Trick or Treating

Doctor Josh and Doctor Andrew

Spider Luke

We had a successful year trick or treating. By the end, Josh was actually saying "trick or treat!" I don't think Andrew ever did. Oh well, maybe next year! Right now they're pigging out on their candy. We'll definitely be brushing their teeth tonight!

This week we have...

played with grandparents that make us laugh,

made sparkly bats,

made Halloween sugar cookies,

made a sloppy joe jack o' lantern,

(tastes better than it looks)

eaten our Halloween sugar cookies and

posed for a picture with our carved pumpkin.

Happy Halloween!!

(The middle pumpkin is Josh's...does it look just like him? Good! Cause that's exactly what it is supposed to look like...he was passionate about it.)

Big brothers are good for something!

I came downstairs from putting laundry away the other day, and Andrew had moved the little basketball hoop right in front of Luke's walker and proceeded to shoot baskets over Luke's head. I asked him what he was doing and he told me he was teaching Luke how to play basketball. Luke was in heaven! Big brother's are nice to have around!

Gymnastics: Part 1

For the past 4 Fridays, Josh attended a gymnastics class. He absolutely loved it!! The most exciting thing was to watch him learn how to do a somersault. For the first three weeks, he couldn't do one without Teacher Stacy's help. On the last day, he finally got it! All the parents cheered for him! He was so excited as well!

Great Job, Josh!!

Is this tag really made with love??

Then why would it cause this....

and this to happen to my sweet baby boy??

Any thoughts, comments, remedies, or solutions??

(We thought maybe it was eczema, something our other kids dealt with in infancy...

but the more we watch and observe, the more we think he's allergic to the "no tag" stamp.)

Darrin just found this article. Very interesting!!! And this blog.

Pumpkin Patch

To help us forget about our grief for Mr. Fish, we decided to take the kids out to the pumpkin patch yesterday afternoon. The weather was sunny, but cold. The kids had a great time especially Luke...he LOVES to be outside! We bought 4 nice pumpkins, hot apple cider, and some popcorn for the kids. I love this time of year!!

R.I.P

August 2005-October 2008

Today we bid farewell to our beloved goldfish. He died from an age related illness. Mr. Fish joined our family 3 years and 2 months ago. Josh was just 17 months old when we brought Mr. Fish home from Petco. Mr. Fish loved to swim, eat, swim and eat. He loved having a clean tank to swim in. Eventually Mr. Fish got so big we had to take the rock out of his tank. He survived many long vacations taken by his owners, being fed bread by one enthusiastic boy, and many days of no feeding because his owners forgot. Mr. Fish is survived by Darrin-his primary caretaker, Kim, Josh, Andrew and Luke. May you rest in peace, Mr. Fish. Thanks for the memories.

(The kids were not broken up at all about Mr. Fish's passing. They found it quite intriguing that we flushed him down the toilet.)

Joshua

I feel like I haven't really recorded what my kids have been up to the last several months, so I thought I'd write it down. Here's a post devoted to Josh.

Josh with his official bug killing tools.

• Josh is involved in a preschool co-op once again this year. He has preschool two days a week for 2 1/2 hours. He loves to go to school and hates it when it's at our house...which it was the whole month of September. He kept asking, "When am I going to go to real school not at our house?" He likes all his preschool friends, but Anna is his favorite right now...possibly a future romance?? We'll see!



• His favorite shows are Sid the Science Kid and Word World. He also loves to play computer. We have to regulate how much time he spends playing it.



• Josh is starting to be very social and loves to have friends come over and play or to play at the park with other kids. His favorite thing lately to play is primary...he picks someone to give the talk, scripture, and prayer, sings songs, and does some kind of sharing time. Some of the parents at the park raise their eyebrows when they learn that the kids are playing "church." It's pretty funny! Maybe I should ask them if they want to come sometime!



• Josh loves to write words and is trying to figure out which words rhyme. He doesn't understand the concept completely, but he's getting there. Yesterday he learned how to play tic tac toe...we've been playing it non stop ever since.



• Josh's favorite foods are peanut butter and jelly, oranges, waffles, bananas, McDonald's chicken nuggets, and ice cream. He claims he likes vegetables, but he'll only eat a couple bits, if at all. Although his favorite ones do seem to be cauliflower and green beans.



• He loves to wear camouflage. He has some camouflage pants that he calls his "Ryan pants" because he cousin Ryan always wears camouflage.



• As most of you know, I am a planner. I love to plan my days, what we're having for dinner, what I'm going to clean...you get the idea. Often times I say, "Okay kids here's the plan. We're going to clean up, take a bath, read books, brush our teeth and go to bed." The kids, especially Josh, thrive on plans, because he can anticipate what's come up next. Although now, I hear him making up his own plans. It's cute and all, but I don't want him to become so strict with his plans that he doesn't allow himself to be flexible.



• Josh was sick the other day and was running a fever. When he woke up the next day, he asked, "Mom, can you check to see if I still have a beaver?" I replied, "A beaver? What's a beaver...(thinking hard to figure out what the heck he's talking about) Oh!! You mean, a fever, (holding my hand to his forehead) and no you don't."



• Right now Josh in the phase of asking what words mean. How do you tell a 4 year old what the words probably, sort of, never mind, and enough mean???

Victory!

I'll give you three clues as to what we've been up to this weekend.

1. I now have a whole load of laundry to do.
2. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday in the bathroom reading books, singing songs, and giving out lots of candy.
3. We only used one diaper today.


Yep!
You guessed it! Besides watching conference all weekend, we decided to work on potty training Andrew. And, man, you forget how hard it is! Taking a kid to the bathroom every ten minutes is time consuming. On Saturday he had 7 accidents and today he about 4. I was about ready to deem him "not ready" and give up for now, but Darrin kept us going, and about 7:45pm he finally went! We threw him a big party with ice cream and dancing!

Three cheers for Andrew!

(Hopefully tomorrow goes well.)