It wouldn’t be November without a bowl full of gourds. Reminds me of growing up.
Weekly Happenings: After a crazy week last week (due to Halloween), I think all of us were more than ready to take a breather this week. We hung around the house, being pretty lazy. I didn’t even take that many pictures.
The Weekly Weather: It was good that we wanted to hang around the house and not do too much, because the weather totally cooperated. Early in the week it was cool, but then mid-week, fall finally hit. It was cold, rainy, and windy. I think it rained for over 24 hours, almost continuously. Friday and today brought back cool but sunny weather.
What Paul’s Been Up To: School and work, mostly. On Wednesday, it was voting day and he was stuck going after he got done with work. He was there for over an hour waiting in line. Poor guy. Especially since that’s when it started raining. Luckily he had thought ahead and had his umbrella. This morning, we were talking about making a bench of some sort to put on the porch to put decorations on (and to hide wires from Halloween and Christmas lights) as well as act as a place for people to remove shoes outside if shoes are super dirty. We were out and about, so we stopped by Lowe’s to get supplies. He had a picture in his head and knew just what to get and how much. He then built it in a matter of a bit over an hour. I’m so grateful that he has that talent!
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I had a much easier time voting on Wednesday, since I had the advantage of being able to go in the middle of the day. The only interesting thing that happened there was that two people got into a semi-heated discussion about whether or not veterans were getting the benefits they deserved (one guy was a veteran and the woman he was having the discussion with worked for the V.A. as a counselor of some sort). Other than voting day, it was just grocery shopping, house cleaning, and piano teaching as normal.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: Using superlatives…often. When he see’s something he likes, it is automatically his favorite thing. He’ll say, “Oh, it’s my favorite car!” or “That’s my most favorite shirt, ever!” He’ll also ask if something of ours is our favorite thing. It’s pretty funny.
This Week in Pictures:
He put one of his mini board books up there (one about farm animals) and then started making up a song about the pictures, along with accompaniment. I think it was something along the lines of, “One little, two little, three little chickens…”Munching on his corn dog at Jim’s (there are certain days that kids eat free).He was excited that he got to wear his striped shirt on one of the rainy days.But he says that his dinosaur shirt is his “most favorite shirt, ever” and he pretends to be a dinosaur when wearing it.Joseph testing out Paul’s completed bench. Paul says he may eventually stain it.
Weekly Happenings: We had a pretty low-key week since we knew that the weekend would be crazy. This is the first year that Joseph really understood the concept of Halloween. He was excited to get dressed up and even excited to go trick-or-treating. On Thursday, we had our ward Trunk-or-Treat. We ate ahead of time because I knew Joseph would not want to eat while there. Paul was stuck going to his weekly class, so I took Joseph on my own. I was kind of sad for Paul, but he said he’d take Joseph trick-or-treating through the neighborhood on Halloween, so that made me feel better. When we got there, I got Joseph out of the car and he ran around saying, “Happy Halloween, everyone!” I have no idea where he got that from, but it was cute. I then let him play with his friends while I talked with some of mine (the field is completely enclosed, so the kids can run around and be completely safe. I just made sure to keep an eye on my little cowboy). They also had someone there DJing, which Joseph loved. He and a bunch of his little friends jumped and danced to the music. After that, it was time to go to the various cars for the trunk-or-treat part. Joseph loved saying, “Trick-or-treat!”. When we got home, he was exhausted, but not too exhausted to try some candy. His current favorites are Kit-Kats and Dum-Dums (which surprises me…I guess he’s not totally anti-sweets anymore). On Friday (Halloween itself), Paul took Joseph through the neighborhood to trick-or-treat while I stayed home to hand out candy (we had A LOT of trick-or-treaters this year). At one point, Joseph lost his sheriff star and was pretty crestfallen, but Paul went back out and was able to find it! Yesterday we went to the monthly market-day in Old Town Helotes. The weather had taken a turn (it started Friday night) and it was actually cool enough to wear a sweater! SO nice!
The Weekly Weather: The beginning of last week was still kind of warm, but towards the end it started to cool off. This week is supposed to be cooler, with temperatures in the 70s (and only one day projected to be in the low 80s). C’mon fall, you can do it!
What Paul’s Been Up To: Besides the normal stuff (work and school), Paul was able to be a bit of a good Samaritan when leaving work one day. Here’s what he put on his blog about the incident: “So yesterday I made sure to be all set up to leave work right on time. As I got out to the parking lot, I saw a coworker trying desperately to get her car to work. There was another coworker using her phone, trying to read over some directions to fix things. I decided to help out also. Apparently the gear shifter was stuck. After checking a few things we ended up deciding it was the brake shift interlock that was the problem. Luckily I like to be prepared. In my trunk I had a flat head screw driver that made it easy to depress the manual release for the brake shift interlock. I let her borrow my screw driver in case she needed it driving home. Today she returned the screw driver with a thank you note and gift card. The gift card was actually unnecessary but appreciated. I was just glad to help out.” That’s my helpful guy, all right!
