Adventures with the Hunsaker's

An Explosive New Year's

2012-01-25T20:32:00.000-08:00

The scene

The set up

The range

We went on our annual family shooting outing on New Year's Eve. I was very happy because it was the first time I got to go shooting at all in FOUR years! I kept having to stay home with little ones.

The kids enjoyed throwing snowballs.

And made a snowman with Aunt Megan.

And sliding down hills. See Avery way over there? He's not supposed to be on that end of the hill.

Come down Avery.

While he was coming down, Carson and Emmett climbed up the near side, but we decided that hill was off limits period. The end Avery was on was nearer to down range.

So Carson rolled and slid down this cliff.

And Emmett followed and then that was an end to that hill.

Avery shooting Dad's AR-15

He definitely needed some support

"That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!"

He was a very happy boy.

What?! YES, you can have a turn too, sheesh.

Shooting the .22 and Carson is left handed.

Emmett's turn!

Also on the .22 and he was way into it.

Even using the one eye to aim.

Snowballing Mom.

Travis and his .40 Glock.

Setting up some tannerite (an exploding target). Sadly, maybe because it was only half full, it didn't blow, so I just have a bunch of videos of the guys knocking it around.

Megan with Ben's AR-15. See the bullet casing flying?

Travis and his AK-47. He got a new scope for Christmas that's awesome!

Kevin, Ben and Travis did just a little skeet shooting, but Travis was the one to hit all his. And he had to point out to me that that shotgun doesn't have sights either. I haven't done any skeet shooting in many years, and I just remember that on both occasions I was definitely the worst in the group. I should have asked to try a few.

Me with Travis' SKS. By the way, I really hate the cold. Really, really. So I'm quite puffy with all my layers and snowpants! That's okay, I was comfortable!

Me with Travis' AK-47. The new scope was great on this! Because of it this was my favorite to shoot.

Someone had or had found a metal plate so when it was time to get the .50 BMG sniper rifle out, the metal plate was set up for a target.

You can hear the metal get plinked when Kevin hits it with the .50.

Because the scope wasn't dialed in yet, Ben took three shots working on that and then Kevin had that turn and it had been dialed in enough that he hit it. So here's the hit and knocked down metal, but also the rock behind it all chewed up from the four shots.

Then Travis hit the metal plate with his SKS

Travis and then I shoot the .50 BMG. This was my first time getting to shoot it and it was awesome. It really kicks, but you don't realize quite how much until later when your arm starts getting really sore! I can't imagine the soreness after doing multiple shots like the guys did.
Also, they told me to get my eye away from the scope, so I did and then wasn't close enough to the scope to see though it! So I had to pull my head up when I shot because I wanted to see the impact. After watching the many videos of the guys shoot, I realized they were all just as close to the scope as I was to start with! Faulty advice.

Ben had bought some tracer bullets for the .50 so Kevin and Travis each tried one against the mountainside. We couldn't see the tracer on Kevin's shot and then here was Travis'. Listen to the sound of the bullet fly and hit the mountain, it's really cool!

We found Frosty was getting some ideas...

So...

Goodbye Frosty.

Then of course that evening we got together for New Year's Eve celebration.
I made a layered bean dip that was super yummy.

We shot the cannon at midnight.

The kids enjoyed these things and then our big, full, explosive, bang up day finally came to a close.

Happy 2012!

Christmas Decorations

2012-01-17T21:13:00.000-08:00

Since my parents couldn't visit for Christmas, my Mom asked specifically for a post of my Christmas decorations. So here's the tour, Mom.
We'll start in the back of the house with the mantle. It got busier as December went by with the addition of 6 kid crafts.

I absolutely adored two of them. They were made at preschool with just one of the teachers taking aside every child individually and helping them to use their finger prints to make snow, the cardinal body, head and in some cases a tree in paint on slices of tree branch. Then the teacher added the fine details and strung them with baker's twine. These were the kids' Christmas gift for mom. Aren't they wonderful! Here's Emmett's:

And here's Carson's:

This painted bird was another of the items made and brought home from preschool.

