It took no time to get into the Halloween spirit here.  We didn’t get around to carving pumpkins until Halloween evening but it was a hit with Amelia constantly encouraging and praising Dave on his carving skills.  Will was a train engineer and Amelia was a fairy princess this year.  It fit their personalities very well.  We trick-or-treated with some neighbors, and after the first house Will had gotten the hang it with his greeting of “trick-or-treat, two candies”.  Our neighborhood was also quite festive with people sitting outside around little campfires and greeting all the kids.  We’re looking forward to the rest of the holiday season.

Will is happy, fast, agile, snuggly, animated and enamored with anything that has wheels.  He loves Amelia, or as he calls her, “Mina”.  The first thing he asks after we drop her off at preschool is “pick up Mina?”.  The other common things Will says are “backhoes dump dirt” and “I do it”.

On a typical day Will comes into bed and cuddles with us before we all start the day.  After a few minutes he’ll sit up and say “Mama up.  Oatmeal, pancakes, waffles, yogurt”, or some combination of several breakfast foods.  He’s not a hearty eater so we’re happy to feed him at least a couple of his requests first thing in the morning.  Will has picked up on Amelia’s practice of calling Dave back at least twice before he leaves for work in the morning for another hug, which is enjoyed by all three of them. After that, Will loves to hit the park as soon as possible, and recently that means putting on his helmet and going by bike where he can practice riding.  After a weekend of introduction on the bike at the farm in Iowa, and a couple days at home, he’s pretty good.  He will ask “Tomas’ bike? Helmet on.”  (We’re borrowing the bike from Amelia’s friend Tomas.)  At the park, or anywhere really, Will practices climbing.  Recently I found him standing on the top of his dresser.  When I asked what he was doing he looked at me and said “climbing”, obviously.  Will also likes books, specifically books about trucks, backhoes, tractors, or a couple different Dr. Seuss books about big dog/little dog or ears.

We spent last weekend in Iowa so Dave could help his dad with harvest, or more truthfully, so Brian and Will could ride together in the combine.  Will spent 4 hours taking everything in on Saturday and a couple more hours on Sunday.  Brian was impressed with how Will would follow how the corn was picked into the combine and unloaded into the tractor, and also that he never fell asleep while riding!  He did call to have us pick Will up at one point and I was worried he’d gotten fussy, but Brian assured us that he was great and just didn’t want to “burn him out”.  Will is a lucky boy since both his Pop-pops like to take him for rides in their trucks, tractors, combines, and other things with wheels.

Back to the celebration – today Amelia and I will are taking Will to ride his bike at the park, have lunch out, naps and then dinner tonight with the four of us.  This weekend the festivities will continue with the arrival of Caroline and Paria, our first visitors from Washington and we can’t wait to see them!!!  We’ll have lots of fun adventures and on Sunday night we will have dinner and a tractor cake, if I can pull it off.  (By the way, we’re making friends and feeling so much better about our new digs since the weather has cooled off and we’ve had some time to get into a new routine in our new city.)