Again, I Promise We're Caring Parents

This is Travis laughing at Avery who is trying not to laugh while crying.


This is why Travis is laughing at Avery. Can you guess what happened?


Yes, Avery chose this tiny bucket to try and sled down the stairs with last week. You can see how far he got before being launched head first into the hardwood floor below. Travis saw him land and said he smashed his knees and forehead both. Actually, I'd bet he only made it one stair down and the second stair is just where the bucket landed.
I don't think he'll try stair sledding again any time soon.

Head Bobbing Carson

This is from last night. It was going on a few minutes before I took this too.
To see this in all it's gritty 720p detail, press play then mouse over and click on the "HD is off" button to follow the link to vimeo. Once there click the button in the lower right of the video to view full screen and make sure scaling is off (upper right).


And this was tonight:



April 8 I thought I had a picture of Carson having woken up to tuck his legs in sideways that I referred to at the end of the last sleepy post.


April 9


Between the last sleep post and this one, look at how often he's falling asleep lately! He must seriously be going through a growth spurt!

Not Ready To Get Up

I guess he wasn't really ready to get up. It's not my fault though, he gets himself out of his crib.




I'm not in the mood, Mom.

Ancestor Abraham Hunsaker On TV Show

We are distantly related to the woman in this episode of The Generations Project. Shortly after minute 30 is a section about our common ancestor (and pretty much all Hunsaker's common ancestor!)


[Edit: They've changed the website and the episode doesn't appear to be embeddable any more. Go to The Generations Project Episodes and click on the Katie episode]

I knew about Honeyville, but I didn't know about the railroad part, so that was cool.

Post about Hunsaker Cemetery.

Thanks Mindy for pointing this out to me!

Sleepy Boys

Just another post of my boys randomly falling asleep in the last 2 months.

March 10


March 11 This was Emmett's first time falling asleep in his chair.


March 30 Doesn't this look comfortable?


April 16 Particularly considering the subjects on his shirt this makes me think of:
"Hey, yo, DJ."
"What up?"
"We got ourselves a nodder." (Cars movie)


April 17


Also April 17 The rocking chair is popular.

Somewhere in that time was a funny one of Carson asleep in his new Lightning McQueen camp chair but I guess I didn't get a picture. He fell asleep sitting normally with his head back, but later I checked on him and he had woken enough to get his legs through the arm rest hole so he could sit sideways for a more comfortable head position. Silly boy.

Mr. Shadow

Hello Mr. Shadow


Stop copying me


I SAID STOP!


Now you listen here...


I'm leaving


You think you're gonna follow me? Ha, I'll catch you!


Forget it, I'm done.


I think Avery was enjoying preforming a silly show for me.

4, 6 & 8 Leggers

This weekend was full of bugs. I was going to title this blog Creepy Crawlies, or Bugs or something along that ling, but then I thought I'd throw Mandie in here too and then the title wouldn't fit.
So, meet Mandie, the friendliest neighborhood cat.


She and Avery are good buddies.


Then we watched a bee collecting pollen.


Then we found a ladybug.


Saturday Avery had fun with an ant.


He had lots of fun...


...letting it climb (and tickle) all over him.






Today there was a big hairy spider outside the playroom window. Apparently there was a wasp near it too, but I didn't get there in time.


Need a closer view? Those are some of its eyes that go back along the side of its head!


For whatever reason, the long legged spiders are WAY less scary to me then guys like this. When I first got up to it, it twitched sideways and I groaned. Ugh, a twitchy fast stubby hairy thing. I'm going to be sick. Based on the black and white striped legs I looked it up. It's a Black and White Jumping Spider. When I read that really did just about get sick even though it was long gone by then. A jumping spider? That's the worst! Oh, I just have the willies all over. Seriously, it puts my gut in a knot.

Spring Break Day At The Coast

Travis and his Dad took a day off during Spring Break at the end of March. His Dad and Mom went camping at the coast and wanted everyone to come visit, so on Friday we loaded up some quads with Kevin and Katrina and headed over.
Yes, it was WET. But we knew that all the rain pounding was finishing up that morning and the rest of the day was supposed to be great.


When we pulled out of the campground to go to the dunes at Sand Lake, we saw a Coast Guard chopper heading straight for Cape Kiwanda across the street. We got there in time to see a Coast Guard rescue. The diver got the first person and the second tried to grab the rope and get pulled up that way but of course they couldn't hold on and splashed back down.


They started off to the left of the haystack rock in the background, but by the time they were pulling up the second person the current had pulled them all the way to the right side of haystack rock. I'm no great judge of distance, but after conferring with Travis we think the current carried them 3 to 4 football field lengths.


When we got back to the van, Emmett got in and promptly moved to the drivers seat. "You gotta problem with that?"


At Sand Lake there's a playground that I watched the kids at while the guys went out first.


Avery and Carson had a great affinity for rolling in the sand.


Nothing like a little sand to go with that snot. Too bad every time a quad or sand rail would drive by Emmett would run after crying "Daddy!" Poor abandoned child.


Avery after a little ride with Papa


Katrina and I enjoyed a fabulous ride out together, it's always great not having to spend the whole time playing babysitter.

Then we went back to Cape Kiwanda to look at the tide pools, although we were a little early for the tide being all the way out.


The boys checking out this little cave.


It is slanted like that, I'm not tipping the camera.


I couldn't help myself and posted this in both color and black and white on Laurie Marie Photography. I love the colors of this world too much to do a ton of black and white and this picture is no exception. I love the muted, mysterious, dusky colors of this shot, but all that texture was just begging for black and white too.


Papa got a purple starfish for Avery to look at.




Papa tried to get Emmett to poke his fingers in too. Actually, I'm surprised at how willingly Avery and Carson stuck their fingers in.








This is a crop I made of a picture I grabbed from my mother-in-law. Just me being me.


When it was time to leave and we were nearing the car (you can drive out onto the beach at Cape Kiwanda) Emmett took off. I turned just in time to catch (sort of, since it's blurry) this classic smirky look back to see if he was being followed. One big stride later and Dad had him.

In the background of this image is a big sand hill. It's part of the headland rather than a changeable dune and is very popular to climb to the top of. With two coast trips in a row to this area, I don't know when we'll come back here specifically, but maybe whenever next time comes we'll get around to making the big climb!

Another fun day at the coast!