hillside full of orange and yellow and red trees. a freshly-fallen snow is gorgeous, but it melts usually within a day to dirty slush. the pastel spring flowers peaking through the snow are lovely, but then you have that annoying day-long spring rain. and the heat in the summer....need i say more? yes, i realize this is all personal opinion, but i dare you to poll 10 random people and ask them what their favorite season is and the majority will say, "autumn."

on our hike the other day, i carried along a bag so that rowan could save the leaves that he found. when we got home, he helped me paste the leaves on a big poster board. it's our first family project:
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the leaves have since crumpled so i took them off the board, but i have this picture to remind me to do this again next year. and again every year.

i can't wait to do more "projects" with our boys. we have many more fall days lined up - leaf throwing, pumpkin carving, and applesauce-making. and then comes winter - snowmen and angels in the snow...i remember making edible snow as a kid - just pour maple syrup in a bucket of snow: yum! but the environment is a bit dirter now, so perhaps we'll just catch snowflakes with our tongues.

you see, we have to enjoy all these things now, because our kids are growing up before our very eyes. so we're learning to live more intentionally now, spending each day as a day of learning and living...not just wasting time. and seriously, how can you waste away every perfect autumn day?

we celebrated sawyer's birthday with a smash cake and a backyard BBQ, complete with scotch and cigars for the menfolk and port and wine for the rest of us. except rowan and sawyer who were already in bed. sawyer's treat was his smashcake...which he DOVE into, albeit quite delicately.
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this was the last weekend of summer as autumn begins (it's about time!) this week. if you walk outside right this moment, you'll be able to smell the dry leaves falling off their branches already. some people might be lighting up fires because it's "slightly chilly" out there in the mid 60s. the days are getting quite shorter, and although i don't like the long, dark winter and waking to a dark sky at 7:00 a.m., i do enjoy cozy evenings and falling temperatures.
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kenny suggested a hike this afternoon along a newly reorganized and planted creek just down the road from us at Frick park. with Sawyer in the backpack and Rowan walking along side of me we skipped stones, picked up fallen leaves, and crossed over the babbling creek. It was a bit warm, but not humid. and it smelled like the end of summer.
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Rowan has always been into music and has always requested that we listen to the same song over and over in the car. But recently, he's hit a new milestone that is so thrilling for both him and us: he sings along!

He especially likes to sing along to "Snuggle Puppy," "Jesus Loves Me," and "Sing," (from Sesame Street). He sings with such enthusiasm that we don't mind listening (and singing along ourselves) to these songs over and over because it makes him so excited. And it warms our hearts to hear him sing the actual words, to the same tune as the song.

I don't think I've ever noticed other kids singing and thought it was just endearing and sweet and lovely. Perhaps nobody else will think the same as we do about Rowan's singing and perhaps I shouldn't even be blogging about this completely normal milestone that every child reaches eventually. But it's pure magic for us to listen to him sing. This little human being that we helped create can sing, and enjoys it. And he sounds so cute!

As Rowan happily sings a little off-tune, Sawyer joins in the music by his little dance. This dance is always the same and has three different moves: he turns his head (as if saying, "No"), he sways from side to side, or he stands and does mini-knee bends over and over.

Our boys naturally fell in love with music. I didn't force either of them to listen to music in the womb by wearing headphones over my belly. I didn't lull them to bed every night listening to lullabyes, and I've never piped classical music throughout the house to inspire a taste of music in their hearts. They've just naturally been attracted to music. We are starting a Musik Garten class this week for toddlers and I'm so excited to see how Rowan reacts to the "curriculum." I get to take the class with him, so I'm excited to watch him learn in a classroom setting.

And both of them just might grow out of this musical phase. But for right now, we can't get enough of their song and dance!

Dear Sawyer,

A year ago this morning you saw your first sunrise from the comfortable seat of your Daddy's arms. I remember this so clearly because you were born just two hours before the sun rose. You ate for an hour, then snuggled so perfectly in a blanket swaddle while Daddy showed you the sun coming up to greet you.

You can't be a year old! You were just a little newborn that came into the house, changing Rowan's life (and ours!). As Emily stated earlier this week, I just called her to tell her I was in labor! Where did the year go? The year disappeared so quickly as your infant cries turned to cooing, turned to "ga-ga's" and "da-da's" and deliberate laughter; as your fetal pose gave way to crawling and now walking all over the house. The year is nicely tucked away in boxes of newborn clothes stored away in your closet. And although the year flew, we couldn't be more proud of who you are today.

The country mourns this day, but we celebrate your life. Our friend Ellen wrote this on the announcement of your birth here at our blog: "Sawyer's birth stakes a claim for life and love on such a complicated day."

We love you, Sawyer Cole Smith!
~mama and daddy


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so we followed my older brother's advice and found the only British version of "The Office" that we could find: the Christmas special, which was basically a follow-up to the series. even though we miss out entirely on the series and skip way to the end (david brent is "sacked" from the job in slough but keeps showing up in the office "for morale"), we found ourselves laughing hysterically and uncomfortably. just yesterday, we discovered our new/old friend margaret is also a brit-version addict AND a netflix member, so we just might be lucky enough to find ourselves watching the entire series sometime soon. we continue to watch our VHS taped (yes, we're slightly dark ages, here) episodes from Dunder Mifflin in Scranton and laugh just as loud at the same scene over and over. we're SO glad that it's coming back.

and about LOST...our friend margaret is also a huge fan, and we have decided to have LOST viewing parties (so far, just margaret is coming...anyone else in pittsburgh coming over?).

when kenny and i were first married (4 years ago!), we hosted Twin Peaks viewing parties. about a dozen or so people crammed into our living room and we'd pass around pieces of cherry pie and strong black coffee and watch an episode or two of this 80s hit. it was a great series. wacko, yes, but great entertainment. a few months after we watched the last episode, kenny and i found ourselves a bit nostalgic for the north pacific town of twin peaks, so we rented "Come Firewalk with Me" which was a big mistake. it was similar to the followup to "Blair Witch Project" - just plain BAD, and nothing good from the original was found in it.

while we're on the subject...can i tell you how much i love sesame street now? rowan, who just turned 2, is counting and saying his ABCs. he counts steps (my favorite of his new words is his word for eleven: "Elligy!" - the "g" is hard) and points out every letter of our refrigerator magnets. it's so sweet to hear him counting with the Count and proclaiming each letter as we point to it as though it's the most exciting thing on earth.

not so brilliant is what's on tv tonight: football (it's only good when it's cold outside), a local country concert, and very bad christian comedy. perhaps we will find ourselves netflix members soon enough.