Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving we were very grateful to have Peter/Dad back. He has finished taking Boards, traveling for interviews, and all the major classwork and studying he will have to do in dental school. It's been so nice to spend good, quality time with just our little family. I was joking with Peter and saying it was like getting my husband back after a 3.5 year absence (and we had only been married two weeks before he "left").

To celebrate, we took the boys to the aquarium in Niagara Falls. Joseph loved the sea lions and their loud barks. He imitated them for a few days after that and scared Kimball every time.

On Thanksgiving day we got our first accumulation of snow. Joseph had so much fun playing outside and making snowballs to smash onto the fence. I love how he says smash, and how excited he got every time another snowball splattered, so we stayed out there for a while.

When we came inside, Joseph discovered a bag of clothes I put out for Salvation Army, and found a pair of amazing fish swim shorts that looked like they could have belonged to his father when he was 2. He insisted that he wear them all day (it added a great beach them to our Thanksgiving dinner). After the shorts were on, he played with his Elmo toy and would hold him close until Elmo would give him a kiss--it was really cute.

Then, during nap time, Joseph managed to make himself a little peephole in the blinds so he can always see out. When we explained to him that breaking the blinds was very wrong, he just looked at us and said, "buy new ones." I guess he didn't like the old ones.

We did manage to pull together a great dinner between our family, the Kingsfords, and the Calls. It's great to have our Buffalo family when everyone else is far away.

Kimball finally cut his two bottom front teeth. The poor little guy was gnawing on everything trying to get them out, and Peter and I have discovered that they are sharp! No more grabbing mom and dad's fingers for relief. We did let him take a few bites of pizza.

A Teether and a Two year old

Joseph making our new favorite treat, "eyeballs." I had to make up a fun name to get him to eat it--that always seems to do the trick :)

This week Peter flew to Salt Lake for his interview at Primary Children's hospital. Joseph, Kimball and I stayed home and tried to keep the peace while he was gone. Joseph is developing his two year old skills, and is able to pull the entire roll of toilet paper off quite quickly and leave the bathroom before I even know what he's done. Joseph also HAS to do everything himself. If I even touch the door to help him open it, he will insist, "I do it," and then shut the door so that he can reopen it all by himself.
We were all really excited to have Dad back home again!

Poor little Kimball was sick all week. He has not had much of an appetite, and when he did eat, he had diarrhea and vomiting. Our chubby boy is starting to get skinny. His thigh rolls are almost non-existent now, and his budha belly is gone--I miss them.
On top of being sick, Kimball cut his first two teeth this week. Despite all this, he was still a happy little guy--he's great!







Kimball loved gnawing on this balloon.












oh this looks like a cute little kiss, but it's really an attack

Unfortunately for me, Kimball also loves to gnaw on my face. I'm his favorite teething toy. My jaw, chin, cheek and collar bones are his favorite thing to bite into.

Here are some videos. The first is of Kimball's cute Ewok voice he had when he was sick. The second is of Kimball laughing, and then you can hear Peter's reaction to Joseph walking up and banging him in the head with a wooden toy. Oh, life with a two year old is never dull.

On Monday night, our family home evening lesson was about helping other people feel happy. To practice, we had Joseph give Kimball one of his favorite toys, and then watch how happy Kimball was playing with it. Then we asked Joseph how he felt, and he said he was happy too. From then on, Joseph has been especially concerned with helping Kimball be happy. As soon as Kimball starts to fuss, Joseph will run over and say, "It's ok Kimball," then Joseph will give him a toy and run back to Peter and I and say, "Kimball happy." It's so sweet to see his concern for his brother, and so wonderful to see that family home evening is really working (it doesn't always appear that way).

This week Joseph has also started to verbalize his prayers. I'll prompt him, and he'll repeat what I say. On day I was trying to say a quick prayer so we could scarf down lunch and start nap time. As we got close to saying amen, Joseph opened up his eyes and said with much concern, "Grandma" (his word for all his grandparents). In my hurry I had forgotten to include grandma in the prayer, so we went back and blessed grandma. Only then was Joseph at peace. He's good at reminding us what's important.

This week has been a little rough for Kimball. He got his first cold and his nose is so stuffy. On top of that, his bottom two teeth are just about to come out, and his gums are really sore. So we have been having wrestling matches with Kimball trying to get him to drink his bottles. At the moment he only wants to eat real food. I'm tempted to start giving him steak to gnaw on.

Joseph has been having lots of fun bouncing in Kimball's seat lately. He of course, has his eyes closed in an attempt to avoid the picture.

Joseph trying to comfort poor teething Kimball. He tried to get Kimball to talk on the phone, and even ordered french fries to help Kimball's booboo's (his teething gums)

Peter was able to take a much needed break and watch a little Saturday football with the boys. Poor Peter has been studying nonstop for the Boards this week.

Kimball trying desperately to catch a weeble as they spun around.

Happy Halloween

We spent the day in Palmyra babysitting for the Temple Trip. We stopped by the Sacred Grove and took a few pictures of our family in the beautiful fall leaves.













Kimball just looked so cute.











Oh, that baby face is so irresistible!







Kimball has the best open-mouth smile ever. He is such a happy kid and loves people. He can get so silly at bed time and he starts to laugh every time you make eye contact with him. I will try to look away for a minute so that he can concentrate on eating, but as soon as I peek back he starts laughing hysterically. He's great!

Why is it that Mom is the only one that thinks taking a picture is a good thing? Joseph is going through a protesting picture stage so I had to lasso him in real tight to get him to stay still for a picture. Little Kimball also looks pretty annoyed to be posing.

I had to chase that cowboy around the garage 4 times just to get a picture of that cute costume.












The super happy cow

On October 22nd we had a miraculously warm day of 76 degrees, so we headed back to the beach (Beaver Island State Park). We all just laughed thinking that last year at this time we were recovering from being under 2 feet of snow, and having no power. A day at the beach was a great change!




Joseph always has so much fun at the beach. This day he got to pose for an engagement picture with his little friend Julie Tanner--oh, those two!

Our neighbor, Brenna Kingsford, gave all the kids a little glow wand the other day. Joseph loved his so much that he had to sleep with it.

We went to the Great Pumpkin Farm and Joseph got to pose with his friends Sariah and Miriam.

Joseph loved watching the bunnies run around their cage, but was a little nervous about the big, gobbling turkey. For the rest of the day he kept saying "loud turkey."

Joseph loved walking up and down the rows and touching all the pumpkins.














Kimball is getting even bigger. He and Joseph are now wearing the same size diapers (size 4), and the diapers are much tighter on Kimball's big belly than on Joseph's. It will be fun to see those two grow up together.


Mom and the boys. It's fun to have these 2 sweet boys, and learn more and more each day.





The other day I went to go get Joseph after his "nap" and he was standing there in his diaper. I asked him why he took off his clothes and he just kept saying, "baby." I had no idea what he was talking about until he showed me the picture in his book of a baby in just a diaper. He must of thought that it looked pretty comfy.


Last week I saw Joseph go get the play phone, and then a few minutes later I heard him say, "Hi, pizza please, this way." I don't know how he knew how to do this, but he was pretty good at ordering pizza on the phone.

The highlight for the week was a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Taylor. Joseph couldn't say grandpa, so all week he kept saying, "two grandmas coming." He had so much fun playing with his 2 grandmas and misses them a lot.

Joseph coming out of the hay maze with Grandpa Taylor who was such a good sport to crawl through with him.