The Boulton Blog: I thank Him Rev'rently For all His Creations, of which I'm a Part.

I know some of you are going to be pret-ty surprised. I managed to get a blog post up 2 weeks in a row, and I think I even have stuff worth writing about. haha.

David: He's too smart some times, but at least it makes it so he communicates effectively. As I mentioned last week, he loves walking around with my phone saying "Cheese". Well, he has figured out that my camera takes pictures, and so does Byron's phone, and he knows that I can turn each of them on, so he brings them to me, and if I won't turn them on, he'll screw up his face and grunt at me. He also loves "smelling" lotions, shampoos, and hand sanitizers, but if I close the cap on anything he's holding, he knows, and flips out.

He's a much pickier eater than Caleb. He doesn't like tomato sauce, or pasta, which are main staples here in the Boulton household, so it makes dinner time a little more difficult, but Byron usually comes up with something that saves me from going insane.

Caleb: He is becoming more and more articulate all of the time and it's really fun, but so hard watching him grow up. He is fully potty trained now (he's been sleeping in underwear at night and naptime for a week and a half now with only 1 accident) and is so proud of himself. He loves picking his underwear out every morning and has also started picking out his clothes.

His favorite shirt is his Superman shirt, even though he's never seen the superhero outside of books in the library, and asks for it every day. If he can't have that, he wants his "tank or soccer" shirts. He also is quite opinionated when it comes to his pants and shoes, and is very disappointed that the velcro came off of the strap on his lightening mcqueen sneakers. He is getting better at taking showers, so I'm guessing his second tube finally came out, though we have no way of knowing until his doctor appointment next month, and I find absolute joy in the sound of him hopping out of bed and running across his room in the morning. He swings open his bedroom door, then runs into our room whispering for his Daddy. Byron gets a kick out of it too. Even if he won't admit it at 6 o'clock in the morning. :)

Byron: I don't know what to write about him this week. I feel like things have been pretty average.

He did get up and shovel the driveway for me Monday morning when we woke up to about 2 or 3 inches of fresh snow. He's also wonderfully encouraging when it come to doing myfitnesspal with me, and I love him for being so sweet. He's so patient and kind and I am so grateful that Heavenly Father blessed me with such an incredible eternal companion.

Arielle: This week went by really fast! I went to the YMCA every day, managed to get half of my Chirstmas shopping done, and am looking forward to putting up my Christmas decorations next week! Tuesday was Alyssa's birthday and I was excited to go with my mom to get her out of school at lunch time and take her out for Cracker Barrel. Lunch was awesome and I enjoyed spending the afternoon with her. I took her to Soyo since she hadn't ever had it before, and we hung out at my house for a while before we picked up Byron and took her back home for her birthday dinner. Wednesday our playgroup was pretty awesome. We went to Dorothy Lane Market, which is a really nice grocery store here in the area (they only have 3 locations and they're all within 20 minutes of my house) Their HR director gave our playgroup a tour of the store and told us a little bit about the history of the store and how they run things. I had never realized before how much they support themselves and local farms, so it was nice to learn those things and the kids enjoyed the pizza at the end.

In General: We've been busy every night this week, and I'm having a hard time swallowing the fact that things aren't going to slow down any time soon!

Monday we joined my family for Chandler's end of season soccer party at a local pizza place. Byron and I aren't huge fans of the pizza, but they had really good chicken sandwiches on pretzel buns, and it's a pretty fun atmosphere.

I won't bore you going into detail about Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, but Friday night my wonderful parents took Caleb and David for the evening so we could go on a date. My wedding rings had started having stones fall out that were irreplaceable, and we found out that having them re-made was a little out of our price range, so we went ring shopping. Byron and I hadn't ever had to do that before since my parents gave Byron my wedding rings, so we were nervous, but we ended up finding a jeweler outside the mall that wasn't trying to charge an arm and a leg and offered a good protection plan, so we found a set we were both happy with, even though it isn't at all what my rings looked like before.

Saturday was the annual Christmas in Springboro festival! We've gone every year since we moved here after Byron graduated to look for the steak tip dinners they had the first time, but we haven't found them and now we just wander around looking at all of the fun vendors and buying kettle corn. Caleb got to decorate a cookie this year and do a cute little Christmas craft after getting his face painted while David snoozed away in the stroller. The parade was neat since it had several bands from the Springboro community performing different Christmas songs, and Santa and Mrs. Claus brought up the rear in a horse drawn carriage.

Well, I think that's all the news I have from this corner of the world. We love you all and would love to hear from each of you.