Monday, November 13, 2006

Today, I'm thankful for our boys' animated sayings. They see the world in such a unique way.

1. Tonight, the boys listened to my heart beating. Taylor was excited that he could "hear it." I asked him what it sounded like, and he told me it sounded like jelly squishing around. Aric listened and, in an effort to match big brother, squealed, "It sound like PEANUT BUTTER!!"

2. This morning, Taylor went and picked out his "day clothes" to get dressed. He came rushing back out to the living room and told us "I got my SUPERHERO day clothes, so I can SAVE THE DAY!" Who knew backwards sweat pants held secret powers?

Friday, November 10, 2006

Montana Highlights

As you can see from the pictures below, we did get to go fishing and we had a blast. It was very cold, but a lot of fun. Jeremy didn't end up getting a mule deer. He saw a number of good-sized ones, but no "trophy-level" bucks. I don't mind that we "only" have an elk, because that's MORE than enough meat to fill our freezer to overflowing. :-) Our Montana vacation was wonderful and the boys did great. In the past, they've been ready to come home after about a week, but as they grow older, they're getting over that. They also did great on the way home, and now we're all settled back in to our Oregon routines (except that they're still waking up a little too early. It was difficult to have the hour time change and then daylight savings on top of that. Our first morning home, Aric was up for the day at 4:52 - NOT FUN! Now we're working on stretching it to about 6:30.). Now our "event calendar" is empty. We've done so many fun things already this year, but this was the last big trip we were looking forward to. We'll have lots of fun times in December, I'm sure, but it's nice to not be mentally gearing up for any more big trips.

A GUIDE TO THE PICTURES
1) Howdy from the Halloween Cowboys!
2) Aric went electric at the playground
3) Aric helped Daddy display his elk antlers
4) Taylor and Grumpy fishing - Grumpy made sure the boys did the work of reeling in the fish, so it "reely" was their catch!
5) Taylor's slimy prize! (He loved touching it and stuck around for the WHOLE biology dissection before we enjoyed it for dinner. He was so excited to see all of the different parts and learn about it's systems and muscles and bones. Once it was nearly filleted, he said, "Oh, is this salmon?" because it was finally recognizable as fish that you eat rather than fish that swim. :-)
6) Grammy, Grumpy, and Aric with his big fish
7) Taylor and Grumpy with the day's catch - a 5-pounder for Taylor and a 3.5-pounder for Aric

*NOTE* Please be sure to notice the next post down. I kinda buried it by writing it first, but I wanted to make sure it got done. Watch for more of these types of posts in the future.







NEW IDEA--JSTA Blog of Things That Make Me Smile

I'll try to cover the rest of our Montana trip and add pics later today if I get a chance, but while the boys are still sleeping, I want to start my new "routine." I've been wanting to do this for quite a while, so we'll see how well I can do at keeping it up. I want to record at least one wonderful thing about each of my boys each day (or each couple of days while I'm working into this new habit).

*So, yesterday, Aric cracked me up with his use of the phrase "whobody." "Mom, whobody locked this door?" I suppose it makes perfect sense - if there's "anybody," "somebody," "everybody," and "nobody," why can't there be "whobody"? :-)

*After Jeremy got home from his very long day of work, Taylor came up to him, dinosaur-shaped flashlight in hand, and said, "Dad, guess what I found? Some dinosaurs left their skeletons in MY ROOM!!!" He had to show off his find, of course, so he led the way down the darkened hallway into his dark bedroom with the flashlight. He shined its beam on pieces of a Barney puzzle...skeletons, indeed!!! :-)

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Howdy from Montana...

...and Happy Halloween from Cowboy Taylor and Cowboy Aric. We enjoyed our excuse to get dressed up and go visit our aunts, uncles, and grandparents around the dairy farm. Mom just wanted to send an update and post a picture of our costumes, but for some reason she can't post pictures right now, so that'll have to wait until next time. We also wanted to pass along the news that Dad successfully bagged an elk. He wasn't a big bull (just a "rag horn," or a 5 point-by-5 point), but he should give us excellent meat, which Mom is excited about. After a weekend off, Dad and Grandpa Lyn went back out and are hunting over in Eastern Montana for a number of days. I (Taylor) miss Daddy, but we're hoping he comes back with a big buck (his goal is to get a mule deer that's bigger than his elk! :-).
We will stay with Grammy and Grumpy until Sunday, when we'll make the big trek back to Oregon. Our time here is going fast, but we're having lots of fun. We have fed baby calves, played with Grammy's Kitty every day, gathered and pressed leaves, collected pine cones, sampled crab apples, carved a pumpkin, gone to Rainbows, learned how to play pool (thanks, Uncle Amos), visited all of our aunts and uncles (except Uncle Shane), had an early thanksgiving meal, gone on a carousel ride, played at great new parks with big slides...we've been having LOTS of fun. It's been really cold, but that means we've also been enjoying warm crackling fires. :-) We had a storm the other day and enjoyed a little bit of snow, but it wasn't enough to play in. We sure do appreciate the wintery weather here - it's cold, it storms, the bright sun comes out and makes for a strikingly beautiful blue and white world full of incredible mountains you can see forever. It's definitely different than foggy gray unending drizzle. :-) In one last piece of news, I (Taylor) am doing first grade math and enjoying it thoroughly. Mom and Dad are amazed that I understand the concept of "greater than" and "less than," and that I'm doing addition and subtraction up to 18 with the help of counting beans.
We hope we will get to do more fun things before we leave, like ride a horse and go fishing, but it might just be too cold. We'll let you know.