Starting out with Tuesday, which was Jared's 10th Birthday! He was very excited about it the day before. He kept saying "I'm about to make it to two digits!" (Sorry, Jared--there's no going back!) Since Frank and Scott were both out the door before 6:00, and Jared was not awake yet, he had to wait until after school to open presents. He handled the wait very well, though. (I can't say the same thing about Scott a few years ago!) Seth and I went in to wake up Jared in the morning; I blew a couple of party blowers to wake him up.
The boys do not get a party every year, and this was not a party year for Jared. But the years that they don't have a party we let them invite 2 friends over to play and to have pizza and cake. We always tell the friends not to bring a present, but a lot of them do anyway. This year Jared had his friends Sage and Nicholas come over. They are both in his class at school, so I arranged to bring them home from school with me. I think Jared had a fun time with his friends. I think he really liked his presents. Frank did the shopping this year (with help from a list Jared made) and I think he made some good choices--a few things that were on the list, and a few things that weren't but Jared loved. We got him a Pokemon game for the Nintendo DS (Mystery Dungeon, or something like that), a thing for the DS called "action replay" which is a bunch of cheat codes--helps him unlock a bunch of new things in a lot of the games he has, the movie Night at the Museum, a big chocolate bar, and a package of differnt colored "sharpie" pens. He loved the tie tac Mom & Dad gave him and he is excited to pick something out with the money they sent. His friend Sage also got him a gift card to Borders, so he can go pick out some books. Here are a few pictures of the festivities:
What could it be? The suspense is killing me!
Excited Jared & Sage
Blow out the candles!
Here's a video of Jared's birthday (I've never tried this before, so we'll see if it actually works!)
Wednesday was a busy day also. As I mentioned in my last post, I had my surgery follow up appointment that day. I wasn't sure I was going to be up to driving to Bethesda and back by myself (my eyes get tired easily) so I asked my friend Marci to come with me in case I needed help with driving. My appointment was at 11:00. I dropped the boys off at school at 9:00 (we ended up being late--I'm still not sure how that happened!), then I ran to the grocery store really fast, went home long enough to throw the groceries in the refrigerator, and then went to pick up Marci so we could head down to my appointment. We ended up getting a little lost (I had only been there once before and MapQuest failed me and gave me faulty directions) so I was a little late, but the GPS saved me (I should have used it in the first place.) I was nervous about getting the stitches out, but it only hurt a little bit. Seth sat on my lap through the whole thing and evidently watched very intently; the doctor offered to let him take one out! I said "no way!" After I was done at the doctor, we went over to the distribution center by the temple to make some purchases and then Marci took me to lunch. We were at a restaurant right next to a duck pond, so afterwards I took Seth out there to see the ducks, which he loved. He dropped his sippy cup, though--right over the railing--and there was no way to get to it, so the ducks get to keep it, I guess! We ran into some pretty bad traffic going home, so I just made it home in time to drop Marci off at her house and go pick up the boys from school. So long day, but it was a lot of fun to spend the day with Marci--we got a lot of visiting done!
After I got home we just had time for homework and dinner and then we were out the door again for our ward's "Trunk or Treat". Technically, it was a Primary activity, but the YM /YW had agreed to help and they really did most of the work--nice! They had 4 different carnival games set up for the kids to play. The day ended up being windy and cold, with rain threatening, so we ended up doing it all inside--we set up a big circle of chairs in the gym, and the kids went around the circle collecting candy from the adults. Here's a picture of our guys:
And here is Seth, moving around too much for me to get a really good picture, but still cute!:
He looked adorable in the little train outfit that Mom actually made for Scott 13 years ago! It is actually a little on the small side for him--if Halloween had been a month later, I don't know if I would have been able to get it on him (length-wise). Yes, he is eating some candy already! (And yes, it was blue candy. How'd you guess?) Seth caught on pretty quick with the trick or treating thing, and loved being able to pick a piece of candy out of each bowl as we went around. I didn't get a photo of me, but I wore a pirate hat and eye patch. I thought that was appropriate! I spent most of the evening blind, however, because I couldn't wear glasses with an eye patch!