In the dining area, red berries abound:

This was a favorite find in the post-Christmas clearance last year.

In the kitchen. Bits and pieced on the counter, an advent calendar on the window sill and what Christmas kitchen is complete without Christmas cookies?

On top of the cabinets.

I love the lights on top of these cabinets and they made the Christmas balls sparkle! Sadly, the string I had wrapping the garland burnt completely out after one too many single bulbs went out without replacing, and that strand had been on there for years. So I just climbed up there and laid a new one over the top of the garland and it sufficed for this year.

This is part Christmas, part an aside. In the hall there's another wreath because I have an addiction to them and a 3 picture frame with pictures I took last year seen HERE. The aside is: look, Mom, at the fun new big picture frame on the skinny wall facing the stairs.

I had these decorations last year but didn't do anything with them and this year it dawned on me to hang them from the entry light, and I love how it turned out! It's too bad the picture really loses the dimensions to it.

And finally, the Christmas tree. And the chair that will hold Santa's cookies and milk. Which was already seen in the Christmas post. Over on the end table is the black iron stand I told you about that was holding a large glass vase with purple and silver mini ornaments until the boys broke it. sigh. Travis cleaned up the glass and just stuck the ornaments on top of the two other hurricanes holding candles and I forgot to rearrange that before taking this picture. On the bottom of the coffee table are Christmas books for the boys to enjoy, which they did regularly. In the windows are the ones we'd rather didn't get destroyed by frequent boy abuse, most especially Santa Mouse, but were read for bedtime nightly.

And there you have it.

Christmas

2012-01-16T17:30:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve and the boys were more than ready for Santa.

Yummy goods for Santa and Santa Mouse!

Carson's note to Santa: Dear Santa, Thanks for all the toys. (picture of truck) Carson.

Avery's note to Santa:

Dear Santa Claus, please will you give me all my toys that I want. I hope you like our cookies and milk.

Well, I can tell he wrote that in a big rush, and boy doesn't he sound thankful? Sheesh.

The haul in the morning. Lots from Mom and Dad, a big one each from Santa plus their stockings, and the box full of presents from my parents that came home with us at Thanksgiving. Well, and there's plenty there for Travis and I too. In fact, Travis wrapped several things for himself this year which was really funny after he had previously laughed at me for handing him two things I bought myself for him to wrap for me.

I love all their shocked and amazed faces!

Santa ate the cookies!

One of the things the boys were absolutely convinced they would get for Christmas was fish in the little tank we've had sitting in the garage for forever. We told them that wouldn't happen until we found the right piece of furniture for the house for it to sit on. So here they are excited to see the tank on the counter (being checked for water-tightness) and Travis is pointing out that they should look around... and the ensuing dancing...

...because there's the right piece of furniture. Except neither that nor that tank is what's there now, but that will be a future post.

Time to open stockings. They all got coal from Santa. They were chocolate covered candy cane pieces though. After some wondering about it, we told the boys we thought maybe that was a warning from Santa that they weren't so naughty to warrant real coal, but maybe they have some work to do before next year...

"Look Mom!"

This is what Emmett was excited about, along with his brothers and they all promptly and simultaneously decided to change.

Hot wheels were big on all the boys' list this year, but I love the holding aloft of the coveted Cars 2 movie.

Angry birds that they can use to improve their throwing abilities without too much damage to my house (I hope). They each got their own bird and then a shared gift of one of the pigs to aim at.

Travis liked the wrapping on this gift from my parents... and he and Avery enjoyed one of several shared gifts relating to their new gold hobby.

I got Travis this, uh, pickax? for their prospecting and he immediately obliged us all with a Yukon Cornelius gesture.

