So...it's been a while

Hi everyone!  I'm not sure how many of you have actually continued to check our blog for updates since it has been um.....well months since Paul has updated it, but here we are again.  Tonight Clerie is updating the blog since Paul certainly has enough to keep up with, we can try to do this together....and I need to learn anyway.

So since the last post....here we go, to at least hit the highlights...

The first weekend in September Paul, the kids, and I went down to St. George to go to some shows at Tuachan.  On Friday we saw Tarzan.  Jonathan loved it!  His favorite character was Turk, because he hung upside down over the audience quite a few times, once even throwing bits of hay our way!  He sings the "Trashing the Camp" song to this day!  The next evening, Grandma and Grandpa Staten had a friend from their branch come and watch the kiddos for the evening while the adults went to see Crazy for You. Jonathan warmed to her immediately.  First she brought him a new Halloween themed pillowcase, and then he found out that she was a Grandma....so he kept asking when we were leaving.  The show was wonderful and full of SO many songs that were so great to sing along with.  The tap-dancing was so synchronized, I was totally impressed....and loved the night out with my hubby!

On Sept. 11 we celebrated Jonathan's 4th birthday!  It was such a great night.  We had lots of family come, and of course all the neighborhood friends over for cake and ice cream.  The cake deserves some explanation.  Jonathan always gets complete control over the creation of his birthday cakes.  This year he decided he wanted to have an apartment cake.  He wanted it to look like our court at the apartment building we live at.  Also, since we knew that we'd have lots of friends come for cake and ice cream, we needed to make 3 cakes worth of well...cake.  So Jonathan chose three different flavors of cake.  We had one layer of banana cake, one layer of carrot cake, and one layer of white confetti cake.  It is pretty unique, but there was definitely something for everyone on that cake!  I'm so proud of my cute little guy.  Can you believe he's 4!?

As a side note, that day was special to our family this year for another reason too...because it marks the one year anniversary of the day I returned home from Iraq.  So one more reason to count our blessings and celebrate! What a year it has been, huh?

 Also in the month of September

• My family (mom, dad, bro, sis, bro-in-laws...etc.) bottled over 400 bottles of peaches and pears.  Talk about a big weekend huh?  But you know us!  We've never been one to do things half way!
• Addison pulled to standing for the first time (that's old hat now though)
• Jonathan started attending preschool.  He loves it and is never ready to come home at the end of the school day.
• Addison ate an entire corn dog....who says you need teeth anyway? (yep, she gummed the whole thing)

Which pretty much brings us to October.  We have some new pictures of the kids...which for amature photographers like us were like pulling teeth to get, but we'll get better with time!

Updates in October (this has been a big month for Addison so far):

• Addi started clicking her tongue, and now does it almost constantly.  She's so proud of herself!
• She has started to wave...but only at her Uncle Andy.  Little pill pretends not to know what to do when I wave at her!
• Addi started cutting her first tooth on Oct 9th (finally!)  It's a red letter day for us...she doesn't really think so though.
• Jonathan has decided to be a rat for Halloween this year.  He's excited about the big tail.
• Oh, and um...I'm pregnant.  I am just over 4 months along, and due the end of March.  Starting to be a little hard to hide with the pooch I'm starting to carry around.  So for those of you who haven't heard in other ways....Surprise!  We're Thrilled! Everything is going very well so far.

So I think that about brings you up to date with our lives.  We'll both try to do a better job keeping this thing updated now!