Life in October (and a little September)

Erika likes to treat her boys to pizza and movie night on Friday nights. We either order pizza from Little Ceasar's or make our own on cookie sheets.


We are continuing the tradition of going to the CornBelly's festival at Thanksgiving Point each fall, where the boys enjoy fun things, such as this go-kart track, slides, corn mazes, etc.



Thomas and Matthew completed another season of soccer with Coach Matt Speckman and the Blue Flames. They have improved markedly. Thomas loves to be goalie and Matthew is good at getting a loose ball with his quickness and aggressive play.

Thomas is second from left, top row

Matthew is the serious one on the left

We celebrated Thomas's ninth birthday in September. He loved all his gifts. One of the big ones we got him was a big box of legos, which he specifically requested and loves playing with. We had family celebration in the morning before school.

In October the cub scouts had the pinewood derby races. I helped Thomas and Matthew (little brothers are allowed to hold their own race after the cub scouts are done) design and build their cars. They asked for formula one style race cars. I think they got the idea from a formula one race car lego set that they have. We had a lot of fun watching some formula one races on the internet to get a good idea of how the cars should look.

Making the pinewood derbies in the garage

Thomas at the race track

The boys wait outside our house each morning for their ride to school. We pay a teacher at the school to pick them up on her way there and bring them home, which helps Erika keep Emmy on a good sleep schedule. The neighbor's cat, Ginger, loves to be held and petted by them.

As usual, the boys came to Workman Nydegger (my law firm) to trick or treat on Halloween. Around one corner they ran into a partner who was dressed as a martian from Sesame Street (yip, yip, yip, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh). Matthew attacked with his light saber, which made everyone laugh a little at first. But then he went all pinata on the partner's head (no candy in there, just thick, juicy brains) so we had to intervene.

After trick or treating at the law firm we took a walk around temple square. Here are our little jedi masters lying in some grass just east of the temple.

May the force be with you.

The boys brought home a bountiful trick or treating harvest Friday night. We stopped at a friend's house to party before going home. At the party we participated in some ad libbing skits. Erika was a moose that got shot by Sarah Palin and I was Dr. Phil, with guest start, Yoda. After the party we put the boys down to sleep then stepped out (with Emmy) for some soup at another neighbor's house. We do that occasionally if we aren't going far. We leave a phone with each boy in case they need to call for help and we set up our audio/video baby monitor to watch them.

Last night Erika and I enjoyed a night out while my mom took care of our children (THANK YOU, MOM!) She babysat for us last week, too. For our date we took in a funny movie called Ghost Town, which we both enjoyed.

And here are some short, fun videos I recently took of the boys in my mom's backyard: