James has been sitting up for a long time, but tonight in the bathtub he was splashing around on his stomach and then he pushed himself up to a sitting position. It is crazy when they do that... it makes them feel so much older!!!
Wow, we did a lot of Halloween things this year! First, we went to Hocus Pocus Pops in the Woodlands. The Houston Symphony played fun music (my favorite was "Harry Potter" of course. They had a guessing game to see what the music was referring to.) We went with our friends, the Espersons. Amanda's sister was in town and she does facepainting, so she definitely added to Henri and James' costumes. Hocus Pocus Pops was really fun, and I would like to make it a tradition, but at the same time it did seem like one of those "we are going to have fun whether we like it or not!" moments. Maybe because Charles was on a campout, and therefore, not with us!
Then we had our ward Trunk or Treat. There was a coldfront that day so James got to dress in his cute little bear costume. I love this little outfit and my one wish for this winter was that it would get cold enough for him to wear it!
Henri was a super hero. We were going to cut his hair into a mohawk, but we decided we kind of liked his long hair and didn't want to cut it.
Charles and I didn't dress up this year. We were probably too tired from a DIY project that we have been working on every extra moment for about 4 weeks! (Still not done, but hopefully this next week!!) So, I came as a tired mom and Charles wore his painting clothes and came as someone who has been sanding and staining things all day.
Two little teethed bear with his nose all loved off
Here is a funny video of James looking at some Halloween decorations.
On Monday we went to pick up some pumpkins at the local pumpkin patch.
It was a fun, quick outing with the boys.
James got a cute Halloween outfit this year. He wore it every day that it was clean leading up to Halloween! The back says, "Daddy's little monster."
James does a little "O" with his mouth. This isn't quite it, but the closest picture I have.
Monday night for FHE we did some pumpkin carving. I love Henri's face when he sees what is inside a pumpkin!
At the beginning of carving Henri looked at me and said (quite loudly) "Best pumpkin pie EVER!"
Here are our pumpkins pictured on Halloween (just 48 hours after carving.)
Frankenstein came to life when Charles carved him (he is rising out of his bed) but he quickly died again due to Houston humidity.
My little ghoul is held up a little better
And Jack-O-Lantern
Scrunchy nose picture
On Halloween day Henri's friend Titan came over. (Isn't his name perfect? He is six months younger than Henri and he is BIG!) He came in wearing his ninja costume, but when he saw that Henri was just in his diaper he quickly adjusted to match.
Trick or Treating in the neighborhood. Our house is behind Henri. I really like that Trick or Treating only lasts for as many doors as we want it to!!
Charles with Frankenstein again (it was too hot again four days later for James to be a bear again.) Thanks to Sylvia for the cute Halloween hat for Jameser!
James seeing what Halloween is all about.
Henri making sure that James doesn't get any sugar before his first birthday.
This is a fun moment with James. He seems to have a lot to communicate and this is a fun example. I think he will be a talker... and have a lot to say!
Isn't this the saddest thing that you have ever seen?
Seriously! I remember when this happened to my first bike. It must be like a right of passage to become a big kid. Here is the story: While I am getting James situated in the car Henri usually hops on his tricycle to go for a little (unauthorized) ride before it is his turn to get buckled. One day he just ran over to his side of the car and I went and buckled him in. I got in and started the car and I saw that our gate was open to the back yard, but decided to just leave it (for some reason. I usually will go shut it!) Well, a minute later: CRUNCH!!! Yeah, I ran over my kids tricycle that he has only actually been able to ride for a few months.
A few thoughts: First, tricycles are really super cute, but, don't buy one. Henri was finally able to pedal when he was 2 1/2. Not long after that he jumped on the neighbor kid's bike and started slowly pedaling (and that bike is pretty big.) Now he is zooming around on this bike quite easily. Trust me, just get a bike.
Second, Henri's reaction was pretty cute. He kept saying, "The car stepped on it!" and then would make a pretty funny sound affect and stomp on the ground. He told everyone we saw this for days. I am glad that he didn't say, "my mom ran over my bike" and blamed it on the car instead.
