SPRING

We had an unusual Easter this year. Jeremy ended up getting stuck upriver because of a malfunctioning dam lock, so we celebrated Easter a day late. On Easter Sunday, the boys, my mother-in-law, and I went to church and enjoyed breakfast and the morning services. Then we hung out and had a restful day at home. On Monday, Jeremy got home early and went straight to bed (he was on the midnight-6a.m. shift, so he was exhausted). Grandma Janet and I took the boys out of the house so Jeremy could sleep. We went to the beautiful tulip festival fields.

After naptime, we finally gave the kids their Easter baskets and did an egg hunt, and that evening, we had our special Easter dinner. We usually do an ethnic meal, but this year, we had a simple meal of pork loin and specially prepared vegetables. It was easy and lovely. It was good to celebrate together, and it was a special blessing to have Jeremy's mom in town. While she was here, Jeremy was off on comp time so we got to spend lots of time together. One day we took the kids mini-golfing. Taylor is getting pretty good, but Aric is still pretty funny to watch.

Later in the week, Daddy said goodbye to us and we took a very long drive. We went to Coeur d'Alene, ID, and played with some good friends of ours. Then I stayed in Idaho and the boys went with Grandma Janet to Montana. They went to Grammy and Grumpy's house and stayed there all by themselves for four days. Then I came to MT for two days, then we all went back to Idaho and spent an evening there. Finally, we traveled back to Oregon after a week away. Needless to say, we're all a bit tired of being in the minivan at the moment. :-) We had a great trip, though. Here are a few photos, taken with Taylor's camera, of the highlights.

Of course, the calves needed to be photographed. While Taylor snapped pictures and kept his distance, Aric happily let the calves suck his fingers.

We got to see Great-Gramma and Great-Papa

We also got to spend time with Great-Grandma Jen

Taylor and Aric got to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow with lots of assistance from Grumpy. Grumpy said they had to hit the target at least once before they were allowed to shoot the arrows up in the air (apparently their favorite part). Gotta watch those Grandparents - they sure do know how to spoil boys!

SPRING UPDATE

It's been far too long since I posted, so I'll try to do a quick catch-up of events. In January, we had a fun snow storm. Here are pictures:

At the end of January my mom, Julie, came to visit. In February, we permanently installed the play structure the boys had gotten for Christmas. Jeremy did as much work as he could on our side yard using the tractor. In March, we sold the tractor and Jeremy's bus project. Talk about spring cleaning! We also had a visit from Jeremy's dad. The boys had fun reading and playing many games of memory with him!

At the end of March, the boys and I went on a hike to an old fire tower. They were great troopers and happily hiked up and down a big hill for over 2 miles!

Now it's definitely springtime! The flowers have been in bloom for quite a while and we're enjoying the balmy weather (it's in the 70s!!!). Yesterday we got out and Taylor worked on his bike riding skills (actually, he's got riding down. It's the stopping that needs practice!) and Aric zoomed around on the scooter. He is a crazy driver! Even at two, he definitely loves speed. He goes as fast as his little legs can push him, and NEARLY wipes out every time. He's perfected a heart-stopping save. Then he grins and says "That FUN!"

We also have fun practicing our baseball skills. Taylor just finished a 10-week class that covered baseball, soccer, and basketball. He is a lefty, but is quite proficient at batting both left- and right-handed. He really seems to have his dad's reflexes and ability...it amazes me how good he is at so many different things. Aric already seems quite talented at physical activities, too. (I'm not a proud mama or anything :-)

We are looking forward to Easter and plan to celebrate our Lord's resurrection with a representative of our extended family present for the first time in many years! Jeremy's mom is coming out for a few days over the holiday, and then the boys and I are headed back over the mountains. The boys are gonna go to Montana and spend time with Grammy and Grumpy, and I'm gonna go to Idaho to visit a dear friend. I'll zip over to MT to pick the boys up and say hello to "the fam," then we'll head back to Oregon, so it's gonna be a busy few weeks.

