Our Last Couple Weeks

Stephen's sisters were here a couple weekends ago, and they brought with them Nick, who Stephen's parents are trying to become foster parents to. Nick is a Junior in high school, and is a lot of fun! It was the first time we had met our new brother, and the kids especially loved their Uncle Nick. I think Titus's favorite game was playing hide and seek. They are looking forward to spending more time with him over Thanksgiving! (I think Phoebe misses Nick, too!!!)

Both kids thought it was pretty cool to listen to their Aunts' music!

We also tried a new recipe for a chocolate fudge brownie cake...which actually was pretty easy! So of course Stephen, Bethany, and I had to pose with our final project that we worked on! (it tasted REALLY good, by the way!)

Our last week has been eventful in the fact that we have all but Titus injured ourselves...Damaris got into our drawer with all our clippers and tweezers and dropped the tweezers and we couldn't find them...well, I forgot all about it and stepped right on them (hidden nicely in a pile of clothes) and it went right through the bottom of my heel.

Stephen was moving the piano at church and got a LOT of deep slivers in his finger so we spent a while digging those out (good thing I found those tweezers!).

Then Damaris (who although a late walker, is not very good at it and stumbles a LOT) tripped right in front of our fireplace and knocked her head right into the cement step - thankfully right between her eyes and not ON her eye or lower on her nose where she could have broken it. Another reason to be thankful, is that this was the worst injury either of our children have had, so I am very blessed there has not been something more serious!

The next day, she also tripped outside when we were raking leaves, and got a fat lip...so here is a picture of poor Damaris with a puffy lip and swollen, bruised area between her eyes...not the best picture, but it is all I could get (you may have to click on it to zoom in).

And a picture to show you how much the kids love the dog...and to show she is a great dog because she puts up with a LOT. :). Damaris actually was laying on her before this, which was cute, but got up before I could take the picture. :) (Can I just say that it is WONDERFUL to have a FREE house-trained, fixed dog that is so good with the kids???)

In other news, Damaris is getting better and better at repeating what we say. She has always been pretty good at imitating, but now I think she is realizing what she is imitating has meaning. She now says "please", "thank you", "love you" (my favorite), "all done" or "all gone", "up", "down", "Titus", "book", and a few others I am not thinking of right now. Nothing clearly - the only reason I know what she is saying is because she is normally repeating what we say, but we are getting there. I know she understands what we are saying...now we just need to get her to say it too!!

Titus informed me on the way home one day..."I am not Titus. I am SUPER TITUS! To the rescue!". I cracked up. This morning he said in the sweetest, most sincere voice, "I love you, Damaris." I thought that was cute, too :)

That's all for now!