Here Avery had to try on another of the shirts he got, is oooing over a light up car, and sitting smugly with his new GPAA (Gold Prospectors Association of America) hat. Santa got Avery this awesome squid and sub toy he's been wanting.

One of Carson's big highlights was a Star Wars sticker activity book. I love all his faces. His best friend Theo is really big into Star Wars and has this book too, so of course Carson wants to find out all about Star Wars. Santa also brought the family the complete Star Wars movies which we didn't have, so now my boys are actually finding out about the cultural phenomenon. We've watched episodes 4-6 so far, and Carson has begged for the next one between each viewing.

Emmett got a big dinosaur from Santa and the boys all got a big box full of books that belonged to me as a kid.

Christmas evening we went to Travis' parent's for Christmas dinner and gifts. They had a monster tree this year!

This Thomas the Train set was a big hit for Emmett.

These puzzles for Carson have been done dozens of times by him already. He's such a puzzler.

Avery-the-future-dentist was excited about this play-doh drill n' fill set. Carson's also been big into "bajas" as he calls them so was really excited to get this remote control car. Each of them got a remote control car and they've been driven all over the house over and over.

Grandma had the boys' pictures taken in theses this OSU gear and Carson was excited to find it all given to him and immediately put it on.

Avery soon found his and immediately began posing for pictures.

So Carson had to try and pose too.

And finally Emmett found his gear.

The last present they opened was a basketball hoop which will be great for Avery to practice with since he's in a basketball league right now.

What a merry, fun Christmas! Hope yours was as fun, and silly, as ours was!

How to Stop the Grinch Tonight

2011-12-24T17:13:00.000-08:00

Emmett shows how to effectively stop the Grinch if he comes to your house tonight.

Christmas Card 2011

2011-12-23T20:29:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

GOLD!

2011-12-22T15:04:00.000-08:00

In the wake of Avery's birthday, there's been a lot of gold fever in our house. Well, for Travis and Avery anyway. They're having a great time of it. On this night Travis panned some of the pay dirt Avery got for his birthday and found some of Avery's very first gold.

First round of calling Mom out for a picture.

They sucked it up with their snuffer bottle.

Round two had a couple bigger pieces that they needed me to get tweezers for to put in Avery's little glass vial.

And round three. I just take pictures when they call and then go back in my nice warm house.

Avery's 7th Birthday

2011-12-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

On December 1st my first baby turned a whole 7 years old! We celebrated that night as usual with a family dinner out to eat, his choice Red Robin of course, and his birthday party a few days later.

It was another Transformer party. We played pin the autobot symbol on Bumblebee.

Being the birthday boy and going first is sort of a raw deal because you can't feel where anyone else has placed theirs to get oriented.

The boys thought his skills lacking, but just wait until they go!

And for good measure here's another shot of most of Avery's friends who were there.

Emmett has a turn

Carson has a turn, but it's Nicholas who nailed the sign perfectly on Bumblebee's chest.

Autobot, Autobot, Decepticon!

An Optimus Prime pull sting pinata.

The strings were kind of hard to get off. Carson was particularly funny.

Mad candy dash!

Time for presents!

After all the friend gifts it was time to open Mom and Dad's. For as long as we can remember Avery has been obsessive about money. For a while now he's really big into gold. One of his favorite shows is Gold Rush on Discovery, and now he and Dad also watch Gold Fever on the Outdoor channel which apparently Travis grew up watching. (PS: one of Travis' dental assistants just saw the Hoffman's from Gold Rush at our Red Robin's just a couple days ago. She said they were just as trashy there as they are on tv.)
Anyway, so for Avery's birthday we got him a gold pan, a big bucket to pan with, pay dirt, and some sand bags from Home Depot to practice on. Actually, on Gold Fever they saw you can get a $2 bag of sand from Home Depot and come up with as much as $20-30 of gold in it. The guy on the show did that when he was in California though, and I'm sure it makes a difference which quarry your local Home Depot's sand is shipped from. Not to mention just panning that is a lot of time for not a lot of return.

