our halloween

for the ward halloween party, the cute wizard got all dressed up, about 5 minutes before we left, steven and i decided to be bacon and eggs...steven's idea. somehow, it was a huge hit. i even met a lady who worked for the national egg board (yes, apparently it's a real job) who was more than thrilled with my costume.

on halloween night, we went to a fun little neighborhood party in the park for the kids, and then went trick-or-treating with our upstairs neighbors and some of their friends. thomas was SO thrilled to be trick-or-treating with the kids. he cared more about being with the kids than he did about the candy. while thomas was trick or treating, i learned something: when your boy is dressed up and trick or treating...you only care about making sure that you get some pictures of him in action, and care less about how whether or not they look fantastic. i was having so much fun that i wasn't focusing much on the camera. luckily, thomas is so cute that it doesn't matter. he love, love, LOVED being a "weezard" and still wears his hat and beard around...and carries his wand around. he also still loves his owl bag, which was intended just as a trick or treat bag, but has become a beloved possession.











my poor pumpkin is on the left...steven's science pumpkin is on the right. i don't remember what steven carved, but is something science/medical related. i know, he's my cute nerd. i love my nerdy science man.
he painted that pumpkin, so he really wanted it in the picture. the plan was for mom to paint some black stripes or something on it, but we dropped it at the end of the photoshoot, and kinda ruined it. oh well, painting it white was fun. maybe we can try again for thanksgiving decorations.


the orange shirt wasn't planned, but not bad eh?

my cute "weezard."






he was pretty excited when he saw the bouncy houses...but was TERRIFIED of the one with the octopus on top. if you took him near it, he freaked. it was so sad.
i had to include this one, just because it's so classically thomas. didn't like the feeling of the hay on his feet. plus, his aunt rose gave him this cute halloween shirt, which was hers when she was little. i love that it will fit him for a few years, and he will be able to say that he is wearing his aunt rose's shirt. i'm sure she will love that too.






notice how sweaty my boy is? it was a pretty humid night...plus he was wearing a double-thick felt hat. now add 10 steps to get up to every front door...and you get a sweaty kid. but for thomas, that's nothing new.

recent happenings

i don't know why i always feel like i need to have either a) pictures or b) something terribly exciting in order to post something on my blog. so, here is a less exciting post, minus pictures.

we are finally moved into our cute little apartment...yay! i don't know how big it is for sure, but it can't be more than 700 square feet. maybe 750. something about living in a little place is humbling, and i like it. i like that we have to get rid of stuff that we don't absolutely need and/or love. i like that we are in close quarters, and are basically all in the same room. i like having to work at making it all come together. what i don't love...is that we still have stuff in storage. we make trips to the storage unit often. so often, in fact, that when i asked thomas what his baby's name was the other day...he said "storage." it sounded very much like george though, so his baby is now named george...which is somehow a fitting name for his beloved naked "beebee." i still have yet to find the pedal for my sewing machine, so we still don't have halloween costumes. i am no great seamstress, but somehow buying costumes just doesn't work for me. they have to be made by us, in some way. even if that means drawing a mustache and stuffing your shirt with batting...it can't be a full fledged store bought costume. i know, i'm weird. i blame my mom, for always making fantastic halloween costumes. i have some big shoes to fill.

thomas has been sleeping on his mattress on the floor for the past week, because we hadn't gotten around to putting his crib together. i have known for some time that he would be perfectly find in a toddler bed, but i just couldn't bring myself to make the switch, since he is, after all, my baby. i want him to be a baby, not a big kid. i feel like people now a days try to make their kids grow up too fast (which is an entirely different post all together).

so tonight we put his crib together, and only put one of the sides on. so he is officially in a real bed, and for some reason it just kills me. i no longer have a little guy who sleeps in a crib. something about that just tugs at my mama heart. however, at the same time, i love, love, LOVE this age. whoever said the twos were terrible is crazy. yes, he is crabby sometimes, and yes he wants his way. but...he is also very loving, and very excited about everything, yet he can still do many things on his own. he's also talking nonstop, and learns something new about every 5 minutes. i love my little guy.

steven has already had three interviews. he interviewed at the medical college of wisconsin and wayne state in detroit about two weeks ago, and has been placed on the waiting list at both schools. frustrating. we drove to scranton, pa for an interview on friday, and he should hear from them in the next week or two. and, he is flying to portland for an interview at ohsu next week (which we are very excited about). ohsu would be fantastic! our families would be four hours away, and it's a really good school. pray for him!

tibit of information: our new ward has 500 members that attend each week. 900 members in the ward all together. it's crazy. the chapel is L-shaped, and we couldn't even see the speaker today. there are two relief societies, and two elders quorums. it's like going to stake conference each week. weird, huh?

an apple a day....plus a few pumpkins

thomas and i went apple picking last week, and (minus inhaling a few hundred fruit flies) had so much fun. we had actually planned on going with our ward, but i didn't realize it was going to take an hour to get there. i decided than an hour away or not, we wanted to pick apples. so we went anyway, just mama and t. it was perfect. thomas loved every second of it, and so did i.

