Darr Family Blog

Weekly Happenings: This past week (mainly the weekend), Joseph got a lot of one-on-one time with me and Paul. During the week it was pretty much the normal stuff, but Friday was a little different. During the day, Joseph and I met up with some friends at the zoo. We spent the entire time in the “Tiny Tot Nature Spot”. It’s an area of the zoo where there are a bunch of different nature-themed things set up. There’s a mock-camping area, a small canoe set up next to a dock (a real one with water and fish), and other things. After we got home, Paul was home from work, but had a camp-out, so I took Joseph (who was pretty sad that he couldn’t go on the camp-out with Daddy) out to eat (Chipotle) and then to the mall, followed by a trip to Target. Then Saturday evening, while I was at the General Women’s Meeting, he and Paul went for a long walk/bike ride around the neighborhood, followed by a trip to Wal-Mart.

The Weekly Weather: It’s been gorgeous this past week! The temperature never went over 90 degrees! We also got a lot of rain this past weekend (good because we needed the rain, but bad because Paul was stuck camping in it).

What Paul’s Been Up To: Working, doing his online courses, and homework. He also had the aforementioned camp-out. He thought there might be rain, so he packed a poncho. While he didn’t stay completely dry (it was kind of hard to do so in pouring rain), he was a lot dryer than most of the other people there.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Visiting teaching stuff, picking out music for the ward choir to sing, and starting to practice music for the Messiah production that will be coming up. I also put up the Halloween decorations. 🙂 One funny thing that happened was that when I started to try to do some cleaning, Joseph grabbed my arm and insisted that I come and watch Mickey Mouse with him. It didn’t take too much convincing. 🙂 I also got to attend the General Women’s Meeting for church. It’s always a great event. My friend picked me up, there was ice cream before the broadcast, and the broadcast itself was incredibly uplifting.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: At the beginning of the week, he had a mysterious fever (no other symptoms) that just went away after a few days. I’m grateful it didn’t turn into an ear infection or strep throat. Other than that, cuteness as usual. When we went in to Paul’s work last week, Paul showed Joseph how to check books out and in. A few days ago, Joseph brought one of his books up to me, flipped it over, and showed me the bar code. He then told me that Daddy could borrow his book, but he had to scan it. Ha! He has also been really getting into the the little exercise routine that they play on occasion on PBS (a little cartoon animal that has them exercise like different people: marching band, surfer, etc.). He also insists that anyone who is in the room with him exercises, too. 🙂 Finally, he’s been working on singing more with me. His favorite songs to sing along to are “This Little Candle Light of Mine”, “A Child’s Prayer”, and “Momma, Buy Me a Rocking Chair”. I was surprised that he knows about 90% of all of those songs.

This Week in Pictures:

Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty tame. The only really out-of-the-ordinary thing was that Wednesday was Paul’s birthday. In order to try and make it special for him (since he was stuck going to work), I had Joseph make him a card and I picked up a couple of small treats for him. We then headed out to his work to give him the birthday treats. We ended up getting there about lunch time, so we went out to lunch with him, and then went back to his work and had pie with some of his coworkers (they do pie as opposed to cake). After he got home from work, we went out to eat for dinner, so the day ended up quite out of the ordinary.

The Weekly Weather: It was warmer than it was last weekend, but not as warm as it was before that…we’ve been in the low 90s most of the time. I’m hoping that the weather will keep cooling down since we’re supposed to be hitting the official start of fall this week. 😉

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been working hard at work, keeping the house and yard looking good, etc. He spent quite a bit of time yesterday improving and organizing the shelves he has in the garage that hold a lot of his tools and such. He also had his first meeting with his cohort for the Pathways program this past week.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Besides the normal housework/keeping Joseph happy and healthy, I’ve been prepping for my first recital, which will be next month. I’ve also been keeping busy with my visiting teaching coordinating, ward choir directing, and prepping for the Messiah.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: Finding joy in the little things (Like when he got excited and told me that he found an “O” in his cereal, which was a bowl of Cheerios, lol), showing how tall he is (I discovered that he can now reach the light switches in most of the rooms and not only turn them on, but turn them off as well), expecting me to do impossible things (today he thought it was too bright, so he asked me to make the sun go away), voicing his opinion about TV shows (he insisted on watching the classic cowboy channel on our Roku box only to tell the cowboys to stop singing; accompanied by putting his hands over his ears), playing with his stuffed animals (direct quote: “What? Yes! I’m Super bear! {starts singing} Super bear, Super bear!”), and displaying the ability that some of his play tools have to actually work in one way or the other (I’m posting pictures of some of that below).

This Week in Pictures:

 

Bonus Video: Sorry about the noise in the background…I had the car running. Next time I’ll know to turn off the car, but here’s a video of Joseph singing along to one of his favorite Primary songs: Army of Helaman:

Weekly Happenings: During the past week, we pretty much hung around the house (it seems to have become habit because of the hot weather). The weekend was a lot better because it was relatively cool. We ended up taking a spontaneous trip to the zoo and had a lot of fun seeing the animals.

The Weekly Weather: As mentioned before, the week was pretty warm, but yesterday was so great! I don’t think it got above 75 degrees. It was fun to slip on my sweater (even though I didn’t really need it, I just wanted to wear it) because I could get away with it. It’s a gentle reminder that fall will come eventually.

What Paul’s Been Up To: He did his last mutual activity with the 11YO Scouts (they made s’more pizza on a camp stove as part of it). He’ll have to stop doing Scouts because he has his Pathway meeting night the same night as mutual. He’s also gotten hard to work on his school work since his semester has started.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve had some piano students drop, so I’m down to seven, but they keep me plenty busy still. I’m getting them ready for our first recital, which will be in October (probably towards the end). I’ve also been asked to help out with the Messiah production in December, playing piano for the sectionals and for the children’s choir. Add all of that to my visiting teaching calling and leading the ward choir (not to mention my momma and wifely duties) and I’m keeping quite busy.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s discovering, since having turned three, that he has more of an opinion of things (and is able to express that opinion in more ways than he used to). We’ve butted heads quite a few times this week, but it has afforded many opportunities for us to both learn and grow during this time. One cute thing that he did this past week was to whisper/tell me what to say while I was blessing the food one afternoon. I loved it. 🙂 Oh, and he has been learning a lot from Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. I was visibly frustrated with something he had done or said and he asked me if I was frustrated. When I answered in the affirmative, he started singing, “take a step back, and ask for help.” It made me laugh and I soon forgot my frustration.

This Week in Pictures: