The Boulton Blog: Happiness is Blooming All Around Us

This week has been a really busy one, which means very few pictures, and a lot of writing, but please bare with me. It was a fun one. :)

Caleb: My little man is growing up so fast. Today was his first Sunday attending Nursery for both hours and he handled it really well from what I hear. One day this week he learned how to play a new game with Daddy. He came up to me holding out his hands like "Where is it?" then lifted his pajama shirt and out fell one of his toy cars. He laughed hysterically before picking it up and putting it back under his shirt to start the game over again. It was adorable. He loves to have people over and can play with his toys for long periods of time so long as he has someone to keep him company, he's quite the social little one, even if he doesn't like to share much. Last week he even went so far as to try to hide his little vacuum from one of my visiting teachers children so it would be there when he was done playing with something else. He is a total animal lover and is anxious to be able to play with my parents new dog, a border collie named Callie, but she's still a little shy and hides from him a lot.

Byron: He's been working hard this week, but managed to get away for lunch with me one day. He got a new assignment at work which is always exciting. He says the initial progress you make on a project no one else has worked on is really motivating because no one has had the opportunity to mess it up yet so everything comes together easily and you get results very quickly. I guess I have another instance where I get to brag on what an awesome husband and father he is too. :) Yesterday morning he took the initiative to sew the velcro back on Caleb's sandal (it's been broken for almost a month and I've had the leather needle for at least 2 weeks and just kept putting it off.) It's a good thing he did it though. I would not have had the patience he did to punch holes in the leather and make the stitches small and neat.

Arielle: I've kept myself busy this week. Monday I got to go with my mom and spend the morning in Englewood with my Grandma Lane. We went to the Englewood Reserve (one of the metro parks in the area) and walked around and played in a creek. It was really fun and Gabrielle even caught a crayfish, something my grandma had never seen before, so that was cool. Afterwards we went back to Grandma's house for lunch and I discovered how delicious Nutella is. (I have had it before and just wasn't impressed by it. I'm blaming my new found love for it on baby David haha) Tuesday morning I took Caleb to his 18 month check up. He's developing well, but does not like the doctor and cried when he was set on the table so he could have his ears examined. Wednesday morning I took Alyssa to Germantown to get her pet chicken. A sister in her ward had agreed to let her keep it on her farm and Alyssa was so excited. She had been talking about it all week and was rather impatient. We're afraid she may have gotten a rooster by accident, but we won't know until it's full grown. Friday morning my visiting teaching companion helped me host a brunch for the sisters we visit teach since she was only going to be in town this once for almost the whole rest of the month. It worked out really well and the kids all had fun playing together. They managed to keep most of the toys in the basement and we had fun socializing while they kept themselves occupied.

In General: Our evenings have been really full this week. Tuesday night I watched my siblings while my mom went to her den meeting (Alyssa was working, Gabrielle had mutual and Dad and Chandler were at Scout Camp) while Byron did some of his home teaching. I got to watch Mulan with them and we had a good time keeping cool in the basement. Wednesday night the Elders came for dinner and I gave one of them a hair cut. He had done a good job trimming it to keep it off his collar and ears, so I hadn't realized how much the rest of it needed to be cut. He looked great afterwards though and I was glad he had trusted me to do it. (The first time he watched me cut hair was his companion and I was really nervous because I was cutting it really short compared to what I had always seen him with). Thursday night Byron and I watched 5 children for a family we knew from Centerville. They are trying to move by the end of the month and are feeling a little overwhelmed, so we watched their children at a spray ground for a couple hours so their parents could get things done. Their oldest is about 10 and the youngest is just a baby (about 7 months old). The baby loved me and was content so long as I held him, which was adorable, and the older kids had fun running around and spraying each other with their water guns. Caleb wasn't a big fan of the water, but he did enjoy the park, so overall it was a rather successful evening. Friday night we got to have one of our friends families for dinner. We had invited their children as well (6 of them aged 5-16 or17) but their mom is a jokester and enjoys giving people a hard time so she was telling us at dinner how they had kept asking on the way over, “Are you sure they said we could come too?” and she kept saying yes, until they got in the drive way, where she then told them “Well actually, she only invited your father and I, but you know how I like to tease, so I figured we'd bring you too and see what she says. Tabitha (the youngest) go ring the door bell.” We all got a good laugh out of it and we all enjoyed dinner. Alyssa came for dinner that night as well since their oldest son is a friend of hers and they took his younger siblings to the park across the street after a rather loud round of Apples to Apples. It was great fun having them over and I can't wait for the game night Byron said we can have next month. :)

Baby David: We're down to 9 weeks and 2 days until his due date (but who's counting??) He's growing strong and healthy. We've hit the point in my pregnancy where I have appointments every 2 weeks, which seems like it came up really fast. I can feel him moving all the time and decided this might be my favorite time in the pregnancy. He's big enough I can feel every movement, but small enough he still has room to move around a lot, and I was still getting sleep at night - until 2 days ago when the blasted RLS (restless leg syndrome) kicked in and it takes me just about forever to fall asleep at night.