The other big thing we've been working on is the transformation of our side yard. Here are some before and after pics (and keep in mind, we're still not done):

This is the boys' swingset area and our new sod.

This is the same area of side yard, pictured last August, this February, and now in April. We have more sod to lay and a lot more bark dust to haul, but it's definitely improved. I wish we had taken true "before pictures," because it looked even worse than in the August picture when we first moved here. We are pleased with the progress and enjoying the fun of having a project together. Or at least, that's what we try to tell ourselves! :-) The work is finally at the stage where it's feeling pretty rewarding.

Christmas 2006

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. My parents came to visit us the week before Christmas, so we started celebrating early. (Taylor asked why we still had our Christmas tree up - on December 23rd! He thought we were already finished with Christmas.) While Jeff and Julie were here, we harvested and decorated our Christmas tree, saw Portland's Christmas Ship Fleet from The Old Spaghetti Factory, enjoyed "his and hers" shopping (the girls went to the mall, the guys went to gun shows and outdoors stores), and enjoyed lots of gift giving. The highlight of gift giving was the play structure with swings and a slide that my parents got for the boys. Jeff and Jeremy put it together during nap time, then the boys got to go outside and discover it! They had seen part of it peeking over our fence, so I don't know how truly surprised they were, but at any rate, they love it!

When Christmas Eve arrived, we had a fun afternoon indoctrinating our kids into the mind-numbing culture of video games by letting them play a "Cars" racing game on Jeremy's X-Box. They thoroughly enjoyed the special treat. (Maybe we'll keep it as a Christmas tradition - preserve their brains by limiting video games to one day a year! :-) After a fun finger-food dinner, we debated how many presents we should open (our family traditions differ on this point) and we all ended up opening one gift. The boys each got a playdough extruder so we could have a fun new family activity to occupy us until bedtime. On Christmas morning, the boys were excited to open their stockings. Then, when they walked into the dining room for breakfast, Taylor was surprised to see his first "big kid" bike sitting on the table! It was a lot of fun! The weather was fairly mild, so he got to try out his new bike. Of course, there were other wonderful gifts, too, but the best gift of all was being able to share the wonderful news of our Savior's birth with our boys. Speaking of the Christmas story, Taylor was a shepherd in the Christmas pageant on Christmas Eve. We mostly saw the top of his head, but managed to get a few pictures of him peeking over the taller kids.

Happy Birthday, Taylor!

Taylor had a great birthday party with 7 other little boys in attendance! It was a wild couple of hours and we all had so much fun. He loved his "Rescue Vehicle Birthday." (He had chosen a fire engine theme, but then decided that was too confining, so he "re-themed" it. :-) Now, although it's nearly impossible to believe, our little Tay-Tay is the BIG FOUR. In January, he's going to have his first forray into organized sports with a little class on soccer, basketball, and baseball (half an hour, once a week, lots of fun). Then it'll be preschool, and then (so I'm told), he'll be 18 and headed off to college. :-)

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?

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!!! :-)

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.

Happy Fall!














Time sure has been flying by for us (as usual!). I've tried a few times to upload more pictures of what we've been up to, but for some reason, they're all coming up as red x's, so this one will have to do for now. The boys and I had a lot of fun the other day raking leaves into piles then jumping in them and throwing them around. When that got old, they decided to pretend they were turtles. :-)

