A Spook-tacular Night

I think Brendan’s favorite part of Halloween is getting to scare people. He got these awesome vampire teeth from our ward’s Trunk or Treat and loved them immediately and proceeded to try to scare as many other kids as possible.

Brendan was supposed to be a Greaser ala The Outsiders but I don’t think many people got it. Instead most everyone that he was Elvis. Oh well. We thought it was a good idea.

My favorite part was the sideburns! Brendan didn’t like the process of me coloring them on him but it was all worth it in the end.

As mentioned before, we attended our ward’s Trunk or Treat and Brendan has a blast running around and getting candy. It was a good warm up for saying “trick-or-treat” for my speech-delayed darling as well. He wore himself out and had to take a juice break on the couch.

Tonight we made the rounds in our neighborhood and Brendan loved it. The weather was super warm and if it weren’t for the on and off again drizzling rain it would have been perfect.  Brendan only got scared a couple of times by some kids’ masks but other than that, it was pure fun for him. He got a good stash of candy, which Chris and I are excited about since Brendan doesn’t like sweets very much.

A happy boy enjoying his spoils from the night.

Now I’m just hoping that we can get him to calm down enough to go to sleep at a reasonable time.

Nothing Much

I’ve got a little boy with a slight fever today so we’re taking it easy. Lots of playing and little work getting done around here. I’m just hoping that he’ll be feeling better for tomorrow’s Trick-or-Treating. Chris and I need some sweets!

Believe It or Not

A couple of months ago Chris and I picked up a hot air popcorn popper at the local thrift shop for only $1, which made me very happy since I have fond memories of eating freshly popped popcorn throughout my childhood.

We took home our awesome $1 popper and proceeded to use it that very night. And that’s when we found out that it’s a super powered hot air popper that shoots popcorn and kernels at such amazingly fast speeds that the they ricochet out of the bowl. We ended up with about half of the popcorn on the counter and floor. This is not normal but, hey, we figured it was only $1 so we can deal with a crazy popcorn popper. We’ve used it a few times since.

Yesterday after church, we needed a snack so I pulled the popper and started to make some popcorn. Now, Brendan loves the popper because it’s crazy and shoots popcorn all over the place. He thinks it’s hilarious and even pulls up a chair so he can see what’s going on better. This is what he did yesterday.

And so he was in the perfect spot for a blistering hot unpopped kernel to shoot down into his shirt, which proceeded to burn him quite badly. I could tell by his screaming and crying that it was serious. This is what we saw when we finally got his shirt off of him.

Chris looked up the stats online about popcorn and discovered that popcorn pops at the temperature of 212 degrees but often the unpopped  kernels are hotter. You see, what makes popcorn pop is moisture in the kernel that gets heated up and causes the kernel to burst. But in some kernels the moisture is gone so they never pop. Instead they just get hotter and hotter during the popping process. I think Brendan got one of the extremely hot kernels that didn’t have any moisture in it because his skin blistered up right away – which is a second degree burn.

My poor little boy! I seriously find it hard to believe that a little popcorn kernel did this and I saw it happen. It continued to burn him down his chest and the side of his stomach (where it was trapped in his shirt) although they are not quite as bad as this one.

Luckily he bounced back pretty quickly once we loaded him up with some pain reliever.  He even ate some of the popcorn once he calmed down.

One last time

Chris took these photos the day we had the movers in our house packing and loading everything up, while I was out trying to entertain Brendan for the day. I thought I’d share our last photos of New Hampshire.

These train tracks run up on the hill behind the property where we lived. Chris had been wanting to take pictures up there for some time but I refused to walk through the mini forest to get there because I was terrified of ticks. Ticks really freak me out not only because they look freaky but because they feed off of you. That is just not cool.

I like the juxtaposition of the colors of the trees with the snow. I couldn’t believe it snowed so soon.

And this was where we lived. It looks a little gloomy but it was nice place.

A nice picture of the river and some train junk.

Chris has a thing for factories and smokestacks so of course he took a photo of this. To each his own.

Hello Again

Things have been quite crazy here for us with all the unpacking, navigating our new town, enjoying the beautiful weather we’ve been having, and all the stuff that goes along with moving. The good thing about our move has been that I’ve uncovered several items that have been missing since our move from Utah- like our point and shoot camera charger. I decided to use my old camera for pictures this week since it’s a bit easier to take around than my large SLR. But the picture quality just isn’t the same, so I don’t think the switch will last for long.

I snapped this lovely photo of me and my cute boy with one of our awesome boxes in the background. This picture turned out perfect in my opinion because it cut off the gianormous zit I got on my chin- I blame it on stress since I rarely breakout.

Our move also uncovered a stash of raisins that I didn’t think we’d use since Brendan was going through a phase where he wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole. But  now? He loves them and even shouts “RAISINS!” when I ask him if he wants a snack. He also ran into the kitchen yelling “I want a snack!” when I told him it was snack time the other day. He’s speech is coming along and I love it. I still need to get him set up with a new speech therapist but I’m glad that he’s still making progress on his own for the time being.

