Taylor's Sixth Birthday

It's hard to believe that our Baby Tay-Tay has grown into a big six-year-old! He doesn't like cake anymore, so we made him this special peppermint ice cream cake. (Good thing he was born in December!)

He had three friends over (plus himself & Aric makes five) for a nice little party. All the boys decorated "mini-pinatas" and enjoyed a few hours of sugared-up playtime.

In the evening, Taylor opened his family gifts. This face occured when he realized Grandma and Grandpa had given him a transformer that was a tank (he'd been asking everyone for a tank and a transformer, so to have them combined was thrilling, apparently).

The afterglow:

We got him Battleship, so this is how he's spent a lot of his time off from school:

Happy Birthday, Buddy!  We love you so much and are so thankful for each year we have gotten to spend with you in our family! We look forward to many more!

November Update

November was a month of playing "catch-up." 

When we got back from Montana, the first order of business was butchering Jeremy's elk. We got it all done, and the kids even got in on the fun. They helped us label the ground burger "Ham 08." They were both very proud to be helping out (and getting to use PERMANENT markers! That's big stuff around here. :-)

I spent November figuring out how to parent three kiddos without backup from a grandma. :-) It was the first time we'd been a family of five, living in this house, for any length of time "by ourselves." Jeremy went upriver a number of times, so I definitely got initiated. Between taking Taylor to school in the morning, doing reading lessons with Aric, having lunch, doing homework with Taylor, and nursing and caring for Ascha, I've found that I don't have much of a "day" until rest time comes. Taylor informed me that his friends don't have to take a rest every day...I reminded him that lots of his mommy's rules are different from other mommies'. :-) Truth be told, it's really MOMMY who needs rest time. Being more scheduled has been a good change for me, though. I have always had a love/hate relationship with organization, lists, and scheduling. They are very good for me, but I do enjoy throwing them out the window whenever possible. I think that rebellious phase has to disappear for a while (at least until the summer), because in addition to school, Taylor's going to start wrestling 2 nights a week in January.

With all this scheduling, I've been finding time for the necessary (time with the kiddos, keeping up the house, paying the bills, and playing where we can when Jeremy is home), and leaving the less necessary (emailing and blogging) for later. (You knew the excuse was coming, didn't you? Sorry I haven't been posting...I'll try to get all caught up before Taylor heads back to school and my routine takes over again. :-)

Enough about me...let's talk about baby!

Ascha keeps growing and growing. Here's an early November shot:

She discovered her toes:

She's becoming more and more fun for every member of the family as she grows and interacts.

Check out her personality! (And the handsome big boys, too!)

I particularly love this picture because it reminds me of the many pictures of Taylor half-strangling Aric. Aric often had an expression very similar to this one. :-)

October Update

We had a nice visit from Grandpa Lyn at the beginning of October. These boys sure love hanging out with Grandpa and his dog, "Whifford." Her name is "Whiff," but the kids have adapted it to sound more like "Clifford, the big red dog," I guess. Grandpa likes it just fine, so around here, her name is "Whifford." :-)

We spent some fun down-time as a family at our favorite area park. 

(Ascha loves to be toted around this way.)

This isn't a very clear picture, but I have to include it because I love Taylor's expression so much. This is the moment after he rode his bicycle off the curb for the first time. He had no problem staying on, and he loved the adrenaline of "jumping" (can't you tell?). Aric started doing the same thing, which wasn't so good for his training wheels. The day after these pictures were taken, he and Daddy removed the bent-backward training wheels, and both boys have been "two-wheeling" together ever since!

Of course, we always love playground equipment. At this particular park, Aric ends up leaving his bike helmet on so he can easily switch between playing and riding. For Aric, a helmet is prudent playground garb because on a couple of occasions, he's hit his head fairly hard. With the helmet on, he just laughs. :-)

We didn't ever end up going camping this summer, so we decided to cap "the end of summer" (or "when the camping dream finally died," since summer had already been over for a while) with a s'mores night out on our back deck.

Ascha got to hang out inside, but she didn't mind too much. 

After these few days of "recuperation time," we headed to Montana, where we spent the bulk of October. Thankfully, our earlier trip to Idaho had apparently used up all of Ascha's allotted "car screaming time" ... this trip was much less painful in that regard. 

Jeremy did plenty of bow hunting and bagged his largest bull elk yet on opening day of rifle season. 

