How to carve a pumpkin

First, do no one's hair or makeup.  Seriously, pumpkin carving makes such a mess anyway.  It's not like you're taking pictures and recording this for posterity or anything.

 

 Second, the harder you squint at your pumpkin, the better the end result will be.

Third, the bigger your smile, the more awesome your pumpkin "Weirdo-Guy" will be.

 Fourth, try to look as scary as your carved pumpkin, but fail since you are just so cute anyway.

 Fifth, smile in the first picture with your finished pumpkin, because...

There's a one in three possibility you won't enjoy it later. Seriously, this picture makes me so sad for her.   I was busy getting the pumpkin seeds ready for roasting...so I don't know what that sad face is for.  But there isn't a picture of all three happy with their pumpkins, so that's what you get.

 

We had lots of fun getting our pumpkins ready for Halloween!

Russell's 3rd cast

Russell got his 3rd cast on Oct 25.  We were able to get his curve down to 18*, with a 0* RVAD, which is awesome. 

He's doing pretty good in this cast.  He gets really tired, because he has to get used to it all over again after having it off for 6 weeks.  But his arms and legs are building strength again, slowly.  He's finally been able to go up and down the stairs again, and it only took him about a week to relearn how to do that this time.  He's frustrated sometimes because he can't do some of the things he could do without the cast.  It must be because he's older and can remember those things better now.  But he's still mostly a smiley guy.  Just need to skip mealtime, bedtime, and later in the day when he's tired.  Those are tantrum throwing times.  But it's getting better every day.  I'm amazed at how quickly he's adjusting.  He's a strong little boy.

This is the look he's giving when he's trying to figure out something, i.e. the camera.  The toy keys he's holding, I gave to him right after he woke up from the anesthesia.  He's LOVED them!

 

First snow of Fall

It snowed Oct 25, when I was down in UT wiht Russell getting his new cast put on.  I found these pictures that Scott had taken of the kids playing out in the snow,  and I LOVE some of these poses!

Our GQ Tyler posing with the base of the snowman they were building.

I often see the kids doing this when I look out in the backyard.  We have dogs in the yard behind us, and the kids love them.

 

Krysta and Emalyn working on their part of the snowman. SOMETHING was really funny to Krysta...

And the finished snowman, and Emalyn.  I love his nose.

Russell is TWO!

Russell turned TWO a couple of weeks ago...

 

We started the party by giving him a bath. I love watching how much fun he has in the bathtub.  Six weeks ago, he was terrified of the water, and now he splashes and smiles the whole time.

The rest of the day, until the time when Daddy came home, went pretty much normal. 

 

For dinner we had some of his favorite foods: macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and beets.  Yummy!  Then, we decided to forgo the cake and candles.  He doesn't like cake, and most two-yr olds can't blow out candles anyway.  So we made him frosted sugar cookies and sang "Happy Birthday" to him.  He really enjoyed the cookies.

 

Krysta looked at the cookie "boy" and asked who it was supposed to be.  When I said "Russell", she replied, "It looks more like Harry Potter."  She's right, ha ha.  But I didn't have any vanilla chips for the hair. 

 

Enjoying the cookies.

 

We had everyone else decorate a cookie and eat it too.  The rest of the cookies were in shapes of things that Russell likes: truck, car, fire truck, hand, foot, etc.  We have practically every shape of cookie cutter you could possibly want, or need, whethere you knew it existed or not.  That's thanks to my mom for sending me a bucket of 50 cookie cutters.  Thanks Mom!

Unwrapping the presents.

As you can see, he had a lot of helpers.  Nothing gets a family to gather around faster than handing the youngest a present to unwrap.

Emalyn gave him a pumpkin, Tyler and Krysta each gave him a toy car, and we also gave him 2-lb balls, and a weighted stay-ball, and clothes.  As you can tell, we used his birthday to give him much needed exercise equipment.  Just what every two-yr old wants.  The pumpkin is his favorite weight to carry around.

 

 

I can't believe two years have already gone by!  I've noticed though that the kids and I still call him baby Russell sometimes.  He's had a challenging start to life, but his determination and persistence have carried him through.  We love his sweet spirit and the love that he has brought into our home.  He's a very quick learner-already recognizes numbers 1-5, can count to 7, recognizes shapes, letters, and loves to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the Alphabet song.  He has a very strong spirit, and has changed my life and the life of our family for good.  We love you Russell!