Things are slowly getting back to normal for us finally. Most of the boxes are unpacked and now the majority of the work will be finding homes for all the odds and ends. It’s finally starting to feel like a home. And I’ve been very pleased with our moving company- nothing was broken or damaged. Except for my iron, which I found out today was busted when I went to iron some clothes for church- we’ll be a little wrinkly tomorrow. :)

Chris is enjoying his new job but not the long commute. I am trying very hard to find my way around town and not get lost- thank goodness for GPS, although I did still manage to get lost with it. The weather has been beautiful and on our walks in our new neighborhood we’ve met several nice people, which makes me happy and a little more comfortable in such a large city where we don’t know anyone. And for an extra treat, we found a restaurant specializing in food from El Salvador, where Chris served his mission. He got to use some of his Spanish and we all got to eat some pupusas.  It’s been a good week.

Taking a break from Unpacking

It’s amazing how much stuff we have and it’s amazing how much packing paper the moving company used to wrap up all our stuff. As we unpack the boxes, we are filling them back up with paper. We are going to have one large haul for the garbage man.

No pictures this time- I haven’t had enough energy to get the camera out but I’m in the mood for procrastinating and thought I’d share a couple of cute moments that Brendan has had the past few days.

I think moving has been good for Brendan’s speech. He starting saying a couple new phrases since we’ve moved, which is very exciting for the mom and dad of a late-talker. Today, when Chris started walking up the stairs, Brendan called out “Hey! Where are you going?”. He needed to know since he’s very attached to his daddy. Later, he was playing with his cars and said “Bye, have fun” as he pushed it in a tube. That made me laugh since that’s what I say to him every time he goes somewhere without mom.  He’s also been walking around our new house yelling “daddy” over and over when Chris is in another room and Brendan can’t find him. It’s funny to me that these things are such a big deal, but for Brendan it is. I’m glad that he’s understanding more and feeling more motivated to talk, which is something that his speech therapist wanted us to keep working on with him. In the past, he probably would have just been screaming or crying if he couldn’t find Chris, so for him to be calling out “daddy” is a big leap for him. I’m glad that he’s still making progress and it’s so exciting for us to hear him talk more.

Well, that’s about it for now. I’ll post more in the near future and I’m sure I’ll have lots of photos then but for now we’re taking things slow. We really like the area we’re in and we’re excited to explore more- especially since the weather is supposed to be quite nice this week. Stay tuned.

This is the last post from New Hampshire

Tomorrow our belongings are being boxed up (and not by me- yay!) and loaded on a truck. We’ll be hitting the road on Wednesday and probably won’t be up for blogging until  sometime next week.

But I do have a few pictures that I wanted to share before we go MIA.

Brendan was in a jumping mood the other night. He especially liked seeing the pictures of himself on the camera after each jump, then he’d hurry and go jump some more for me to take pictures of. It was pretty funny.

And I had to throw this one in here. Chris put a diaper on Brobee the other night and Brendan thought it was the coolest thing ever and now he constantly wants me to put a diaper on them both.

Well, that’s it. Next time, we’ll have lots to show, I’m sure. We’re excited to start our new adventure in Virginia!

Speaking of Facial Hair

When Chris told me that he saw some fake mustaches at Wal-Mart, I knew we had to get some. And it was so much fun playing with them. Well, fun for Chris and I but not so much for Brendan. He hated it but we’re mean parents and forced  him to endure some photos.

He seriously cried in every single photo. Poor kid will probably never want to grow a mustache when he’s older.

See that ice cream cone at the bottom of the photo? We tried bribing him to smile but of course it didn’t work. It just made him cry harder because he wanted to eat his ice cream cone and we wouldn’t let him yet.

These awesome bad-boys were only 50¢ each- how sweet is that!?!

Although that’s probably why they fell off a lot. The tiniest movement would cause them to slip and slide, so it was really hard to talk with it on.

But it was well worth it.

How Young is Too Young for a Goatee?

Courtesy of an ice cream cone treat.

A Quick Saturday Evening Post

Recently we took a drive around Berlin to enjoy the fall colors some more before we move and we came upon these lovely beauties. I wish we had horses. That would be SO cool- even though I don’t know the first thing about them and the last time I was on a horse (over 10 years ago), it tried to bite my leg and ruined the experience for me.

Brendan was very excited by them too. He kept waving and yelling hi through the window, and he shed quite a few tears when we drove away.

But the drive was quite pretty and we enjoyed every minute of it. I just wish the weather would have been nicer – it’s been cloudy and rainy the several days, which isn’t the ideal condition for taking pictures.

A couple of weekends ago, we had the chance to go hiking with some friends while Brendan was with his favorite babysitter, and the weather was PERFECT. Cool enough to be comfortable with the sun shining on us. It was beautiful.

Our friends, Heather and Ty, enjoying the scenery.

One of the few pictures of Chris and I together recently.

I’m procrastinating a lot and have done zero packing yet but I plan on doing that this coming week, so we may be absent for a little while. I’ll try to pop in from time to time but I’m not sure how motivated I’ll be to take pictures and blog before we move.  I promise to make an effort though since I know some certain grandparents that love seeing pictures of their grandson.