September 22-27

Happy Fall! We were all excited to celebrate the first day of autumn this week. We celebrated by having gorgeous weather to play outside in and enjoy!

Kenna's been keeping us busy. Our gate for the stairs finally came so she can no longer try to sneak upstairs when mommy's back is turned. She's starting to crawl more traditionally now - less army crawling. She can say new sounds! She loves to experiment with her voice and they range from deep growling to high-pitched screeching, with lots of consonant/vowel combinations thrown in for fun.

Logan's been busy working on his math. He loves math and it is his school subject of choice. We've been reading some very fun books together - "Little House in the Big Woods", "Miss Rumphius", and a new educational series - his favorite is a book about dinosaurs and reptiles. He's learned about Horned Toads, which squirt blood out of the corners of their eyes. He wants me to re-read that section of his book quite frequently. :-)

Brynne's hard at work on her school subjects and soccer. We learned about Mary, Queen of Scots this week. What an interesting life she led! Brynne was fascinated with a mother deer and her fawn that spent a morning in our neighbor's yard. (Between the wild fires and a slight overpopulation of deer, they are on the hunt for food). The deer have eaten quite a few of the plants in our back yard. Even though I know that deer can leap six-foot high fences, it's just hard to imagine them doing it. This is the first year we've had this problem.

Hannah was able to enjoy a performance of "Peter and the Wolf" by Prokofiev. She thought it was really fun. Our family's been humming the music. She's working hard at school - this week she had multiplication, which is not her strong suit, but she did just great on her two tests. She's working her way through "Eragon", a 500+ page book, and loving it. I get to have bits and pieces of it read aloud to me (as part of her reading homework) and although I've read the story before, it's every bit as fun the second time.

Josh has been SO busy at work - we feel like we've hardly seen him. He's enjoying his weekend break - that's for sure! He hasn't done much this week except go to work, come home late, and collapse at the end of the day. :-) As the great book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day" points out, "oh, well. Some days are like that."

I've been feeling wonderful. It's nice to feel like my life is back on track and the morning sickness has truly departed. Laundry is getting done again. Meals are getting cooked. School is happening. My house looks slightly less disorganized. No, really - that's how I know I'm feeling good. Sorting through things is fun again! Now I get to start making room for a new little person (didn't I just do that?) and it's a challenge I'm excited to take on! People are starting to notice my little tummy. I don't look just stout. :-) My good news this week was that I finished my entire list of Prop.8 calls to make. I was so excited and relieved to be done with that task!!!!

We went to a Scout Pack Meeting last night. We have three boys in our ward who are cub scout age. Our scout leaders have recruited like crazy and last night there were 12 cub scouts! It was exciting to see all these little boys loving the scouting program! Logan is very excited to be a scout some day. The scout leaders hope to keep up the recruiting so that when Logan is a scout he won't be the only one. They seem to think that's when I take over. Gosh I hope not! It looks fun...but it looks like a lot of work!

That's about all that's new for the Richardson's this week. We spent today at Brynne's soccer game. Then we went to the Mendocino Headlands (a.k.a "The Dating Place") for a picnic lunch. It was a beautiful day!