Here's a funny for your Thanksgiving enjoyment...

Ever since the parade at school, William has been obsessed with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He has a favorite video on YouTube (which he calls the "Enfeature") that he has watched over and over again. Now he has started singing the song around the house. Here are the official lyrics to go along with the lines he loves to sing:

"Go, go, go Joseph you know what they say
Hang on now Joseph you'll make it some day
Sha la la Joseph you're doing fine
You and your dreamcoat ahead of your time"

Only William's version is less about a dreamcoat and more about literacy (so appropriate for our kid.) According to William, the last line goes "Pick up the books and you'll know how to rhyme." Hey, he's got that much right. It does rhyme!

Bigger than a house!

You should've seen it! Mom had to get out her cell phone and turn on the camera or no one would ever believe it... it was the BIGGEST leaf pile EVER! I'm glad I decided to go with Mom (I call her Mom now) to the post office because she took me to the park afterward. And when we pulled up, there it was, right in the driveway of watertower park. It was so fun to climb and jump in it. I smiled so much I got leaves and dirt in my mouth, but I still couldn't keep it closed.

Mom's attempt at a baseball.

The other fun thing around here is face paint! I was digging through a box of clearance items from Halloween while we were at the grocery store. Mom wouldn't let me get the flashing pumpkin light, but she did agree to the face paints. I couldn't wait to rip them open the second we got home and start painting. Mom thought they were a good buy at 25 cents. Everyone in the house got painted! Except Belle, we decided she was too furry.

Ha ha! She's so hilarious!

Mom also put some great pictures of Eliana online. She showed them to me today. It's a game Eliana plays when I'm asleep, so I never saw it. But the pictures are hilarious! You can play them frontward and it looks like Eliana is falling on her head! And you can play them backward and it looks like she's crawling up backward. Ha ha ha!

It's been a lot of fun around here lately. We've just been doing normal, every day things, but to me it's all exciting and new. The library is always a fun place to play. There are even fun toys for me at the library!

I'm enjoying eating these days. I like to try new foods and get bored with the same old things. Hopefully I'll remember this when I'm four like William. The messier the food is, the more fun it is!

I am getting to be quite the climber. There's not much in our living room that is out of my reach anymore. I discovered a fun new game with the "old fashioned chair," as William calls it. He always takes the cushion off and piles blankets in the seat to make a bulldozer. Then I crawl under the foot rest and hit my head, so Mommy pushes the foot rest back in. That must've been my plan all along because then I can play my fun new game. I climb up in the chair and on top of the blankets. Then Mommy puts the cushion on the floor in case I fall. But then I get down on my belly and slide like a penguin down to the cushion! I get back up and do it all again. One of these days someone has to put some new video of me up so you can see. It's great fun!

My other favorite new game is dumping! Actually, it's more like flinging. I stand by my toy basket and fling the toys out. I can get some good distance! Watch out! Some of those hard plastic baby toys hurt if they hit you.

William playing band

This week is National Education Week. To celebrate I've been making cards for all my teachers. And they've been doing some exciting things for us. Tuesday Cameron came and played his guitar and sang songs with us. Then today we could bring a special visitor to our parent-child class. Grandpa Ron came to play with me. We had fun playing with the Moon Sand! And then at the end of class we had a parade inside the building! There was a real tuba, drum, trombone, trumpet and clarinet played by big kids from the middle school. They were playing Go, Go, Go Joseph, a song that I've now been listening to nonstop at home on Mommy's computer while I play parade. Using maracas for drumsticks makes a great sound! While I was at school, Eliana was at home playing with Grandma Lanz. It took a lot of grandparents to help make this day work out. Eliana would have loved to hear the marching band. She would have danced and danced. I have really been wanting to bring her to school with me. Today Mommy asked my teacher Janie if we could start bringing her to school after she turns one because my class is for 1-5 year olds. Janie thought that we should try it! So I'll get to bring Eliana for the first time on her birthday because that's the first day back to school after Christmas! I was happy to hear that! Maybe she'll be walking by then. She already likes to walk pushing her toys and holding onto people's hands. We'll see!

