Another addition...

No, I'm not talking about another addition to the house (although, sometimes I wish I was!) We are expecting our second child the first week of February. I dont have any pictures of my pregnancy so far, sad I know, but I am always the one behind the camera with no one to take pictures of me. So I had Mike take a picture on Christmas. 7 1/2 months down... six weeks to go. All I can say is, this one had better not get too comfy and end up two weeks late like Josh did!

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch, again, after halloween to get two dumpsters full of pumpkins to feed our cows. They had a good crop this year, so they were big and heavy. It was a little chilly so Josh played outside until he got too cold and then he sat in daddy's "big chuk" (big truck).

Fall leaves!

I am convinced that the only reason leaves fall is for little boys to play in them! We have lots of large trees around our yard, so we have plenty of leaves. We spent a warm afternoon raking a big pile and then playing in it.

Josh, always helpful, mostly succeeded in UN-raking the leaves out of their pile!

He decided he was having so much fun, that his cow needed to have some too! the little white spot is his stuffed cow, and he is buried next to it. Isn't it wonderful to be young and impulsive? I am, of course, including myself with Josh in that description!

Trick-or-Treat

The only pictures I got of Joshua trick-or-treating was for the halloween party that the local library hosted. On Halloween night, we went trick or treating to a couple of our neighbor friends. The houses are spaced so far apart out here that most people don't get trick or treaters, so if someone shows up, they get a whole bag of goodies dumped into their sack! Later that night, we went to a friends home for chili and cinnamon rolls and trick or treating in their neighborhood, since their houses were closer enough together to walk to. Josh dressed up like a dragon in a costume that our friend's son had outgrown.


The library put on a play for the kids before they went trick-or-treating.

Surprisingly, Josh sat there mesmerized, and watched the whole thing! I kept leaning over to him and asking him if he liked it, and without taking his eyes off the play, he would breathlessly say "aaah" (his version of ya).

The actors from the play and library employees passed out candy afterward. Joshua was so funny. He would'nt look at the ones who were dressed up. He would turn his head and hold his bag out for the candy but wouldn't look at them except for out of the corner of his eye!

"Big Pumpkin"

"Big Pumpkin", or as Josh calls it "Bi Buh". Josh decided that mom was pretty cool to mutilate our food like this, he enjoyed stabbing the pumpkin with his butter knife more than anything!
After we carved the pumpkin, we turned all the lights out and lit a candle to show him our masterpiece!

The disturbed look on Josh's face is because he is holding the seeds we salvaged from the goo. We cooked them all night in the oven and they were delicious!

The Park!

We spend at least once a week playing on the playground at one of the local parks. Josh, as always, experiences everything he comes in contact with, with the same zest for life that his father does. There is a pond in the park with ducks that live in it. Josh likes to go and watch the ducks swim around and eat bugs in the water. He waits until their heads go in the water and their bottoms pop up and then he belly laughs at them! The simple things in life.
He does love his slides!

He is dressed like a dragon because we came to the park after the halloween party at the library.

Showing off his tight-rope skills!

Ways my boy entertains himself

Joshua always has very definite ideas on how he plays with his toys and how he entertains himself. Here are some of the funny and typical ones I caught on camera. This is Josh, giving his stuffed cow (that he dresses, feeds, reads stories to, and tucks into bed), a ride on his excavator!

We found this helmet at a thrift store for $5.00 and he insists on wearing it at the most random times...including all over town, as well as while driving his excavator, or while jumping off the couch and pretending to crash on the floor. Then he just lays there until someone comes to see if he is okay.

Helping dad disassemble contact switches.

Hammers! This boy and his hammers, whether they are plastic toys or the real deal, he loves to hammer things. This is okay with mom, until the hammer finds my walls and cabinets!

I thought this was so cute/sad/hilarious! He looks like he is in time out because he was a bad boy!

It is hard to tell what he is doing in this picture, but he loves to to art projects! Paints, chalk, crayons, markers, pencils, it doesn't matter, he loves it all! Usually I am right there to supervise, however, on one eventful day, I went upstairs to his room and discovered that he had redecorated his room! The walls, his chair, his fresh sheets, his dresser, his closet (inside and out), the windows, etc had all been colored bright pink! Thankfully it was only chalk, and I made him scrub it all off. I admit that I still laugh to myself when I find a toy or hidden part of the wall that still has some residual artwork on it.

Josh Vs The Shirt

It is a struggle...who will win?

Tah Dah! We have a winner!

Too Cool!

Josh is always sporting mine or Mike's sunglasses, so when Grandma Jean gave him his own pair, we were so glad!

Play Place fun

We spend one day every week for an hour at a local church that hosts a play place for kids 18 months to four years old. It is really nice for Josh since most of the communities activities target older kids. We usually have some music time, story time, free play time, a craft project, and snacks. This particular week, they had a big parachute that the kids played with. Josh liked spending his time under the parachute, and wouldnt come out! I also fell in love with one of the art stations they had. Since Josh likes to draw, paint, and color, he spent a lot of time playing with this mat that he colored on with markers full of water. The mat changed colors when it got wet. Yay, no more coloring on my furniture and walls!

Proud to be...the American Flag?

I was taking some pictures of some wwII items to sell with a flag for a backdrop. After I was done with taking the pictures, I turned around for a minute and when I turned back, there was Josh, wrapped up in the American flag. He is such a dramatic boy, so I snapped a few pictures of him, and he just kept working it with the camera.

Family Photo Shoot Fun

We went for a drive to a nature reserve for big horn sheep near our home. While we were there, we took some family photo's. Here are some of the rough drafts of the pictures, before I cropped and touched them up. We had a lot of fun.

Picnic in Logan Canyon

We made a trip to Salt Lake City to attend a vehicle auction in September. We stayed with Mike's parents for the night and on our way home, we stopped in Logan Canyon to have a family picnic. I snapped a few pictures while we were there.

Exploring a cave with daddy.