Guess who's allergic to Amoxicillin?

Stairs

Andrew has figured out how fun it is to climb the stairs. This is a mixed blessing for us. It keeps him really happy, and lately he's started climbing the stairs right around nap time. That makes me really happy because I don't have to carry him! He doesn't know how to go down the stairs yet and has no interest in learning. I keep trying to "teach" him, though, and I pull his feet gently down the stairs. Really, I'm just trying to avoid having to carry him! Our stairs are pretty wide at the bottom, and there's no way to block the stairs, so we have to watch him more closely now. He likes to climb up on the landing, reach out through the railing and grab whatever is on the piano. After Christmas I think the piano will be bare.

Snowmen

Check it out! I actually made something cute! I made these snowmen for all of Caden's teachers and helpers at school. The smaller ones were Hershey's bars and the bigger symphony bar was for his homeroom teacher. The hats are the tops of socks that never stayed on Andrew's feet. The buttons are buttons that I glued on, and I just drew on the face. I thought I'd share it in case someone was looking for a fast, easy Christmas gift. I got the idea from here.

What a day!

I started the day yesterday with such big plans. I was going to do Christmas cards, finish baking cookies and making candies, deliver goodies and wrap presents along with the usual make dinner, clean house, etc. Then I get up and find Andrew and Dallin both have pink eye--Caden had had it for a few days already. Great, now I'd have to get medicine for them too. I have to get Caden to school and then I called the doctor and got that settled. Andrew finally went down for his morning nap and I got to take my shower. When I came downstairs I heard a strange dripping noise in the front room. When I investigated it, I found a little puddle in the carpet and a small hole in the ceiling with water dripping! I quickly got a bowl and then called Steve. Of course he wasn't answering, so I had to wait until he called me back. By this time Dallin was whining about how hungry he was so I made lunch while I was waiting. Steve called me back and I told him what had happened. He was busy with something at work but would come home as soon as he could. I called some plumbers in the mean time to see if we could get a free estimate. It turns out most charge a service call, but I found one that didn't and could come by sometime between 3:30 and 5. Great.
Steve came home and Andrew woke up. I nursed him and fed him lunch. The water had stopped dripping by this time. Steve cut a bigger hole in the ceiling to see if he could see anything. He couldn't. He had me flush the toilet, run a bunch of water in the sink and tub, and he still couldn't see anything. There wasn't any water on the floor to give us any hints, so all we could do was wait for the plumber.
Now, I should tell you we've been tiling the master bath for the last three weeks and it's still not grouted. And the shower in our bathroom is missing a rubber piece at the bottom so it leaks and we can't use it until we get it fixed. So all day yesterday I was thinking, "We can't use our bathroom, now we can't use the boys bathroom, our main floor toilet clogs with anything more than 3 sheets of toilet paper, which leaves the basement bath."
So, now that we couldn't figure out the boys bath, Steve ran over to Home Depot to get some parts for the shower door (which they didn't have) and I finally ran over to Walmart to get the boys medicine. I went right over to the pharmacy, and it was closed! The sign said they close for lunch from 1:30 to 2. It was 1:32. So we walked around the store, trying to keep Andrew happy. We found the toy vacuum Santa is bringing him and now I know he will love it. When 2:00 came around there was a line of people waiting for the pharmacy. We got home just in time for me to get Caden from school. I got the kids snacks, helped Caden with his homework, practiced spelling, and made dinner. When dinner was ready the plumber came. I was so worried it would be some big repair. He looked around for quite a while and couldn't find anything. He couldn't find any signs of moisture anywhere. That's good news, right? After he left, Steve noticed the plug for the shower head had slightly pulled away from the wall, and that's our best guess as to where it came from. So now we wait and see if it happens again. After dinner, Steve started grouting our bathroom so we could at least have our toilet back, which means I was left to cleaning up, listening to Caden read his book, getting the kids ready for bed, and tucking everyone in. The boys decided they didn't want to cooperate and I was very frustrated with them after the long day I'd had. I was getting the jammies on Andrew when the doorbell rang. It was 8:00 at night. Who is coming by at 8:00? I grabbed Andrew, who was only half dressed, and went to answer the door. The bell rang again. Tinkerbell was going crazy barking and running around and the boys were watching from the top of the stairs. I answered the door and at least 20 teenagers started singing "Frosty the Snowman"! It was really sweet, but as I looked around, I didn't recognize any of them! I thought it must be mutual, because it was Wednesday night and I could see some adults way off on the sidewalk, but again, no one that I recognized! They gave me a little gift and left singing, and I had to check the tag to make sure it was the ward! I went to the garage to tell Steve who it was and he said it sounded like a mob there were so many people. :) After the day I had just had, that really lifted my spirits. Someone knew that I needed that. But now we have this hole in our ceiling...

