October

A little update!  You can click on any of the pictures to see them bigger.

• Peter babbles constantly, like Boo from Monsters Inc.  He really is saying something, we just don't know what!  

• But he can repeat just about any word now, and there are many that he uses very regularly to communicate.  Every day I'm surprised by a word I didn't know he knew.  Yesterday we walked into his room before turning on the light and he said, "Dark."

• He also puts "y" at the ends of words constantly. "Park-y!"  "Sock-y!"  "Book-y!" "Egg-y!" "Stool-y!" "Cook-y!" ... wait

• Our next door neighbor, 5 year old Laila, has won his heart.  He mutters her name to himself constantly, and sometimes I catch him pulling back the blinds and looking out the window toward her house, calling her name quietly (or yelling it).  Any time he sees a flower, or the color pink, he points to it and says "Laila."

 

• Cameron visited San Jose last weekend for a career fair and got to see Cinde, Anai and Marijoy.  Lucky!  Pray for us that we'll be able to find a good internship next summer, that may lead us to a good place and a good job later on.

• We were blessed by a great visit from Grandmama, Grandfather, Abby, Thomas, and Andrew/Ariel's family in October.  What a fantastic time.  I highly recommend you all copy them and buy a plane ticket.

Pumpkin picking

Pumpkin ice cream

James River ferry

• A few weeks ago Peter was helping me stir some batter, standing on his favorite stool.  Although he is normally very stable, this time for some reason he suddenly reached out to grab the batter bowl, slipped off the stool, and landed on his feet with the bowl on his head and batter dripping thick all the way down his body.  He was crying too hard (in shock) or we would have snapped a picture.  Straight out of a cartoon!   

• I supported two births in October, one born on my sister Abby's birthday and the other on my mom's birthday.

• Yesterday morning I had to wake Cam up to take me to urgent care, after an incident with our hand blender (which to spare myself future trauma I will now call by its other name, immersion blender).  Thankfully it barely missed the bone and tendon.  It looks awful though.  Our wonderful neighbors watched Peter while we rushed off.

• Funny story from Halloween.  It has a few parts:

Two days before Halloween, talking with my neighbor Sarah:

Me: So I realized my house might get trick-or-treaters this year, so I went out and bought some raisins.  The kids are going to think I am so lame, but I don't feel good about feeding other kids what I won't feed my own.

Sarah: Oh it'll be fine.  They won't even look at it as you throw it into the bag.

The day before Halloween:

Me: Hey Cam, tomorrow is Halloween.  Just so you know I bought some raisins to hand out to the kids.

Cameron: Sounds good.

Halloween night, after returning home from a quick trip to the grocery store by myself.

Cameron: Oh, you missed Sarah and Adam's family!  They just came by in their Halloween costumes.

Me: Shoot!  I really wanted to see them.  Did you find the raisins?

Cameron: Yeah, I saw them there on the table and gave them some.

Me: Great.

An hour later, as I walk into the dining room to turn off the light.

Me: Cameron, why are all the raisin boxes still here if you gave some to the neighbors?

Cameron: Raisin boxes?  Oh, I thought I was supposed to give them the raisins from the bowl sitting in the living room.

I then laughed more hysterically than I have laughed in years, tears streaming down my face.  Cameron had walked to the porch full of little trick-or-treaters, and extended a bowl full of loose raisins.  I can just see their confused little hands reaching in and grabbing a few, and tossing them into their bags.  With Sarah standing behind them thinking, "Really Meredith?!"

The bowl full of raisins had originated earlier in the day, when Peter had thrown a large amount of raisins every which way all over the living room, and I had him clean them up by gathering them into a bowl.  Oh my!  Happy Halloween little neighbor children.

After bedtime I ran some raisin boxes over to Sarah and we laughed together.

• Peter was an ewok for Halloween, thanks to Sarah loaning the costume (though Peter did pick out the stick accessory all on his own).

 

 He really walks like an ewok...

 An ewok explores a modern American backyard. (Watch if bored.) 

• Finally, we took a camping trip with Andrew and Ariel's family in mid-October.  We enjoyed Natural Chimney State Park, the beautiful autumn leaves, serious rainstorms, and giant spiders.  A fantastic trip.  Here are some fantastic pictures!

Peter walked with this stick to his head for twenty minutes.  We think he was pretending to be a tree.

At Lake Moomaw.  Skipping rocks that we later realized all contained a variety of fossils.  The whole beach.

B.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l.

 

One of Benjamin's famous "leaf gifts"

What a fam

Tired after a long day of hiking

In a cave filled with the biggest spiders you (or Eve) ever saw!  Ask Andrew.

Everything is a screw driver.

H.a.n.d.s.o.m.e.  Good thing I didn't get the focus right or I would never stop staring at this photo.