Marks birthday

Mark turned 27 this year and I wanted to make it special, especially since last year he was in Mississippi getting ready to deploy. We started the day off with homemade donuts. Yum! Then Mark opened some presents (he had already opened the one from my family because it was a new Cardinals shirt and they were playing to win the world series).

David loved the presents and was very helpful in bringing them over to Mark:

And even more eager to help Mark open the presents:

Then we headed off to church, home for naps, a delicious dinner and a party with some friends.

Halloween 2011

Once again I am playing catch up on this thing. Oh well. Halloween 2011 was a blast. I was down to the wire on getting David a costume. Nothing caught my eye, and I wasn't willing to pay mega bucks for a costume I didn't love. However, my fabulous neighbor Michelle offered her sons costume from last year. It is the cutest monkey costume with a padded tummy!

Our ward had a Halloween Party as well. It was so well put together. It is nice to be back in a family ward where they go all out. The Tataipus were there: Kai was also dressed as a monkey.

I love watching these two play and laugh together. Kai was a good sport as we tried to take a picture of the two of them sitting next to each other-David tried to hit him off the little bench.

Our stake had a Trunk or Treat on Halloween as well. They certainly know how to do it right out here. There was plenty of candy as well as hot chocolate/cider, a variety of soups, as well as chips and salsa. People had this in the back of their cars, it was slightly amazing.

David was loving that people were just giving out the candy to him. It was a slow trip because after each piece of candy, he would stare at them and then to his bucket.

Earlier in the day, we went to a little spook fair. David again loved the candy and playing with the football.

As for our candy giving out, we only had a handful of trick or treaters. All in all, our Halloween was great and it was great that Mark was able to participate fully in all the activities.

Handsome little man

David keeps growing and getting more handsome daily. Last Sunday, he wore a little red tie and looked too cute not to share :-)

Marks friend Brennan Bradley (or Uncle B) and his fiance came over for dinner a little over a week ago. They were both so good with David. Davids favorite part of the evening though? Bradleys boots!

Pumpkin Patch 2011

We decided to venture to Idaho Falls and go to the U-Pick Red Barn. You can go here for more info. We choose this one because David loves trains and they had a nice size one.

Next up, was picking the perfect pumpkin. David also loves balls. Anything in the round shape category (tomatoes, grapes, pumpkins, etc) is a ball. David kept pointing to the pumpkins and shouting "ball" with a big smile across his cute little face.

Then we went through this cute little straw maze. Of course, it is a great time for a couple of pictures

And that concluded our trip this year. It was a lot of fun. I'm glad David is a little bit bigger this year and that we can enjoy things like this.

Idaho

We are back in good ole Rexburg, Idaho. It's kind of a surreal feeling. Most people leave Rexburg and don't look back, let alone come back. Haha. But we are here and it is good. Since we have been back, David has done lots of exploring and checking his new place out:

Ridden in the back of a truck. (Don't worry, it was parked in the drive way at Ralph and Normas. We were busy cooking some delicious dutch oven cooking.)

David and Mark have continued to cheer on the St. Louis Cardinals. It seems it has paid off too!

We have survived our first snow.

Enjoyed frozen yogurt. There are 2 in this small town :-)

David and Mark were able to ride in the "Welcome Home" parade.

It has also been fun getting together with the few friends that are still in Rexburg. The Tataipus came over for dinner 2 weeks ago. David and Kai were born 4 days apart. Here they are at 1 month old and Talmage (Dennett) was 2 months.

(David, Talmage & Kai)

And here are Kai and David at 16 months:

RunforBrad

I had the opportunity to run a 5k in Troy, IL on September 10. It was in honor of a soldier that would be 26 this year. He left behind a wife and baby girl. He was killed in action in Afghanistan. (For more information, check out his site.) It was a very humble experience; Mark had just landed back in the US. He was safe. And is alive.

I ran it with Vivian and Ben Gardner. This was Bens first 5k. He pretty much had to do it, because I was able to convince Shalon to get ice cream one night :-)

My good friend Lindsay and her sweet baby Chloe were able to come and cheer me on. Dana brought David, unfortunately, I never saw them.

Thanks Lindsay for being there and for the pictures. I was able to do the race with a time of 39:20. I need new knees though. Haha.

Surgery #2

I know it's been a while since I've blogged, I'm losing that motivation. I love reading other peoples blogs, so I guess it's only fair that you can read mine :-)

At Davids follow-up appointment for his tubes back at the end of August, his right ear looked great. His left however had a clot of dry blood in it. Dr. Lieu had me put some drops in that ear for a week in hopes that it would loosen the clot and take care of the problem. At the following appointment, the clot was still in there. She needed to remove it. I had to hold Davids little body down, with a nurse holding his head while Dr. Lieu removed it with this little scissor like instrument. With the blood also came the tube. It needed to go back in. She was able to squeeze us in the next day (Sept. 23).

This surgery was a hundred times harder than the first. It was scheduled for 11AM. We had to be at the hospital at 9:30. David could not eat or drink and therefore was a little grumpy.

The surgery went really well. In recovery, he was just sleepy, not hysterical like the last time. He slept the way home and pretty much the rest of the day until I woke him up.