Morning Coffee

When Jack sees Craig with his morning coffee, he wants a cup to hold too. He pretends to drink from his coffee mug :)

Bring On The Cold

We tried Jack's winter coat and hat today as it is very chilly and windy. He looked like an eskimo once we finally got him fastened into the car seat. I'm just thankful he didn't seem to mind getting all bundled up.

Today Jack spent quite a while getting his hair just right before we went to Wal-Mart. :) (There is a mirror in front of him on the floor.)

Trick-Or-Treating

We went Trick-or-Treating with Harrison and his mommy. We had a lot of fun! What a cute cow and jack-o-lantern!

Today

Even though the length of my list really doesn't change much, there are days when I feel more overwhelmed than others. Today is one of those days. There is a lot going on between now and Christmas. I think I will feel better when "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat" is finished. This is the musical that 4th grade and up is doing at our church the last weekend of November. It will be so good. The kids, director and choreographer are soooo talented! I am playing the piano. It is consuming a lot of my free time right now but it is fun. I have Trick-or-Treating pictures I will try to post later today.

Beautiful Sunday

I had looked at the wrong day on the calendar for Sunday. I thought I had practice for the high school musical but didn't. We went out for a little while and stopped at Hoopes. Jack picked out his own little pumpkin and held it all the way home. So cute!!! We also petted the bunnies and fed a goat that they had. When we were home, Jack helped daddy blow some of the leaves in the backyard into a pile. I just LOVE this time of year!

Jack's 1st Wedding

We attended Craig's cousin's wedding Saturday night. It was beautiful. Jack did very well and had a lot of fun playing with cousins. He also had a blowout diaper that he shared with Craig. A lot of it was on the sleeve of Craig's dress shirt. I think I need a bigger diaper bag so that I can start packing extra clothes for Craig and I too.

Project

I am lacking ambition and motivation to get much done. I'm not sure why. I have to work upstairs and started today. We don't have enough room in our closet to have all of our clothes out at once, so out-of-season clothes are packed away in Jack's closet. Our room is a disaster as Craig and I have both been searching for sweatshirts and sweaters and pulling them out and we have luggage out still from our trip to Ohio. Today I started working on it. It is difficult with Jack as there really isn't room for him to play. He plays pretty well for a while in the pack-n-play. I plan on getting some more done tonight after he goes to bed. This weekend is jam packed again. I'm looking forward to Monday :).

I let Jack try the straw in my water the other day. Now he wants to drink from a straw all the time. If he sees one, he starts pointing and squeeling.

Buddies

Harrison and Jack are so cute together. Jack and I went shopping with Amy and Harrison last week. It was fun to watch them "communicate" and share their lunch with each other.

We've just been really busy this week. I have taken a couple pictures. I will try to post them tomorrow. Jack is learning all kinds of new things and we are so AMAZED at the things he understands and seems to know. Today he took a comb out of the drawer in my grandma's bathroom and started rubbing it on his head trying to comb his hair. If I ask him where his pacifier, socks, shoes, coat, pajamas, etc. are, he will go get them. Craig and I are realizing we will have to watch EVERYTHING we say and do. He has picked up on things we haven't shown him or talked to him about. I still get about 3-4 dirty diapers a week that come out of the diaper all over his clothes. Is this normal? Friends that I talk to, say that their children don't seem to have this problem. We are using bigger diapers too, and this doesn't seem to help.

Oreo

Oreo is Jack's rocking horse. He has been afraid of Oreo for a while. He would cry if we sat him on Oreo or pushed the ear to make Oreo whinny and shake his head and tail. Oreo has been in Jack's room and I have slowly been trying to help Jack become more comfortable with his horse. Now he LOVES Oreo, so much so, that he was becoming a distraction at nap time. He would stand in the end of the crib and point and jabber at Oreo. This week we brought him back downstairs. Jack plays with him all the time! He loves to pet his horse, sit on him, give him drinks out of his sippy cup and I think he has even offered his pacifier to Oreo a couple times. It is very sweet.

Beautiful Campus

I know I am biased, but Cedarville has a really beautiful campus. They have added several buildings since I graduated. This is the new student center which houses the cafeteria, bookstore, coffee house, and theater for plays.