ok, thomas clearly didn't understand the excitment of these pictures, but his expressions are so cute that i had to post them.


excitment about goats....
goat practically jumps through fence at thomas...

thomas sprints away...but still very excited about the whole situation.













notice a trend? he thought he had to taste every apple. poor guy could hardly wait to pay for them. and...he has been eating them nonstop ever since. he didn't used to do well with apples, and therefore didn't get to eat them much unless they were chopped up into teeny, tiny pieces. we have had a few trial runs, and he hasn't had a single problem. yay!


and this...is priceless. i'm not sure what the confusion was, but i want to look at this picture all day.

home sweet....HOUSE

we finally found a place to live. we are sooooo excited. instead of paying a billion dollars a month for a tiny apartment, we will be paying LESS to rent an entire house. oh my gosh, the power of prayer is overwhelming. it has two bedrooms on the main floor, and then the upstairs is a huge loft...huge. i'm thinking playroom/mama's sewing/craft room....you know, for all of the things that i want to do, but never get around to doing. now when our families come to visit, they will have the whole upstairs to themselves. we will also be property managers for the rest of the property. the basement will be rented out as a one bedroom apartment, as well as another studio and another house. it's all that we have wanted. we couldn't be happier, and can't wait to move in. we are so grateful for the promptings to wait until we found something better...and we did.

super hero thursday

so, last thursday was super hero day. what? you didn't hear? well, we did. it started with a white pillow case, which i told thomas was a cape. then i showed him how cool it was to run with a cape on, like a super hero. then we added some red lipstick (i knew there was a reason i bought red lipstick!) to his forehead. a red T, for thomas. the T was later changed to a star, which he loved even more, and wanted to look at in the mirror about 20 times. we added some lightning bolts to his cheeks, which were smeered by tiny hands in about 5 seconds. the T got smeered too, but was still cute, so we left it. we decided he needed a wand...so we transformed the paper towl rod with some stars and streamers. he had a great time runing around outside, and it was so cute that i had to take some pictures. i love my little super hero. i especially loved that he insisted on wearing his moccasins. those cute little moccasins cost me about 50 cents at a garage sale a few weeks back, and were worth every penny....thomas loves them! so here is my super hero, in all his super hero glory. his bike became his super hero transportation, with moccasins of course. it started raining, which we both secretly loved. but, going back in for a star-shaped super hero lunch kept my little hero happy. p.s. he ate about 3 tomatoes with his lunch. who wants pb&j when you can eat tomatoes? he is definitely my son. we both think tomatoes are the fruit of the earth. he did enjoy the star shaped sharp cheddar...also one of my favorites. stars are sub par, due to the fact that i cut them freehand with a dull steak knife...but super heros aren't about perfection. at least mine isn't. i wish he could be two forever. at least for now i do.

note: thomas' cute bike was only $15 plus shipping (which i believe was $8). it is hardwood and steel. on the company website they sell for about $60 plus shipping. but, there is a sweet man that buys them in bulk, and sells them on ebay for $15. it's amazing. the bike is so fantastic! it comes new in a box, and you put it together...which takes all of 10 min. i even wrote my first ever thank you letter to an ebay seller after we received the bike in the mail. i was just so happy, and so thankful that we could buy thomas such a cute bike for his birthday. what a nice man, right? if you want one, let me know, and i will let you know where we got it. definitely worth $15. actually, in all honesty, it's worth $60.

washington monument

so before we could go to actually see the monument, we had to hang around for a few minutes until it was 5:00, so we could park without getting a ticket. which meant thomas could run around, and i could take pictures of my cute boy. which is exactly what i did. i think he's the cutest boy ever.







as is characteristic for thomas, he love, love, loved the water...or "aber," as he would say.



however, then we saw this sign....

and thomas was less than impressed. i realize these are sad pictures, but it's still cute. he wanted to play in the water so bad. poor guy.





he also loved the birds though, so all was not lost.






some crazy helicopter kept circling the monument, and getting really close. weird, but kinda neat. next time we will really need to get there sooner to get tickets to actually go inside the monument. we are horrible tourists. we have no idea what we are doing. luckily, we are long term tourists, and will have time to go back.

as requested by papa

here are some pictures from about a week or so ago, when we
took a trip to the national zoo. it was really crowded, seeing
how it was the saturday of labor day weekend, at about noon.
but, aside from our poor planning, it was a fun trip.
we didn't get a chance to see everything, so we will definitely be
going back before the weather turns on us.

note: the really over exposed picture of thomas and i in the 'zoo' sign
was steven's doing. but, it would have been such a cute picture,
so i tried to save it. the sad thing is that steven took
quite a few cute pictures of thomas and i in the sign...
but unfortunately they are all VERY over exposed. oops.