Our Ginger Midget....

We have started calling Kingston our ginger midget. It just fits with his hair color, ruddy skin tones, and being youngest in the family. We all get a real kick out of little Kingston. He has the sweetest spirit, patient as the day is long, quietly observant, loves a good cuddle, funny, and independent. I mean the child will just go find something in the house be it a dead bug or a shiny new toy and just play with such contentment. I could love him just based on this quality.

Kingtson was baptized in the same church Jared and I grew up in, baptized in ourselves, and where we were married.

Lookout Mountain Presbyterian is a very special place to us and our families. It was a wonderful service with our children being decently behaved that morning standing in front of the whole congregation.

The gown Kingston wore has been worn by both of my brothers, my cousins, and Alder. It is quite a family heirloom.

These two are in cahoots most of the time. They were doing this while I tried to photograph my sweet Kingston. 

Here is our 987th attempt to capture a family picture of us and as you can see Alder is trying to lick his ear and Kingston looks like he just saw a ghost.

We had a delightful lunch to celebrate the baptism and Kingston's 1st birthday at my parents house with family and friends. 

My family above and the Wingfield's with Meme Demoss below.

LET THEM EAT CAKE!!!

Yes, we put the smash cake in the middle of the children and let them go for it.

All of the kids kept looking up at us like, "is this ok?!" "We can just sit here and play with the icing and gorge ourselves of birthday cake?!?" It was very fun.

My brother Jes was quite shocked at the chaos of the cake eating.

And while we celebrated with cake, the big boys (aka the daddies) decided it would be great fun to act like this.....

Boys will be boys I assume.

And not long after I took the first picture of the birthday cake smashing by all the cousins, Kingston crawled away to play by himself. 

Oh, that sweet little boy.

Happy Belated Birthday to you!

"When I grow up..."

I gave a series of these pictures to Jared for Father's Day. I put the boys in his shirts and thought I would photograph them each year and "watch them grow."

 I took similiar pictures of Alder when he was just 5 months old and then forgot last year, but hopefully I can remember from year to year. I recently asked Alder what he wants to be when he grows up and he thought for a minute and then said, "I want to be Daddy." My heart jumped and sang with joy and gratitude. I am so grateful that our Daddy is so wonderful, intentional, loving, and diligent in his role as father that our son wants to "be him" when he grows up.I realize that we are exceptionally blessed to not only have wonderful fathers ourselves, but that my children have both incredible fathers and grandfathers to love and adore. 

Happy Father's Day!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish....

These WERE are beloved fish. Alder, Kingston, and I made it a weekly activity to walk up to the downtown square and feed the fish. We loved counting the fish (there must have been 50 of them), picking out all the orange ones, the yellow ones, the red ones, and even the white ones with blue spots. The fish mesmerized the boys. I enjoyed so much walking up there with them, using the experience to talk about floating, sinking, swimming, and picnicking on the surrounding grounds in the new sunlight of the season. For two weeks in a row now, the fish pond has been vandalized and most all the fish have been killed. Reports say that some of the fish had their heads cut off and whole peanut shells and massive amounts of bread were the other deadly "weapons" used. Really? I mean really? Twice? 

After the first weekend it happened, we took a family walk early that next week to see the "scene of the crime" and to send the "sick" fish our well wishes and hopes for a "quick recovery" only to arrive and witness 2 more Koi die right in front of us. Can we say traumatic? 

Alder kept asking me, "Mama, why is that fish dancing like that on the water?" "Mama, why is that fish now stoped dancing and is floating on the water?" 

"Alder that fish is really sick and hey, look over there, I think I see a black cricket with red stripes on its back! (yes, we do have crickets that look like that and are about as big as Kingston's hand. We call them chernobyl crickets.) Go see if you can catch it!"