Avery knew exactly what he got but was left so speechless with joy that Travis kept prompting him with, "Well, Avery, what is that?"

Time for cake! Avery's aunt Angela made his cake again, a giant Optimus Prime bust. That was A LOT of cake. We had less than the #7 shoulder during his party.

That night, Avery couldn't wait to try out panning! Dad demonstrates.

And Avery gives it a try.

He was super in to it.

He's done it several times since then and has also run dirt through a sluice box that Travis beefed up from one he had made a long time ago and I never knew about that's been sitting in his Dad's shop.
Avery wants to run dirt all the time now. All the effort and time it takes doesn't phase him at all.

Sunday night we had a joint birthday party with cousin Alli with the family. Grandma and Papa found a big hit with this toy and the Human Body book that Grandma and Grandpa Benjamin got Avery was a necessary read that night and lots of reads since.

As for Avery's stats as a new 7 year old, it's the same story: he's still tall and skinny with 90% weight but off the chart tall.

Happy Birthday Avery!

Thanksgiving

2011-12-19T11:14:00.000-08:00

We went to my hometown Spokane for Thanksgiving. One of the first things we did there was take care of all my mens' hair because we finally had some convenient time. Emmett had decided earlier in the week that our discussing haircuts meant he should try and take care of his himself. Chop chop chop and the top of his head was nice and short!

While at my parents a dip (or several) in the hot tub is a necessity. I think Emmett saw the stack of swim suits when I was packing, got excited and grabbed his... so I didn't realize it didn't make it into the suitcase. He threw a big fit about not wanting to go in in underwear, even tho the first time in Jace was also in his underwear. Eventually, he calmed down, told me he was okay now and would be nice and wanted to go in. It's funny how he works out controlling his temper.

Dominoes have also become and important part of visiting Grandma.

Thanksgiving day was a big one with LOTS of people. 23 I think? Here's a look from each end of the table. Not the biggest it's ever been at my parents, but close.

A family of five from my parents' church joined us for Thanksgiving and we had a lot of fun with them. I ended up being particularly glad they came. The mom, Jessica, joined me for Black Friday and was an excellent shopping buddy! I was planning on going Black Friday shopping for the first time whether anyone wanted to join me or not. My two cousins visiting from college decided to join, but college students can't really go and SHOP like I was planning, so really I just kept them out really late. But since Jessica came too, the girls got to go do their thing and then just hang out while they waited for us. I had so much fun with Jessica! We left the house at 10pm... and I climbed in bed at 6:40am! And I could have kept going... I didn't get into Nordstrom Rack like I wanted to... We did WalMart first, but I'm never doing that again. Not unless there's some huge purchase I'm making that will save me loads. But then we went to the mall and I would definitely do that again!

Silly hand stacking with Grandma, Uncle Benji, and Jessica is hidden behind Carson.

There are no pictures from Friday... probably since I slept half the day...

Emmett trying out the organ

He thinks he's pretty cool.

Catching cousin Jenna and Julia eating and Jenna gave me the crazy evil eye. Sorry Jenna, it was funny.

Time to make Yummy Nummers, (a new tradition?) since Grandma made them with the boys when they visited us back in July.!
Step 1: Look cute, even if you're making a silly face at Mom

Step 2: cut some mini pie crusts.

Step 3: brush the "edges" with egg

Step 4: Add filling (we just did canned raspberry pie filling this time instead of making apple pie filling)

Step 5: Attach the top!

Step 6: Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and they're ready to bake!

But where's Emmett? We got down to the last crust left and I put a hold on anyone doing it until I could see if Emmett would wake up to do one (he really needed to get up).

Step 1: Try to finish waking up...

Look at that concentration

Smile Emmett! Look at me and smile! ...or just do those things separately...