Sometimes it hits me at the strangest times. Like today, as I'm sorting laundry, I suddenly get all choked up. I'm just so grateful to have all this laundry to sort. I remember the hundreds of dark days when I doubted that I'd ever have any little clothes to wash. Now I'm separating the pinks from the blues and I feel so amazingly blessed! I'll admit that I don't have this feeling every time I do the laundry. That's why I was especially struck by the sudden appreciation of all those dirty clothes. I wish I could have a slow release capsule of thankfulness to take me through all the everyday frustrations. Instead it tends to hit me like a brick once in a while. Maybe it struck me today because I was up late ordering pictures from the last few months and relishing all those special times that we share on this website. Or maybe it was the sweetness of the moment with Eliana napping peacefully, Darren working on putting together our new grill, and William watching Kai Lan on my computer, the whole family enjoying a leisurely Sunday. But whatever it was, I'm happy to have experienced it.

William made a helpful sign for Eliana to keep her out of trouble. How thoughtful... if she could read.

Today, after Eliana chewed up one of Mommy's magazines and was going back for more, I taught her an important rule. This is how it goes (just add a few more "nevers" or "evers" for extra emphasis.)

You should learn this rule: Never-dee ever, super-dee dooper-dee ever, never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever get into trouble!

See! I can stand up! If you put something in my hands for me to hold onto, so I won't just crawl away.

Yesterday I turned 10 months old. Soon I will be one, can you believe it? I'm getting really good at walking when people hold onto my hands. I wonder when my first steps will be... I love crawling and can get around really fast. Anytime someone tries to get me to stand without holding on, I drop right down and crawl. Why would I want to just stand there? I'd rather be on the go!

Mommy was looking back at William's blog entries and saw that he was as big as me when he was about three months old. That's how different we are! She says that with William she had hoped for a big baby and did she ever get her wish. But she soon realized that she missed out on having a little baby, so with me she again got her wish! I think that's pretty special!

Speaking of William, he's been a great big brother to me lately. He is always looking out for me and making sure I'm safe by putting up the "baby blocks." He doesn't let me get into ANYTHING, even if Mommy says it's okay, like when I get into the paper recycling or play with Belle's dog toys. Mommy says I can't eat it and I'm getting better about not putting everything in my mouth. But William is more strict and won't even let me TOUCH it!

My top teeth are showing through the gums and should come in any time now. They've been really bugging me for the last week and I can't wait until they're through. Plus, I'll be even cuter with top teeth! So watch out!

I love Halloween, so I wanted to do this blog entry myself. It's the best holiday (after Easter, and with Cookie Day following close behind) because it involves lots of sweets! The costumes and pumpkins only add to the fun. This fall has been pretty busy, so I was thankful when Grandma Barb brought a fire hat for William and he decided he wanted to be a firefighter instead of a grey wolf. He got a firefighter coat for Christmas last year, so that costume was already done! Unlike the grey wolf costume which I was still conjuring up in my head. I am all about creating costumes, as my mother was before me, but I have to admit to feeling relieved at his change of heart. He does make a pretty adorable firefighter, too. And Eliana is a perfect little pumpkin! Thanks, Hallie, for the costume that has made so many cute babies even cuter for their first Halloween!

A tradition in my family as a kid was having sloppy joes for Halloween dinner. I completely understand why, because they're easy, which was why we had them on Wednesday night after our pumpkin hunting adventure. But for some reason, tonight I got a bug to try something new. The Chicken Curry recipe in the international cookbook looked quick and easy. I only needed a few different spices. I'd even picked up some nann bread at the store earlier and received a flier saying that kids could trick-or-treat until 7:00. So, William put on his firefighter suit and we went off to get some treats and spices. Well, the places to trick-or-treat were a lot easier to find than the spices. I could've used some big orange and black signs that said Turmeric and Corriander. We ended up taking a trip and a half around the whole store to get the few items we needed, and all of William's treats, of course. By the time we got home, I figured I would be cutting it close to get dinner done by dark. Sure enough, I was cooking away as our first trick-or-treaters arrived. It was our old neighbors with their two little ones! So we had to visit for a bit. Good thing the grandparents had stopped over and Grandma Barb turned down the temps on the food for me. It was done a few minutes later and during dinner we were interrupted off and on by trick-or-treaters. I was disappointed that the curry wasn't very spicy, but I can try again - I have the spices! And next time I get the new recipe bug, I hope it's on a more convenient day.

