Happy birthday yesterday to Morgan! Happy birthday Grandma Stacy! Happy birthday to little boy and little girl Frischknecht! Happy birthday to Preston next weekend! What a party!

The main event of the week was Wesley's surprise interview at BYU. He found out about it Monday, flew out Wednesday, came home late Friday. It went very well. He flew out to San Francisco early this morning for AIChE. He’ll be home late Thursday.

Keller dropped in weight but grew three inches since his last well check. This may be due to his determination to stretch and climb onto everything. I often go into the toy room to find him stacking and climbing. He discovered the potty-training potty under the bathroom sink, set it up, and sat on it for five minutes. Disgruntled squawking ensued when I finally pulled him off of it. Since then he’s used it to climb up to the toilet. I’m just waiting for him to climb into the sink or up the wall. One of his new discoveries, to my surprise, is a pencil and paper. He likes to eat them, but this week he stopped chewing in order to hold them both correctly and draw. My notebooks have a new contributing scribbler. Preschool time has rubbed off on everyone! We hurried to start trick-or-treating, so Keller just went as a mess. He has decided to feed himself. Who am I to interrupt independence? We didn’t clean him up much after dinner. Good enough! Wes brought Lincoln and Levi toy screwdrivers home from his trip: Keller forcefully let us know that he needs one, too. Oh! And he learned to blow his nose right into a tissue. Vaccinations this time were live viruses so he has had a runny nose. Way to solve your problem, kiddo! He received his first haircut (meaning: his two curls are gone and he’s still practically bald).

Lincoln inspired Wes to get the toy screwdrivers. He lost his months ago (we’ve searched everywhere—he probably brought it to a park and left it in the tube he was fixing). As a result, he figured out where Wesley keeps his screwdrivers, unloading all of them. I let him carry around one of the short fat ones (a Phillips) during the day to keep him calm. Was that a bad idea? I don’t know, even after I found him unscrewing the glass out of the toy room door. Our fence is being rebuilt. All of the boys have been plastered to the window in awe of the power tools. Lincoln is especially joyous over it. “I need one of those jack-hammers!” Aside from the tools, he had a pretty rough week. Lots of falling, scraping, tumbling. Fire ants attack his little toes. No naps (in part due to turning his book for rest time into a hack saw…) I anticipated he would enjoy Halloween: not so much. Obviously I underestimated how much of an impact the jumping puppy had a few months ago. He didn’t want to approach any door in case they had a dog that would bite him. Cute little robot. He loved his five suckers more than anything else. One of my favorite moments of the week happened as we grocery shopped and he pretended the skateboard (by running sideways, bouncing, keeping his left arm in and his right arm out in “stop” sign) through the entire store. Ha!

Levi loves superheroes. He spends so much time looking at superhero books. Wesley and I decided a little media is probably a good thing (I should write this as “Wesley convinced me that…”). We watched “The Incredibles” over the course of five days. Levi almost couldn’t handle the suspense. The family sits and talks at the dinner table. Levi stands on his chair shaking, “What is going to happen!!!” Just imagine the rest of his responses; you’re probably right. “I need you to hold me so I’m not scared.” I assured him we didn’t need to watch it, but he really wanted to. Oh, the great unknown. (Lincoln, for the record, pretends to be Dash. Not much different than normal.) And, oh, the joy of superhero outfits. “Mom, how do you get superpowers?” He had a hard time staying inside so much with the thunderstorms and rain, but we pulled through with our own superpowers. I introduced him to the concept of patterns (or maybe I just gave him a name for this intuitive thing he does). We read some books on the body. I think he’s relieved to have more specific names and understanding of all of his parts. We all are. Curiosity directed. (For the record, I do recommend the book Amazing You. Detailed, appropriate pictures and explanations overall). He loves, loves, loves preschool. Even when it is at home. He loved trick-or-treating. He proudly swished his crocodile tail and said “thank you” when our neighbors dumped candy in his bag.

We watched some friends on Monday so we had two four-year-olds and two one-year-olds plus a two and a half. What a party. I thought we’d cancelled our mother’s preschool, but then some kids showed up so we reviewed and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We had some friends over simultaneously—which helped me release some of my anxious energy as Wes was presenting at BYU.  One of the sisters I visit teach moved in less than a week, so we were scrambling to help her which included doing 8 loads of her laundry last minute. I focused on giving each item folded as a symbol of how much Heavenly Father loves her. It helped me refocus and remember that we’re all different—thank goodness. I don’t remember the rest. It was great. What an awesome over-blessed life we lead!

Cole Crew

P.S. Forgive all the craziness and lack of editing—Wesley usually helps me know what doesn’t make sense or shouldn’t be said!