October and the Beginning of November

October was so fun and busy! The first weekend was General Conference, which we so enjoyed! There was an especially exciting announcement this time: young men may now be called to serve missions after they complete high school, or turn 18 years old, and young women may be called at 19 years old. It's so exciting to be living during these important times of growth for the church!

That weekend we also visited a small pumpkin patch, as pictured above, and feasted on Grandma Wright's famous cinnamon rolls, as pictured below. Delicious!

The picture below is of my attempt to make cooking easier. It involved buying all the produce for the week, chopping it up all at once, and separating the ingredients into their respective bags, to be pulled out of the refrigerator on the day they were needed and quickly whipped up into meals. Alas, the effort to chop everything at once wore me down after only the second try, and I'm back to just doing all the meal-making on the day of the actual meal. I still think it was such a great idea though! 

Here's Peter out playing for one of the last times with his little friend Addie. She and her family just moved to Japan, and everybody around here misses them! She was definitely a bright ray of sunshine among the kids.

Here I was trying to capture Peter playing peek-a-boo with me by emerging from behind the towels again and again. So cute!

For Halloween this year we got hold of some boxes and spray paint and fashioned cars for all of us to wear as our costumes. Not just any cars, of course. Peter was Lightning McQueen, Luke was Mater, and I was Mater's love interest, Holly Shiftwell, from the second movie. Luke took on the project of making the cars, so of course they turned out fantastic! They were certainly a big hit with all the little kids at our ward Halloween party. Awesomely, I do not currently have a picture of us in our costumes. Luke may have some on his phone, so hopefully I'll remember to get it and put them on here.

Here is Peter playing in one of the boxes.

Earlier in the month we had our annual Halloween party with Luke's family at his sister Sarah's house, where we carved pumpkins, had a pie-eating contest among the kids and adults, and a donut eating contest. So fun! I carved a haunted house, pictured on the left, and Luke did the ghost on the inside of the pumpkin.





Halloween was also the day we found out we're having a boy! It's going to be so perfect for Peter to have a little brother. It will also be so perfect that our baby will have a cousin just a few short weeks older than him in the Caleb and Lauren Perkins family! And his cousin Silas on the Wright side will only be a year older. Perfect, perfect, perfect!

Near the beginning of November Peter's friend Isaac (pictured below on the right in the green t-shirt) turned three and invited all the neighbor kids to his birthday! The kids shot off a faulty rocket (it only actually shot into the air every three or four tries), played "pin the horn on the dinosaur" and ate an awesome lava cake with ice cream. The cake was so cool! Isaac's mom mixed red cake mix (red velvet?) with chocolate for the actual cake part, frosted it with chocolate frosting and some red frosting dribbling from the center. In the center she cut out a hole big enough for a small plastic cup to be put down in, then put dry ice and water in the cup so that it frothed out and looked like the cake was an actual smoking mountain! Brilliant! Thought of it all on her own, too, which I was especially impressed with since I tend to get most of my "creative" ideas from books, magazines, pinterest, etc. Despite the incredibly cool nature of the cake, Peter hardly touched it, far preferring the excellent vanilla ice cream. It's pretty much ice cream or nothing for that boy.

Also at the beginning of November I launched a book club in our ward. I am so excited about it! We're starting off by reading The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin, and I'm really enjoying it so far. Our first meeting to actually talk about what we read is tonight. Wish me luck!

At any rate, having started the club, I've been trying to get a few minutes of reading in each night while Luke is reading to Peter. Sometimes (all the time) I have a hard time putting my book down though, and Luke and Peter have to come remind me it's time for prayer and bed. Here is Peter, giving me his version of a scalp massage as he and daddy try to distract me away from my reading. :)

This fall has been beyond beautiful, and we've been able to get outside with the other neighbor kids a lot and play! Here was the last day the kids could play in the leaves before the blowers came and cleaned them up. And not a moment too soon, as the big snowstorm came that very weekend!

Here is Peter enjoying his toast while luxuriating in the playhouse.

Last, a beautiful picture of our beautiful boy, taken by Addie's mom, Rui. Miss those guys!

September

Another morning look.

Here's Peter, eating his ice cream. He used to do this as a baby, and apparently the tradition is back.

I love when he does this and can't help taking pictures. Also, it shows his favorite book, If You Give A Moose A Muffin. Love those books!

More messy eating pictures. He just dives for it, right on the table.

