October Update

You would think that with all the birthdays and the kids updating the blog that everything would be updated, wouldn't you? But somehow - I've still missed things.

Emmett - geeze this kid is walking EVERYWHERE! He toddles all over the house all day long - trying to catch up with Caleb. Since he started walking so much his taking has almost completely stopped. Now he is just attempting to see how loud his voice can go. There is lots of screaming these days from this little guys. And yes, his screaming is somewhat high pitched - but I can tell if he's the one screaming in a room full of kids because his voice (just like his brothers) is already deeper than other kids his age. He has gotten very good at giving kisses - at least to Mom and Dad and his teddy bear. He has also tried Grandma's cat and a pumpkin stem. Usually you can tell where Emmett kissed because there is a huge, slobbery, wet spot left behind. He is also getting good at climbing on things - and then using those things to climb onto other things. And he still loves putting things in his mouth. I caught him tasting wipes yesterday.

Caleb - This kid has so many fun things he says these days. Some of my favorites are "Ash-ka-ly" (actually), "We dis-cussed dis!" (We discussed this), "I want to be a missionary!" (usually sung at the top of his lungs during every song in Sacrament meeting), and his prayer "Dank de for beauful day, and da bands bein' crazy, and da rainbow, and da flag on the head and on the face." Last night at FHE he was thankful for "leaves fallin down" (we sang It's Autumn Time for opening song a minute earlier). He loves to add things to his prayers. It's very cute when he prays for things that happened weeks ago. He has a great memory. He is getting good at excuses lately. Though the best one I've ever heard was this weekend. He told me he couldn't go potty before bedtime because "my bum is too tired." I almost started laughing - but I didn't. I very seriously told him that if he would just go potty his bum could go to bed. He looked at me as if to say, 'ok - that totally didn't work.' He has an imaginary friend. His name is "baby Caleb" and he is in our house pretty often. Usually he is small enough to fit in Caleb's hands. Sometimes we have to make sure he gets lunch. Of course, sometimes Tey and Tey-Woof have to have meals too.

At our house we have a song that we sing pretty often. It goes like this (to the tune of You've Had a Birthday), "Emmett's a baby shout hurray. HURRAY!" Then we have other lines we put in afterwards. Sometimes "He needs a diaper change today. HURRAY!" or "He is so squir-rmy today. Hurray!"or whatever else Dad comes up with - cause he's the one who sings silly song. Shortly after Caleb's birthday my mom was singing "You've had a birthday" to him on video chat. Caleb was very distressed and told her "NO! Emmett's a baby shout hurray!" She's been laughing about it ever since. Guess we better teach him the right words before he goes to Primary in January.

The car: Friday afternoon Sam took the car into the shop where they fixed the belt a few months ago. They said it might squeal a little but it would get better. It never did get better so Sam took it back in Friday afternoon after work. He went in, talked to the car people, a guy came to drive the car into the shop - and there was a pop and then the car wouldn't move. Talk about perfect timing. Not to mention we had done our weekly shopping on Thursday night (kind of spur of the moment too). We've had family pictures planned for this weekend a long time so my parents came and got us for the weekend. We're still working on getting the car fixed (something in the transmission) or getting a new one - but I'm thinking we'll end up fixing this car. I feel like it's falling apart faster than we can repair it. We've only owned it 6 months and we've had 2 broken door handles (Sam's jimmy-rigged them both so they work), 2 broken belts, 1 broken windshield (that we fixed the Monday before it died at the shop).

The house: We put in an offer on a house. We've only been looking a month or so - and the house is fine - but the yard is the amazing part. Who wouldn't want to live somewhere with a backyard like this?

Caleb loves it - for sure. This is the back third of the back yard. It's a really deep lot and we love it out back. It's so quiet out back. You can't hear any busy roads out there. And not too many planes. I'm longing for the quiet of this back yard! It's a short sale which actually means it likely be months before we even know if we're going to get this place for sure. So I suppose for now it's kind of a quiet thing - but we're hoping and praying. And I'm so excited about this idea that I wanted to share with all of you!

Sam: Such a good sport he is to ride his bike 7.2 miles to work - even on mornings like today when it is raining - and snowing. He said he got on the bus part way to work and he was still soaked by the time he got to work. Luckily he had a change of clothes at the office. He is loving his job - and while it is definitely work and sometimes not terribly fun - a lot of the time he comes home extremely excited about what he's working on and sometimes he comes home and the things he says he did all day sound like playing - like "today we had to figure out how to wreck a basket ball system" (basket ball hoop) It apparently took 6 guys a long while to figure out how to wreck it. We are all looking forward to Election Day when Sam's 3 months probation will be up and we will be able to get on insurance. For some reason we keep feeling more and more nervous as that day approaches that something will happen before we get on insurance. We have almost all the paperwork ready to go so that we can get on that exact day. 

Stacy: I'm working on getting my portfolio ready so I can join Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. But I'm having some equipment struggles and I need to find a new off camera flash. I had almost figured it out when the car died. Now $200 for a new flash seems ridiculous. Hopefully we'll have that all worked out soon. I'm feeling very pressed to get this done. I've been doing lots of digital scrapbooking lately. It's something I love. And I'm starting to get a whole lot better too. Here are some pages that I've done recently.

The 40 day challenge has been a little off right now - so I've been trying to get other stuff done. I also have more than 10 pages that I've made for kits that haven't been released yet. 

And tonight we are meeting with a member of the stake presidency. I'm hoping the snow lets up - because walking with the boys the 3 or 4 blocks to the church isn't going to be terribly fun in the snow. Though maybe we can let Caleb wear his boots. He has been telling me almost non-stop since we first saw the snow - that he needs to wear his boots. I tried explaining we didn't need the boots till we walked out in the snow - and even then, it's not THAT much snow yet. But he didn't really like that idea. He is dying to wear his boots.