Christmas Concert

Tonight was Caden's Christmas concert at school. He's been excited and a bit nervous about it. I came prepared with my camera and video camera. I was holding Andrew so I told Steve he was in charge of taking lots of pictures. When the concert was starting, Steve pulled out the camera and immediately the batteries died. Great. At least we had the video camera. I was just using that and it said there was half an hour left, plenty of time to record the five songs that Caden's class was singing. Steve went to the back of the room to stand and record them. Five minutes later he sat back down and said the batteries died! So disappointing! Of course it was after that that Caden found us and started waving and blowing us kisses. It was really cute and will be a great memory, but would have been even better on video! Darn it!

Hungry?

This is how we eat breakfast at our house. Care to join us?

Cute Pictures

I'm usually not satisfied with Andrew's pictures, but I thought these turned out pretty cute.

Mr. Smarty Pants

Remember how Dallin learned how to spell his name by himself? Well, a few weeks later I was in nursery and Dallin was coloring on the chalkboard. I thought I'd ask him if he could write his name. It took him a minute to figure out how to shape the letters, but then he did it. Since then he's been writing his name on his nursery papers every week. I decided I'd better get some sort of preschool workbook to keep him happy and challenged. We've been flying through it with little instruction on my part. I'm surprised how neat he's writing his letters. Steve said a lot of them are as good as Caden's! The lines for Dallin to practice writing his letters are quite large, as they are with most early writing papers. Dallin thinks it is hilarious to write his letters a quarter of the size. We'll write them tiny, show me, I exclaim how tiny they are, and he laughs and laughs. But they are still neat and legible!
So, I started to think maybe I should get him into a preschool next year. There's a lady in the ward who does a preschool from her home and she would be wonderful, so I asked her about it. For Dallin to attend three days a week, two hours a day, it would be $225 a month! Suddenly homeschooling sounds great again! There are a lot of kids his age in church, so maybe I could get some mom's together to do it. At this point I'm not sure he'd be getting much academically from preschool, and $225 is a lot to pay for social time!
We are also very proud of Caden. He's reading really well and spells well too. He gets that from his dad. I never could spell and depend wholly on spell check. In fact, often I spell so poorly that spell check can't figure out what I'm trying to say. Anyway, Caden has consistently been getting 100% on his spelling tests, that his teacher had to come up with a harder list for him to challenge him. It's a challenge for me now too because now I actually have to help him study! He's enjoying the challenge though and I love to see his sense of accomplishment.

Jealous?

It's not fair how cute fat babies are, but not so cute for adults!

Yummy

I was looking for something fun to eat for Halloween and found several fun recipes on the Internet. I ended up going with these fingers and slime. The slime was actually a really easy soup from frozen peas and mozzarella cheese that turned out quite tasty. When I showed the boys dinner, they were excited about the "fingers" but Caden didn't want the slime. He kept asking me if it was real slime. They both ended up liking it when they ate it though. They really liked the "ghost blood" we drank too! They're still calling their milk ghost blood. I kept the recipes and I think I will do it next year. Maybe I'll add some eyeballs and blood & guts too!

Trick-or-Treat

The boys had a lot of fun trick-or-treating. The weather was really nice. I thought we'd have to worry about slipping on ice, but instead we had to be carefully about stepping in puddles. Probably half the snow had melted so there was puddles everywhere; some were pretty big. We convinced Dallin to wear his pumpkin sweatsuit because it was a little warmer. We had them wear thermals under their costumes and they didn't need coats! It was great! I can't remember ever going out on Halloween and not bundling up the kids. The boys didn't even complain, about being cold, that is. Caden kept saying how tired he was, and he'd sit on the porch after ringing the bell. It was a little embarrassing. Dallin had a great time though. He kept talking to the people at the door. "I'm Dallin I'm three and I'm a pumpkin and this is Caden and he's six and he's the evil spiderman and our baby brother is Andrew and he's at home..." I had to drag him away from the doors! As I was pulling him away he'd always turn around and say, "Happy Halloween!" It was really cute. After an hour I think he got the hang of it and was only saying a few things.
Andrew had to stay home. I love the pictures of my two pumpkins. If you look, you can seen 4 of Andrew's 6 teeth.

















Dallin wore the pumpkin outfit that Andrew is wearing when Dallin was 20 months! Thought I'd put in that picture as well.

Halloween Parties

Caden had his Halloween party at school on Friday. Because Steve had a snow day, he was able to come and see Caden in the parade. Caden was so excited to see us. That's his teacher behind him in the great fairy costume.








Steve took Andrew home after the parade and Dallin and I stayed for the class party. They had a bunch of extra food so Dallin got some and ate it next to his big brother. They even had a few extra favor bags so they gave one to Dallin. It was very nice. They had a good time.














That night we had a halloween party at church. Dallin changed into his Devil costume and Tinkerbell had to stay home.


