I have a whole bunch of pictures for you today.

Alex used the jumpy jump for the first time this week and loves it. After he was in it the first time, he went right to sleep for a nice long nap. I think I love that thing. :)


Alex also used the exersaucer this week. His brother was showing him how the toys worked. We had to stuff some blankets in around him so he wouldn't fall to one side. But he can reach the toys by himself already:


Glenn drew a picture of a person for the first time (that I've seen) at the park this week on the sidewalk with chalk. So, I had him draw on paper when we got home. this person has two overlapping eyes, no nose, a mouth, hair, and no body. Usually they have a nose and no eyes. He also practiced drawing lines. He says across or down when he's drawing them (depending on if he is drawing horizontal or vertical):



Today, we carved our pumpkin. I drew the face, and Bob and Glenn did the rest. Bob made Glenn take out all the pumpkin guts:



Then we cooked the pumpkin seeds. Glenn couldn't get enough of them.

I'm Certified!

I just received notice that I passed the certification exam in public health. You may remember I took the exam in August(a few weeks after Alex was born). Having this certification will help me when I go back into the work field because it means I know about the core competencies of public health. In the meantime, I'll have to complete continuing education credits to make sure I stay up to date with what's going on in public health. It also means that when I publish papers, I'll get to put CPH along with MPH after my name (I have a paper or two still pending publishing from when I worked at UConn). In 10 years, if I want to remain certified, I'll have to take the test again.

Glenn played in the dirt all afternoon (see picture below). He looks as though it's cold outside, but it wasn't. It was in the 70's today, and beautiful. I had put his sweatshirt on him this morning when we woke up since we left the windows open last night and it was cold. And he put it back on after we got home from church. If there's a hood, he has to wear it on his head.


Here are more videos from a couple of weeks ago.
Glenn's Wheels:


Alex making the sound he greets us with:

My Big Project

I worked on Glenn's room all weekend. I painted the walls blue on Saturday, and the brown stripes on Sunday. I ran out of paint Saturday with about a quarter of the room left to paint. I was annoyed that I had to buy a whole gallon more just for that small part of the room. I used the new no VOC paint (Fresh something)from Home Depot, which only comes in gallons. Although there was a slight paint smell, it wasn't strong at all.

Anyway, back to Glenn's room; I am going to buy a stuffed animal hammock, which will go in the corner above his bed. We also need to buy a new light cover (Bob broke the old one several months ago). My next painting project will probably be the play room. It has a sponge painting treatment, which is cool, but I have never really grown to like the color- red. I think a lighter color would make the room brighten up and look bigger. I'll probably wait until after Christmas to paint it.

Here are pictures of Glenn's new room. He says it's cool!

I read to Glenn's class yesterday. It was a lot of fun. I came into their classroom just before they came back from breakfast. Glenn saw me and said, "Mommy, what are you doing. You're silly." He didn't think I belonged in his classroom. I got to see their circle time- singing songs, doing the calendar, and then I read the book: "How Does a Dinosaur Say Goodnight?" Then I got to see them play while the teacher had them come to her one at a time and do some color and letter matching, then paint a little pumpkin. Alex was with me and actually fell asleep in my arms while they were playing, even with all the noise.

This morning was very foggy. We walked to school and when we got to the soccer fields, we couldn't even see to the other side. Glenn was very scared of the fog. I tried to explain to him that it was just clouds down on the ground, but he was still scared. I can see how it would be scary.

I edited a couple of videos. The first is of Alex doing tummy time. And the second is Glenn trying to do somersaults.