Down To One Again!

Only one in diapers now. Well, almost. I started toilet training Derrick this last weekend and he is doing awesome! He still needs a diaper for nap time and through the night, but with the progress he has made in just a few days, hopefully we can eliminate those too. I just had to share my excitement and Derrick's progress.

Mary Playing With Allen

Mary was so cute with Allen today (she is actually good with him all of the time) that I couldn't resist taking a video of them. She made up all of the words to the song she is singing :) Allen loved it!

Housing Vent

I remember when Mike and Kari were looking to purchase a home and all of the stress and headache they had. Why should we be so lucky to circumvent these problems? Well, we're not. However, my major qualm right now is not with the home purchasing loops, but the Weber Housing Down payment Grant. It has taken a great deal to pull all of the paperwork needed for this silly grant together. Then yesterday I got a call from the Weber Housing Office telling me that I forgot to sign something. First thought was - Impossible. I went through this application several times. Well they were insistent, that I come sign something. I didn't have a car yesterday so I couldn't anyway. Today, I called back and begged the representative to please just double check the application to make sure it really needs to be signed. I wouldn't make such fuss over it, but this place is twenty minutes away, and I'd have to take the kids, so I wanted to make sure the trip wasn't going to be a waste. Well, he looked at the application again and . . . it doesn't have to be signed. Sigh of relief, right? WRONG. My name isn't printed next to the signature. First thought - you have got to be kidding me? Then I realize that they want me to come down and print in my own name. They can't print it in for me, even if I tell them that it is o.k. AGGGHHHH!!! Does anyone out there know if it is illegal or not to print a name. Signing I can understand - but printing, seems a little silly. Anyhow, this is my current housing frustration. But I guess it will be worth it if we get the grant.

One Big Fall . . .

Post. I should break this post into a few, but then I run the risk of just not posting anything at all, so it is going to be everything together again. First is Black Island Farm. Mary's preschool group went to "the pumpkin patch" as Mary called it. Similar to Circle S farm, for all of you Ohio buddies. They had fun, but of course the weather didn't cooperate, and it was COLD. Mary's winter coat is still in storage so she had on three long-sleeved shirts, a fleece sweater and her jacket. Plus her tights, and two pairs of pants. She didn't complain about being cold though.

Mary riding the cow train. Derrick didn't want to - he still hasn't gotten over the merry-go-round at the county fair.
Mary all bundled up.

Derrick all bundled up. He didn't want to let go of his pumpkin after he picked it :)

Mary pointing to which pumpkin she wanted. They were still attached to the vine, so a worker had to come cut it for her.

Mary holding one of the carrots they passed around and learned about.

Second, is Aunt Ara coming to visit. Ara loves Halloween and called one night to see if she could come visit. She wanted the kids to open the door. Which ended up not being the best idea. I wish this picture was clearer, but we didn't have the opportunity to take more because we were comforting Derrick who was hysterical and inconsolable over the witch. Mary was pretty scared too until I took her outside and showed her Ara's big red truck (which she is famous for). Then Mary wasn't so apprehensive. Ara gave them Halloween pencils, and Mary told Derrick that Ara was a good witch because she gave them a pencil. Derrick didn't calm down until after Ara left. Poor Derrick.

Third, carving pumpkins for various family nights. We ended up with eleven pumpkins this year. Grandma George grew her own, Grandpa Waite came home with some and we got more at the Black Island Farm - so we carved lots of pumpkins. Above is Danny's first - for Derrick.

This is the first pumpkin I carved for Mary. She wanted a frowny face. She wasn't in the best of moods, and tired too. I think it turned out more scary than frowny.

This is my pumpkin that I decided to try after I saw how Danny's pumpkin turned out using the stencil.

This is Grandpa Waite's pumpkin. It has a uvula - hahaha.

Danny's stencil pumpkin - Mary wanted him to do the cat. I did the happy pumpkin, hoping to balance out the sinister one :)

A close up of Danny's cat pumpkin.

Lastly, Mary's preschool group also had a Halloween party. Which was fun and adorable! All of the preschool kids displaying their skeletons, which they make from their own traced hands and feet.

Reading Halloween stories.

Hanging out in front of the treat table. Also, shows how cute Derrick was as a bee :) I could post a lot more preschool pictures now - but I am getting tired and Danny is waiting to go to bed, so this is good enough for now! Enjoy.

Summer Fun

I have been meaning to do a catch-up post for awhile, but still haven't. I just keep getting further behind. Time to just do it and stay on top of everything. Here are some of the things we did this summer, that I didn't post but I wanted to.

