Update

I haven't felt inspired to blog about anything specific lately, but I feel like it's been a while since I wrote anything of substance so I guess I'll just blog about things in general.

The ward split came to fruition on Sunday.  I subbed in nursery because the primary/nurseries are currently understaffed.  This has caused Amber no little stress since she also has her fingers in a lot of time-consuming pies at the moment.  Being the awe-inspiring talent that she is, she is currently working on a large sewing project, running the primary, and preparing for two musical numbers (piano and viola) for the stake Christmas... thing.  Sprinkle in 100 home-made bean bags and a dress she sewed for a murder-mystery costume party and piano lessons and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting about, and it's been a busy time.  Oh, and she's pregnant.

For some reason, with it getting darker earlier, it seems like we have less time in the evenings, too.  I haven't picked up my camera in a week, which is not like me.  The kids are going to bed before I know it and we don't have much time to play outside.  The weather has stayed remarkably warm, but I think it's supposed to finally get cold for Thanksgiving day.  I gave the lawn one last mowing over the weekend to flatten out the few scraggly bits and it was warm enough to work up a sweat in shorts and a T-shirt.

The girls are doing great.  Olivia is currently being brow-beaten into good manners and is currently on lesson 2,378 about asking for something nicely the first time instead of saying, "I want some juice" or worse, "eh juice" (baby talk).  But overall she is starting to outgrow the whiny stage and becoming very pleasant.  She is generally obedient and loves to help.  She is still literally unable to stop talking, but is a linguistic sponge and has started saying advanced phrases that are increasingly difficult to pinpoint the origin of.  She still has trouble accepting that I know more than she does when I correct her occasional mistake, however.  She is still going to preschool and likes it, as far as I know (her goldfish-like memory means I often don't hear about it in the evening unless I ask).  She will be starting Primary next year, which I think she'll love.

Carmen is growing into her independent stage, a.k.a, the terrible twos.  She is talking quite a bit now, although her articulation often requires a Carmenese-English dictionary (bagoo = blanket, doots = juice, etc).  She recently started combining words into phrases (so it's only a matter of time before she starts writing vampire fiction *badum ching*) and is quite adamant about getting her way.  She has a rigid stubborn streak not possessed by the impressionable Olivia and when crossed she gives a stare that would strike fear in your heart if she weren't so cute.  If she decides she does or doesn't want something, no amount of coaxing, rewarding, tempting, or persuading will change her mind.  Apparently this is a Brown trait, and it drives Amber bonkers.  We recently prevailed in a several-day-long power struggle over sitting at the table and eating dinner.  I have no doubt there are more battles to be fought.  She has a distinct personality and you can see it in her eyes.  She is independent and persistent, and is currently adamant about learning to put on and remove socks and shoes by herself.  Over and over again.  When she's getting what she wants, she's very cute and fun to play with.

Our unborn child is relatively boring.  Amber has felt a few movements, but other than a confirmed heartbeat at the last check-up I don't expect any news until the gender-determining ultrasound.

I'm excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I have a 4-day weekend for Thanksgiving, and with my remaining vacation time plus holidays I'll have a week off after Christmas.  I haven't really had a vacation since the Prague trip in March/April, and I'm ready for one (or two).  We're staying here for both holidays, which I'm also looking forward to.  It's not really a vacation when you travel and I like doing our own family traditions and having it be a little less hectic.

Work is going well.  The project I'm on is losing team members as we near a transition point and I'm now one of the most senior developers on it.  I was recently asked to take over a very major (and visible) part of the application, so I'm assuming that means I'll be here a while longer like I wanted.  We started the brain dump today so I can be up to speed by the time the current expert leaves next month.  Tackling a big learning curve is never fun, but the area is pretty cool so I'm excited to work on it.

Family Night

Tonight's family night was one of those nights where it was more important that we were having it, for consistency, than the fact that is was largely ineffectual.  But it did provide this moment, in which Carmen is animatedly reading while Olivia does somersaults on the couch.

New boundaries

The mysterious, long-awaited day of intrigue finally came yesterday.  We attended a "special" stake meeting last night to find out how two wards would be rearranged into three wards.  As it turns out, it was not too surprising.  Our ward got a neighborhood chopped off, which included many of the "older" families in our ward including our bishop.  One of his counselors (who lives right down the street from us) is the new bishop, everybody in the ward is now under 40 (only exaggerating slightly) and our boundaries encompass a whopping 3.1 square miles.  Oh, and there's a stake center being built in the neighboring ward, so soon our regular building won't have to double as a stake center.  It'll be a 15 minute drive instead of a 15 minute walk, but those are the kinds of sacrifices you have to make when you live in the mission field.

Carmen on the phone

Some video from earlier tonight.

Later, she kept putting the phone up to her face too quickly and saying "Ow... eye..." every time.  What a cutie.

Grandpa

Amber's dad visited us last weekend on his way to speak at a conference.  On Saturday we went to a nearby park that I heard has buffaloes.  We parked by the buffalo sign and walked over.

They do have buffaloes, but you can only get to one side of the enclosure, the path is 8 feet from the fence, and the buffaloes are at the back.  The girls were not impressed.  Here's a cropped picture from a zoomed-in shot through the chain-link fence.  Whee.

The park does have some very nice playgrounds, though, so we walked to one of those and enjoyed the nice weather.

Grandpa was sick for half the trip, but I think they still managed to do a few fun things while I was at work, like feed the police horses.  The kids loved having Grandpa around to climb on and read to them.

Halloween

I jumped the gun a little and we carved our pumpkins a few days early this year.  Luckily they lasted just long enough for Halloween night.  Mine is the non-artistic pumpkin on the right.

Amber got very excited about her costume ideas and as usual the results were fabulous.  Carmen was Little Red Riding Hood.

And Olivia was the Big Bad Wolf.

On Friday night we went to our ward camp out, or "tent-or-treat".  We couldn't stay the night because we had to pick up Amber's dad later that night for a weekend visit, but the girls still had fun getting candy.

Once the candy was unwrapped, they didn't have another care in the world.

Olivia was pleasantly surprised to learn that our first go around was not actually Halloween.  She tugged me all around our street on Halloween night while Carmen toddled along behind with "Grandma" (I was the wood cutter) and Grandpa.

Our street was the usual chaos of kids everywhere (I think out street has a good reputation) and Grandpa was kind enough to man our door while we finished our run.  Once we got home, the girls sat at the kitchen table for a good hour eating as much candy as they could stomach, loving every minute of it.