Halloween Cookies

On Sunday we made Halloween cookies, and we decorated them on Monday. Okay, so they aren't actually Halloween cookies. I went to three stores trying to find Halloween cookie cutters, but to no avail.


So they are non-holiday cookies that we made to look like Halloween cookies. Ben was pretty creative; he made the bleeding cat, Frankenweenie, the maimed butterfly, and the broken heart.


Eddie mainly enjoyed eating the frosting.


He did help frost, though.


And they turned out great! We had fun.

Back in his Chair

Ever since the accident, Eddie has refused to sit in his booster seat. I think at first he just wanted to always be in my arms. Then it became a habit that was hard to break. I gave up trying after awhile. All of his meals have been on my lap. It has been quite a challenge. He demands his own adult silverware so he can play with my food, and he makes quite a mess that ends up on the carpet (shame on carpeted dining areas!). He likes to climb onto the table, which is easy to do when he is on my lap. He also is able to get down off my lap whenever he wants to play with messy hands and face. On Sunday night I had had enough and decided to try the booster seat again. He went into it with no fuss! Now he eats all his meals a day in it. I LOVE IT!!!

First Halloween Costume

Eddie loved admiring himself in the mirror in his cute Tigger Halloween costume (which was purchased second-hand for $1.50).


He wasn't a big fan of the ward Halloween party. Luckily this balloon got us through the night.

New Chair

Eddie loves sitting in his new chair. He puts the chair next to wherever Ben is and sits in it. He looks really content and comfortable there.

More Time with Family

My parents, sister-in-law, and nephews stopped by for dinner and to sleep over Thursday night. It was fun to see them again; we didn't know we would. Eddie wasn't even nervous around them this time. He let my mom lift him into the chair he wanted to sit in.

He is a little nervous around my dad still. He enjoyed hearing grandpa read stories from a distance. He would walk up close for a moment to see the pictures before he'd hurry back to my side.


He liked getting down on the floor by his cousin, Jeremy. He would just look into his face. It was kind of sweet to watch.

It was sad to see them go again.

Leading Me Along

Eddie has learned that grabbing my hand and pulling is a good method of getting my attention. As soon as I stand up, he continues to hold my hand and leads me to where he wants to go.

Broom Book

Eddie loves brooms, so, naturally, he loves "The Widow's Broom" by Chris Van Allsburg. He locates the broom on each page, as you can see in the picture.

Our Pumpkins

William's family bought us little pumpkins while they were here. We drew faces on them last night for a Family Home Evening activity. Ben named his PUNKin. I don't think I need to point it out. Eddie did get a couple of marks on his pumpkin. He preferred eating the markers. Not quite old enough to use them. Oh, well. We had fun.

What I Did This Weekend

We had a very big weekend. Here is a list of some of the highlights.

* My parents, my brother and his wife, and my nephews came to visit. So good to be with family. I wish we lived close enough to see them every week!


* We celebrated Christmas. My incredibly generous brother and sister-in-law brought us presents so we wouldn't have to haul their gifts back to Georgia after real Christmas in Utah. Eddie got some cute new pajamas and his first coloring book. We got some much-needed silverware. Eddie enjoyed unwrapping the gifts.


* We fed the ducks. There is a little lake with ducks less than five minutes from our house. My nephew, Kyle, loved it. Every time the ducks ate a piece of bread, he would exclaim, "They love bread!!". Eddie is really brave around the ducks. He almost walked right into the water several times.
He would hold a whole piece of bread. He would sometimes eat the bread himself. Other times he would break off little pieces and throw them to the ducks. We had a lot of fun.


* Ben and I had our second wedding anniversary. I hope to post about this soon.


* We bought a car!!! It is a '99 Toyota Corolla, black with 87,000 miles and really cold a/c. We are so happy to be car owners again. We feel really blessed.


* We said goodbye to William, my brother, who is being deployed to Iraq on Wednesday. He has been told to plan on being gone for fifteen months. This was the reason for my parents' visit. It is really sad. We are thankful we have prayer, faith, and hope.

It was a big weekend!