After dinner, William and Eliana got their costumes on and the three of us headed out to canvass the neighborhood for candy. We went down to the end of the cul-de-sac and back before I got tired of carrying Ellie and dropped her off at home. William and I finished the rest of the neighborhood by ourselves while Darren and Eliana gave out candy. It was a warm night, perfect for trick-or-treating. The kids were out in full force. We had between 60 and 70 trick-or-treaters stop by, probably a record! But I think the Friday night also put a damper on things because there were a lot of lights out in the neighborhood. There were several lights out going the other direction, so we were home soon.

Then it was time to dig into the candy! In honor of the holiday, Eliana got to try her first candy! (Unless you count the M&Ms she found on the floor at playgroup last week and sucked on for a few seconds before I fished them out of her mouth. She definitely honed in on those colorful circles when she saw them laying around!) She had a red and a blue Dum Dum in her bag. I was a little disappointed that she chose red. Blue would've made for some funny pictures. But they were sure cute anyway. I couldn't resist taking about 1,000 of them. William was busting a gut watching her eat her sucker. He got a little too close once and got sticky fingers in his hair. The kids definitely both needed baths after the candy fest was over. And they both fell asleep quick as a wink when their heads hit their pillows, or in Ellie's case, her fuzzy blankie.

Today was a perfectly beautiful fall day! It was a great day for a field trip to Squirrel City. My preschool class took a walk to the nature trail that my teacher calls Squirrel City. We saw lots of squirrel nests, but zero squirrels. We also saw bat houses, bird houses, and wild berries. It was a long walk and we were all tired when we got back. My legs hurt. My teacher told the parents that the kids would all take naps today, but I didn't!

Finished pumpkins: Scary, Scared, and Silly

After rest time, we carved our Halloween pumpkins that we got yesterday. We were going to get them from a pumpkin patch that Mommy's friend had told her about, but we couldn't find it. I say "we" but really I slept for the whole drive. I woke up in Coborn's parking lot. I wasn't too disappointed even though I had wanted to go to a pumpkin patch. You'll have to see the pictures from carving. Eliana had a lot of fun playing in the slime. I didn't like it, didn't want her to play in it, and REALLY didn't want her to eat it, but Mommy said I should let her. She said I did it when I was a baby, but I can hardly believe that. Eliana got really messy! Once all the slime was emptied out, I helped design the faces and did a little carving. We made one pumpkin silly, one scary, and one scared. I carved a little bit of the scared mouth.

Helping with laundry?

Mommy says to tell you that Eliana is feeling better. She says that the antibiotics kicked in after 4:00am. She could tell because Eliana finally started sleeping well again. She was back to her silly self today. She helped Mommy with the laundry, just like I did when I was a baby. She helped dump the clean laundry all over the floor! It was funny!

Last night I couldn't sleep. Mommy and Daddy could not comfort me because I was in so much pain. Grandma Mary was coming to spend a couple hours with me while William was at school with Mommy. We just snuggled and rocked while I dozed in and out the whole time. I was so tired from not sleeping well all night. Daddy called and got me a doctor's appointment and when Mommy came home we went. William stayed back and played with Grandma Mary. She's so nice! At the doctor's office they found out that I had another ear infection. I knew it! I felt just like I did the last time. At least I had been to the doctor twice since then and they had confirmed that my ears were clear. So I got more of the same medicine. And since I am bigger now (my weight with clothes on was over 17 lbs) I have to take a lot more of it. Yuck! But at least it makes me feel better quickly. I hope the pain goes away as suddenly as it came because yesterday I was happy as a clam and playing like normal. We thought I was over my cold. Then - BAM! So, like I said, hopefully it goes away just as fast. I'll have to visit Grandma again soon, when I'm back to myself!