Finishing the Year 2 of 2

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- Halloween produced a little more involvement from Adam and I this year, as we actually dressed the boys up; Tyson in a Bob the Builder costume and Lincoln in the cutest skunk costume, all compliments of Heidi. She made the skunk costume years ago for her kids and it has been well used. Lincoln didn’t know about the big bulky tail, but it was sure fun to watch him go up to the doors and turn around with a big grin on his face and say, “I got candy.” And then from every door after that he would continue to say with amazement, “ I got some more candy!” Just pure excitement. One of my favorite Halloween ideas was of this headless horseman. This family that we know humored their son who wanted to be a headless horseman. They let him walk up and down the street on the horse and then put it away, so that there wouldn’t be any accidents.
- For Christmas this year we were suppose to travel to Oregon, however my mom had flown to Texas to help Clara with their new little girl, Vaughn was in Iraq, and Lillie and George were on missions, so we decided to stay in Hurricane, which although we missed seeing my family I wasn’t too opposed to staying since taking a long drive to Oregon didn’t sound too appealing at this stage in my pregnancy. Since there was a bed open at the Flat then we stayed the night there so that our boys could wake up to Christmas out there with cousins and Gma & Gpa. It was very enjoyable and I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of the aftermath, this wrapping paper mess is something the Stout’s take great pride in. It’s been a good year and we have been extremely blessed by the Lord. How grateful we are for Jesus Christ and his great example of how we need to be. We are already experiencing changes as Adam was recently called to be the Young Men’s President. For some time now Adam has been talking about needing a place that he can study, ponder, and pray and not have work all around him to tempt him, so for Christmas Susie helped me transform our back bedroom into that type of room. This is the first room in our house that has curtains and pictures and a bookcase and it is amazing the difference that makes. I don’t think I could have done it without Susie’s help. It turned out better than I could have imagined and even though on Christmas day Adam had a few presents here and there to open and a new suit that he had already picked out and had adjustments on, he didn’t get this last surprise until after 10 p.m., when we went home after he played basketball. I had banished him from that back room and he told me that he thought I was building him a gun case and he felt that he was very intuitive about it, but didn’t want to ruin it. Boy was he wrong. It’s nice to have a room in our house that never gets a mess and is always inviting when you want to read, think and just not be disturbed.
-My boys are quick to help with basic chores around the house. I couldn’t resist snapping this picture when one day I heard Lincoln yelping in the kitchen. I came out to find that he was upset about not having any more room on the counter to stack the dishes that he was emptying from the dishwasher. I must say I was quite impressed at his stacking abilities from only standing on the ground.