Third, his immediate reaction was, "Oh, my daddy can fix it." It wasn't a question, it was a statement. He had total faith that Charles could fix his bike. Even after he went over to examine it after we got home he was still adamant, "When my daddy gets home from work he can fix it." EVEN after I told him that we couldn't fix the bike he was still so sure that Charles could fix anything. I loved his faith in Charles. Well, Charles did fix it: he got him a new bike. We decided this will be his birthday present (poor kid, won't have any presents to open on his birthday) but we wanted to get it right away because most nights we go out and meet up with the other neighbors and the kids all ride their bikes around. We didn't want him to miss out on that (plus I enjoy going out in the nice weather and chatting with my great neighbors!)
Here is the boy helping his dad "fix it."
And here is my cute spectator watching the bike (that he will one day inherit) get built.
We are now the proud owners of a double jogging stroller! Since the weather has been so great lately I have really been loving taking the boys out, but James is so big now and to really go on long walks I needed a double stroller. I wanted a jogger because a lot of the walks that we go on are off road trails, so a jogger was important because a regular stroller is just too hard to make it through these trails. Well, I looked online for several weeks and decided that would like a mid line stroller that I could spend less on. I emailed several people, but ended up not going to see any strollers because Charles was out of town for a week and the boys got the flu for. a. week. A few weeks later I did a little more research and called a few more people and was going to go look at some strollers one evening. THEN, about three hours before I was going to spend lots of time and money my friend Jill called and asked, "I have an extra double jogging stroller, do you want it?"
YES!!!
So, I washed all of the fabric, sewed up some of the holes and voila! Feels great! It is a great stroller and I have loved it! What a little miracle!
I love it. Henri likes sitting on the footrest, and James doesn't like it until we are moving. But, I love it!
Conference was great! We shared our tradition of ableskeivers with our friends the Sivulas on Saturday and then with the Fieldings on Sunday.
Here is Henri playing in flour... he does this every chance that he gets!
After Conference we went for a walk at the Nature Preserve that is about a 15 minute walk from our house. The weather was nice and cool and it was so nice to get outside and take a walk through the woods and on a nice beach along the river.
Love these cute boys in their matching brown outfits.
The rope bridge.
And some pictures of my sweet sweet James. I love LOVE this little face!
We really enjoyed Conference. I was so excited about the new age limits for missionaries. I haven't really thought a lot about how that would have changed my life if they had been put into place five years ago except that it would be a "game changer" as Papa Lon would say. When it was announced I just started crying. I am not sure why- maybe because I just felt that missionary spirit! How amazing!
Another wonderful part of Conference was seeing the boys reactions. When Henri was little little he would play and whenever the choir sang he would stop and watch during the song. James did that a little bit this time, but maybe he is still a little too young to really notice. This time, especially during the first session, Henri was just quietly playing basically the whole time. Every so often he would look up and say, "He talked about the temple" or "He talked about Lehi" or "He is the Prophet," "She said Book of Mormon." It was definitely one of the moments that all of the work and monotony and frustration of being a mom is ALL worth it! I am so thankful for the Gospel and for my sweet boys who are really learning what we are trying to teach them!
I am constantly praying for these boys to be protected and sometimes I wonder what effect it has. Well, there have been a few times that I think that Henri has been protected. This is one of those times. He was playing with the round, long attachment to the vacuum and he fell on it when it was n his mouth. (I am guessing since I wasn't actually in the room.) It is always scary when your sweet baby starts screaming and you run into the room and they are bleeding from their mouth.
He basically got two puncture wounds in the back of his mouth. I really think it could have been a lot worse. Easily.
Thankfully he got back to his cheerful, goofy self pretty quickly.
Here are a few cute videos that we got of James and Henri. Henri is still a very attentive, kind brother. Right now we are working on not taking toys out of James' hands, but other than that things are going pretty well
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In this one Henri didn't know that I was filming. I love when he says this to James! I love it when he says it to me!