Before the Saturday fun ended, my cousin Tammy, thankfully, wanted a picture with my sister and I, so now I have proof of my existence there too. I have to do a better job of remembering to be in pictures too. And no, Morgan isn't wearing my hat, apparently she had just a couple days before bought the same one I've been wearing a lot lately. She has good taste.

Sunday morning before we headed home, I finally got a picture of the "instrument" the boys had been playing the whole trip. They're just different sized rubber bands strung around the knobs on this dresser.

It was a super fun trip! I came away realizing that I took very few pictures and didn't get a single shot of my Dad! I have bits of him in the yummy nummer shots and that's all the evidence that he was there. Sad!

Ah, How Sweet

2011-12-18T23:15:00.000-08:00

I know I just did a sleepy post, but I missed this picture that was still on my phone and it's too sweet.

And this begs the question: If that's Buzz Lightyear then Travis must be Evil Emperor Zurg?

Also, just a couple days ago I needed to get Emmett up and he gave me one look and said, "I'm still sleeping" and promptly turned over and tucked in.

Silly Sleepers

2011-11-30T16:13:00.000-08:00

A year ago today was the last time I posted a sleepy boy post, so I thought today I do a little year in review of a selection of my silly sleeper shots. I've included twelve instances but instead of monthly, most are from the first half of the year because I guess my little guys are growing out of it.

January: Emmett in the messy playroom, supposed to be in bed for the night, but he decided to go play and eventually passed out.

February: Carson in the office with me.

February: Emmett was put in time out and promptly nodded off.

February: Emmett mid meal (okay, so Emmett has NOT grown out of this. Dinnertime especially this happens a lot)

March: Carson passes out within two blocks of the house. Emmett falls asleep in the car a lot, but not Carson very often.

March: Emmett passes out on the arm of the couch.

He's actually still standing some!

March: Emmett's still holding his sandwich

April: Carson and Avery both fall asleep before bedtime. This was a shocker since Avery never falls asleep anymore.

June: Emmett's just silly looking in the car

July: Emmett on the landing halfway up the stairs of all places.

July: Carson, just a little while before bedtime.

He's so handsome

And last, in September, we had to get soccer cleats for Avery but Emmett fell asleep on the way there. He threw a fit going in so I plopped him down and he promptly went to sleep. Thankfully! But then I got a lot of strange looks and questions as I was in nearby locations instead of right next to him. If people would mind their own business. I can't pack him around and still pull cleat boxes and also tie them on Avery so he could test them out too. And nobody would rather he was up and screaming. When I did have to leave that section of the store for something else and had to pick him up, he did scream the rest of the time and hauling him along was a nightmare. Ugh.

Pumpkin Patch

2011-11-29T14:46:00.001-08:00

Mid October I took Carson and Emmett to the pumpkin patch with Emmett's preschool class. They both got to go the very next day too with Carson's preschool class with Grandma Hunsaker since Travis and I left in the middle of the night for our scuba trip.
This is a long, picture-full post, but very little text.

When we arrived, they were feeling shy so didn't want to play on the playground with all the other kids. To be fair, it was completely packed with kids and parents. So we explored nearby and found this lone goat wandering around outside the pens.

Here goaty goaty goaty...

Then the class was rounded up and loaded on big wagons pulled by big tractors over to the pumpkins, gourds and indian corn.

Everyone gets one pumpkin, one gourd and one indian corn. With the three of us each getting a bag this day and Carson, Emmett and Grandma each getting a bag the next day, we certainly had a lot.

Watch out, it's easy to trip out there.

Then we hopped back in the wagons to drive back to the barns and cider press. On the drive, these two were cracking me up. I like pictures three and four where it looks like Emmett is saying, "Isn't this fun, smile for the camera Carson!" and "You're not smiling. grr." In the end, not a decent single shot with both looking nicely.

Blue steel.

Then we went to the animals and the kids were given feed.

Emmett feeds a goat...

...Carson feeds a goat.

Emmett looks cute...

