Three Posts for the Price of One!

"Trader Joe's": We discovered TJ's recently 'cause it's right next to the Gold's that we go to. We ventured in one day and discovered that it is awesome. Produce that looks good and doesn't cost too much, a line of in-house breakfast cereals for cheap, more cheese than anyone knows what to do with and a complete milk-alternatives aisle. Hippies, veggies, hipsters, and vipsters (I just made that word up and I don't know what it means) everywhere. I suggest Joe-Joe's (Oreo-remakes) with candy canes. Get 'em before the season's through. Also everyone was nice there. We buy our Clif Bars and our morning bran there exclusively.

"Tiger-eating babies": You know this is going to be good, if only by the title. So, we teach the 11-year-olds in Primary, and our lesson was on the Jaredites. It was my job (this is Ben) to give a run-down of the historical-scriptural background for the lesson, and so I started in on all the genealogy--and so I started explaining, "And these people had babies, and they had babies, and pretty soon there were a lot of people, and they were very bad and fought lots of wars." To which our kids said, "Did the babies have swords?" "Were they tiger-eating babies?" That was the end of all semblance of sanity during the lesson. In the end, we learned that a good method of warfare is to use a pterodactyl as your mount and a crossbow as your weapon, and that the T. rex is a good way to keep people from stealing your sword. This reminds me of my motto when I was in fifth and sixth grade: "Don't bother me; I'm thinking about dinosaurs."

"Crackling pixels": It's November in the Valley of the Sun, and that means you should wear a windbreaker until about 9:30 or 10:00 am, unless you have a good tolerance for light chills. Well, we have been trying to imagine it's winter, and so we bundled up with the A/C on high and turned on the Sufjan Christmas album and got a fire going. Awesome.

Baby on Board

We just recently found out that we are expecting a bouncing curly-haired baby sometime around June 10. It's much better than the bouncing baby alien some believed Ben was pregnant with a few months ago. Although, judging from the ultrasound we got this week, it might just be an alien.

We got to watch the heartbeat and listen to it for a minute. The little Baby Chatterton was moving all over the place and wiggling its arms and legs (it just has nubs for now, but they are the cutest nubs I've ever seen). The doctor said that everything looks great, so we are happy about that. People have already been asking us about what we are going to name it. My little brother has started calling it Nubby, but hopefully that won't stick. We'll find out the gender mid-Januaryish and then we'll let the cat out of the bag about names:)

So there's our happy news. We couldn't be more excited about it. I haven't been sick at all and I'm almost done with the first trimester, so that is an added blessing. The decision we are dealing with now is where to put the baby when it makes its debut. We have a one-bedroom apartment, which means I don't have to worry about decorating a nursery for now (Yay!). My vote is to put the baby in the front room, but Ben is rooting for a crib in our walk-in closet. We'll let you know what we decide.

This may be what happens when you get married too fast. Or what happens when you love each other a lot and really want a baby.

Famloween

Apparently, Hallowe'en is a bigger deal than we expected.

We thought it was a little odd when our bishop's wife called and asked if we had anywhere to go for Hallowe'en. It seems that she had confused the holiday for Thanksgiving, but Crystal humored her and gave a tentative maybe to the invitation.

There was also a Hallowe'en Carnival on the block near the church a couple of days before Hallowe'en and that was fun. There were kids there. Can I tell you, lots of kids. It was rad, and we got to see things that you will only find at the Harmony Park Hallowe'en Carnival, like a "train ride" that consisted of a tractor pulling train cars made of metal drums. Sweet. And we saw one of the kids we teach in Primary. Yeah, we teach the 11-year-olds. It's pretty sweet.

Oh yeah, we totally went over to bishop's for Hallowe'en. It was awesome. Everyone was there having a great time, eating a big dinner, and watching all the trick-and/or-treating that was going on. What an awesome tradition.