Welcome Home Sister

Last week, Sister Jaclyn Mangum finally came home after serving her mission in San Salvador.  It was so fun to welcome her home and see her after 18 months.  She came home to an anxious family and to meet two new little ones-Alex and Kate.  Welcome home and thanks for all of your hard work in serving such a valiant mission. It has been so great to have her home and see  her maintain her enthusiasm and passion for life and sharing the gospel. She has the best Spanglish, but I'm sure the adjustment coming home is even greater than we all realize. You can tell she really immersed herself in her service.   

It so was fun to hear all of the cheers as the missionaries came down the escalators. 7 other missionaries came home at the same time so the airport was full of families.

Plenty of hugs and love to go around

***Just think it will soon be President and Sister Pugh's turn to return with Honor!!! 7 more months Nana and Papa-Keep up the great missionary work. 

Alex is a Toddler

Alex is now a busy little walker.  He is so excited and pleased with his new walking ability.  It's so fun to watch as he is a little bit more like frankenstein than light and graceful on his feet. He tries to move quickly from place to place leaving him with many new bruises. Ever since he started to move he loves to follow Samantha and climb on everything.  Busy little toddler!!!! 

Even though he keeps us so busy he is such a delight. The awe and wonder we see in his eyes as he discovers new things is such a priceless gift. Oh to be little again. 

Stats

In November I took the kids to the doctors for Alex's 1 year  and Samantha's 2 year+ check up.  It was fun to see how big they are growing,minus the crying from their shots.

Alex is 23 lbs and 25 inches tall-50% weight, height and head. Just an average solid boy. I guess he's finally growing into his head.

Samantha is 29 lbs and 36 inches tall- 90% in height and 50% in weight. She is tall and thin- a lean mean fighting machine.

Swimming Diva

Samantha has turned out to be quite the little fish.  She is now in her 2nd session of swimming and doing amazing.  It is so exciting to see her safety awareness increase and be able to float all by herself.  During lessons she will now either jump in or go down the slide and then flip over into a float.  They  continue to practice kicking and different arm scoops to help with her swimming (chicken, airplane, soldier) and increasing her strength to pull herself out of a pool.  

Samantha floating all by herself!!!  I just love the look of wet eyelashes. 

Samantha working with her current teacher Rachael.

This is Samantha and Spencer during the summer learning how to float.  It was so fun to start swimming lessons with Spencer. 

Punctuation-.,?!

Punctuation, Who needs it anyway? Yes, I can definitely see the benefits of using proper punctuation, with beautiful sentence structure to capture ones thoughts.  But I often find when I'm in t he middle of a thought and typing my punctuation goes down the drain and I'm the queen of very long run on sentences.  I wish I had a tape recorder in my head to capture my thoughts and then I could replay them as I'm trying to put my thoughts down into words, or even articulate my own thoughts.  They always sound so much better when I'm thinking about things.  Then when I sit down to type or express my thoughts it is all a bunch of garble.  I've also noticed since working in the medical field where I had to be very brief and direct in my writing that I now lack the desire for beautiful, elaborate descriptions.  So I give my heart felt apologies to all those who may read our family blog.  You may get frustrated with my poor punctuation or very brief and direct descriptions of what's happening in the life of the Pugh family.  I just love having a way to journal what's happening in my family even if it is a hodgepodge of meaningless words to the rest of you.

Sorry

Craft Time

Last week Anna and I got together for a little craft project. We made the cutest Happy Birthday blocks with festive glitter on top.  They turned out great and it was so fun to have a little female, adult time with Anna.  Crafting must be the Mormon's choice for a frivolous activity.

Won't these be wonderful to help celebrate someone Birthday. 

Halloween Success!!!!

Halloween turned out to be a big hit at our house!!!  We realized that this was really the first year we have taken Samantha trick-or-treating, and boy did she catch on fast.  Earlier in the day we went to our local library for spooky story book reading and singing time.  We loved all of the great Halloween books and songs for kids.  In the afternoon we went down to Jim's work to their Halloween party and came home with a bag FULL of candy.  She thought it was amazing to go office to office and people would put hands full of candy into her bag. 

At night we had so much fun trick-or-treating with the Larson's.  It was so sweet to see Samantha and Spencer holding hands as they walked house to house.  You could often hear Samantha saying "I'm coming Spencer, I'm coming" if she got a little behind.  Alex just loved being in his stroller, seeing all of the kids.

Samantha is still asking for Halloween and still dressing up everyday.  Baby girl, there are more holidays to come!!!