This is the chapel and music building. This opened the fall of my senior year. I had most of my classes here. The center for music is the Bolthouse Center for Music. William Bolthouse donated (and still does donate) a lot of money to the university. He owns a farm in California that grows carrots mostly, along with several other things. You can buy Bolthouse carrots and other vegetables at Wal-Mart.

Cardboard Canoe Races

A homecoming tradition is the freshmen engineering student cardboard canoe races. It is a project for one of their classes. They build cardboard canoes and then two teams at a time, race across the lake on campus. I felt so bad for those that just got off shore and sank immediately. It is a graded project. At the end they have a demolition derby for the boats that made it across the lake. It was such a HOT afternoon this year that I'm sure those that sank didn't mind too much. We did find a spot under a shade tree to watch.

Watching the Cedarville Homecoming Parade

Jack was loving the parade until the sirens went off on a police car. He watched the rest of the parade from Daddy's arms. :) The theme this year was "CU Under The Big Top." The parade entries and activities for kids all over campus had a circus theme.

Great Friends and Great Memories

This is my good friend Heidi and her 6 month old Alexis. Our parents go to the same church but we have to drive to our 10-year college reunion to see each other. :) Heidi and her husband, Aaron live in Kansas City. Heidi has been to visit Craig and I a couple times in the past year as she worked for a large insurance company and had clients in Muscatine. She now stays at home too.
This was one of my roommates, Michelle. She lives in Columbus and is an elementary school counsleor.
This is my good friend, Kim and her husband, Nathan. They have three kids, 4, 3, and 2 with another on the way in January. We were music majors together and traveled on a music team together. We have lots of great stories from riding in a van with nine other people all over the U.S. for two years.
These are my friends Darrin and Kathy catching up with each other. They traveled with Kim and I on the music team also. Kathy and her husband were brave to travel to our reunion with a 3-week old!
We are all truly Friends for Life!

Driving to Ohio

Our trip took about 9 hours each way. Mapquest said it would take 7. We had to stop for dirty diapers and we hit rush hour in Indianapolis :(. Jack was really only fussy the last hour on the way there and about an hour before we made it back to Muscatine. He did really well. I was exhausted from entertaining him the entire ride. He didn't nap much. Just before we hit rush hour, I noticed I had a voicemail on my phone. I listened and it was the nurse for Jack's pediatrician asking me to call her yet that day regarding some blood work Jack had done a couple weeks ago. She had already called earlier in the week to say his iron was a little low. I wasn't expecting anything else. I tried calling her back and she was with a patient. I waited and waited, while stuck in rush hour with a fussy baby imagining something awful. When she finally called back, she repeated the same thing she had told me earlier in the week. When I told her, she said they have a new computer program and she hadn't marked on Jack's chart that she had already called. This should be another lesson to me to not get so stressed. Let it go!

We are home! What a great time we had! It was very busy and VERY HOT!!! Jack did very well but is worn out. I will have to post some pictures tomorrow of our trip to Cedarville. http://cedarville.edu

Running around today, not sure where to start or what to do next. I don't handle stress very well. Jack hasn't been himself the last couple days and we think it may be due to starting to give him whole milk so we are backing of it until we are back home after our trip. I'm doing laundry, packing, doing dishes, trying to decide what to wear for a couple days with friends I haven't seen for a very long time, trying to decide how to fix my hair ( I know, very important details), trying to get Craig organized (scheduling hair cut and figuring out what he will wear, he is tired of me reminding him to please take his teeth.) I keep making list after list. I probably won't blog while we are gone but should have some pictures when we are back.

Slower Please!

I keep waiting for a slower, more realxed week. It isn't happening! This week looks like it will be just as hectic as the last couple. Today I have lessons, a missionary friend of Craig's from Guatemala is coming over for supper and I have musical practice from 7-9 tonight. Tomorrow is more of the same with lessons, another friend for dinner, and musical practice from 7-9. Wednesday, more lessons and trying to run errands and pack for our trip to Cedarville, Ohio. I am so excited!!! We are going to my 10-year college reunion. I loved college!!! I will get to see many friends. It will be at least a 7-hour drive, so we are trying to come up with many ideas to entertain Jack while traveling and hoping he will sleep a lot! I am counting the days! Now on to my list for today.