When I last wrote, gas prices were killing our budget. Now the cost to fill the car is going down, but there have been lovely car repairs to keep us feeling desperate.

Another big change that came through – I have been called as the new Ward Mission Leader. I had an inkling this was coming, but didn’t want to say anything in case Murphy was listening. I guess he has ESP, ’cause I was called anyway.

Actually, I am really excited about the calling.

Another huge event was when Johanna and I spent every weekend in September painting the downstairs room which is now OFFICIALLY FINISHED!!! It’s a project that has been over a year in the works, and it is soooooooo good to have it done! It looks great. See for yourself!

Aiden is doing very well in school. When he can focus on his work, he consistently does very well on math, and is getting better at wring. But his mind wanders so frequently, we have to do his homework in 5 minute segments, or else nothing happens.

James is pretty much potty trained. He still has accidents when we don’t invite him to use the potty, so I guess we’re 90% there, he just needs to get the ‘do it myself’ part down.

And finally, just this past weekend Johanna and I officially enlisted the help of a lawyer so that I can adopt Aiden and James. In June/July of this year, their biological father mentioned that if I wanted to formally adopt them, he would not be opposed – it would be better for the kids. We had to wait for a while because some legal requirement states that the kids would have to be living with me for 6 months before we could get started. Now that we have a lawyer, we will start getting things moving forward.

And so, life moves on and is generally pretty good to us. On Monday we will go to the Pumpkin Patch (one of our new favorite traditions) and choose pumpkins to carve. It is sure to be a blast, and will be well documented with more pictures to upload. Now, if I can just remember to keep this blog up to date…

In other news, this Thursday, Johanna and find out whether the bun we are baking is a little boy or a little girl! Needless to say, everyone is pretty excited around here. Not to jinx things, but we are both hoping for a little girl, and the chinese fortune cookies from lunch last week say “You will get your hearts’ desire” – that’s gotta count for something, right?

Missionary Mary has sent us some pictures, which will make their way into the appropriate gallery in a few minutes here. She seems to be doing well, as always, but the email this week was a little scattered. She wrote a huge, detailed one, and it got deleted before she could send it, so the remaining time was spent trying to patch together thoughts. She did ask me about posting video on the site…I will have to write her and ask her to just send them to me. I will need to downsize them before posting them – full resolution video might be too much for my internet connection to serve up right now.

Aiden’s first week of school is going well, for the most part. He has been disciplined once already, moved from the front row to the second row because he can’t stop talking to his neighbor. The teacher put him next to a girl, hoping that might quiet him a little. She doesn’t know that all his best friends in the ward are girls. This could be interesting.

Lastly, Johanna is about to delve into the world of scouting, as this week she starts her new calling as the Cub Scout leader in our ward! I think she is excited, but probably not as much as I am. I loved scouting as a kid, and am looking forward to helping out where I can. I know that Sarah has a wealth of knowledge on how to do the scouting stuff, as she is her wards’ Primary President and all. We’ll have to touch base some time and get some killer-awesome hints on how to keep little boys entertained with rocks and sticks without throwing them at each other.

Anywho, this is getting sorta lengthy, so I will go post the Mary pictures now. TTFN!

It started out with the post Johanna made about James’ pronouncement that Aiden needed to “fix his attitude.” That was really cute, I will admit it. A phrase like that is almost too big for him, but I say it so often to both of the kids it was sure to come up sooner or later. That one was alright.

Just a day later, I got a call at work, and was told that Aiden had built a computer! It consisted of a large overturned clothes bucket, a pillow for the monitor, a Lego keyboard, and a toy stethoscope as a power cable. He was very excited to show me the Mythbusters game that you could play on it, but wanted me to hurry home because it was broken, and it was up to me to fix the problem. I will upload a picture of the computer later tonight, but needless to say we had a bit of fun that evening, and he continues to move his computer from room to room so he can play with it whenever he gets tired of his little brother.

Another time I was struggling to get out of bed in the morning, because I could hear the kids in the hallway and figured I needed to get the day started. For the past couple of weeks, I have been on a mission to get James to stop sucking his fingers (it’s not exactly the nicest thing when he grabs your arm and his hand is dripping with drool!) That morning, the first thing I could actually make out was Aiden saying “James, no fingers! Never, ever put your fingers in your mouth again!” Johanna told me that telling a child “never” was never a good idea. I didn’t quite know what to make of this, it was borderline cute…but I don’t want Aiden starting to think he can be policeman.

The most recent, though, came when we were getting ready to go to Game Night at my uncle Vic’s house. We were in a rush to get out the door, and what do you know, Aiden couldn’t find his shoes. Or maybe it was James wanting one last drink of water. I honestly can’t remember, but I was a little put out about it and accused someone of something, only to be proven wrong seconds after I had said it. Immediately, Johanna told Aiden and James “Ignore Daddy right now, he needs to fix his attitude.”

I guess I have a long way to go before I get my bearings in this parenting thing.

It seems that my sister has been having a really neat-o time on her mission…as you can plainly see. A brief description follows.

Oh, this week I pet a Lion. Sis Ras and I live on a street with a new hotel. It is “The Lion Garden Hotel”
It was having its grand opening and they had a lion there. Sister Ras and I turned the corner as usual to go home and she jumped and said LOOK A LION…. its not on a leash!!
it was rather funny. Anyway, there was a man there that let us pet it. So there you have it. I pet a Lion in Hungary. Right on our own street too. Who knows what exciting things await is this next week.