Mary and Derrick playing in the rain. I didn't know they were playing outside until I was finished with Allen. They had lots of fun.
Family day with Great-grandma Fuller.
Great-grandma Waite's 82nd birthday.

Mary and Derrick looking down from Inspiration Point.

The hot air balloon festive at Antelope Island.

Trying to get us to all look at the camera :)

Mary wearing Aunt Carrie's sunglasses and Derrick wearing Grandpa George's hat.
Mary, Derrick and Allen with Kailani, their second cousin.
Danny tossing a cow pie at the Railroaders Convention at the Golden Spike National Park. He got the longest distance on his cow pie :)
All of us in front of engine 119 at Golden Spike.
Danny, Derrick, Allen and I on the speeder. That was fun but kind of scary.

County Fair

Since Darcie has been very busy lately with the kids, I thought that I would put together some of the posts that she wishes that she had done. This is from when we went with my parents to the Box Elder County Fair. For those who don't know Utah geography, Box Elder county is a mostly rural country in the northwest corner of Utah. This makes the county fair a big deal.

Derrick didn't quite know what to think of the chickens that were in the cages (I think they made too much noise for his liking), but he was much more excited to see the bunnies.

Mary also liked the rabbits much better than the chickens and even went so far as to pet this one. I also think that the rabbits were much more familiar to them thanks to Killer and her gentle ways.


They also had cows that you could walk right in between and pigs in cages. Mary was really frightened when the pigs started fighting over their food. Pigs definitely deserve their reputation when it comes to food. I have heard that if you want to have a fat pig you need to have two of them so that they fight over the food and eat more than they would otherwise. Well these pigs definitely liked to fight over their food.


Mary also got to go on the rides for the first time. When she first saw the rides and heard that she would be able to ride them, she was very excited. She had seen Lagoon amusement park often on our rides between the two grand- parents and would always ask if she could ride the Ferris Wheel. Well, when she got close to the rides she was scared of all their noise. She also commented that the Ferris Wheel was too tall for her. After much persuasion, she took a ride on a train. After that, it was all we could do to keep her off of the rides. She can't wait until she gets another chance to go on rides.

Derrick on the other hand was terrified. We managed to get him on the train and he immediately jumped off, before it even started moving, screaming for mommy. We finally were able to get him on the merry-go-round and it almost looks like he is enjoying.

Marker Mischief

The title of the post says it all . . .

What? A New Post???

I figured I had better post about Mary's fourth birthday, or else one day she would ask me why I didn't. I don't have a good excuse. So without further ado . . .

Happy Fourth Birthday Mary!

Mary is four and once again I am wondering how in the world did time go by so quickly? Mary is so big, and is such a wonderful helper with her younger brothers. I just can't imagine our lives without her. For her birthday we had a big combined family party/bbq on Labor Day, instead of celebrating on Sunday. She had a blast and loved being in the limelight.

This was taken on her birthday (I don't know how the dates on our camera got messed up, but I just noticed. Oops:) She is wearing her new church dress. So grown-up and adorable!This is her helping me make the frosting for her birthday cake. She loves helping me in the kitchen.This is her birthday cake. She wanted a smiley face cake with flowers on it. So we searched for pics of smiley cakes and found and M&M cake. She LOVED it so we made it, with a few additions - the flowers.By the time I was done frosting the cake Mary had lost interest in helping me, so I did the M&M's myself. She, however, insisted on adding her own, it was after all her cake and she is a "big girl four-year-old" as she told me. Can you spot them?Mary opening her my little ponies. She made Aunt Janelle jealous :)Her bike helmet that she picked out herself. She didn't care what it looked like, she just wanted the one with the loud and obnoxious horn.
Mary's birthday bike.
The birthday chaos. Such fun!Mary riding her bike. She is so proud to be able to ride a bike like Grandpa Waite. Mary insists that she is going to accompany him on one of his bike rides and make her cheeks all drippy just like grandpa.

Mary also wanted to put her own candles in her cake, so she did ;) Happy Birthday Mary! We love you!

A good and sad week

This week has been a tough one. Late Tuesday, we received word that Darcie's dad had died. She has been busy helping with the funeral plans since then. A bit of good news is that I have one job offer on the table and had a really good interview as well.

Darcie will fill in more when things calm down a bit more. The funeral will be on Monday.

Silly Derrick

I have been meaning to post these pics for awhile. Since we just celebrated Derrick's birthday I felt it would be good to show how much laughter and joy he brings into our lives. We love our Derrick dude!

Those are carrots in his ears, if you can't tell.No, those aren't Mary's sandals. They are Build-a-Bear shoes for grandma's bear :)