Darr Family Blog

Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty good. Joseph was finally feeling better enough to start eating again, which meant that his energy level practically skyrocketed. He seemed to be trying to make up for all that he missed while being sick. He’s been eating so much as of late! I don’t know how many times a day he comes up to one of us and says (in a very sweet voice, of course), “I need a snack!”. I can’t say that I’m annoyed by it at all, though…I’m just really grateful that he’s feeling better! As for our other weekly happenings, we took down the Halloween decorations, went to story time at the library, worked on various projects, and just enjoyed life in general.

The Weekly Weather: We had a few more rainstorms come through once again (always grateful for more moisture), and the temperature has dropped a bit. In fact, the past two days we’ve actually needed to wear long sleeves! I think it’s glorious!!

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been working really hard at work and school. He just registered for his next set of classes (introduction to operation systems: Linux and security+), and is doing well there.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: The most notable thing that happened to me this past week was when I was taking apart one of the Halloween decorations (a small light-up skeleton). I popped the skeleton’s head off and a small tree frog hopped out and then starting jumping all over me. I eventually got the poor thing outside, but not before it peed all over everything, lol.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been doing great with his imaginative play (especially since the weather hasn’t been too agreeable). He’s been a spy, a ninja, Link, Mario, and Luigi…the works. It’s so great to see his mind work. One day, I was enjoying a soda when he approached me, wanting to know what I had (he’s been a bit of a mooch lately). I told him and he asked for a taste. He’s tried soda in the past and hasn’t liked the fizziness. He looked at it and then backed away, saying, “Is it fizzy? Um, no…I need to be grown up for that!” A few minutes later, he had another surge of bravery and again asked for a taste, but when I offered the cup, he again backed away, waving his hand and telling me that he needed to be grown up. He also saw what looked like a really cool toy on TV, but decided that it was most definitely meant for girls. He told me that he wanted to get that toy for me so that I could play with it. 🙂

This Week in Pictures:

Bonus Video: This is a short video of Joseph reading to me. He’s getting pretty good!

Weekly Happenings: This past week was quite the interesting one. Monday, I felt awful, so as soon as Paul got home from work, I went to bed. Literally. Paul was awesome enough to take care of Joseph so that I could just sleep off whatever it was that was attacking me (in the form of a fever, aches, and waves of nausea). I felt better on Tuesday, so I went ahead and took Joseph to the costume parade at the library. He had SO much fun! Wednesday was rather uneventful, but then Thursday Joseph woke up saying that his stomach hurt and he had a fever. Then he threw up. 🙁 Luckily, he showed enough signs prior to the event, that I almost got him to the bathroom fast enough. There was a bit of clean-up to do, but not as much as in times past. He spent all of Thursday on the couch (missing the ward trunk-or-treat, but shhhh, don’t tell him…he luckily forgot about it) and all of Friday on the couch, too. He went on a food strike and we barely got him to drink any fluids (I think he was afraid he would throw up again). His fever finally broke Friday night and his appetite is slowly coming back. Saturday we ran some errands (and took a spontaneous trip to the mall) and then got home just in time for Paul to take Joseph trick-or-treating and for me to hand out candy. Whew!

Weekly Weather: The beginning of the week was mild, but the weekend brought crazy weather. A couple of storms came through that each dropped a LOT of water. It was tricky for Paul to get to work on Friday because a lot of the roads were washed out. Craziness!

What Paul’s Been Up To: Not too much out of the ordinary. Mainly just work and school. He’s still maintaining excellent grades in his classes, which is impressive since they are quite challenging.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Not much on this front, either…mainly due to needing to take care of Joseph. Piano teaching is going well, as is choir and visiting teaching stuff. 🙂

What Joseph’s Been Up To: The funny thing he’s been doing is he’s picked up the phrase, “I’m thinking of…” and then inserting something that he wants to do. For instance, when we were running our errands on Saturday, we hear from the backseat, “I’m thinking of us going to the mall so that I can do stuff.” He apparently recognized the fact that we were really close to the mall…hence our spontaneous trip out there. Little smarty-pants.

This Week in Pictures:

Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty standard. We went to the park (quite a bit during the beginning of the week since we knew it would be stormy the rest of the week), played with Legos, Mega Bloks, and Duplos, and hung around the house when it was stormy. It was a pretty low-key week.

The Weekly Weather: As I eluded to earlier, it was nice during the first part of the week. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were sort of wet days. It would rain a bit and then stop. Late Friday night it started to rain and it just didn’t stop. It continued to rain through most of Saturday, not really letting up until the late afternoon. After that, the wind picked up and blew all night. It’s still kind of breezy, but other than the smattering of sprinkles we had this morning, it’s pretty much dried out. I’m glad it wasn’t too bad. We were basically getting the very edge Hurricane Patricia which hit Mexico this weekend. I haven’t read up on the news how Mexico faired. It was supposed to be a very strong storm.

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been keeping really busy with school and work. It’s hard for me to remember that he needs to have time to do some homework every night. We’re super proud of him for working so hard to do this. I know it’s not easy to go to work all day and then get home just to do more work of a different kind (I remember doing that while completing my student teaching). I know that he can make it, though, because I know how hard of a worker he is.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve mainly been trying to find ways to keep Joseph entertained. We’ve had quite a few play dates this past week, along with normal stuff like story time at the library and playing around the house. I’ve also been continuing with my piano teaching and working on stuff for visiting teaching and choir. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is literally two months from today. I did get to go out on my own a couple of times, for book club and a baby shower. It was nice to get out with friends and have a bit of a brain break from the stresses of the day.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s enjoyed playing with friends (pretending to be superheroes, having play dates, etc.), playing with me (there was one time he walked up to me with his protective goggles on, carrying his plastic hammer and saw, and asked if I “needed anything hammered or sawed”), and just having fun in general. Today was the Primary Program at church (the kids each had a part to say in front of the congregation and also sung songs as a group that they have been practicing all year). Joseph did a really good job (he had a short, one-line part: “I love Jesus because he gave me my family.”; basically the Primary president asked him why he loved Jesus and that was his answer, so that was his part). He had his part memorized and he said it in the microphone without yelling, which is good. 🙂 He sung the parts of each of the songs that he knew and kept Paul and me in stitches with his antics in between songs (most of the kids his age were done sitting still after about 10 minutes, so their awesome teachers had quite the job trying to keep them all still). He wasn’t particularly disruptive, but he would occasionally hang over the stand while singing and sometimes sang the songs using what we could tell were silly voices because he had silly looks on his face. Typical 4YO behavior. 🙂

This Week in Pictures: