Halloween 2011

Daniel seemed a lot more into Halloween this year - I think it was everything they did at preschool. I thought that this year, with everything he knows and how opinionated he is, Daniel would actually help pick out what he was going to be for halloween this year. We practically had to force it out of him. He decided on Buzz Lightyear. When he put the costume on, he ran around yelling "Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!" The Sunday before Halloween, the missionaries spoke in church and I asked Daniel "Are you going to be a missionary?" to which he replied "No, I'm going to be Buzz Lightyear." As is tradition, we went to a pumpkin patch. I'm not sure we have any more years before he wants to do all the rides and crap, so I'm grateful he was satisfied with just looking at the farm animals. Daniel also picked out what our pumpkin was going to be carved into. Normally he likes sticking his hand in the pumpkin to pull out seeds but this year he thought it was yucky! Which left mommy to do all of it since daddy thinks it's yucky too. His Lightning McQueen pumpkin turned out pretty good though. Trunk or treat at the church followed by a few houses on our street and Daniel had more candy than he knew what to do with!

Decorating his pumpkin

To Infinity...And Beyond!

This isn't our candy distribution bowl - this is all his loot. We have enough candy to make it to Fourth of July.

Colorado October 2011

Also in the month of October, we made a quick trip to Colorado. I think we've decided quick trips suck. We had to fly since we had to work Friday and Monday. We got there late on Friday night, woke up to go to Josh's football game (after us girls went for a run/walk). We then got things ready after a few hours for Taylor's Eagle Scout Court of Honor. We joked of course about "Eagle powers" from Nacho Libre. My personal favorite was when Taylor spoke and totally ripped on Matt and TJ for not being good scout examples! It was kind of awesome! And Taylor's friend Andrew got his Eagle Scout too so that was fun because we all love Andrew. But the main reason we were there was for baby Peyton's blessing on Sunday. What a precious little spirit we have in our extended family now! And so cute! Here are some pictures from the trip:

El Materdor!

Yes, that is exactly how I wanted to spell it! On Tuesday, October 4th, after an interview earlier that day, Matt accepted his first full time teaching position. WHOO - HOO! He works in a different school district than me, so pay, benefits, and breaks are a little bit different but it's a great school and district. He now teaches Algebra 1 and Geometry at Bolsa Grande High School, the Matadors. The only thing I could think of was the Mater's Tall Tales where he says he was a famous bulldozer fighter, El Materdor. So that's what Daniel calls it now! Anyways, it's been a bit of an adjustment for him going from junior high to high school but he's loving it! He hopes to get into coaching (though district policy says you can't the first year to help you focus) football and basketball and the football team looks like they are improving so we've got high hopes. We were just talking yesterday that him working almost the end of our plans. We always planned that we'd both work once he had his credential for 2-3 years until his job was secure and then I could quit and be a stay at home mommy full time. It's really happening! We're both so excited and enjoy the little extras that come with his job (like going to the football games!)

Walk to Remember

As hard as the last few months have been for us and our families, I think that Becca has dealt with her grief in the most productive ways - by helping others that may go through similar situations. She has started buying up every blank photo box known to mankind and has been decorating them simple but nice to donate to hospitals and has even enlisted the help of my mom, friends, and people at church. She also found a 5K walk that donates the money to hospitals to fund the programs that help people with early infant and pregnancy loss. It was called the OC Walk to Remember, with the slogan of "We walk for the steps our babies will never take." She got just about everyone on my side of the family to sign up for it and between her and my mom made braclets for all the girls and ribbons for the boys. We decided it would do it but didn't expect it to be quite as emotionally draining as it turned out to be. They had a remembrance ceremony before the walk where they read every baby's name out loud and the parents came up to get a rose and then played this song about God needing one more little angel. There wasn't a dry eye there I don't think. It was a really good opportunity I think for Matt and I especially to remember Nathan and grieve together because I think that while we have our moments, we feel like one of us has to be pulled together for Daniel and the other person. It was also nice because we knew that everyone there hurt as much as we did. We didn't have to pretend that we were ok. We could just be sad for a little bit. We hope that we can make this an annual thing and eventually we can get to a point where it's more a celebration of Nathan.