Laine the Runny-Nosed Reindeer and a Man-Bath!

This weekend, Chris helped James overcome his deathly fear of baths. Our girls always LOVED baths and still ask to take more than one bath a day some times swimming around for an hour or more singing and playing Mermaids. James, however, has always screamed at the top of his lungs the minute he enters water (he also screams like a banshee when I perform booger extractions or dab his face with a Kleenex). Yesterday, Chris got all the kids in the bath with him and had Laine and Eve show James how fun a bath could be. Slowly, he got James into the water without screaming and by the end of it, James was even having fun.

We keep hoping Laine will finally get over Christopher from her old pre-school. She's been telling us every day how much she loves Christopher and how she wants to take his last name when they get married and have his babies. She even said "It's so easy to think about Christopher that I don't even have to use my thinking cap!" I tried to explain to her that she's marrying James VanDam, darn it! But to no avail. Then Chris had to go burst her little love bubble by telling her that Christopher might meet someone else and ask her to marry him first, and Laine was really distraught about it, but we'll keep distracting her so that maybe she'll forget him soon. Laine held hands with one of the sunbeam boys on the first day we went to our new ward, so maybe she'll find a new boy here to want to marry.

The girls seem to like the new ward pretty well. Laine has her hand-holding buddy and Eve is enjoying her last couple of weeks of nursery before moving up to big-girl primary at the start of the new year. James is as popular as always, getting "Oh how cute!" and "What a beautiful baby!" everywhere he goes. We think he's cute too, especially in his little man clothes.

Chris and Laine went exploring the woods in the backyard yesterday and found an antler! Laine was so excited. We're going to have lots of fun tromping through the forest exploring and having adventures here.