Snow days

Our 1st major snow of the year is here!! 6 glorious inches of light, white & fluffy. The boys were SO very excited.

It seemed like it took a terribly long time to get them dressed... bibs then boots then mittens then scarves then coats and finally hats & hoods. And of course not remembering the correct order of things, I put their boots on 1st... then proceeded to take them off so we could get the bibs on. It all took at least 1/2 hour to finally get out the door. Patience was tried I tell you!


It didn't take long to have snow head to foot...



And then after some sledding fun there was plenty of shoveling to do. Nate is quite the helper these days. We prefer the bulldoze method rather than scoop and heave.

Let is snow!

LIfe @ 4

Nate turned 4!!

Each year we have an "annual photo session" on their birthday. Craig is snapping shots of the boys all the time, but we call this their official annual protrait.

Of course being fall, Nate's annual portrait takes place while playing in the leaves.

For comparison here is his 1st year portrait.

The hat was a fixture on his head at age 2.

And @ 3 yrs old...

Of course Andrew gets his photo taken too!

For some reason he kept going over to his own little stash of leaves that had been mulched up into tiny pieces. Those little pieces got into every room in the house not to mention every cranny of his body! But oh was he having fun.


The Lord has truly blessed us!

Boys, trucks & leaf piles

What started out as 3 leaf piles ended up as a driveway in our front yard on November 1st...

Here is a video I took from my camera. The boys were putting the finishing touches on the "driveway". You'll have to use your imagination a bit :).

They (mostly Nate) worked very hard for a total of 2 1/2 hours building this driveway.

This video is totally unscripted & unedited - so the random acts of kindness you witness are just that!

It is just under a minute long. The audio is a little hard to follow with the sound of rustling leaves.

Trip to New Hampshire

This post is a little delayed... but here are some photographs from our trip to New Hampshire. We learned 2 things on this trip:
1. Nate is a fish
2. Andrew could eat donuts 24/7

The boys were troopers on our 14 hour drive up. Here is a picture from a rest area about 8 hours after starting.

Once we arrived, our days were spent mostly at the beach in front of our parent's cottage. The boys dug and dumped and moved and pushed and hauled sand for hours.

At night, we were able to sleep in an RV again this year thanks to a gracious neighbor! The boys asked if they were allowed to talk for awhile each night when we put them to bed. We could here them discussing the finer points of digging and dumping. Plus they would plan what they were going to build the NEXT day.


Then comes the fish part. On our first swim of the trip it only took Nate 10 minutes before he was diving completely under the water - a 1st for him. And much to our dismay, he would stay under for many seconds... it was unnerving!! And he would do it over and over... and over!

Even in 50-something degree water at York Beach, Maine, he would jump the waves, flop down in the water and laugh. Then get up and do it again. Andrew was quite content to watch from my hip.

Then there are the donuts... You may not realize it, but donuts are the state food in New Hampshire. There is a Dunkin' Donuts on every corner! And of course, we had them about ever day. We even stopped on our drive home before leaving the state!
One morning "dad" took the boys for a drive to let mom (me) sleep in. Guess where they went?

Notice the donut dust...

And here are a few more candids I love from the trip. Including one with Great Grammy.

So that is what the boys did on their summer trip this year.

June - digging & mowing

The Craver boys are just plain having fun these days. That's the easiest way to put it. They laugh constantly - and it is the true Craver laugh.


Here is a more serious shot of them watching our neighbor try to pull a truck into her garage. She was having some trouble needless to say and it took like 5 minutes. The boys were captivated the whole time and it gave Craig a chance to snap this shot.



Our most recent excitement has been the building of our new ecclesial meeting hall. We call it "the construction site" and visit it every day or two. Talk about boys being in their element - excavators, bull dozers and dump trucks! Today we went and Nate got his boot "stuck in 'd mud" and he really was stuck - all the way to his ankle. Oh my, what a mess! Notice in this picture Nate's arm - does it resemble an excavator?





We also have a mini construction site right in front of our house. At least that's what Nate calls it. No, we're not adding on, we just have a large area of mulch that gets picked up, moved and dumped somewhere else - constantly. I think the boys have moved about 1 ton of mulch in the past few weeks!



The other excitement is mowing. Sometimes its push mowing, sometimes riding and sometimes they just drag a stick and call it a mower.


Here is Andrew sitting on a tractor that pulls a brush hog at the construction site - its the ultimate of mowers!



We send our love to all and hope you are laughing and enjoying your days too!

Amy