We had dinner, played games, had a parade, went trick-or-treating, and had a costume contest. It was fun, but went a little too long. After trick-or-treating the boys, that included Steve, were all tired and cranky. Steve said, "Lets go." They hadn't announced the winners of the contest yet though. I looked I my boys in their very generic costumes, which they loved, and knew they weren't going to win any prizes so I agreed. Steve took Andrew and Caden while I was left with gathering our stuff and bringing Dallin. Well Dallin was especially cranky and started kicking and throwing a fit on the floor. I was trying to get him off the floor while holding all the coats and bags when they started announcing the winners. The Elders were the judges and the first was for the cutest costume. I thought of the adorable baby unicorn or the sweet toddler lady bug when one of the elders said, "to the bowman little devil." It took me a minute to realize what he said. Luckily we were right by the stage, so I scoped up Dallin, who was still on the floor kicking (not very cute if you ask me), and put him on the stage. That stopped his tantrum real quick! He got a little certificate and got to pick a box of candy.










It was especially funny because the velcro at the bottom of his hat was bothering him so his hat was all scrunchy on top of his head and he left his tail in the car, which I thought was the cutest part! I'm sure everyone was thinking, This is the cutest costume?

Snow days

This week has doubled the amount of snow days Steve has had in the whole 6 years he's been teaching. He had two snow days. Hurray! I was very glad he was here to shovel the snow! It started snowing Tuesday night and didn't really stop until late Thursday afternoon. These pictures were of Thursday morning. The snow was really wet and heavy. Caden got Wednesday and Thursday off, and Steve got Thursday and Friday off. Wednesday morning I thought the boys we going to kill each other, so I found the easiest possible crafts and we did a whole bunch. The picture is what we did on Wednesday. On Thursday we did a few more, and they carved their pumpkins with Steve. The boys loved playing in the snow and were outside for a long time. Caden was really glad to go to school this morning, though, so he can have the Halloween party! And now Steve can come too. :) Looking out the window it looks more like Christmas than Halloween, though.

Pumpkin patch

A little over a week ago we all went to a pumpkin patch. It was really fun. The boys enjoyed tromping through the vines to find the right pumpkin. Dallin didn't even mind all the times he tripped and fell. I only fell once. Good thing I wasn't holding the baby! (Steve's much more coordinated than I am.) They had some fun Halloween decorations and small farm animals to look at. They also had a corn maze. We would have liked to go, but a stroller wouldn't work and neither Steve or I can carry Andrew for too long! :( Maybe next year he'll be walking... Now we just need to carve the pumpkins! Poor Dallin's is already getting moldy. I think we'll just give him Andrew's.

9 months

Andrew turned 9 months last week. He weighed in at 26 1/2 lbs. I'm so glad he's slowing down, although he's still off the chart! I wish he would walk soon, but I have a feeling he will be a late walker like his brothers. (Sigh) But he's happy and healthy, and that's what matters. It's getting harder and harder to get a picture of him with his monkey. Believe it or not, these are the best pictures I got. He's not crawling yet, but he does the army crawl on his stomach.

And the winner is...

Jon & Becky! Yippee! We will present your prize in person the next time you're in Colorado. That of course means you'll have to let us know! :)

Spelling

Caden spells pretty well. Every week he spells all his spelling words correct the first time. Sometimes he needs to look briefly at the bonus word, but after that he always gets them right. I still try and quiz him anyway. Dallin wants to be part of it too. He'll say, "I can spell 'run' R-V-T-S-N." Last night, as he was doing this, I started to think about when Caden was his age. It seemed to take a long time to teach him to spell his name. Finally, I taught him the song "Bingo" but substituted Caden for Bingo and that really helped him. I said to Dallin, "We need to teach you how to spell your name. What does it start with?"
"D"
Great! I thought I'd see if he knew the next letter, "And then what?"
"A-L-I"
Caden started to laugh, "No! Your name has 2 L's!"
"Oh. D-A-L-L-I-N."

Who's who?

I've been going through my old pictures for a project I'm doing, and I came across some pictures of Caden as a baby, and I was surprised how much Andrew looks like him. I want to see if any of you can tell who's who. I took of dates and things that would give it away, like Steve with a beard! :) Any guesses? Who knows, maybe we'll have a prize if someone gets them all right!

Mmm... Sushi

We decided to get Chinese take out for dinner tonight. We got a menu with a coupon, so we thought we'd try it out. Steve was excited because it had sushi that was a good price. He knew I wouldn't touch it. At dinner, he offered the boys a bite, and I almost gagged seeing the raw fish on their lips, but they loved it! After several bites Dallin said, "Mmm... Sushi is scrumptious!"

Peek a boo

If Andrew's high chair is pushed far enough back, he likes to grab the curtains and pull them over his face. If Caden is around, he has to join in. Tonight, it was so cute I had to share.