new things

Joshua is learning so much every day. Today he played "where's the baby" (our form of peek-a-boo) in a different way than he has before. Months ago we were excited when he would pull the blanket off on his own when we played with him, but for the first time today, he was putting it over his face on his own AND taking it off. It was so so funny - hope to get a video of that! I went and bought new videos Tuesday night, so we'll be making more soon.

Another fun thing he is doing is clapping when he's happy. He started doing that on his own and we've been encouraging him by saying Yaaaay! every time he does it. He seems to be pretty stuck on mamamamama as his babble of choice lately...not making too many other sounds, but I don't really mind. Every time Nathan comes home for lunch or from work or from something in the evening, I'll say dadadadadada! and Joshua gets a big smile on his face and sometimes turns to wherever dada may be coming from. He loves it when dada comes home!

Joshy's been a little grumpy the last couple of days because the half a banana he had a couple days ago made his digestive system pretty uncomfortable, so no more bananas for awhile. He tried some turkey the other day and loves it! I wasn't sure what he'd think of it, since it is so different from the veggies and fruits he's used to, but he was very very interested in it and would have eaten more, but I was worried it might upset his stomach if he had too much right at first. I think the turkey was fine and that it was the bananas that upset him, but we'll see how he does the next couple of days with no bananas and a little more turkey. We chose turkey first so he'd be ready to go for Thanksgiving!

It's hard to know which things are genetic, but yesterday afternoon, I learned a painful lesson about one more trait that is genetic. Since Joshua has been so unhappy with all the blue and green and red (darn red) clothes he has, I decided after surveying the laundry yesterday, that the new pink onesies and burp cloths he has are a welcome addition to his fashionable clothing collection. *sigh* I bought a bunch of used clothes at a consignment store, but unfortunately the little red jogging suit that I put in with all the laundry had, in fact, never been washed before. Probably the tags that I cut off of it should have given that away. Nathan even asked me if it was ok to wash it, and I reassured him it would be fine. Ah well. At least it wasn't his blue baseball uniform that I turned purple or anything...now THAT would certainly be upsetting (ahem).

In other news, I've been pretty busy with stuff other than being at home lately - on Saturday night I chaperoned a stake youth dance. It was certainly a blast. Actually it wasn't bad at all, cuz Sarah was there to keep me company and we got to know each other more and bonded over our shared fears of first aid and health class. I'm glad she was there - we mostly sat behind the refreshments table the whole time, and unfortunately ate the refreshments the whole time. My favorite part of the night was something one of the teenage guys said. There were little paper cups in the chex mix, candy, pretzels etc. to aid in scooping out stuff onto plates, rather than just putting their grimy fingers in the food, and Sarah was explaining that to this guy. He looked quite insulted and reassured us with this fabulous statement: "Yo! I wash my hands every DAY!" I felt a whole lot better. I'm sure if ALL the kids there washed their hands every day (or maybe every other day...we don't have to be greedy here), we wouldn't need those paper cups. Man...that was good.

So that was Saturday night, and then I was at church again Sunday night for the Young Women in Excellence program where all the girls were talking about projects or experiences they'd done in each of the Young Women's values. That was fun - they did a good job. I'd made a pumpkin cake of sorts...it took forever to bake and the pecans on top were quite crispy, so it didn't end up working out as well as it was supposed to, but Nathan likes it and was glad when I brought most of it home.

Then Tuesday night I went to Relief Society Enrichment and got to hang out with a whole bunch of ladies from church, eat some good food, and learn how to make creme brulee and red velvet cupcakes. Delicious!

So Joshua and Nathan have been spending a lot of time together lately. Last night Nathan got to go to the gym, though, so that was good - as I well know, it's hard to spend every evening at home, so I'm glad he got to go work out.

My boss is coming in a few hours, which I'm not super excited about - have to get my monthly performance report. Oh well. Good times.

I think there was more I was going to write about, but now I can't remember. Joshua has been sleeping a long time - probably typing this will prompt him to start crying and wake up, though. ... ... wow - nope!

Nathan's home for lunch now - adios!