Rain Rain Go Away

Autumn is here!  Which means rain in Redmond.  

But there are gorgeous trees and plenty of pumpkins to go around.  I went to Trader Joe's today... did anybody else know that they are obsessed with pumpkin flavored everything at this time of year?  Pumpkin potato chips?  What?  I did happen to buy some Pumpkin butter though...

Elsy is so in love with pumpkins.  I was able to grow two pumpkins before our pumpkin plant succumbed to a bad bout of blight.  They are on our front porch.  Elsy tells everyone who comes over "Those are my pum pums!!"

A definite highlight of our week was the open house at the fire station on Tuesday.  Elsy has a thing for ambulances and gets pretty nervous when she hears them, especially since the fire station is one block from our house so we hear it quite often. 

We got fireman hats and got to sit in an ambulance.  To fun!

Elsy loved the tour.  It was a fun night and she didn't want to leave.

This week was pretty slow in regards to pressing matters.  Every other week is really busy and then really slow for us.  We try to go to Story Time at the library when things get boring.  I am so glad both my kids are super interested in books.  Ever since she was little and tiny Elsy would look at books while I got ready for the day.  She still does every day and I just love sneaking in on her and listening to her reading/talking to herself (no of course she can't really read yet haha).  Tommy has been starting to show an interest too... although he is a lot more violent and carnivorous with books.  He tends to love to demolish more than sit and look at the pictures.  But Elsy started the same way.  I just let them do it.  So long as I have some good tape I figure I can patch any book and I feel like the practice of reading and getting familiar with books is far more important.  I do have a few special books that I keep on a different book shelf in my room if I don't want it ruined.  I love that Tommy turns the pages already when I read to him at night.  I read "The Going To Bed Book" by Sandra Boynton every night, along with others.  He always gets the giggles when I read the last page "The moon is high, the sea is deep, they rock and rock and rock to sleep."  I rock the rocking chair as I say rock and he just giggles.  Aaaah I love my kiddies.

We also went to the Crossroads to get Elsy some Halloween costume fabric.  She wants to be Ariel.  We can't go to the Crossroads without her wanting to ride on the horses.  Someone kindly gave us a quarter when they heard me telling her I didn't have any.  Phew, bullet dodged.  We also stopped at Old Navy to get Tommy some pants.  I love shopping the sales there and I really like their kid clothes.  However, Elsy peed her pants while we were there (seriously, when was the last time she did that!? I had nothing for her) and Tommy cried the whole time.  So by the time I got through the amazingly long line to the register and they told me the jeans I had picked out weren't on sale like I thought I just bought them anyway.  $17 pants for a baby?  Jeeeee whiz.  But I figured it was worth it to pay full price than to have to go back with my bazerko kids and find a new pair.  I told Logan and he laughed and laughed. 

This week we have been sleep training this poor kiddo.  I feel like I should win the most neglectful mom of the year award because on the second night he woke up with no voice from the crying.  Logan and I are NOT cut out for this kind of torture.  Logan will sit and hold the video monitor in his hands and just watch him... as if somehow watching Tommy cry will make it all better?  I try to keep busy and distract myself.  All three of us end up miserable.

But it has been paying off!  The last two nights he has fallen to sleep on his own without a peep!  YAY!! .... now for the middle of the night... ugh.

On Saturday it poured and poured rain.  But we needed to get out of the house so I put Tommy on the porch with a bouncy car and some puffs and Elsy and I played in the gutter with our rain boots.  We were sopping wet by the end but it was a lot of fun.

General Conference was last week.  One of the challenges I decided to take on was the "Ponderize" challenge from Elder Devin G. Durran of taking one scripture every week and trying to memorize it and ponder it throughout the week.  To make sure I was serious I bought a little chalk board for the kitchen and will be writing my scripture on it.  I also made the home screen of my phone the scripture and each time I opened my phone I tried to recite the scripture.  I chose this scripture (Doctrine and Covenants 101:38) because I feel like my life has been lacking much needed patience on my part.  I think that seeking the face of the Lord, or in other words praying to him, has helped me keep a cool head several times this week.  I definitely have had my moments of "I am never praying for patience again!!" (because sometimes I feel like when I pray for patience the Lord 'blesses' me with 'opportunities' to try and be patient haha) but others where it has really helped.  I thought to myself this week that some people are just patient by nature and that must not be me.  But then I remembered the scripture that says weak things can be made strong through the Lord.  I decided that patience isn't going to be a weakness for me any more.  It might be a long road to get there, but I am working on it. And as long as I keep telling myself "I'll try again tomorrow" the Lord will keep helping me to get there.