At Dinner tonight, after William finished eating his watermelon, we noticed he was using it for something else.
It's funny, because if you know me well at all, you know I HATE talking on the phone. And so he doesn't see me doing it that often. But I guess it's often enough.
Kaitlyn has this realistic looking stuffed cat. William loves it. He was holding it so tightly this morning that he would barely let me buckle him in carseat without keeping at least one hand securely on "kitty". 
...And in other news... William is so used to his mom taking pictures of him, that he now says, "Chzzzz" whenever he sees the camera.
Tom has been waiting to give Alan this 22 since he bought it a few years ago from our friend Toby. It will stay in Tom's safe, and Alan will never be allowed to handle it without his Dad around until he's 18. We figure 18 is a good age to wait for, since you have to be 18 before you can buy a gun. But he's going to a junior shooting class on Ft. Benning (run by his Dad and a 3 time Olympian), and so we figure it's a good time to let him have his own gun. He's super excited.
Alan turns 10 tomorrow. YAY!! The birthday festivities began on Friday afternoon when he got home from school and discovered a handmade "starwars" card from Uncle Johnny and Aunt Jenette. He loved it!! He opened it right away and when he saw the light saber duel on the front said, "Oh! Cool!!"
Then, he had his birthday party yesterday with 12 friends. Add our 4 to the mix and we had 16 kids here total. Only 1 parent decided to stay at the party. I guess we should feel complimented that all these parents trusted Tom and I to leave their children here when they didn't even know us. But, those kids were so wild, I'm thinking they were just grateful for a place to leave them for 2 hours. :) It was crazy, but fun.
Here's a little taste of what we had for 2 hours. Alan's friends "singing" Happy Birthday to him.I'm not one of those sentimental mom's that get all weepy because my "baby" is 10. I'm excited that he's getting older. He's a huge help to me around the house, and is becoming so responsible. Most importantly, it's really neat to be able to have discussions with him about what the talks were in Sacrament meeting, or what he learned from our Book of Mormon reading the other night. I'm so happy to hear him share his testimony in church or teach a lesson for Family Home Evening. I'm looking forward to the happiest days when he leaves to serve a mission, and when he is married in the Temple.
Happy Birthday Alan Michael!
It's time to start preparing for the Christmas rush in my puzzle business again. I usually start getting high numbers of nativity puzzle orders in October and November, and that means I need to start cutting wood now so that I can be ready by then!!
So it was off to the wood store today.William and Kaitlyn had alot of fun riding in the big cart that carries wood. As we were walking toward the checkout, William decided to climb off the cart. I thought he was trying to run away, but he went to the back of the cart and started to push the cart. He was trying to help me! It was so cute I had to take a cell phone pic.
When my parents were visiting in June, William was at that stage where he wasn't totally comfortable with new people yet. Sadly, because we have to live so far from home, my parents are new and unkown people to him. But, one day while we were shopping, William just wanted Grandpa. It was nice.
As if you couldn't tell, we like treats in our family. I especially like things that the kids can do with me. At the commissary today they had the Jello pudding singles for only 85 cents per package of 6. I figured out that at that price it was cheaper to buy the singles than to buy a package of instant pudding. It was fun to let the kids pour in their own pudding and stir it themselves. 
Yesterday was the first day of school for Alan and Sarah. I'm so sad I forgot to take first day of school pictures. They had a great day though, and I think this will be a happy year for them.
While the big kids were at school, we did some good 4-yr-old math and science today. I let her and William sort some m&m's in mini muffin tins. Then we colored some dry macaroni. We hypothesized about what would happen if we put both red and blue on it, and during the experiment, we saw that it turned the macaroni purple! Kaitlyn had the idea to see what it would look like if we cooked it. I had never tried this before, and I thought it was great for her to think of this herself, so we did it. After it was cooked, the macaroni was still purple, and we decided to make it into macaroni and cheese for lunch. 
This afternoon, to beat some boredom, I suggested that Alan Sarah make something out of the giant roll of paper. Sarah made one of those origami cubes you blow up, and Alan made a giant airplanes.
Here the kids are with their Daddy watching a storm in the distance. The storm never actually got to us, but we could see so much lightening in the distance that we sat out front and watched it. There were lightening strikes literally every few seconds. Unfortunately I couldn't get any shots of it. We were glad the storm never got to us. 