...A swan goose looks... intently at my boys.

A cow named Emmett and a pig named Carson

Time for the cider press. Carson remembered all the answers from last year.

The press is loud...

... and messy.

I love this shot of Carson listening with such sweet interest.

Time to taste test! Mmm.

gulp gulp gulp

More!

Ah, that's the stuff.

Lip smackin' goodness.

It's gone! (and my cup is wrinkled)

Off to play. It's all fun and games until two girls decided not to get off the slide and turn around to look back up and their parents are no where to be found and I start to remind them to get down when WHAM Emmett knocks them over. But everyone survived.

Maze time!

Coming out of the maze.

Usually there's a group picture here, but for whatever reason that just didn't happen this time. Or maybe we headed to snack too soon and we missed it, but we were told to head to snack after our turn in the maze and we stood around a bit.

In the greenhouse for snacks were some great carved pumpkins.

We were some of the first to sit for snack.

After snack they're free to go, so we went to this giant slide.

Seriously, it's huge.

Then we went to the fort where they climbed in through the tunnels and were supposed to come back out on the slide by where I was waiting. And waiting and waiting and waiting. Eventually I went into the fort to look for them and found Emmett had gone up on the walkway that connects to the fort and goes a long way away over the animal pens.

See him way over there? I'm zoomed in on him, he was farther than it looks. That scared me a little bit...

Carson and I finally catch up.

Here's a decent picture of the two of them!

My handsome man

Checking the map

I moved them in the direction of picking up our pumpkin bags so we could go, but first we stopped at the big teepee and Carson had a rest.

And so did Emmett

So tall!

After getting our bags, the boys wanted to play in the playground area. I couldn't blame them, it was pretty well deserted then instead of packed and intimidating like when we arrived.

Pirate Captain Carson.

Kings of the Mountain.

Carson had already climbed in this big tire and was looking inside it in this picture, he promptly popped back up and wanted out - fast. He said it was gross in there.

See-saw.

Tractor man.

The horse tire swings are such fun.

And a last climb up the rock wall for a slide and we finally got out of there.

Thankfully, the weather was great so it was an all-around fun morning!

Avery's Eighth Lost Tooth

2011-11-17T16:10:00.000-08:00

This kid has lost so many teeth already! And he has another loose right now too!

Anyway, by Halloween this tooth had gotten loose enough to really be hurting when he ate, so obviously trying to eat sticky, chewy, gooey candy after trick-or-treating was a pain and he was done with it.

Ha! Not the most attractive angle for a person...

Now you see it, now you don't.

The other shots were looking through the boys' bathroom mirror, so now the bloody mess is on the other side.

I didn't know this, but Avery got the luck of the draw because apparently when you lose a tooth on Halloween the Tooth Fairy brings a piece of candy with the money!

A Berry Sad Emmett

2011-11-15T14:01:00.000-08:00

The day of Avery's jog-a-thon, right before Carson and Emmett and I left to go cheer on Avery, I found that the grape container had been emptied... all over the family room floor. Thankfully, none had been smashed, but their was no time to clean it up. When we got home, Emmett had to clean up all the grapes. Later, that afternoon I found Emmett like this.

Apparently he decided the grape container needed a refill as he'd eaten most of them and he thought some frozen blueberries would be a good choice. Apparently blueberries un-freeze and become a juicy mess very quickly when they're being manhandled by a three year old.

Yeah, you better cry, you're in big trouble mister. There's even some in his hair.

And his ear?! What a mess. And that shirt collar is obviously a lost cause.

But Emmett wasn't alone, Carson was in on it too, he just didn't make as much a mess of himself. The "stache" on Carson makes him look kinda creepy actually...

Avery's Jog-A-Thon

2011-11-14T13:18:00.000-08:00

Mid October Avery's school had their jog-a-thon fundraiser

Instead of asking for pledges on a per/lap basis, Avery's school just asks donations and the kids run as much as they can in their assigned 15 minute time slot. Although, instead of running the whole time, they also put out an obstacle course in the middle of the field and each class running gets to take a turn at it.

