Fall

It's been a long time! I've been busy. I have been subbing at the charter school by our house about once a week (although I haven't been in a couple of weeks). Grandma comes over and watches the boys and I can come home and feed Stuart at lunch (I don't even have to cross the street to get to the school).

My mom came and visited a couple of weeks ago. It was great to just spend time with her. The boys loved to be with their grandma. We took her to the zoo and the park. She helped me start potty training Thomas and we worked on a secret project. I love my mom!

Thomas was not very cooperative for the picture, as usual.

Our computer crashed right before mom came. Luckily, we were able to borrow David's parents' computer until we could get it fixed or get a new one. Well, it was really dead and we finally got a new one on Friday. We just got a new tower since everything else was working fine. Luckily, the hard drive was okay.

David has also been very busy. This will be his third weekend in a row camping. He goes to scouts on Wednesdays, CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) on Thursdays, and always seems to have something on Saturday. We're getting used to not having daddy home every night (we have been very spoiled in the past). His first scout campout with the boys is this weekend. (He went to a training campout a couple of weeks ago.)

David's birthday was in September. I forgot to have him blow out the candles before I started cutting the cake. Oops! Luckily, I had only taken out a piece or two.

We went camping last weekend with Cynthia and her family. It was fun! It was a cold night and Stuart didn't sleep very well which means I didn't sleep much at all. I kept thinking of the Rascal Flatts song "Praying for Daylight" because that's what I was doing. The campground was right by the lake and there was a fun playground nearby. The cousins just loved being together. Cynthia's kids had been in Little Rock the whole week before and Thomas asked to play with them everyday. He is missing them this week.

We went to the state fair last Thursday with Cynthia's kids, Grandma, and Becca. Thomas loved watching this contraption they had for the ducks. When they went to eat they slid down the slide.

The kids decided they needed to play ring around the rosie in the middle of our "hike" (which was probably about 1/4 mi.)

Thomas of course had to bring his "workins" with him. He also got to wear his construction equipment jammies.

Thomas is really growing up. He is potty trained, except at night. He was very easy. He only had a couple of accidents. (Add another one to that while I was writing this.) We also moved him to a toddler bed. He was super excited at first. Then he started falling out of bed and was scared. David put one side of the bed against the wall and put a body pillow on the other side and we haven't had any problems since. He just stays in the little space there is left for him to lay down.

This is before we fixed it up to be "safe." Thomas is always talking about being safe.

I tried to give Thomas a haircut the other day. It wasn't looking so good, so I decided to buzz it off. I found the longest attachment for the clippers and went for it. It looks pretty cute, but he looks more grown up to me because he doesn't have his baby hair anymore.

Stuart is growing up, too. He isn't walking yet. He cruises around everything and loves to push all the toys around. He can stand by himself for a few seconds, but then realizes it and drops to the ground. He is a great climber. He gets on the little table, climbs out of the bath, climbs to the top of Thomas's stool, and we even found him almost at the top of our stairs the other day (which scared me half to death and reminded me I need to ALWAYS close the baby gate, not just sometimes).

Stuart loves to have a little Lincoln log in his mouth. He will keep it there for an hour or more while he crawls around and plays. It keeps him from putting other stuff in his mouth!

We had our ward Fall Festival on Wednesday. The Primary was in charge of it and I am the Primary secretary. It was a lot of work, but it turned out well. Rebecca gave Stuart this hog suit for Christmas last year and David had his mom make his costume a few years ago (a replica of one that she made for him as a kid), so we decided to make it a theme. Thomas wasn't cooperating again, of course. I had to carry him around to the cars to get treats. He is still pretty shy.