More Home Improvements and More Adventures



Here is a picture of Taylor's new skill. He is an expert tree climber. The cherry tree in the picture is easy to access and he's a pro at climbing it. This morning, he conquered a new tree. It's lowest branch is so high he had to jump to reach it with his hands, but once he had, he was able to pull himself up and start climbing. It's amazing to see him doing such big things! He's a very grown up four-year-old.


On Mother's Day, we acquired a new tent (the four of us weren't able to comfortably squeeze into our two-man tent any more). It's a beaut! We tried it out a few days ago and it works perfectly. We went to the coast and spent the night at Devil's Lake Campground in Lincoln City. It's pretty amazing to see a freshwater lake and the ocean in such close proximity. We rented a little motorboat and puttered around the lake for a few hours. The boys both learned to operate the motor and are quite proud of the fact that they know how to drive a boat. In the morning, we went to the beach and took a very long walk. It was an almost wind-less day, which we've never experienced on the Oregon coast before. We had a very good time and look forward to many more tent-camping adventures this summer.


The other big thing we accomplished recently is yet another house project. We got new garage doors a while back and decided they could use a little dressing up. This is the process we used to put stone facia on the front.
First, Jeremy put this wire mesh over some paper.






Then, the boys helped him put on a "scratch coat"



Jeremy and I worked and worked at creating a decent design. It was quite a puzzle and it wasn't as easy as we were expecting it to be, but it was a very fun project (especially now that we are done with it! :-)


The finished product!

Our Little Corner of Paradise

Here is the latest progression of our sod. We seem to be addicted and keep adding more and more - it's so nice to have the instant green gratification. Also, you'll notice our little hammock near the playstructure (thanks, Mom and Dad), where mom or dad can sit and read or relax while the boys play. More often than not, though, we spend the time in our little garden, which you can see on the left side of the picture. It's just a little salad garden of peas, lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes (with a few sunflowers and watermelon plants for fun), but it sure is neat to see the boys learning how plants grow. The other day, Taylor came rushing into the house moments after going outside. He excitedly shouted, "Hey, Mom. Everything is GROWING so much! It's almost gonna be spring in just a few more years!!!"

In addition to enjoying the plants, we've thoroughly enjoyed the return of the bugs. The boys dig up worms and carry "rolley-poleys" around. A few weeks ago, we bought a container full of ladybugs from Home Depot (as a natural aphid control) and had a lot of fun playing with them and releasing them a few at a time. Aric, when he finds a particularly gross bug, will shout out, "Hey, I found a lucky bug!" (he can't say "yucky"). Now that's become his nickname - Aric is our lucky bug! :-)

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.