Carson and Emmett were good cheering supporters of Avery.

And any other kid going by at the same time.

Goodbye Halloween

2011-11-09T22:58:00.000-08:00

I'm going to throw all the Halloween related stuff into this post...

The kids enjoyed decorating cupcakes of course. We did this on one of our weekly playdates with Carson's best friend Theo. I love the concentration going on here.

And Avery got to decorate one when he got home from school. And then of course the next few days were filled with decorating the last of them. The other treat I made this year was pumpkin shaped brownies with candy corn faces. They were super cute and the kids were disappointed I was giving them away.

Besides the Spider Soup and Ghost Toast, another Halloween dinner I did was the same as last year, but I added witch fingers to the mummy dogs, Frankenstein toes and mummy pizza (which was left in the oven too long this year and didn't look as good this time, so I chose the weird face to photograph). And yes, my kids love witch fingers.

For Halloween night Avery was Optimus Prime again, Carson was Bumblebee (which Avery was two years ago) and Emmett was Buzz Lightyear (which Carson was last year). All their choice, so I didn't have to bother buying new stuff this year. Post-Halloween I hit up the clearances and got a variety that they can all choose from next year. Besides, Carson and Emmett especially like to wear costumes on a regular basis so I thought I'd give them more options to beat up. Since then Emmett has spent most of his time as Buzz or Batman and Carson has spent a decent amount of time as Frankenstein. Cousin Alli went trick-or-treating with us as a good witch.

Trick-or-treating was the best yet this year. Last year Emmett got tired and had to be dropped off at home. This year not only did Emmett last the whole time, but we went further than ever before and no one complained even once about 'heavy' candy bags. The extra bag I brought to lighten their loads for them stayed empty. Here we are at the end, trick-or-treating our house.

And now, as requested by my Mom, just like last year, here's the Halloween decorations. Well, much of it is the same as last year, including my favorite the hanging bells from the entry light, but here's the new/changed stuff.

In the mirror reflection the signs on the dining room light are the same, but we have some homemade spiders added to the family room light. I set up a Halloween mantle instead of just a fall mantle. I need a couple taller things...

Now my fall mantle of last year is back up but instead of the candles of last year I kept the hurricane candle on the Halloween mantle in place and stuck the H on the other end.

My favorite parts were the parts... body parts that is.

The living room. I do have a large print that's supposed to be on the wall, but the frame I bought still needs to be exchanged...

This stuff on the stairs made the room feel too busy, but the kids loved it when I started putting them up, so I let be and I'll have to come up with some other place for these next year. I did like the barbed wire on the banister though.

The front porch was similar, but we ended up with more pumpkins this year...

...and a lot more Indian corn, so I put them in a pretty basket on the porch. The husks seem too dominating, so I'll probably rethink this next year.

And that's about it. Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

The Portland Marathon

2011-10-27T17:06:00.000-07:00

October 9th was the Portland Marathon. After doing the Newport Marathon back in June, Travis, Megan and Angela were all crazy addicts and signed up for the Portland Marathon. A couple days before, Megan decided she wasn't going to do it. She hadn't been training. We all figured she could at least walk it with Angela if nothing else, so when Travis and Angela went to get their packets they got Megan's as well... and Travis convinced Megan to do it.

On race day we left at 4am to be ready for the 7am start time. With roughly 12,000 participants, they were each categorized into "waves" based on their prospective finishing times. Megan had grandiose thoughts at the time she signed up, so was in Wave B, the second fastest wave. Travis was realistic and was in Wave E. The last wave was for walkers, so each of them were in a different wave. After splitting up, I go this picture of Travis in his holding pen and then went to stake out my spot by the starting line.