My friend Rebecca sews incredible costumes for her whole family every year (herself, her husband, and her five children). She always picks a theme, but she also lets her kids decide what they want to be, so a few of them always have something that doesn't go along with the theme. But she and her husband, as well as 2 or 3 of her kids, are always in matching costumes. This year she chose Lord of the Rings. Here's a picture of Rebecca and her husband:
Here is her son:
After that action-packed day, I was pretty tired and my eye was hurting, but it was fun, at least. Thursday was mercifully quiet, and Seth took a long nap. That evening was busy also--Jared had soccer practice and Scott had a school-related open house to attend. I got Jared over to soccer practice, but Frank met me there on his way home from work and stayed so that I could go home. He took Scott to the open house also. It was for a place called the Career & Technology Center which is located at the local community college. They have a program where they partner with the high schools to give high school kids the opportunity to start learning and getting work experience in different trades. It sounds like a good opportunity. Scott was interested in finding out more about the culinary arts (one of the possible careers that interests him is to be a chef) as well as the computer programs. He found out he can get an associate's degree in computers by the time he graduates from high school. So he is looking into that possibility. Frank ended up having a long evening--he had some work to do when he got home that kept him up until 1:30 am. I am grateful that he did so much to help me out--after Wednesday I was very tired!
Friday wasn't very notable except it was Halloween, of course. Fortunately, the weather warmed up a bit (got up to about 61 degrees during the day) so it wasn't miserably cold for trick or treating. Tanner and Jared went trick or treating with their friend Joey from down the street--his dad went with them. Scott went with them also to help "supervise". He didn't collect any candy. They walked a long ways and were gone for nearly 2 hours, and Tanner and Jared came home with a truly appalling amount of candy! Frank and I took Seth around our part of our court (we live on a strange court that has three different branches). There were only a few people giving out candy, so that was perfect since he really doesn't need any! The rest of the night we manned the door. We really don't get that many trick or treaters here anymore, although we had a decent amount. We had too much candy as usual, so we were very generous but we still ended up with a couple of big bags leftover. Here's a better picture I got of Seth right before we left to go trick or treating:
And here he is later, trying out Tanner's Indiana Jones hat and whip: 
This morning was busy because Jared had to help put out bags for the "Scouting for Food" service project at 9:00 and he had his last soccer game of the season at 10:00. We got to the service project right at 9:00 and asked for an assignment so we could get started immediately. They gave us a little housing development with just 3 streets, but we ran out of bags before we ran out of houses. We were out of time by then, too, so I went back over to the church (meeting place) and let them know which houses still needed to be done. Hopefully, someone else was able to finish it up.
We went straight over to the game after that. This week the referee was good--observant and fair. The other team was also one of the best teams we've played--hardly any pushing and elbowing going on. It was so nice to see that! Both teams played well, and the score was tied 2-2. Jared did a great corner kick to one of his team mates who then made it into the goal. It was a really nice way to end the season--on a much higher note than last week! Afterwards, they received medals and shared a great big chocolate chip cookie with their team initial on it. The weather was just beautiful today, too--sunny and warm--so that has been nice for a change! Here's a picture of Jared with his medal:
We are hoping to just enjoy the rest of today. We have some yard work to do, and maybe we will work on the kitchen, which still looks like this:
Not too pretty! But mostly, I hope we can spend some time outside--it is so beautiful today and I think we should enjoy it while we have the chance! I'm sure days like today are going to be really scarce between now and next spring!My eye has continued to improve noticeably every day. It is starting to itch quite a bit, but I know that means it is healing. I'm trying not to rub it! I was thinking on Friday morning how incredible it is how the human body is able to heal! I was remembering how bad my eye was just one week before. Almost all the bruising is gone now and the scar is already starting to fade. I doubt many people would notice anything unusual about my eye now.
Seth has started saying "da" for "yes". I guess he was supposed to be born Russian! (At least he's not backwards like Scott was. Scott used to say "nein" for "yes". We have no idea why!) Seth was so very good on Wednesday when I was out and about all day. Ok, so he did try to climb on the table at the restaurant, but other than that, he was an angel--and he took two naps while riding in the car! Frank discovered this week that Seth has a molar coming in. It's funny that he still only has 6 front teeth and now he is getting one of his second molars!
That's our week, with pictures! We hope all of you are well.
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