A few quick highlights on our recent events: I forgot to mention that we went mini-golfing and Tay and Jeremy went go-karting a few weeks ago. It was pretty comical to see these boys trying to learn how to golf, but by the end of the course, Taylor had improved immensely. Aric swings pretty wildly, so it's alright that he doesn't often connect. :-) Maybe he'll have mustered a little more control by the next time we go. Next, a couple of weeks ago we saw some good friends who were visiting from Idaho and went to the zoo with them. Five kids made for a busy but fun day. Later that week, we went to the beach and stayed two nights with another set of good friends. The plan was to go paragliding, but bad weather and overscheduled instructors foiled it. However, we still had a lot of fun hanging out, having a campfire and roasting s'mores on the beach after dark, playing games late into the night, letting the kids watch cartoons in the mornings so we could sleep in :-), tip-toeing in the waves, and playing at the beach (Taylor, David, and Abbie excavated and constructed quite a bit, but Aric was more interested in his kite. He only let go of it about 3 times during the course of the hour or so that he held it...not bad for a two-year-old. :-) As soon as we got home, Jeremy left again for another long tug trip. He's been working pretty much "week-on, week-off" the past few months. It is always a bit of adjustment when he leaves - every morning when Aric comes in to pull my covers off and beg for breakfast (saying "I firsty, I firsty for food"), he cranes his neck to see over me and asks, "Where my dad?" We're all looking forward to him coming home soon! Then we'll hopefully have another eventful but restful (is that possible?) week as a family before Jeremy catches another trip. If he can time the next trip right, we might be able to go to Montana for two weeks' worth of visiting/hunting rather than just one. We're really looking forward to the time with our extended family. :-)

Inaugural Fire

We picked up a fire bowl at a garage sale earlier this summer, but we hadn't used it yet. Now, with the nights getting cooler, it's seeming more appealing. The night before Jeremy left for his upriver tug trip, he and Tay chopped wood and set up a fire. Then we all sat around and Jeremy roasted marshmallows for the boys. It was a lot of fun. When he gets back in town next week, we're gonna do actual s'mores. Can't imagine how messy that's gonna be, but it'll be fun and delicious, so who cares? :-)

P.S. Sorry Taylor's crooked. I've tried a couple different things to make him stand up straight, but he's being stubborn. :-)

Aric's 2nd Birthday

After much clamoring from certain grandmothers, I've finally gotten around to updating the blog (and thankfully, today, the picture function is working right!). Aric's bday was a blast. Here are the details. We had 3 families over and we opened gifts first because all the kids were nicely gathered in the living room. That decision lacked foresight, because we gave Aric a 6-piece musical instrument set (primarily percussion). So for the rest of the party, we grownups really couldn't chat as easily as I would have liked, but the kids sure had fun. We did the cake next, which was fun. Some of the kids (Aric included) didn't really know what to do with the coconut-covered ball placed in front of them. It certainly didn't look like the cupcake we parents kept telling them it was. There was a lot of stalling (read "gummy-worm eating"), but we finally got Aric to take a bite. After filling up with energy from lots of cake and candy, we tried to sit all the kids down to make a caterpillar craft to take home. It was fun, but a little scattered. However, I think all in all, the kids had a great time and Aric loved his "bug birthday." Now, we just need to convince him that he really is TWO. :-)

Our Trip to Canada

We had a great time in Canada last week with Jeremy's mom, Janet, and sister, Maria. It was fun to see all the family up there and enjoy "Beautiful British Columbia." It truly is a beautiful place...if you ever get the chance, visit the Fraser River and enjoy the numerous breathtaking landscapes she offers.

On the way up, the 12-hour drive was almost fun! Each boy was in his own row with his own personal play partner, so there weren't many opportunities to fight. On the way back, though, we got stuck in Seattle traffic for over 3 hours, so the trip was longer, and the exciting "newness" had worn off, so the boys weren't as happy to be confined all day. They still did very well, though, considering how long we were in the car.

While in Canada, the boys bottle-fed calves, fed horses, explored old buildings and cars, made new friends (especially cousin Kolby, whom Taylor kept calling "Kolbsy" :-), and built sweet relationships with their Great-Grandparents. It was a pretty special time.

When we arrived home, we had one day to rest and recuperate, then Jeremy was off to work again on a 6-day tug trip. He made it home this morning, so we'll finally get to have a few "normal" family days for the first time in nearly a month. We're all looking forward to just being at home and spending quality time together...except for maybe Taylor. He's always asking if we can go somewhere or buy something for a special treat - he's really into "special treats" right now. He is quite the negotiator when we ask him to do something or when he's done something well. "Can I have a special treat?" is a common refrain around our house, followed by the requisite discussions about family responsibility and the reward of a job well done (and, quite often, a special treat! :-).

