And then there were four …

Yep that is right ... our family is growing by one. Next April we will be a family of four. J We get to find out if the baby is a boy or girl next month. It will be interesting to see how Sammy does with a baby around.

For those of you who have spent any time around Sammy lately, you know that she loves to push babies down. She comes up to me with a little smirk on her face and says, “I push that baby down.” And sure enough, next chance she gets, she is trying to tackle the “baby” to the floor (usually it is one-year-olds she beats up on, people just a little smaller than she is).

I hope it is just a phase she will grow out of, but for right now I am at a loss as to what to do with her. We have tried putting her in time out, talking to her and showing her how she hurt someone, making her say sorry, ignoring her when she says it hoping she won't actually do it, etc., but nothing has worked. So if anyone has any helpful tips, please share.

Although Sammy is a stinker on occasions like this, she is the cutest thing at times too. She has recently “memorized” several of her favorite books and likes to read them to herself for fun. I am going to try and catch it on video one of these days so you all can see how cute it is.

Other than new baby and crazy Sammy, there isn't a whole lot going on around here. We aren’t even planning to dress Sammy up for Halloween because we have nowhere to take her. Good thing she is too little to know she is missing out on a bunch of candy. Most likely I wouldn’t let her have any of it anyway and would end up eating it myself.

Just because I feel like every post needs a picture. This is the sign we helped Sammy make for Travis' birthday. Yeah, he only got this picture of it, not the actual sign. Since taking this picture she pealed off the pizza stickers and has kept them in her "oven," which is actually the drawer in her bathroom. She pulls them out every morning when she brushes her teeth to check on them and then puts them back in the oven. 

Fall is Here

Man, I feel like summer sure left in a hurry. I swear it went from being 90 degrees to 60 degrees overnight. Now that summer is over, I don’t know that I have anything too exciting to write about, if anything I wrote about before was even exciting at all. We have happened upon a few great things I will share that have kept us fairly busy and happy the last month or so.

For starters, it is football season, so we always have something to do on the weekends. Drew’s dad has season tickets to the Boise State games, and we have been lucky enough to go to all the home games so far. We took Sammy to the first game and she did surprisingly well, but I don’t think we will take her to another one this season.   

We also took her to a game at Drew’s old high school (also where his mom teaches, so we can get in for free if we go with her) and Sammy loved it. She was dancing, cheering and having a great time. She loves watching the fireworks when the home team scores and eating popcorn for a treat. I think she pays better attention to the actual game than I do. She is always saying, “He throw the ball,” “He fall down, and that’s another “first down.”

Drew’s work has season tickets to the Boise State games as well, so each employee gets to take all six tickets for one game of the season. We got to use the tickets last weekend for the Southern Miss game. They are pretty good seats, at about the 40 yard line, three rows up. We were lucky enough to have two of my best friends and their husband’s come with us to the game. It was fun having a little triple date with two of my old roommates.

On to other things besides football … Sammy and I do a music and movement class at the library each week, which she LOVES! Last week when we went to the class, they announced an early literacy class that was starting up where you come to the class for an hour and they teach you skills and give you tips on how to prepare your young ones to read. The best part, you get a free book. I decided to sign us up for the six week course, and we get a free book every single week. I am pretty excited about that. This week we got Llama Llama Red Pajama and Sammy loves it. She also got a CD with like 45 different kid songs, and a little pack of Play-Doh. I think we get cool treats like this every week, so I am excited for the next five weeks. 

Besides this class, I am also taking a Positive Parenting class. The class is two semesters long, and I took one part in the winter and am now taking the other half this fall. It is a 10 week class where we learn about a variety of topics, all related to parenting and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here is a link to the instructor’s site. If you live in Nampa or the surrounding area, I would highly recommend it. I am so grateful my mom is willing to watch the little girl for me so I can go each week. Some of the topics we cover are kind of hard to implement with such a young kid with no siblings, which is why I am grateful for the class syllabus with all Sister Tanner’s notes and references, so I can review it and implement it as time goes.

Other than that, we have just been hanging out enjoying life. We were able to go work at the orchard this week and pick apples, which was fun. We picked peaches during the summer and did apples this go around. Since the fruit is used for the Church Welfare System, we were only allowed to take apples that had touched the ground. I guess if it touches the ground it is no good to them, so I brought home two WalMart sacks full of “flawed” apples.  I attempted making apple sauce in the crock-pot this morning, and I think it turned out pretty well.

Anyway, we are excited to relax and listen to General Conference this weekend. I have spent some time trying to create some activities for Sammy to help her learn, and keep her busy so I can listen to the prophet and apostles who will be sharing messages this weekend.  

If you made it to the end of this long and probably boring post, thanks and have a great weekend!