The kids participated in Trunk or Treat, an activity at the church on the night prior to Halloween.  One of the members, Tracey, was taking these amazing photos of the kids for free.  Wow!  She was nice enough to send me a copy of them so I could upload them but also to make copies if I wanted.  I know I am well past the Halloween time but just had to post these.  Thanks again to Tracey!

"My Happy Birthday" - the continuing saga

We went to a 2nd birthday party for a little boy last Saturday.  Nathan was very excited to sing Happy Birthday to Carter all day long, until we got to the party when he completely clammed up.  Tonight I was out running errands with Nathan and Jay when Nathan started singing Happy Birthday to Jay-Jay.  This has been a dilemma but Nathan seems to be grasping the concept.  Even sweeter, however, was when we were looking at the Christmas lights and Nathan said Happy Birthday to Christmas.  I then told him that Christmas is actually the time that we celebrate the birth of baby Jesus, so Christmas is His birthday.  He then started to sing again, this time, "Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus! Happy Birthday to You!"

Soldiers, Cowboys and Lamanites

Carson has been very good about learning new songs in Primary and singing them whenever he is playing, or even to his teachers/classmates at school. For the last 2 weeks he has been singing Book of Mormon Stories. I went downstairs early this past week to find Carson playing with his soldiers as well as his western figurines. I asked what he was doing and he said he was playing "Soldiers & Lamanites".

Jay is enjoying preschool, especially the fact that they let him use scissors everyday. (We have been on a scissor hiatus at our house for the last 2 weeks since Carson cut his hair.) Their 'theme' for the month is nutrition so they had the kids cutting out pictures of food from magazines. Jay always brings his pictures home and puts them on the wall. Thursday night when we went in to the boys room for scriptures and prayers we found a number of pictures of food on the wall as well as one of a woman laying on a bench with a sandwich glued to her. He is 3 and he has posters of food and girls on his walls. A sign of things to come? Jay is our food oriented boy as it is and then today came home from church with a coloring sheet that said, "I am grateful for good food." How appropriate for our little man. It made me laugh anyway.

Nathan has developed a keen sense of ownership. He is very creative about it too. He likes to sing "Happy Birthday to me" and just cracks me up when we are out and about and unlike his brothers who beg for things that they want, Nathan picks them up, holds them tight and sings "Happy Birthday" or says "My Happy Birthday" as he puts the item in the cart. As Jay's birthday is approaching Nathan is getting nervous and when Jay says "My Happy Birthday" Nathan starts to cry. I have tried to catch Nathan on video singing Happy Birthday but he clams up as soon as he sees the camera. His other song of choice is "Oh Canada". He will also periodically sing Happy Birthday to Canada. I can't help but giggle when he gets going.

As for Clarke and I, I continue working every other week and in the meantime playing taxi driver for the boys. Clarke is finally going to be starting a new rotation in 2 weeks and will be back to 4 on 4 off. He is excited, I am not. We'll see how it goes. We are planning a trip to Vegas in December, starting with the half marathon, Clarke running it and I am volunteer medical staff for it. We are then planning on hitting the rodeo and a couple of shows. Should be fun.