I think I've succeeded in writing a whole post without saying "busy." As I was looking back over my previous posts, I discovered that I start or end (or both) almost every post by stating how busy we are. Well, folks, we're just plain busy and we're gonna be busy for at least the next 20 years or so, so I'll make a concerted effort to stop saying it over and over and boring my audience. If I don't say things are slow, just assume we are busy. :-) (Notice how, even as I decry the "we're busy" refrain, I've still craftily managed to end the post with it!)

Tractor Work and Canada



Well, we've been busy as usual. We've been driving around dreaming about being "real" property owners and looking at small acreages in Washington. I don't think anything will come of that dream for a few more years, but it's fun to look every once in a while.

The "guys" have also been doing a bit of tractor work. Jeremy's had the tractor up and running (except the 4-wheel drive part) for a while, and the boys got a chance to help Dad out the other day. Taylor was grinning from ear to ear the whole time he was riding (except when he was concentrating hard as Dad taught him how to move the loader). Aric, on the other hand, was full of trepidation and had a hard time not crying through his very short tractor ride. It was pretty cute. Aric is at a stage where fear is becoming more and more a part of life. We've been looking forward to this day, thinking it would mean he'd be more cautious with his body and less prone to injure himself. Unfortunately, he's not afraid of the hazardous things he does to himself; he's just afraid of big scary things like tractors and life-sized mascot-people (the Red Robin restaurant bird is terrifying) . Oh, well. Maybe that whole self-preservation thing will kick in one of these days. :-) But back to the tractor, unfortunately, it doesn't have nearly the power Jeremy thought it would when dealing with our rock-hard clay soil. He's gonna get the 4-wheel drive going, and hopefully that will make a big difference, but he's not holding out much hope of it being "tractor enough" to do the landscaping jobs we had intended. It'll probably end up on our list of things to sell, and we'll have to figure out some other way to make our landscaping dreams a reality. Whichever way that goes, the boys sure are having fun with it in the mean time.



















In other news, Taylor is attending Rainbows on Wednesday nights and loving it. It is a church program that is kind of taking the place of preschool for us this year. He's getting his socialization there and at church on Sundays, and he's doing his learning at home. I think next year we'll all be a little more ready for him to go to preschool. Speaking of his learning, he is learning to read and can read a number of words all by himself (i.e., me, sam I am, ram, rat, mat, sat, etc.). It's lots of fun and he is enjoying his accomplishments. It's a little tricky to teach him because he's such an independent "know-it-all" boy (which is a compliment in my book). I'll have him do an exercise with sounding out, and he'll immediately give me an exercise of my own - "OK, Mom, now you say uh-uh-uh-uh-ee-ee-ee." He likes to put glottal stops in between random sounds and act like he's making words or reading. It's pretty cute. We're very proud of his number and letter recognition, and of the fact that he's learning to read because HE WANTS TO. I think it's best to start them young while they think it's a fun game and don't realize that some people think learning is work. :-)

Another point of interest: We are headed to Canada! Jeremy's mom and sister are coming to our house from MT tonight, and early tomorrow morning, we're gonna set out for Dog Creek, BC to see Jeremy's maternal grandparents and assorted other relatives. It's gonna be a lot of fun, and it will be the first time Jeremy's grandfather gets to meet Aric (and really, the first time he gets to KNOW Taylor - the last time they saw each other was when Tay was a baby). Jeremy hasn't been up to their ranch since he was a young boy, so it should be a neat experience for him, too. Because of the trip, I've got to go do things like clean and pack, so I guess I'll sign off now. Enjoy your labor-free weekend, everyone! :-)

