Thanksgiving this year was a fun week. I took the whole week off from work and relaxed. However a relaxing week turned into a rush to get our kitchen made-over. We began a while ago by re-facing/painting our cabinets. The daunting task of stripping the wallpaper fueled our procrastination. We buckled down and got to work last week and spent somewhere between 8 - 12 hours stripping wallpaper and repairing the drywall underneath. It was dirty and exhausting. It made celebrating Thanksgiving and our 4th anniversary that much better as we refused to work on the kitchen on those days.
Jennifer did a fantastic job with Thanksgiving, I'd like to report. Her parents, whom we would normally have spent Thanksgiving with, were out of town to a wedding, so we spent our first holiday alone as a family. But Jen masterfully multi-tasked her way through the kitchen ensuring that everything was cooked and ready at the designated eating time.
This week has been spent painting and are we are excited for the new floor to come. We will be very happy when it is done. We love working on our house, but with two kids, and all the distractions of life, projects are just tough.
Of course there are stresses that come with the joys of celebrating Christmas, but those don't amount to much for us, so we thought crippling our kitchen and working on it every other night would make up for it.
We do love Christmas, this year is going to be especially fun. Aaron loves to sing, so we are having a LOT of fun listening to and singing Christmas music. The fun also includes introducing Aaron to traditional Christmas lore. Santa will be visiting the Thomas house. He is catching the Christmas magic. I am sure that if you listened carefully during the day you can hear Aaron sing
Joy to the World to himself. He even sang in the Primary Talent Show... all 4 verses of
I am a Child of God. Aaron was really brave to stand up in front of all the people and sing.
Jen has been called back to our ward nursery and loves it; so do the kids, and their parents. And that gives Brian and I a chance to spend a couple of hours together at church each Sunday. Mostly he sleeps, but really does provide a great excuse for not paying close attention.
I have mixed feeling to report that I am a newly trained Assistant Scoutmaster. As much as I like the outdoors, generally approve of the BSA organization and it's core objectives, and have a lot of fun serving this capacity... it takes an awful lot of time and will likely consume some valuable vacation days next year. As long as that word
assistant is there, it shouldn't be too bad.
Aaron amazes us pretty much each day. Last night at dinner we told him that he had two choices... 1. he could eat a few bites and be excused or 2. he could wait for mommy and daddy to finished eating and then he could be excused. A few minutes later was talking about
THREE choices. We asked him what his three choices were. He answered as such: 1. he could eat a few bites and then be excused, 2. wait for mommy and daddy to be finished, or 3. go play with his toys. It was nearly impossible to hold in the laughter. Eventually Jen and I finished eating and we all went and played with toys.
Brian... so cute. Yes, he still eats and sleeps (he has slept through the night three of the last four nights - WHOO - HOO!)
But, add to his resume, smiling in response to our smiles, having massive drumstick legs, talking. Yes, we talk. We talk to him and he talks back. Such happy noises. He cries some, he still grunts a bit. But generally is a very pleasant and happy little baby.
Jen has been called back to our ward nursery and loves it; so do the kids, and their parents. And that gives Brian and I a chance to spend a couple of hours together at church each Sunday. Mostly he sleeps, but really does provide a great excuse for not paying close attention.
But, add to his resume, smiling in response to our smiles, having massive drumstick legs, talking. Yes, we talk. We talk to him and he talks back. Such happy noises. He cries some, he still grunts a bit. But generally is a very pleasant and happy little baby.
Since we only had 9 trick or treaters come to our house, we had tons of left over candy, therefore it was as if we went trick-or-treating for hours! If we even make a meager attempt to eat all the leftovers, we'll lose our teeth and no longer fit into our pants. But there is nothing like leftover halloween candy to undo whatever good we've accomplished at the gym.
And we had two choices with Brian... we could dress him up as you see him above and he was a pumpkin, or we could have just removed all his clothes and painted our little rotund baby orange. What a belly! He does look a little bit like the Jack-o-latern that we carved.
Happy Halloween.
Disclaimer: Although you don't see Brian in these pictures, we can assure you that he ate and slept his way through all our fun activities.
Aaron is a great brother! He mostly ignores Brian, and so far, he doesn't mind sharing the attention. Let's hope that continues.
or sneering at us, we love trying to capture these cute moments on camera.
We don't see ourselves actually writing that much. Nobody really wants to read our ramblings. We'll put up pictures - that's what we know you all want.
We are adjusting well to life as a family of four. Jen seems to handle things like it's old hat. She is relaxed as she nurses, and as Brian spits-up back on her. After spending a few days with his Grandparents here in 
Paul will be going back to work on Wednesday. He loves being at home during this time, and Jen loves having him. Today he treasured sitting in the morning sun with his two boys while Jen caught up on her sleep.
Proud Daddy
Aaron is excited to be the big brother
Handsom little man!
Beautiful Mother
