The Catch-Up Game

Life has been beyond busy lately, but I'm gonna try and play the catch-up game for a minute and bring everybody up to date :)

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At the end of September Grandpa Wainscott came for a quick visit. The most eventful part of that visit while I was there included the discovery of a baby rattlesnake under one of the couches in the living room! Mom was moving the furniture so we could take a picture and underneath the chair was this tiny fellow. Mom recognized right away that he was a rattlesnake and ordered his execution. Grandpa was so stricken with him he begged and pleaded for his life, but it was to no avail. Alas, the little guy was diced and buried. What a blessing that no one got hurt! Nathan had been crawling around on that floor all morning and mom had her feet under the edge of that chair when she was trying to move it...thankfully, no poisonous bites from him!

The picture she was arranging the furniture to take was a replica of an old family photo, but with the next 4 generations. The baby in the original is my Grandpa Wainscott's father, on his mother's lap (who I got my middle name from), sitting next to her maternal grandfather, with her mother behind them. We so happened to have the very same situation that day sitting at my parent's house with the Great grandfather now being the son of the baby in that picture! So the two pictures together are 8 consecutive generations...pretty cool, huh?

Then, the first weekend in October- besides being conference- Ken's work rented out Six Flags in Denver from 5-10pm for Ball employee's only. I could not believe it....EVERY ride in the park was a walk-on...you walk right up, get on the ride, and it usually wasn't even full! Even the Tower of Doom (usually a 2-3 hour wait for a 25 sec drop) at most had a one cycle wait! It was a blast. They had all their Halloween decor out so we took advantage :)

Here are my boys having fun in the park! Don't they both look so happy? It was like being on a big family vacation just for the night!

We took Nathan on some of the rides in the Kiddo park- he LOVED it! He rode the train, the bus and the balloons!

The next stop was the carousel. What fun! We all enjoyed a little spin on the horses :)

After about 9:30pm the excitement had tuckered the little man out and he could hardly keep his eyes open. He was SO tired!

We finished off the night with a ride on the Ferris wheel (everyone except dad who was watching the stroller and Anna and Jamie, who were riding the Mind Eraser over and over because the guy running the ride was hot...Anna is now dating him!) This is the rest of the clan ready to ride...

Here's Heather and Will...who are getting married in 86 more days!!! Doesn't she look SO love-struck?

We no more than sat down and Nathan was out cold. From here you can also see the Space Needle behind mom! Cool!

The view from the top, overlooking Denver at night was awesome. And what better to compliment the foreground than the most upscale of us all...Jason- looking cool in his newsies hat :)

It had been a long day for my little buddy! He was out for the night, and even slept in the next morning- yay!!!!

Although the rest of us were beat, Heather and Will were just getting started ;0) Crazy kids!

The following week we got our first REAL snow. It snowed all day and when it started piling up on the ground I took Nathan out to see it....he was very curious!

It was sooooo cute. He kept saying "wow" over and over again, so I took him out to sit in it!

Look at the tiny teeth in that little bear's crooked smile. He just melts my heart. He loved laying there in the snow, but I didn't want it to saturate his little snow suit, so we eventually had to get up ...fun while it lasted, though.

Then, this past weekend was our ward's Cowboy Round-Up Chili Cook-off. Nathan was the cutest little buckaroo. He wasn't quite sure about the had, though!

He eventually warmed up to it and realized it could be a toy...peek-a-boo!

Ken brought an old saddle and set it up on a sawhorse so the kids could sit on it...Nathan was first in line and LOVED it....especially the training whip that was added for decoration :)

Giddee-yup cowboy! Yeee-haw!

Too much fun :) I love that little guy!

He is growing up sooooo fast. First he starts crawling, now he wants to be a chemist! He found dad's chemistry goggles and was trying to put them on, so we helped him out...and he wore them all afternoon!

Although, in his defense- I'd probably wear goggles if I were going to be playing with Jeremy's shoes too! hehehehe. Joking aside, though- he has been taking his first steps on his own. On Sat. Oct 10th he stood up in the middle of the kitchen floor without help and took 2 consecutive steps. He didn't fall down after taking them, but decided it was taking too long, so he lowered himself to the ground.

Saddest story recently- on Tuesday night after bedtime I put the oven on a cleaning cycle. Well, baby got up when dad called to say he was on his way home, so Nathan and I came downstairs. When Jeremy got home he played with him a bit, then set him on the floor so he could give me a hug- and then it happened....the quick little bugger pulled out the warming drawer on the bottom of the over (which did not lock during the cleaning cycle, we found out) and tried to pull himself to a stand on it. Jeremy spun around as fast as he could and pulled his little hand off of it but he was already burned pretty badly. We ran his hand under cold water and it almost instantly blistered up. It was soooooo sad. He was screaming in pain so we took him to the ER, where they gave him some pain meds and dressed it. He now has a little smurf hand! He is adapting to life with a boxing glove on his right hand and learning to pick up his Cheerios with the left hand...since they dressed it he has been happy as ever.

We went back to visit the burn team this morning where they removed all the blisters, put new ointment on and gave him a new dressing for it. They hope that by our next visit in 1 week that it will be all better!

The upside--if you could call it that-- is that because crawling is somewhat harder with a glove on one hand he has been trying harder to walk. Wednesday morning he took 6 consecutive steps!
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Last but not least, my excuse for being such a slacker about updating the blog recently is that I have taken up photography. I got this incredible new toy :) a Nikon D90, and have been taking some free-bee shots just for practice, on people who otherwise would not have professional photography. I did a few of Anna's friends' senior pictures, and some bridal shots of a girl whose wedding shots I am doing on Saturday. It has been so much fun. I have also spent a lot of time trying to design a website...there is a very good reason that I do not do web design--it takes me FOREVER! But, if you would like to take a look at my novice work, feel free at:

http://www.candacebaldwinphotography.com/

More posts to come soon! (hopefully)