Toddler Times

This has been a busy week with two birthday parties for two different friends! We've had a blast at each party. I was gonna post a few pics of the boys at one of the parties and of them on their bunks, but I could only get one picture to upload, so I guess that's all I can send. We still don't have rails or a ladder figured out for the bunk bed, so the top is just for playing on at this point. We got a new, more comfortable matress this morning, so the bed is getting closer to being outfitted. Hopefully next week we'll be able to transition away from the crib. :-) Jeremy's been busy trying to get his tractor up and running. It's been more of a project than he anticipated, but he's almost done, and we're all excited to be seeing another project completed. He's also getting close to finishing his VW bus, and we got to say goodbye to an old VW bus shell this week because Jeremy had finished harvesting parts from it. It's exciting to go from three bus bodies around our house to just one in the garage! :-)

Last week, the whole family made an outing to Target for some reason, and when we were walking through the automatic doors, Aric said, "Thank you, door." That's the kind of kids we're raising! :-) :-) Jeremy and I chuckled quite a bit over that one. We've also noticed he'll say "'Scuse me" or "Sorry" to inanimate objects if he runs into them. It's a pretty fun stage. He often has the typical two-year-old attitude, even though he's not quite two, but I think it helps him survive better around big brother.

We've all been enjoying Jeremy being mostly home this week. It sounds like there's a good chance he'll be headed out again on the tugs later this weekend, but we'll just have to wait and see. You all missed out on an "insider's view" of what his job entails. The other day, he sat down and typed out a long explanatory post regarding his life as a tugboat deckhand, but when he went to attach pictures, the blog closed down. He repeated the entire process again, but had the same results, so he gave up for the day. Hopefully he'll be able to sit down and try again soon.

The boys and I are headed out for a picnic with some old friends - the people I babysat in the summers for a few years while I was going to college. It's always amazing to see how HUGE these teen boys are, because when I started watching them, they were 6 and 9 years old! We'll be attending soccer practice and observing one of the boys, so maybe my boys will learn a few skills! I need to start packing a picnic dinner, though, so I'm gonna sign off now.

Quick Updates

1) We went to the zoo yesterday

Jeremy was out of town for a few days, so the boys and I went to the zoo yesterday with our good buddy Xander and his family. We had a blast. Of course, I never got around to taking any pictures of everyone together, but here are a few cool ones of the boys and an alligator.

2) Haircuts

Last week, all the boys went to a barber and got haircuts. It was Aric's first REAL haircut! I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures of him in "THE chair," but here's a picture of his curls - now they are gone. He looks pretty much the same from the front, but very different from the back. His side profile looks quite a bit more grown up now.

3) Bunk Beds!

The boys finally got a bunkbed. It's set up in their room, but doesn't have the top matress in until we get a side rail built, since it didn't come with one and Taylor is a VERY active sleeper who occasionally rolls off his bed. We'll get some pics up soon. Aric was unhappy to hear he was getting a new bed. When I told him it was coming, he said, "No want to." I asked why, and he said, "Need my crib!" Then he started to cry. We felt sorry for him until evening came, when he cried again because he WANTED to sleep on the bunkbed and we wouldn't let him (Taylor's on the bottom until we get the top matress set up).

4) Our camping trip

All four of us went camping last weekend at a great little campground near the Oregon coast. We spent the night in our TINY tent, and everyone managed to sleep...at least a little. Jeremy had a harder time than the rest of us, but the boys did excellent! We had fun "fishing" and throwing rocks in the lake, and in the morning we took a walk around the lake. We tried to catch some salamanders or newts (not sure what they were), but didn't succeed. After breaking camp, we drove to the top of Mt. Hebo to catch the view, but got caught between two layers of fog. On the way down the mountain road, the boys both nodded off, so we pulled off and we all took a nap. That helped the rest of the day to go very smoothly. We drove down to Lincoln City and went to Siletz Bay Wayside. We flew kites, found seashells and rocks, threw rocks in the surf, and built sandcastles. It was a great day! When it was nap time, we loaded up and headed home. It was a perfect mini-vacation.

We had a fun week last week with Jeremy being home on comp time. He got another upriver trip, but thankfully it was a short one, and he got home last night! He should have the rest of the week off because of comp time, so hopefully we'll be able to get some projects / chores done around our home.