Thanks for all the great updates everyone! Congrats Annie! Mike we’re glad you're doing so well and happy that Bailey has a nice home for a while. I can’t wait to see the pictures of Barb’s trip; I can’t even imagine what it must be like there! Brent and Buffy, we’re glad you made it down the temple! We’ll have to follow suit and head down to Columbus soon. I agree with Marnie that fall weather is just awesome! I love the fall here in Cleveland (which is a good thing since we don’t actually have spring and the winters are so lousy!) I took Hayden to an apple orchard yesterday and we had a great time just picking apples and enjoying being out in this great weather!!

Exciting news: Hayden and Tom were in the newspaper!!! Last week before the Indian’s game started they had their picture taken looking at a statue of a baseball player in front of Jacob’s field and it made the paper on Thursday! It’s got a great little caption with their names and everything, it’s really awesome! I sent a copy to Kenn and Barb so you can check it out next time you’re there! I am so proud of my boys!

We’re all a little tired today from staying up late to watch the Indians and White Sox battle it out but it was worth it since they won! We are going to stay very busy for the new few weeks watching baseball games! Tom and Hayden are also getting into football season and Hayden is figuring out the rules. Today after preschool we were playing with the kids out in the yard and he wanted to pretend to play football. He told some kids to be offense and he said he as defense but then yelled “hike” and started to run around in circles waiting for the pass. He pretended to catch the ball and scored a touch down! It was great until he suddenly got really mad at one of the other boys because he supposedly had taken the football away, it was an invisible imaginary football; and the other boy was so confused as Hayden sat there yelling at him to give the “football” back. I couldn’t help but chuckle at what a ridiculous scene it was! My little sportaholic!

More exciting news: Binky is gone!!!! The Binky fairy came and took it last Friday night because it was getting old and broken. It was a spur of the moment decision and Hayden was very sad about it but he is doing fantastic now! He cried on Friday night, big sad tears like you get when your best friend leaves you but he didn’t get mad or throw tantrums. We just hugged a lot and Tom slept next to him to help him feel comforted. On Saturday he asked for it a few times but we just said we didn’t have it and changed the subject. By Sunday it was forgotten and life has gone on just fine without it. Who would have known it would have been so easy! We should have done it a long time ago!

I had my first day teaching my new primary class on Sunday. I have been in the nursery for the past year and they just switched me to teaching the 5 year olds. I have 7 kids in my class. Things went pretty well but a few of the boys were really testing the limits and got very wiggly in closing exercises but I think they will settle down as they get to know me and my expectations better. I had one really great moment though during my lesson. We were talking about how we know Jesus loves us and one girl said she knows because he gives us good food to eat. I had a boy visiting our class because his mom is investigating the church and he raised his hand. I called on him and he said “If Jesus gives us food because he loves us then how come some people don’t have any food? And my mom says that George Bush was so slow getting food to the hurricane people that some people died. Why did Jesus let that happen?” It was a great first day as the teacher!

Tom had a check-up on his broken finger yesterday and they said things looked good and hopefully he will get into a physical therapist soon. I am now 27 weeks pregnant and starting to feel like it. I don’t look huge yet but the baby and Hayden are taking a toll on my back and I need to be more careful. We still haven’t come up with a name but we have time so I shouldn’t stress. We have the list of names we like but just haven’t actually settled on one. Plus, we can’t decide what to do about a middle name. Hayden continues to be his happy little self. Although, he is getting worse about sharing and taking other kids toys so I am going to have to crack down on that before it gets really out of hand. I was the helper at his preschool class today and he had such a hard time sharing it was ridiculous! So if you have any great advice on how to encourage better sharing I would love to hear it! I know he’s not really old enough to share perfectly but he obviously can’t run around screaming and yelling and taking toys. Hopefully it was just a bad day, I hate to think he acts that way in nursery all the time. Yikes!

Well I best get back to the laundry! Great to hear from everyone! Peter and Marnie, if you have anything special you would love for Christmas please let us know. Take care!

Tracey