Darr Family Blog – Page 190 – The place to follow the Darr Family

November Happenings

Well, not much has happened yet, since November has just begun, but I’m sure it will start gearing up soon. The holidays are all of a sudden just around the corner. This last week was pretty laid-back for us. Most of the week was devoted to getting ready for Halloween (stocking up on candy for trick-or-treaters, getting costumes, etc.). Joseph watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” about 20 times and laughed all the way through Snoopy’s WWI flying ace bit; every, single time. He LOVES Snoopy now.

We made a stop by the ward trunk-or-treat but didn’t stay long (it was hot, muggy, and looked like it was about to pour…in fact it started to rain pretty hard when we were getting into the car to go home). Joseph didn’t miss much, since he’s not into trick-or-treating yet (in fact, we can’t really even get him to eat candy. He tends to like salty over sweet. I know, what a problem, huh?).

Then this past weekend, he and Paul got quite a bit of Daddy-Joseph time since my cousin Kelli came into town Friday night for a quick business trip/visit (I was helping her at a vendor show. She is a consultant for a jewelry company. We also had a jewelry show at our house on Saturday morning before she left to go back to Houston).

Saturday evening, Joseph had his first sleep-over…well, sort of. Some friends of ours had to go help out with the Gladys Knight concert that was being held at our Stake center, so we watched one of their children, a little boy who’s just younger than Joseph, for the evening. I call it a “sleep-over” since we watched him late enough that we needed to put him to bed for a bit before his mom and dad could come get him (we just put a pack’n’play in the guest bedroom and he was fine). Those two boys had SO much fun! In fact, Joseph’s last words before he went to sleep on Saturday night were his little friend’s name, over and over again. 🙂

Sunday morning, as I was getting dinner ready to go into the crock-pot, I was lamenting the fact that we had no thick, crusty bread to go with the soup. Then I thought to myself, “Why fuss about it? Just make some bread!” I looked at the clock, figured out I had enough time to do it before having to leave for church, swallowed back the trepidation of failing (I don’t think I’ve ever made bread, from scratch, without my mom’s help…with the exception of pizza dough, that is), and went at it. I don’t know why I was nervous. I helped Mom bake bread for years, so I knew what the dough was supposed to look like when made properly. Besides, my mixer did all the work! I ignored the recipe book’s suggested way to shape a loaf and just did it how Mom’s always done it, and the bread turned out great! I feel a small sense of accomplishment, lol.

This Week in Pictures:

halloween13a — At the trunk-or-treat. He was SO busy trying to see all of the stuff that was going on.

halloween13b — This is me, trying to hold on to a squirmy jack’o’lantern boy who was saying, “Cheeeeese!”

fingercloseup — He was trying to touch the light that serves as a flash on my phone.

tinychef — He really wanted to wear one of our aprons, so I let him wear this one, since it was the least girly. 🙂

There has been a lot of hammering next door (because of the house that’s going up). Joseph loves to watch and mimic. I caught him using one of his blocks to hammer on another one.

bestbuds2 — Joseph and his friend (who we watched on Saturday). His friend laid down on the plush Android and then Joseph laid down too. He then told his friend, “Night-night!” and his friends started to pretend to snore. It was hilarious!

The finished product from yesterday’s spontaneous decision to bake bread. I’m actually kind of proud of myself with how great they turned out. 🙂

Run-of-the-Mill Week

This past week was pretty much a run-of-the-mill type week. Our days were filled with going to work (Paul) and hanging out at home (me and Joseph). We (Joseph and I) kind of have a routine going: On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we go for a walk around the neighborhood in the morning, and then I come home and clean different parts of the house while Joseph plays. On Tuesdays, we go grocery shopping (it’s always a bit of a trip to the commissary), and on Thursdays we go to music playtime. Joseph loves music playtime because not only does he get to sing and dance, but he gets to see other kids around his age and he gets to play with toys after the music part is over. Occasionally this past week, I’ve heard him singing music playtime songs to himself when he’s playing. I love to hear him singing songs. 🙂 Saturdays and Sundays are obviously family days that we spend together with Paul.

As Halloween is approaching, Paul and I have been trying to get Joseph ready for it. Last year, he was too young to really know what was going on. This year is a bit different. He’s still not into trick-or-treating, but he is starting to pick up on “spooky” stuff. We’re trying to reiterate with him that it’s all pretend, and that it’s okay. We’ve tried showing him fun Halloween stuff (he REALLY loves “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”) to show him that it’s not all scary stuff. We also paid a visit to a local pumpkin patch so that he could pick out a pumpkin and see some of the other things. He was mostly interested in playing with the different pumpkins, which was fine, because most of the stuff there was for older kids. After that, we went out for dinner. We went to one of our favorite restaurants and Paul made sure to order the chicken-fried steak (Saturday happened to be “Chicken-fried Steak Day”).

