I want...

He doesn't do this as much as used to. But we thought it was the cutest thing. He would stretch out his arms and lift up his shoulders whenever he wanted something - up, food, toy, or anything. His movement seemed to be exaggerated and we loved it. It is slowly starting to go away now that he is learning to talk more, and I'm starting to miss it. But oh, how I love that he is starting to talk and say the cutest words. And now it is his facial expressions that are becoming so dramatic.

This is life (especially with growing children.) We look back at the past with some sadness and fondness of what will never come again. We muddle through and hopefully enjoy what is happening now. Then look forward with anxiety and excitement of things yet to come.

Choo Choo Derby

Nathan participated in his second pinewood derby this week. He had lots of fun painting his car lots of different colors. He even came in second place in his den. We were surprised. Each car raced in each lane, and he seemed to always end up in the middle. We are sure excited for him.

Nathan's is the car with the orange side and mostly blue top.

Jared really like watching the cars race. He calls anything with wheels a "Choo Choo." We must have introduced him to our trains first and the name has stuck. It's a little confusing when he points to cars, wheel barrows and strollers and calls them "Choo Choos." He is becoming such a good talker. We can understand his names for his brother and sisters as well as the "Jar Jar" that he calls himself. It is so cute that most of his words are repetitive like that.

Halloween Night

We had so much fun being with our cousins for Halloween. It felt like a whirlwind of excitement. This is the only picture to show for it. All the big kids ran on ahead with Randy, but Julene and Emma managed to stay close to Jared in the stroller that couldn't cut across the grass.

Trick-or-Treating was a blast! We just started breaking off into groups depending on your speed, and sometimes they would merge back together in the culdesacs. Jared was just happy to stay in his stroller and only got 3 pieces of candy, but of course his sibling have oodles that they are willing to share. Marianne's pumpkin even broke because it couldn't hold all her goodies. Julene was such a big girl. She even ended up ringing some doorbells by herself quit a few times. She showed she could keep up and hold her own. We eventually made our way to Great-grandma's where there was cider and doughnuts waiting. This will be a Halloween to remember. We have never spent it together before and it was sure fun!

Halloween is for children or the children in all of us. We loved that some of the adults dressed up too. Especially Uncle Greg, the long hair, mustache, flashy shirt, and leather pants were quite a hit. It is so fun to be totally silly.

Halloween Party

My mom had a Halloween party a week before Halloween so we could all be there. It was a fun party for both old and young. I think everyone really liked the doughnut on the string game. We were worried that they would fall off on the ground, but the little ones were doing all they could to just get one bite. Marianne's kept going around her, and she would chase it with her mouth wide open.

Everyone else were pretty silly too, but eventually got some good bites.

Randy figured out it worked better using gravity and coming up on it from the bottom. He felt very proud to have eaten his entire doughnut off the string. Go Randy! The Doughnut King!

Jared and his little girl cousins couldn't get enough of Grandpa's spooky laughing tree. All you have to do is touch it and it will laugh. Jared would do a cute little dance every time the tree laughed.

Nathan decide to be a cowboy again because we had a matching costume for Jared. (My mother had made three of them for my brothers when they were little.) It was hard to get Jared to wear his costume. He really only wore it for this picture. He eventually wore the vest trick-or-treating with the hat on top of the stroller.

Happy Halloween!

Beautiful Baptism

Our sweet cousin Camille was Baptised on Saturday. Yes, it was Halloween, but it turned out to be a beautiful day. We loved being with our cousins and grandparents to celebrated this special day with Camille. Marianne sure loved seeing her cousin get baptized. Camille is such a fun and caring girl. She even shared her Skittles present with Marianne, if your can't tell by her bulging cheeks.

Janae and Katie loved seeing each other too. Katie gave the talk on baptism. She is becoming such a thoughtful young lady.

Jared and Randy sure have fun together. Randy played his violin for church and at the end of the musical number Jared started to clap and shout "Dah Dah" for all to hear.

You can see Sam in the back of the picture. He is a very good pianist. He played the prelude for the baptism and the opening and closing song. It is great that he can accompany singing. He does it in priesthood too.

Here is our family. We sure enjoyed being together with our family and it made the holiday lots of fun.