Last night was the ward Halloween party. Lil'Nathan went as a robot. (Went as a robot, but once there he refused to wear his costume b/c he said it didn't fit right. His face painting was cool, though.)

Joseph... well, Joseph painted his face, but a cold kept him home. Home and heartbroken. Only a bowl of Kixx was able to stop the flow of tears. Then a big bath, lots of stories, and "pocket jammies." (Sleep was induced by a healthy dose of eucalyptus and lavender oils on the pillow and on the jammies and some Badger Balm Winter Wonder rub on the chest.)

Mary went as a princess. "Yes, again," she told her exasperated big brother, "and I'll do it again next year if I want to!"

And Daddy went as King Lamoni. He tried for a beard, but it just wasn't working for him this year. Isn't this a great picture? Everyone is looking and smiling!

I stayed home with Joseph. Glad I did, too, b/c today he was just fine to go to church. And I must be very obviously pregnant, b/c several people asked today, "Are you pregnant?" and as everyone knows, you never ask that question unless the answer is painfully obvious. So, there you go.

All of our little pumpkins have turned orange. They are so cute. I still can't believe we grew pumpkins. It's so cool! They will be carved on Saturday... and then cooked on Sunday. Not a scrap shall be wasted. My friend Stephanie provided a link to a friend of hers with some wonderful sounding pumpkin recipes. We will definitely have to try some--pies, cookies, cakes, milkshakes... Yum!

Hmm... still having trouble with the formatting here since Nathan switched back to Explorer. Works fine in email, but I can't cut and paste (well, I can cut, but I can't paste) in Blogger. Maybe, like all things computer, it knows it's me and is just out to drive me nuts.

But, in other news, some of you may know that Nathan has been thinking about going back to get his certification in prosthetics. We'd decided to do even if his current job balked at offering support, though they claimed to support more education. He met with the decision makers on Fri and they all talked about what was required in terms of time and money. Less than an hour later they pulled him aside again and offered a truly amazing deal. "We really like you and we don't want to lose you." Nathan was really surprised. (I was totally speechless when he came home and told me.) So, we are not only doing it, but it looks like we'll be here for a while. Like, 5 more years or so. His online course-work will start in Aug '10 and he'll be 10 weeks in Chicago starting in Jan '11. (Same schedule as for the orthotics portion. He's halfway through that residency.)

Lil'Nathan is excited b/c prosthetics involves more power tools and he wants to open up a shop and run a family business.