This Week in Pictures:

ouchie — Joseph fell head-first onto the tile, but would not let me hold the ice on his head. I had to convince him to wear it like a hat. Fortunately, he likes hats.

chillywalk — It’s been pretty chilly (and rather bright out) when we’ve been going for our morning walks, so this is Joseph’s “walk” get-up.

His big thing lately is saying “hi”. In this case, he was saying “hi” to Paul since I told him we were going to take a picture to send to Daddy.

teeth2 — He even wants to say, “Cheese!” when he’s brushing his teeth!

pumpkinpatch2 — He loved that they all had “handles”.

pumpkinpatch3 — He’d try to pick up a big one and say, “Uggghh!” as he tried to lift it. 🙂

pumpkinpatch4 — Checking out the pumpkins.

pumpkinpatch5 — We were trying to get him to look at the camera (you can even see him saying “Cheese!”) but there was just too much he wanted to look at. 🙂

pumpkinpatch6 — He kept saying, “Pumpkins!”

pumpkinpatch7 — He would pick one up, put it down, pick it up again…he would have been happy doing that all afternoon.

pumpkinpatch8 — He made sure that we knew that there were pumpkins on the table.

pumpkinpatch9 — “A pumpkin that fits in my hand? Awesome!”

straw3 — Getting a much-needed drink after running around the pumpkin patch.

straw1 — Smiling when he realized that Paul was taking his picture.

chickenfriedsteak — Last, but not least: Happy Chicken-fried Steak Day! 😉

Almost Halloween

Good News Flash: It looks like Paul will get paid for the time that he was furloughed during the shut down. We’re not sure when he’ll get it, but at least we know it’s coming!

The weather the last week or so has been awesome. It’s been nice and cool (we even had to turn on the heater once or twice). Almost every time I step outside, I can’t help but think to myself, “It feels so GOOD out here!” We don’t get too many fall colors out here because most of the trees are live oaks (unlike other oak trees, live oaks keep their leaves all year round), but at least it’s cooler! The humidity doesn’t seem as bad when the temperature isn’t as high. We ended up going to Sea World twice this week. We went on Monday, since Paul had the day off (Columbus Day), and again on Saturday. It’s nice to be able to just go for a couple of hours to see our favorites (dolphins, sharks, aquarium fish, alligators, and penguins). Joseph doesn’t really care much for the shows. I think we’ve already decided that next year, instead of renewing our passes, we’re going to get zoo passes instead. The zoo is a bit farther away, but it has more of what Joseph likes (which is to look at animals, lol) and the passes are quite a bit cheaper.

Joseph-isms: climbing up into my lap, helping himself to a cracker out of the bowl I was holding and then saying, “thank you, Mommy!”, saying, “thank you, sir” to the man who served us when we were at a restaurant, and calling anything remotely related to Halloween “skoopy” (his version of “spooky”…don’t ask me why he reverses the /s/ and the /p/).

This week in pictures:

daddyreading — Paul reading to Joseph…sort of. It’s a recordable book that he originally got while he was in Afghanistan, but never had the chance to record it and send it home while he was overseas. He recently sat down and recorded himself reading it. It’s now Joseph’s favorite book. 🙂

daddyshoulders4 — He kept touching Paul’s head, saying, “soft!”

daddyshoulders3 — Riding on Daddy’s shoulders.

daddyshoulders2 — I think he liked being so high up.

daddyshoulders — Checking out the scenery at Sea World.

monkeyslippers — Joseph followed me into the master bedroom (usually I keep the door closed because we haven’t “Joseph-proofed” it) and felt like he won the lottery when he saw my monkey slippers…and Paul’s watch.

applestealer — Joseph climbed into Paul’s lap and got really, really close to Paul’s face until Paul let him take a bite out of his apple.

puppy2 — He still loves his puppy backpack/leash

puppy — And he loves saying “Cheese” for me now. 🙂

bigcheese — Sometimes he’s a little over-exuberant when he says it, though…

littlewarlock — Loves anything that is a hat…so he loved it when we pulled out the witch hat.

pumpkins2 — Sitting on a hay bale at Sea World (they have it decorated for fall/Halloween), but wasn’t sure of the scratchy hay.

pumpkins — Still not sure about the hay, even when sitting on Momma’s lap.

hawks2 — Here’s a picture that Paul took of all the hawks that roost on a tower near our house. We thought the construction on the road near-by had scared them off since we hadn’t seen them since the spring, but now we’re thinking that they flew north for the warmer months and then have returned here for the cooler months.

hawks — And here’s a picture Paul took of a lot of them flying. I lost track while trying to count them after I got past 12…

seaworld10 — This alligator was just hanging out…

seaworld6 — Another shot of the alligator.

seaworld5 — Joseph LOVES to watch the fish.

seaworld4 — He liked it when they would swim right past him.

seaworld2 — His favorite: the dolphins. He can splash his hands in the water and he loves getting to see the dolphins up close.

seaworld — We have to keep a pretty tight grip on him or else he would jump in for a swim…that kid has no fear, I tell ya’!