How we are doing

Mary Emma is growing up so much. She is now 11 months and has started talking, she says: mommy, mama, daddy, baby, hiyah (which I think is a combination of Hyrum and Camilla"s names, it's really funny because she yells it at them) and meme which is either Camilla or her blankey, or both. Before you think she's some genius child though, she's not walking yet, and both Camilla and Hyrum were walking by now. I mean she does walk, she loves walking around my chair during school and pushing the toy grocery cart, but nothing independent yet. She's killing my back, though, so we need to start pushing it. She's a third child alright, a good talker and a bad walker, "Camilla put her down!"

Autumn is here and so we feel like venturing outside again. We dedided to check out the Salina Zoo, and then go shopping. They have the coolest thing at the bear exhibit. You crawl through these tunnels and then come up in this viewing hole right in the middle of the bear cage.

Up close with a cougar.

The next day was Hyrum's birthday. His big gift was a bike, and seeing as how the next day was Sunday, he got that present in the morning so he had enough time during the day to try it out.

He really wanted a spider-man cake. He has this thing for spider-man all because when he was two he had a spider-man shirt. He has never seen the movies or cartoons or anything, and yet he had to have a spider-man cake.

On Monday I took the kids to Baskin Robins to redeem their gift certificates that they got from my mother in law. Then we took the ice cream, and their bikes to the park. They sure had a good time.

Some beautiful poison ivy on the trail. Doesn't it make you want to reach out and just pick some of those leaves and take them home ;)

My neighbor Charlie was asking Jacob before he left if we ended up getting anything out of our garden besides marigolds. Jacob kindly defended my efforts by naming all the things (it wasn't much) we got from the garden. One thing he named was carrots. Well, I finally realized I never harvested my carrots, and sure enough there they were nice and orange and plump growing amongst the marigolds. We dug them all up, and this is the harvest. It's not a lot, but at least we didn't make Jacob lie.

A good friend of mine cut my hair this week. She did a fantastic job, and I just love it! Do you see all the curl in the back, it did that by itself. Looks like I'm pulling a Michelle.

Jacob sent us these pictures this week. He is doing well. He is now in charge of a prison which is mostly a way lay station for detainees going to be released. Funny thing is that he is now a platoon leader over MPs. Can he ever escape the MP Corps!

Today a stake representative (like a high councilor) came down to set Jacob apart as the group leader over their group (it's not quite a branch, but they have a pretty big congregation). I'm not sure how the whole stake thing works, but I think he told me that the Middle East is all one big stake. It's still hard for me to wrap my head around that one, or the posibility of Hyrum serving a mission out there, or a temple being built, but this is how it starts.

Other than that, Hyrum is sick. What a perfect Sunday to be sick for, though; I love the internet. Camilla also has officially entered the "Conference is boring" stage. Oh well, six more years and hopefully she will find meaning in it again. I spent most of conference yelling "Camilla, get back in here, you have to watch whether you want to or not," dispensing medicine, putting kids down for naps, and filling baby bottles, but at the same moments when I just felt like throwing something, I would be reminded that my children were being taught that listening to a prophet is not only important but essential. My job today was not to sit and actually get to hear the entirety of one whole talk, or feel the overflowing of the spirit, but to teach my children through example that one great lesson. And so it's been quite the week, but it's been a good one.