If I ever wear jewelry I will soon find myself sharing it with him. He loves for me to hang the earrings on his ears. He also likes necklaces, but apparently this one wasn't cutting it, because he broke it soon after we took this picture. Sigh.

It's so fun to see the things he spontaneously picks up on. We've never tried to get him to wash his face at nighttime, but he's seen me doing it a lot, and one night he just decided that needed to be part of the routine! ha ha ha!

About two weeks ago we finally cut his hair! It was soooo long and in his eyes, but his Daddy is quite fond of it and hates to see it go, so we always wait as long as possible. He didn't enjoy his last hair cut, so we used some new strategies this time. First: Heidi only used shears instead of the buzzers. He really hated the buzzers, and we were keeping it long, so that was helpful.

Second: we pulled out the secret weapon: Cars. It's his absolute favorite movie right now (his first one!) and it did a wonderful job of keeping him entertained and still while aunt Heidi cut his hair. Thank you aunt Heidi! She did a fantastic job.

This is Peter playing with his friend Jane. To Jane's right is her mother, my friend Han.

Peter loves sunglasses! He frequently asks for a pair while we're driving. He broke his first ones, so we got another, more flexible pair, at the dollar store. Really hoping these hold out for awhile.

Peter has also started to not only enjoy being pushed on the swings, but pushing the swings himself. He especially likes to do Under-Dogs.

The above picture is a lovely shot of the cuddly moments Peter has with his Daddy. This shot is in the morning during a family devotional. Below we have posted several pictures of a fun event I took Peter to (with some nudging from his Grandma Wright) that turned out to be so fun! Every year our court holds a Block Party day, where they have a bunch of fun things for kids out in our big open grassy area, as well as lots of information for students. This is the first year that Peter has really been old enough to enjoy it. These first two pictures are of him up in one of the tractors with his popcorn. All the treats, crafts, etc were complimentary, of course.

These next two show one of the giant snakes they had on display under one of the cabanas. The kids were allowed to touch and even hold some of them. They also had a small turtle and a Bearded Dragon from Australia. I'm all for cool-looking reptiles, so long as they are not in my house. My brother liked to catch garden snakes and put them in cages while we were growing up. Which was fine, except for the time that one escaped and we found it coiled around the storage room door handles. I'd prefer not to have repeat experiences in our own family.

 Home Depot had several kinds of simple wood crafts kids could nail together there. We chose a snowman-style napkin holder for Peter, which was adorable, but which I felt a little bad about because it went together with screws instead of nails, making it harder for my wee one to participate.

They also had those foam rockets for kids to paste the fins on and launch. It was Peter's favorite part of the day, so naturally I did not get a picture of it. Can't win 'em all, I guess. Below is a picture of the bounce house they had there, with Peter looking around nervously. He's not an expert jumper yet, and the gaggle of kids bouncing around inside were too much for him. He stood there a minute, and then cried to get out.

Here is Peter, carrying out his nightly routine. Normally, Dad reads to him at this point, but he decided he'd do it himself this time. Cute boy!

Here's Peter playing in the little outdoor playhouse with his friend, Isaac.

Last Thursday night Peter was running around a corner, caught his foot on the edge of the doorway, and took a nose-dive to the tile. Sadly, three of his front teeth were broken in the melee. He was screaming and crying for quite a while, of course, but luckily Cars came to the rescue again! As soon as we turned it on he was content, despite the blood and rather loose, jagged teeth. Our wonderful dentist, Dr. Joseph Stobbe, decided to crown each of the three teeth, in the hope that they wouldn't be as likely to break as the fillings. Cross your fingers! 

Here's Peter playing with his friend Aaron in Aaron's crib. 

This past weekend, Luke, Peter, and I went on a hike with Luke's friends. Joel and Leah and their not-so-little-anymore baby Elaina came along, as well as Cory, our outdoors guide. We did a hike in Lamb's Canyon that had all of us ooohing and aaahing over the beautiful fall colors.

Please excuse the extremely dorky ear-band. My ears are especially sensitive to the cold, and while I do have some pride, it's not enough to keep me from comfort. 

Here's a picture of Peter showing off the crayons his aunt Samantha got him from South America. Gotta love the attitude.

These last two pictures bring us up to date! Luke and I couldn't decide for ages what we should get Peter for his birthday. Finally we settled on this glider bike. It's one of those that doesn't have pedals, so they can just push themselves along and eventually learn to balance while they glide away! He's so excited about it, but the helmet hasn't come yet, so we've only let him try it out indoors. I can't wait to take him outside with it!