Mac went hunting with Chad for the first time and did a great job!

I'm convinced nothing is more fun than holidays with your little kids. We had so much fun this October between decorating, making treats and celebrating Halloween. Although CJ's costume changes about made me crazy (started out as a skeleton, then The Hulk and finally, after a last-minute trip to the fabric store for some brown and tan fabric, Indiana Jones), I just love dressing them up. Trey was loving the freedom to run all over the place and he also helped himself inside a lot of the homes. He's so cute everyone obliged his visits.

Costume #1 for Eloise's party.

Costume #2 Indiana Jones
Since Trey wears wristbands every day (or, if he's misplaced them he helps himself to my hair bands and slides those up his arms) he was super excited about his costume.


It was a great day!

At bedtime Trey came running out of CJ's room with this on and, for some reason, CJ's underwear on his head.

Every holiday gets more fun as CJ gets older and gets more into all the decorations and such. We had so much fun decorating the house inside and out. These little "Mr.Potato-ish" pumpkin parts were so fun. It took about 10 minutes for us to put together our pumpkins which was about the attention span the boys had.

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

A few months ago a young family in our ward lost their dad to a heart attack. He was in his 30s and left behind 5 young children. He was self-employed and had no life insurance. One of his daughters is in CJ's primary class and on our way home from church on Sunday CJ said very quietly from the back seat, "Sabrina was sad today."

Yesterday CJ brought it up again. Out of nowhere he stopped whipping Lucy's leash around the living room while pretending to be Indiana Jones and said, "Is Sabrina sad because her dad is in Heaven with Tucker?" (Tucker is my mother-in-law's dog who passed away last summer). I told CJ that yes, I'm sure Sabrina is very sad and misses her dad very much.

"Can we make her cupcakes?" He asked.

So we did.

When we pulled up to Sabrina's house, her mom was outside on the porch. My heart literally breaks everytime I see her. What a trial she has been handed. CJ got out of the car and took the plate of cupcakes up to the porch. Sabrina's mom took them inside to Sabrina. As I was buckling CJ into his seatbelt, her mom came back outside and said, "Jamie, when I took those in to Sabrina and told them they were for her, she gave me the biggest smile I have seen on her face in a long, long time." With her voice cracking she said, "She was having a very hard day today. She needed this, thank you so much."

I told her it was all CJ's idea to which she replied, "Then CJ must be very in tune because this was exactly what she needed. It was so good to see her smile like that again."

As we drove off I looked in the rearview mirror at CJ. He was looking out the window sort of pondering something and then he got a huge smile on his face. He said, "Mom, do you think Sabrina is still smiling?" I told him yes, I'm sure she was.

He said, "It feels so good to help people."

This short, two-minute exchange on a Thursday afternoon had a profound impact on me. One that reminds me that our children are close to the Spirit and that this was a blessing to me to witness my little boy being sensitive, caring and then seeing the rewards of service - no matter how simple. It also put all of the little things I worry about into perspective and I counted my blessings and thanked Heavenly Father for reminding me that there people - big and little - suffering and how important it is to live worthy to receive promptings to help. Even if it's with a simple cupcake with gobs of frosting and a pumpkin on top.

It was time to refresh our water supply so I decided that, since the boys love anything to do with water, hoses, sinks, water in hoses and sinks, etc, I would enlist them in this super fun chore for family night. It worked like a charm. Trey dumped out the old water, CJ refilled with fresh water. Then we went outside and they got to dump out the big 5-gallon containers, Trey laid down in the running water and CJ refilled those with the hose.

CJ declared it was good that we did this with the water because he "doesn't want to drink out of the toilet if there is an emergency."
Then we practiced a fire drill which was very enlightening. The dogs thought we were playing a fun game on their level so they were running around barking, Trey thought it was a good time to go plug my blow dryer in while Chad and I were distracted by crawling around on our hands and knees and CJ kept stopping to tell us what was important to save. His toys and their sippy cups. Oh, and "Mom, don't forget your makeup!"

C o U s I n S

When we visit Utah I don't see very much of CJ. We oblige his every invite for sleepovers and parties because he misses his cousins and, frankly, gets very bored at our house. Last weekend was no different - I love seeing my boys have so much fun with their cousins. It brings back lots of happy memories from when I was little. Yesterday he told me he thinks all our cousins should come to our house. I agree!
Jack and Trey