What Sarah’s Been Up To: Not too much out of the ordinary. I experimented with making cinnamon raisin bread this past week, which turned out pretty good. We had it as French toast for part of dinner last night, which may be my favorite way of having it. Other than that, it was a week full of entertaining Joseph (and explaining to him that it was not Halloween…yet), piano students, and choir. 🙂
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s said some pretty cute and funny things this past week. One was him asking for candy and when I told him maybe when we got home (we were in the car on our way home from the Trunk-or-Treat), he said, “My tummy is saying, ‘Give me candy!'” Hilarious! Later that night, when I said that we needed to brush his teeth, he agreed, saying that we needed to make the chocolate germs go away. He also has dubbed my blow-dryer a “hair-da-fixer” and has decided that Grandma lives in the phone and that she’s his best friend. 🙂
This Week in Pictures:
He decided my chair needed fixin’.One of his new favorite snacks is Veggie Straws. That was my bowl that I got for myself, but he commandeered it.Getting ready to leave for the Trunk-or-Treat.At the Trunk-or-Treat. This was right as a song stopped, so I was actually able to get a picture of him without it being blurry.Halloween morning: he was pretty excited that his shirt matched his pumpkin. He kept telling me that the sleeves were too long (I guess my little South Texas baby is used to short sleeves at this point).He looks pretty comfortable (sucking on a Dum-Dum), though I can’t see how that’s even possible in that position.Getting ready to go out trick-or-treating.One of the pictures my friend next door got of our boys.Another one she got. This is what happens when you tell two three-year-olds to show you their muscles, apparently.This is the shot I got shortly after hers. You can see that Joseph was just a little excited…Out with Daddy…he was pretty tired towards the end and asked Paul to carry him on his shoulders.My glowing ghouls (milk jugs that I decorated, filled up with water and put glow-in-the-dark necklaces in). I think I’ll do it again next year, but look earlier in the month for glow sticks (they put off more light). I missed out this year because I didn’t plan well-enough ahead and they were all out.This was about 1/3 into the night. It only took a little over an hour to get rid of all the candy…300 suckers (I gave out 3-4 to each kid, so you do the math…we had a LOT of kids come by)!Checking out his haul…Being silly for Daddy.Our tomatoes are loving the cooler weather.They’ve grown so much that Paul has had to add an extra support so they don’t drag on the ground.Going down the giant inflatable slide at Old Town Helotes during the market day.He loved it!Running towards Daddy……and asking to go again. 🙂He loves old wagons.Luckily there are a few in Old Town.
Weekly Happenings: We had a pretty fun week. As Halloween gets closer, I’m realizing how much fun it’s going to be with Joseph this year. Last year he was a bit young to fully understand what was going on. This year, he’s looking forward to dressing up and even trick-or-treating. We attended a Halloween-themed play date at a friend’s house (Joseph had a blast), went to the park, and then wrapped up the week with a trip out to the pumpkin patch. The patch was out in Bandera, which is about an hour’s drive away. It was totally worth the drive, though. We had so much fun! The weather was cool(ish) and there were a lot of things to look at and do (a maze, a barrel-train ride, a hay-ride, petting-zoo ponies, etc.).
The Weekly Weather: The weather has been nice and cool in the morning and evenings but a little warm during the afternoon. If it weren’t for the humidity (though it’s not as high as it was in the summer), I would think I was back in California. 😉
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s chugging away at his college courses, keeping busy at work, and helping out where he can (for example, he taught the lesson in Elders’ Quorum today).
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve been keeping busy getting back to reality with my students, post-recital, as well as working with my ward choir to get ready for Christmas. The songs we are singing are so fun!
What Joseph’s Been Up To: Being cute as always. The other day, I caught him playing “rock, paper, scissors” with himself. I’m still trying to figure out where he learned about the game because Paul and I didn’t teach it to him…he is also still as social as ever. When we went to the park this week (I walked there with him in the stroller instead of driving), as I was starting to get him out of the stroller, he spotted some kids about his size. He started trying really hard to get out (even though I was working on getting him out), meanwhile yelling, “HI! I’M JOSEPH!!!!” over and over again.
This Week in Pictures: Warning! Because of our trip to the pumpkin patch, there are a LOT of pictures this week!
Stacking blocksMy little Linus.Dressing up in Daddy’s old uniform.He told me he loved me and had to go to work.Riding his bike at dusk.Paul came up with the idea of the reflective belt (it’s his old PT belt). I like it for when it’s getting dark.I love this little man!He found some of Paul’s old Halloween teeth.His mask from his Halloween play date. They also played ghost bowling with a ball and some toilet paper rolls that were decorated to look like ghosts, followed up by a lunch of hot dog mummies and fruit.Is he going to be left-handed?!Or right-handed…we can’t tell. He switches back and forth as it suits him, lol.Playing with his jack-in-the-box.He loves that thing!He’s getting pretty good…Brushing ponies at the pumpkin patch.Joseph was glad Daddy was in there…the ponies are bigger than the goats he’s used to.Going into the maze.He loved being able to just run.He kept saying, “Oh no! We’re stuck!”Running to the end…we made it! He wanted to go into the maze multiple times.Posing for a picture.Getting ready to ride the barrel train.We had to get at least one picture of him in this thing.He loved it!Not as much as he loved this hay-bale tractor, though.I mean, c’mon! It had a steering wheel!It was hard getting him off the thing.A cool effect for one picture.He wanted to go see more stuff…Close-up!A little farther away.He liked this bridge that led out to a pergola on an island in the middle of a pond (the previous two pictures were in the pergola).Hay ride.Looking at the trees that the farm grows.Adding his artwork…they had sheets of paper pinned up so that kids could draw.Dressing a scarecrow.Making sure the coat is on straight.Finishing touch!He seriously had a blast at this pumpkin patch.His first sucker, ever. After we were done at the pumpkin patch, we went to Bobby J’s (a great hamburger joint). They gave Joseph a sucker as part of the kid’s meal. I didn’t think he’d want it because he’s usually anti-sweets, but he decided that he liked it.It turned his lips an awesome shade of blue and he ate the entire thing (it was a Dum-Dum, so it wasn’t incredibly huge to begin with…perfect size for him).
