Thankful

Today we took a little time to think about what we are thankful for. I took a picture of our door because that is where we put our thankful turkeys. Jack was thankful for vacuums, school buses, forts, and baby elephants. Pete was thankful for me, Jack, Tigran, rhinos, and forts. I was thankful for the generic stuff that people always say they are thankful for: husband, son, dog, family, and friends.

However, if I thought about it a little more I would be thankful for the phrase: "mommy come." The fact that my son loves me so much and wants to spend as much time with me as he can warms my heart. I always always try to look at this time with him as precious. In what will probably feel like a few short years he will not want me to come, he will want me to leave. That thought already breaks my heart, so every single time he says that phrase I just melt and give in and come.

The other thing I am thankful for is what a great dad Pete is. As I was cleaning up in the kitchen tonight Pete and Jack were playing some sort of combination of hide and seek and daddy monster. Pete was making noises and crawling on the floor, and Jack was laughing, screaming, and running down the hall. To hear the sound of father and son laughing, playing, and just enjoying one another is truly a blessing.

So the other pictures are just from some of our favorite things: Daddy and Jack in a fort today, Jack's huge smile when he laughs, and Jack when he said "mommy come" and then we were about to do "cheers".

Randomness From Our Week

Nothing major has happened this week, but I still felt the need to post something, so I will share some random things from our week.

- Jack now omits the napkin and uses good old fashioned hand in hair wiping. (that is what the picture of him at the table is trying to capture, and yes that is ranch dressing about to go in his hair).

-We went to Notre Dame last weekend for a math conference, it was very cold and we did not bring any hats, so Jack got to buy a hat from his Granny's alma mater. While it was fun for Pete, the rain-snow mix we had all weekend kept Jack and I in the hotel most of the time. By the way, Jack does not do well in a hotel room for most of the day.

-The rainy, cold, dreary weather followed us home so we have been feeling a bit cooped up. In an effort to stave off boredom I decided to head to the Wal-Mart craft section. I am not by nature a crafty person, so I have no idea what brought this on. I bought little wooden animals and magnetic tape, and we now have animal magnets just like many of our friends. I bought various other things I will not bore you with, but look at the hat I made Jack this morning. We may attempt a turkey hat, like Elsie has, later in the week. If you look in the picture you will notice I tried showing him how to color, but he drew one blue line and was done.

-Wal-Mart has out the Christmas stuff, so we showed Jack the singing dancing snowmen, Santas,and etc. He reacted much the same way he did in St. Louis with the singing dancing frog- tentative yet interested. This led to Jack being somewhat interested in snowmen so we made snowmen cookies, and Jack was very excited about that.

-As those who read this blog know Jack has a thing for Shrek. Coincidentally, we've had the original Shrek, by William Steig, for about a year now. Jack found it this week, and it has now replaced the movie. He carries the book everywhere we go- car, people's houses, errands, and bed. He has us read it all the time, the book is a bit long so we paraphrase quite a bit. He LOVES this book. ( He is reading the book and wearing his Indian hat in one of the pictures. It is also the first picture where I have said smile, and he actually attempts to smile.)

-Well that has been our week. Tomorrow Cassie and Sean come. Jack will not know what to do with himself. Then on Friday Jack gets to spend the weekend with his Granny and Pappy. He has a fun week ahead.

Halloween

This year Jack was a cow for Halloween, although one girl did call him a bunny-cow due to his long ears. Well, cow or bunny-cow he still was cute. In the morning we went to playgroup, and had tons of fun! Jack spent his time at playgroup grasping a Shrek toy in one hand like it was a security object. He also spent time running around and mimicking Dylan, a boy who is a year older than him. It was pretty cute to watch.
Later that night we decided to trick-or-treat at the businesses downtown. It was a blast! There were tons of people out in so many different sorts of costumes, and many of the proprietors of the stores were dressed up too. It is something that I have really learned to love about this town, the people here like, no love, to dress up. Just give them an occasion and they will be in costume. Jack had his little candy basket and once he figured out that candy was dropped into this basket, and that the candy was his, he refused to let go. Towards the end of the night when the basket was full and had to be heavy, Pete offered to let it rest on his arm, Jack would have none of it. He had the handle wrapped around his hand like 4 times. The phrase- Candy Yummy- was repeated numerous times. We even taught him how to say trick -or- treat, but he was a little too overwhelmed to do it when he was supposed to. He usually said it after we had already left the store.
The next day our friend Koushik came over with a Target bag full of candy just for Jack. We got down his bag and Jack, no longer afraid, held out his bag and said trick-or-treat. He refused to let us go anywhere near his bag for the rest of the day.
It was so much fun because he was actually getting into it himself. Next year will be even more fun I am sure.