I'm glad too

This was in my email inbox this morning--sent from Nate.

Natalie went to work with Nate on Saturday and made these pictures and hung them in his office.  If you can't read them (we are working on better handwriting...), they say, "I love you Dad."  "You are special to me!"  "You are the best dad ever."  "I'm glad that mama chose you!"  "Love Natalie!"

Brothers

Kelton finally figured out that we have given him a little brother and not (just) a little annoyance.  Something clicked in his mind that said, "hey, I can actually play with that little person and have fun with him!"  This really is a new idea to him.  Usually Damon coming anywhere near Kelton results in a lot of screaming, pushing, hitting, shoving, (Kelton) and crying (Damon).

But the other day, I sent both boys outside and they started pushing around these trucks together.  Kelton thought it was so much fun to have Damon follow him around with his truck.  They played together for a long time.  Then later I asked Kelton if he loves Damon.  His answer was, "Yeah.  I love him because he is my favorite friend."  A few hours later he said that Damon was his best friend.  His usual answer to my previous question has always (95% of the time) been a loud "NO!  I don't love him!"

That night Kelton practially begged if he and Damon could go play outside again.  Damon, of course, loves this change of events.  He has always wanted to play with Kelton.  And...I am now very glad that I bought two of those trucks on Black Friday a few years ago.  I thought at the time that it might be kind of pointless to buy two of practically the same thing, but the price was just so good.  But now I have two trucks and two boys--who will play together now.

Scrabble

Nate bought me the game of Scrabble for Christmas probably about three years ago.  It remained unopened until about a week ago when we decided to play it.  I lost by about 20 points, but only because Nate got lucky and scored 66 points on one turn.  We had a great accomplishment though.  We placed every single tile on the board without any cheating at all.  We didn't even have to skip any turns to do it.  We each just played until the end of the game when the last tile was put down.  I don't think that happens very often.   Here is our proof.

You can see Nate's 66 point play on the right hand side of the board in the middle.  He put "daze" onto the existing word "quote."  He not only got points for two words with 10 point letters in them, but also landed on a triple word score space.  I declare a rematch.

Time Out

I got to spend last weekend at Time Out for Women with my mom, sisters, and sister-in-law.  I had a great time and really enjoyed listening to the speakers.  I am ready to head back next year.


It was also nice to get away for the weekend and not have to worry about taking care of anyone else.  This was actually the first night I have ever spent away from my kids, not including being in the hospital having a baby.  (yes, I know, some of you did a little gasp at that news.  I really am not one of those moms who just can't stand to leave her kids.  An opportunity has just never presented itself before.  Next on the list... Nate and I away together from the kids for a night.) 
 

 Note to self: don't stand with part of your body turned closer to the camera.  It makes things disproportionate.  And it makes you look like a behemoth standing next to people who are already a lot shorter than you.



Candy overload (aka, Halloween)

(I am going to randomly post my favorite Halloween pictures throughout this post.)

As always, the kids had a lot of fun this Halloween.  Kelton and Damon got to dress up early and go to a special Halloween storytime at the library on Wednesday. 

Then on Saturday night we had our ward trunk-or-treat.  It was a combined tri-ward thing, and I was afraid it was going to be insanity.  But it ended up being okay.  The parking lot was almost completely full though.  So, the kids got a ton of candy.  It wouldn't be so bad if we only had one child, but multiply that times three buckets...it almost makes me sick just to look at all of it.

 Natalie got to wear her costume to school on Monday.  She ended up being Belle again this year, using the beautiful dress her grandmother made her last year.  She was going to be Tinker Bell (like she was two years ago) to match Damon, but we couldn't find the necessary leggings (dress was too short) to go under it.  I'm pretty sure they are hiding somewhere in her room.  Kelton agreed without hesitation to be a monkey again.  That's what he was last year too.  However, last year, he didn't want much to do with actually wearing the costume.  This time he was excited.  And I was glad.  For some reason this year I didn't feel like spending money on, or making, new costumes.  Damon got to wear the Peter Pan/Robin Hood costume of Kelton's from two years ago.  It was very cute on him and he loved wearing the hat. 

On Monday night I had planned to just have the kids pass out candy to trick-or-treaters.  They were super excited about that.  But Natalie realized on her own that if other kids were going to be trick-or-treating, then couldn't they as well?  So I said yes, and let them go to the houses on our street.  This resulted in way more candy than I would have imagined.  But the kids had a ton of fun going around to the different houses.  It's strange, because people here actually decorate for Halloween.  I would say that just as many, if not more, people decorate their houses and yards for Halloween as do for Christmas.  I find that strange.  But it does make trick-or-treating fun. 

When we got home, Natalie and Kelton perched in our doorway and handed out candy until bedtime.  I like trick-or-treating here because it starts at about 5:45 and it pretty much done by 7:00.  We get maybe 100 kids, which is a nice number.  It's a lot, but not overwhelming.  It was a fun night.  Now we have the aftermath of all this candy.  I'm still deciding what to do with it.  It has turned into a bribe and threat for everything though.  I can't tell you how many times I've found myself saying, "If you do this, you can get a candy from your bucket," or "I am going to throw away one piece of candy for every wrapper I find on the floor."