Pre-Halloween

Well, there are just too many pictures to put into one blogpost, or you guys would get tired of looking at all of them.  So I am going to do two blogs.  We have been having a good time in Cheney; I love the holiday season where you get to spend extra time with family and everyone is just a little bit happier.  So I have been excited for Halloween to come ever since I bought Whitney's costume at the Just Between Friends Sale in Spokane.

Whitney was Minnie Mouse.  We had her try on the costume a couple of days before Halloween just to make sure it fit correctly.  We got lucky because Whitney kept her hat on the whole time for trick-or-treating, so her head stayed warm.  I was surprised because usually Whitney refuses to wear hats.
     We carved pumpkins the Monday before Halloween for Family Home Evening.  That was lots of fun.

Whitney doesn't look too keen at putting her hand into the pumpkin, but she did it and was able to pull out a couple of seeds.  I think Whitney was more fascinated with watching us do the carving.  She wanted a turn with the knife, but that idea was nixed quickly.

Here I am carving a spider into my pumpkin.  Whitney liked watching us work.

And the three finished products...

Will made a great Kirby pumpkin that looked awesome all lit up.  The picture looks too dark to be able to tell, but lots of people in our ward commented on it during the trunk-or-treat.  One person even took a picture of it on her cell phone.  So Will gets bonus points for being the most creative. Maybe we will all have to do Nintendo characters next year.
With three pumpkins we got lots of pumpkin seeds, which I love because I really enjoy snacking on them.  So I roasted two different kinds of pumpkin seeds - one sweet and one salty.

The sweet ones look like they really got burnt, but it is actually the cinnamon and brown sugar you put on them and they were addicting.  But I think I still like salty pumpkin seeds the best.

Whitney gives a big smile by her pumpkin.  Will actually carved the face, but this is the pumpkin that Whitney helped pick out at the Harvest Festival a little while ago.

Finally, here are a couple of random picture that really don't have anything to do with Halloween, but we like all pictures of our cute baby girl.

Whitney loves standing on the windowsill and pointing out the different things that she sees.  I think she is really interested in the changing colors on the leaves of the big tree in our yard.  So far Whitney has only learned how to get on the window by climbing up the heating vent, she still has to say 'help' or 'down' when she wants us to take her down.  I am glad that she waits for us to help her and she doesn't try to climb down by herself.  So far there have been no accidents; Whitney hasn't fallen off the little ledge.

Well, I have learned the difference between boys and girls.  I watched a little boy from our ward for about five hours one day and he is a couple of months older than Whitney.  But boy toddlers are much more active and he got Whitney into more trouble since Whitney was like in awe of him and would do whatever he did.  I can usually get housework accomplished when it is just me and Whitney because she will sit at my feet reading while I wash dishes.  I didn't get anything accomplished with two toddlers.  In fact, I ended up with a spice all over my kitchen floor and a broken glass bowl.  Oh well.  I should get use to having boys because I am having one in not very long.
Whitney loves all kinds of books.  She also really loves pulling out bookmarks; there have been many times where I have had to put my bookmark back into place because she can pull it out so fast there isn't time to react.

Whitney reads everything from her Magic School Bus books to Will's social work books.  And she is always trying to find pictures of babies in everything she reads.  So it is very cute watching Whitney get excited about reading.  I hope she continues to like reading as she grows up because I think that is important.

Will started making funny faces while I had the camera out to get pictures of Whitney, so I just had to snap some of him.  Will is always able to make me smile.  Anyway, that is what is going on here in Cheney for pre-Halloween.  I will have to put up some more pictures on the next blog from the Halloween party we went to.