So as we mourn of fish friends and feel deeply sorry for the parents of kids who would do such a "crime", we wish you all a Happy Friday!

the lazy days of summer.....

dear readers (if there are any...)

i have been ridiculously lazy this last week. the boys and i recuperated from our long time away by lounging in the house in our pjs for hours, doing puzzle after puzzle (alder's favorite "toy" right now), swimming in the neighbor's pool, making homemade ice cream, fruit roll-ups, and pickles (thanks darby for all the great recipes!), and eating copious amount of popsicles in the front yard to try to stay cool, and late afternoon boating. so, all this to say, i have NOT gotten around to posting pictures of some pretty important happenings in the wingfield family. anyhow, i do have some snapshots from last week of our lazy days and a great new "find." 

happy monday!

meg

My "silly billies" who are now officially partners in crime....

King King sleeping on the boat Saturday. Does anyone have a "boat noise" option on their noise maker? Ha.

Alder helping Mama by tasting the ice cream. Recipe here.

Alder clearly affected by the mocha ice cream with the regular coffee and chocolate syrup in it....

Homemade fruit roll-ups dehydrating in the oven. You can get the recipe here.

And finally, our homemade pickles using the cucumbers we received in our veg box this past week. Again you can find the recipe here. Darby has great ones!

This is my new great find. I ONLY have a Wal-Mart to shop at and I am pretty cynical about Wal-Mart, their effects on small towns, and so on. But, I try to make the best of it and thought I would pass this little find along to you. I stopped buying Glad Wrap awhile back just because it was too expensive for how little you got on the roll. When I went last week to Wal-Mart, I found this. It is actually a Sam's Club product that is also now being re-packaged for Wal-Mart. I love it. It is unlike any pitiful plastic wrap that I have used before, it does not crumple up on itself, the box it great, the cutter it wonderful, and it just simply makes my life easier. Isn't that odd....plastic wrap making my life easier. For some people it is the iphone, iPad, or tivo. For me it is plastic wrap. 

Dreams Do Come True....

We are finally home after being away for 18 days. Whew! It was a long time away, but the visit "home" and vacation were full of great times and many memories were made. I am trying to work through hundreds of pictures to post about our time away. I hope to have a post up soon, but for now I thought I would share these. 

We arrived home Saturday and had all day Sunday to rest, recover, and enjoy our new boat. While away for over a week and Jared remaining home by himself, he purchased a boat. I guess when "the cat is away the mice will play." 

It is a beautiful boat built by hand and made of wood. Jared, as a hobby, likes to "broker" boats and it has been awhile since he has done so. But, it appears that he is "back in the game." The man he purchased it from is 78 years old and he was not only the only owner, but he was the one who built this boat by hand. Jared said that as the man said good-bye (only selling it because he had gotten too elderly to take it out by himself) the man was in tears. This boat certainly has a special story. 

Alder could not wait to "get on boat." He and Kingston loved the whole experience (except of course putting on life jackets).

When Jared and I first lived here before moving to England, we actually lived on the river with a dock. This was when Jared started "brokering" boats. As we went down to river on Sunday so many memories came flooding back of our time of the river as newlyweds. We were carefree, spending hours on the water fishing, sunbathing, and swimming. Jared has always wanted to be able to take his own children on a boat and share with them one of his greatest passions of life---boating.

On Sunday that dream came true as he watched his two sons fall in love with the water, the wind, the boat, and the adventure of it all.

Alder took immediately to driving the boat and "helping" in all ways possible.

Kingston adored the time as well by crawling around the boat, exploring each piece and part, trying to make a mess of the ropes, and swimming with Mama.

I felt extraordinarily blessed to be on the water with "my boys" who all seem to have an abnormal love of "things that go," the outdoors, gages, steering wheels, mysterious waters, idle fisherman on the banks of the river, and engines.

This is Alder and I swimming together. I am quickly realizing that as these two boys grow up, I will "lose" them to their father and the adventures only boys will have. I am trilled for the time they will get with their Daddy, but I am stealing my sweet time with them now with kisses, hugs, and cuddling.