I am pretty excited to have relatively TENDER meat in the freezer after a few years of tough game. For whatever reason, this big bull is tasty, not at all gamey, and less tough than his smaller counterparts from previous years. Hooray! I've been trying to use up all the meat from previous years before getting around to the "new meat," but I can't resist pulling out some great steaks about every other week.

 :-) 

While Jeremy was out hunting, the kids and I LOVED hanging out at Grammy and Grumpy's, spending time with family and friends at a more leisurely pace. Usually, our trips are a whirlwind of just trying to see a glimpse of everyone, but this time, we got to spend more time with people and we got to do more fun things. We are so thankful for the great memories! 

Grammy and the boys made a scarecrow with leaves from the yard.

We went to Bozeman and saw the Museum of the Rockies with cousins Connor and Kaylee.

The kids got to go for a thrilling ride up, up, up in Grumpy's bucket truck.

A little perspective:

We helped Aunt Pat feed the calves and climbed the climbing tree with Uncle "Brucer."

Of course we rode motorcycles.

We went to a few Friday night football games to cheer on Uncle Spencer's team (Go Big Blue! They made it to the playoffs after a great season and some very exciting play while we were there. I love the atmosphere at high school football games and haven't been to a game in many years! It was fun!) The kids had a blast, as usual, at Grammy and Grumpy's church with all their little "Montana friends." At the end of our stay, we had a fun Halloween. Grrreat Grama & Grrreat Papa came and helped the kids get ready, then we went around to all the relatives' houses for more visiting!

We had lots of great times with Grandparents...

...Great Grandparents...

(Four Generations of Girls! :-)

...Aunts and uncles.




We love our family! (...and books, too, if the pictures are any indication. :-)

The End of September

Seeing as how it's almost 2009, I figured I'd better try to do some catch up. I apologize for the lack of blogging this fall...I've been too busy living life to write about it. There won't be a ton of writing in the next few posts, but I want to at least get the pictures up, so bear with me...I hope to catch up soon. :-)

At the end of September, Jeremy headed to Eastern MT on a bowhunting trip. The kids and I went to Idaho and spent a week there with our dear friends. We had lots of fun times, doing school, hanging out, going to parks, wandering Coeur d'Alene looking for "Mudgy and Millie" (characters in a children's book that have been immortalized in numerous statues around the town), laughing, playing, and playing some more. Other than the nearly constant screaming on the drive to and from Idaho, it was a wonderful trip!

The "gang" wandering C d'A with moose antlers on their heads...we got  lots of smiles and stares from strangers. :-) 

At the boardwalk

Ascha at 3 months

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY, ARIC!



Aric turned four today. It's hard to believe! His birthday celebration kicked off a bit early while Grandma Janet was still here. We made a fun cake and set up a treasure hunt. The clues ended up being too easy for our explorers, but we had a fun time writing them (and "borrowing" some of them from other treasure hunt makers on the internet :-). They went like this:

"Here is your first clue: go open an egg from a pail that's blue. When you find it, blow a kazoo."
(The egg was in an Easter basket in their play room)
"Clothes go here when they are wet; find this spot and the next clue you will get." (dryer)
"A special treat waits for you...you put things here when dinner is through." (dishwasher)
"For clue number four, go out the garage door. Your next kazoo will be heard when you search near the home of the bird." (under a bird house in the backyard)
"Aric's birthday prize is in your tree fort lair, somewhere near your chair. Taylor has a special prize, too. His is under the last kazoo."

Here they are finding the treasure chest full of Aric's birthday presents:


Grandma Janet got him an RC car, as he'd requested. As a bonus, it's Lightning McQueen. :-)


Here's his treasure chest cake


This morning, on his actual birthday, we had a special birthday breakfast. We had banana muffins for our "cake."


Then it was on to presents. Aric had been requesting a scooter, but recently changed his mind and asked for a bow and arrow. We got him the kind with the suction cup arrow tips and we got a nice big block target for him to shoot at. It was a successful gift, since he played with it ALL DAY LONG, almost non-stop.







Happy Birthday, Buddy! We love you and are so glad you are part of our family!

Bye, Bye, Grandma Janet

We had a wonderful summer with lots of great Grandma time, but alas, all good things must come to an end. We sure appreciated all the help on the house before we moved in and all the help with the kids and meals and cleanup and logistics once we brought Ascha home...THANKS, GRANDMA JANET! WE MISS YOU ALREADY!

Taylor's First Day of School and a Fun Evening at Lewisville Park