Beginning of October

I got a few more pictures of James at school from his school's private facebook page. I love seeing him in action! He loves going to school and has almost three straight weeks of good behavior. Thank heavens!

I started volunteering in James' class on Monday mornings while Anthony is home to watch Rett. The first morning, James wanted me to go with him to the bathroom. While he was in there he told me this story about how he found a bat in the trash can one day! It was one of the those stories that make you say, "hmmmm, how true is this....", but when I asked his teacher she said it actually happened! James was in the bathroom washing his hands when he heard a sound in the trash can. He came out and told his teacher, "There is a living creature in the bathroom!". She asked him if it was a bug and he said, "No! It is a wild animal!". She thought he was exaggerating and that it was a big bug, so she was shocked when she checked it out and found a small bat! They got it into a butterfly cage, covered it and called a local bat rescue to come get it. How crazy is that?

One morning I checked James' folder at school and was surprised to find a two page report with the results of his first vpk assessment. Apparently they test each child three times during the year: at the beginning, at the middle, and at the end. It helps them see where they are at and what to focus on with each child, as well as showing their progression. I was shocked to see that James got an almost perfect score! We have always known that he is bright, but I wasn't sure if he would be cooperative enough to actually demonstrate it.

For general conference this year, I put together surprise bags for each apostle and member of the first presidency for the boys to open when they are speaking.

I was so glad that I prepared all of this ahead of time because Saturday morning at 3am Rett woke up covered in vomit. As I was cleaning him up and changing his sheets, I realized that I didn't feel so well... It turns out I caught the 24 hour stomach bug that has been going around and I caught it bad! I haven't been sick like that in years! I couldn't get out of bed, so the boys ended up on the bed with me with whatever food they could bring from the pantry and I would open it for them and hand it to them. I couldn't even change Rett's diaper from the morning, just the motion of getting him out of his crib made me sick. I tried calling Anthony at work but he wasn't picking up his phone, so I called my mom. She got in the car and started driving the 3 hours to our house almost immediately. Grandma to the rescue! I finally got a hold of Anthony and he was able to come home at lunch time. It was a good thing my mom came because then Anthony realized he didn't feel well either!

The boys were so happy to have Grandma to play with and they watched conference together with the bags I prepared.

The next day we all felt much better, but still tired out. My mom went home and the next day she got sick! A few days later James got in our bed in the middle of the night, saying his stomach hurt and he threw up a few times. He was so miserable at one point, he didn't want to move, he just wanted to hang over the bed. Thankfully, he was able to go back to sleep and was perfectly fine in the morning. Can we be done being sick for awhile??

We've had a lot of rain lately, so we were so happy to be outside and enjoy some sun. First we went for a bike ride/walk around the neighborhood.

Then we came home and played in the backyard. Look at this face!

We finally got to play with the kites we bought in North Carolina. The weather never cleared enough for us to play with them on vacation, so James was happy to be able to play with them.

I watched my friend's little girl for a few hours and it was so much fun! She is the easiest toddler ever (she is four months younger than Rett) and James loves her death. He played with her the entire time, following her around and asking her to come play. We had to go to Wal-mart so we put our extra car seat in the car for her. It was so interesting to get a glimpse of life with three kids. If I could guarantee a baby as easy as her, I might consider it ;)

James had picture day at school, and then soccer pictures right before his soccer game. When we told him he had pictures, he said, "But I already did pictures!"

We were getting ready to take a walk and after I put Rett's shoes on him, I had to do something else really quick. Rett was at the door, ready to go and when he saw we weren't leaving right away, he threw himself on the ground in protest. So. much. drama.

James thought it was funny, so he said, "Oh, I got to get a picture of this" and he ran to the other room to get his toy phone to "take Rett's picture". At this point, Rett had gotten up, walked to another part of the room and then dramatically thrown himself down on the ground again in a different spot.

After I got the stroller ready we were on our way. James brought his critter cage and caught a large grasshopper. We found tadpoles in some leftover rainwater, so he agreed to let the grasshopper go to make room for tadpoles. Now we have tadpoles in the cage in our bathroom and we are trying to figure out how to get them to turn into frogs. Boys make life so much fun!