The Most Interesting Thing to Ever Make it Into Our Toilet

Eddie loves putting things in the toilet. I keep the bathroom doors closed unless I am in the bathroom. As I get ready for the day, I keep one foot at all times on the toilet so Eddie can't get into it. He is really smart and fast, though. He is always on the ready for any brief moment when I may move my foot, even if he seems totally engrossed with another activity. Today he managed to deposit in the toilet the empty icecream container he has been playing with all week. I saw him going for it, but I didn't rush to stop him. I didn't think it would fit or that he would be able to manage holding the seat up while dropping such a big item in. I was wrong, and we took a picture to prove it!

Eddie Loves His Daddy

Out of every bad thing comes something good. We got in a terrible accident, and we wish it hadn't happened. But Ben has been home 100 percent of the time, and Eddie has grown so much closer to him. Eddie is still a mama's boy, but he spends a lot of time with his daddy now.


Eddie loves to be read to. He used to ask Ben to read to him occasionally. Now all day long Eddie is sitting on daddy's "lap" listening to a story.


Yesterday Ben was throwing his many pillows at Eddie, burying him in a pillow pile. Eddie loved it.


Randomly throughout the day, Eddie will go up to Ben and give him a hug, lean his head on his lap, or just touch him. You can see in Eddie's eyes how much love he has for his daddy. It has definitely grown over the past month or so.

Eddie gently touching Daddy's new hard cast. He is really gentle when touching Ben's "owie" (no, that isn't blood; Ben actually chose a red cast. He didn't have a lot of choice, apparently. We are so excited for the hard cast. It means Ben's flesh wound is healed, and that he can start getting up a little bit. He still needs to be cautious, though.).

I am not sure what we will do when Ben starts going back to school and having homework to do at home. We love being together!

Prayers

Eddie has been bowing his head for prayers since before he was one. Two weeks ago he folded his arms momentarily during our prayer for the first time. He hadn't done it since until yesterday. Ben and I were just talking to each other. Eddie had been playing when, all of a sudden, he was folding his arms and bowing his head repeatedly. He even tried to say the word "pray". We said a prayer because of it and then took a picture!

Daddy's Birthday Package

Sunday was Ben's birthday. Yesterday he received a birthday package in the mail from his mom. Eddie was really excited about it. You can see in this picture how eager he was for Ben to open the box.

Not so interested in the card.

Opening a present for Daddy.

Diapered Bears

This morning Eddie wasn't really interested in wearing a diaper. However, he liked his bears to wear them.

Key Crazy

Eddie has been into keys lately, real ones and play ones. Every time he finds a set of keys, he takes them to the door to pretend to lock and unlock it.

Hooded Edison

A cute picture of Eddie in a hooded shirt.

Chair Tipping

Eddie has been into pushing our chairs over. This morning, after tipping a chair, he tried pushing it around. Somehow he got his foot stuck under one of the legs. He continued to hold onto the chair, pushing his weight down on the chair and ultimately hurting his foot even more. He cried out, and I helped move the chair off his foot. I gave him a hug. These days when he stops crying after getting hurt, he returns to the scene of the accident to point to whatever hurt him and talk about it. He was very upset when he was talking about it. So I shook my finger at the chair and said, "No, chair. Don't hurt Eddie." He proceeded to shake his finger at the chair and say, "No, no." He continued to point to all the chairs to tell me to tell them not to hurt him. It was very interesting!

Some Cute Jam-Jam Pictures

Last night I was reading Eddie a book that said something about touching the sky. I reached up high, and he copied me. Every time we read that page, he did it again. He kept turning back to that page in order to do it.


Eddie loves brushing his and our hair. He brushes with his brush, our brushes, and forks (I guess Scuttle wasn't the only one confused about the purpose of the "dinglehopper".). Every time we brush hair I repeat the words from a Helen Oxenbury book, "Squelch, squelch in the mud. Splish, splash rub a dub. Gently, gently brush your hair. Tickle, tickle under there!" So we often refer to brushing our hair as "squelch, squelch"ing.

Church Shirt

Edison wore his first long-sleeved, white, button-up shirt to church yesterday. He looked so handsome. I didn't expect that he would like his new shirt, but he did. He was standing in front of the mirror as I was putting it on him. As soon as his arms were in, he smiled and shrugged his shoulders up to his chin and held it, like he was posing. After he was dressed, he kept returning to the mirror to admire himself. As he would walk away, he would look down at the shirt on his arms. What a cutie!