Halloween and such

Our cute little football player! I was pretty sick on Halloween so I didn't even remember to draw the black lines on his face! He loves his football costume. He's been wearing it around the house for the past several weeks. He tells everyone he's a football player and he's a COUGAR!

Muscles!

Eliza was a (hatless) witch in her cute outfit from Grandma Andersen. Her shirt says "Daddy is under my spell." She enjoyed nibbling on the packaging of Samuel's candy after he came home from Trick or Treating.

Samuel trying to protect his hard earned candy...

And guess what. That football player is wearing underwear!!!!!! About 2 weeks ago we were at the store and Sam wanted to buy candy corn. So I told him we were going to potty train him and the candy corn would be his reward for going in the toilet. He'd been good with peeing the two times we'd "tried" (I'd only try until he had a poop accident) but still had never gone poop in the toilet. So the next morning we put his underwear on him. He got a candy corn every time he went pee. The reward for going poop was a new motorcycle and fourwheeler. We'd been reminding him for about a month that we'd go to the toy store as soon as he went poop. After lunch he said, "Mommy, I need to go poop!" We ran to the bathroom, he sat down, and went poop. I can't tell you the joy and relief I felt! I knew once he'd gone once he'd always do it. Sure enough. He hasn't had as much as once accident since then. Well except for while he's sleeping but we're okay with that. He wanted to wait until Caleb could come to the toy store with us so we met him at the store that evening and Sam chose a little fourwheeler and a yellow motorcycle, which he is now obsessed with.

He turned 2 1/2 on the 24th. We marked his height on our measuring stick and he has grown a ton recently. I knew he had -- I starting cracking up as he walked out of church on Sunday as I noticed his pants were total high water pants!! He's had more fun working outside with Grandma and Grandpa Baker the past few weeks.

Dreams do come true -- here's Sam watching Uncle Cody on the bobcat and the dump truck dump a load while being held! He still really likes to be held.

One of mine and Sam's (and probably Eliza's) favorite places to go is the Salem ponds. It's beautiful and there's ducks and a path where Sam can ride his bike and a playground AND swings! We went there with Caleb too a couple Saturdays ago and had a lot of fun.

 

Eliza is 8 months old today! She finally started sitting up well on her own a couple weeks ago and is doing lots of "dada"s and "gaga"s. She says "eye" (like hi we think) all the time and moves her arm up and down to say hi/bye. She LOVES food. It's like she knows after meal time to crawl over under Sam's chair and she'll find something good!
I battled a bad infection this past week and am happy to finally be feeling better. It started in a zit under my eyebrow, then moved into my sinuses. It was pretty weird and no fun. Luckily everyone else has stayed healthy. I did some canning a few weeks ago and still love to stare at those jars of grape juice and apple sauce.
Caleb is awesome and is still enjoying school and pretty much rockin' it. He's getting more interviews but no internship offer yet... hopefully soon!
We are all happy. I don't think life has ever been better. Bring on the holidays!!