Happy Birthday Brandon

Today is Brandon's 26th birthday! Today is also Columbus Day, which means Brandon had the day off. Brandon had a great weekend because Texas beat OU and are now ranked #1 in the nation!! Just wanted to rub that in to all of our Aggie family. We had a nice family day today and had some friends over for dinner and cake. Jacob helped me make the cake while Zoe was sleeping.

On a side note. All last week Jacob was begging to go to school. The closest thing he has to school right now is nursery on Sunday (basically a two hour Sunday School). Sunday morning he woke up in such a good mood and helped us all get ready to go to church. This past Sunday was also Zoe's first time in nursery all by herself. I was worried that she wasn't going to want me to leave. Yeah right! She saw toys and other little people and turned around and waved bye to me. After two hours, I went to pick her up and she just said hi and kept playing.

Creative Kids

Lately, I have been trying to adjust our television habits during the day. I used to leave the TV on for background noise but I noticed that all Jacob wanted to do was watch movies. So, we now turn off the TV and listen to music and I am so impressed with the difference in myself and the kids. The kids play with each other more and are much more creative in how they play. Zoe and Jacob emptied out their toy bins and played in them. Jacob pretended they were in the car and would make sure Zoe was "strapped in" before he would look at me and say, "Mommy, I'm driving!" Zoe loves getting in and out of the bins, then flipping them over and standing on top of them.

Jacob loves to play with his play-doh, but we have to wait until Zoe takes a nap (she likes to eat it). Today Jacob made a snake for each person in our family. He was very particular about the length of the snake being a good comparison to the person. In the first picture you can see there are four snakes all varied in size. In the second picture there is an extra small or "baby" snake. I asked Jacob to tell me who the snakes were. He pointed at all of them in turn and said, "Daddy snake, Mommy snake, Jacob snake, Zoe snake, and baby snake." I asked him if he thinks Mommy should have another baby and he replied, "Yeah, Mommy have nother baby!"

I had to laugh. Jacob will just have to do with his baby sister Zoe for a while longer.

Zoe's Sleeping Habits

Last night, while Brandon and I were watching movies, Zoe started crying in her bed. It was about 11:00 and it isn't normal for Zoe to wake up. I went to check on her and couldn't see her in her crib. I just thought my eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness of her room yet. It looked like she was laying on her back and holding her pillow over her. When I reached in to pull the pillow off of her I realized she was in the pillow. Some how she had wiggled herself inside the pillow case head first and couldn't get out. I have no idea how she got in there in her sleep, all I know is that it was hilarious!! I wanted to take a picture but I just couldn't let her keep crying and squirming to get out. As soon as I picked her up she fell back asleep on my shoulder.

Salinas Air Show

Today we went to the Salinas Air Show. We went last year and had such a good time, we had to go again. This morning Jacob woke me up by pulling the covers off of me and saying, "I wanna see airplane. Get dressed!" Then he opened my closet door and repeated himself. Brandon started telling Jacob about the airshow on Wednesday. Every night he had to tell Jacob how many times he had to sleep before we were going to see the airplanes. We got to go into a C-130 and walk around. Jacob loooooooved that. Both Jacob and Zoe got to sit in an emergency helicopter. The only thing Jacob didn't like was how loud some of the planes were, especially when they would come out of nowhere.

Great News!

Brandon took his big test again this past Tues and Wed. We found out this morning that he passed (2+2+)!!!! Now we have to just hang out here for a while before we go to Texas. The next class in TX doesn't start until Dec 3. We leave here on Nov 20. Then we will report to Fort Meade, Maryland no later than April 30. We are really excited that we now have a plan! We wish we didn't have to wait here for so long, but it could be worse. Brandon is going to try to take some leave so we can have a bit of a vacation here before we leave. Thank you everybody for keeping us in your prayers! I am so happy!!!

Raccoon Attack

Yesterday, some of Brandon's classmates and their families came over for fajitas and fun. All of them are in a fantasy football league together and watched football all afternoon. Jacob and Zoe had fun playing with their new friends. All in all, it was a very fun day.

After everyone went home and the kids were in bed, we had a raccoon attack. Brandon and I were watching TV when we heard a bang by the trashcan. We found a raccoon sitting on one trashcan and lifting the lid of the next one. He was enjoying himself thoroughly. Raccoons are actually really cute, but I definitely wouldn't want to get to close to them.

Red Wood Forest

For Labor Day, we drove up to Santa Cruz and went to the Henry Cowell State Park. It has beautiful hiking trails and a great place to have a picnic. Jacob loved running on the trail and Zoe loved leaning back as far as she could to look at the trees. Here are some pictures. I hope everyone had a great holiday.