I stood on a bench a block down from the start and tried texting and calling Travis, Angela and Megan to let them know where I was so they could watch for me and get a starting picture. Megan didn't get the message, so I didn't get her start, which was about 3 minutes after the gun shot.

15 minutes after the gun shot Travis had his start, all fresh and happy

30 minutes after the gun shot Angela, all fresh and happy

After they had all been through their start, I grabbed some pictures of these guys who had set up right behind my bench. The guy on the far left was literally standing 5 feet behind me. After more than a half hour of them all through each groups' start, I was pretty much deaf, but they were really outstanding.

Then I looked longingly at Pioneer Place which was just kitty corner to my post, and thought how nice it would be if they opened at 7am and I had time for that...

Instead, I hoofed it some blocks away to a spot where I would see them pass by again. Since I had been standing with my big backpack for over an hour at that point, I finally started making some adjustments... just in time for Megan to go whizzing by so all I got was her back. Dang! This was about 53 minutes in.

2 minutes later came Travis, which means he was gaining on Megan since he started 12 minutes behind her.

30 minutes later (in the rain/drizzle by the way) came Angela.

By then the early Half Marathon finishers were rolling in, so I thought I better head for the finish line and stake out a good spot. Along the way I saw this great sign, complete with an operatic female belting over some speakers.

About 8:45am I found a perfect spot on an elevated ledge of the Justice Building entrance right by the finish line where I could see people cross, as well as the gun time clock. A nice, hard, wet piece of concrete for me to sit on in the rain for the next several hours...

2hrs 27min 38 sec after the gun shot, Ian Nurse crossed the finish as the winner of the marathon. Obviously he spotted me on my ledge.

The first three finishers looked to be buddies all from the same team of some sort. Two of them were from Portland and one from Vancouver, WA just across the river. Not that these two pictures show quite enough, but in looking through the shots I have of the winner I was reminded strongly of my favorite singer, Matt Bellamy of Muse. Just so you know.

Since Megan hadn't been training, we all, Megan included, expected Travis to kick Megan's trash. I was tracking Travis live via GPS through the iPhone app RunKeeper he uses, and since we expected Megan after Travis, I wasn't watching for Megan...

So it's perhaps a miracle that I spotted her right after she crossed the finish line. Ugh. Megan got the complete shaft on pictures from me this race.

Since I was tracking Travis, I could tell that about mile 10 something had happened because his pace had slowed a bunch from then on. Turns out he started getting bad quad cramps at mile 10 and they never let up. He's run longer than that many times and never cramped at that point! His only previous cramping was in the Newport Marathon, but they started a lot further into the race. What happened?! All we can figure is that he started his taper in training a little too early because he was fighting IT band syndrome and wanted to give it a little more healing time pre-race. But maybe that led to his quads not being conditioned enough? He's researched the problem since then, learned some new things and will be making adjustments both to his post-workout recovery nutrition as well as his nutrient intake during the race. In the end, the cramping led him to have a race time roughly 2-5 minutes longer than Megan. They agreed if he hadn't had the stupid unexpected cramps, he indeed would have kicked Megan's trash. On the flip side, we were all impressed with Megan's finishing time considering her lack of training. She did great!

Subract 15 minutes from the gun time clock to get Travis' race time since he started 15 minutes in.

Honestly, considering the cramps, especially for a whole 16 miles worth of the race, I'm super impressed with Travis' finish time! Great job, honey!

There were some entertaining runners too. I say girls in tutus and the like, I noticed three runners going barefoot the whole way, but the most interesting was definitely this tatted up, fully bearded, hairy man:

Interestingly, the whole finish area also surrounded the park where the Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Portland movement was going on. That was interesting too...

Almost an hour before any family finished, Shane showed up with Alli and Avery so that Avery could see Travis come in and Shane and Alli could support Angela. Once Travis and Megan had each finished we met up with them and went to Subway for lunch. The kids were itching to move after an hour on my cold hard ledge and after nearly 4 hours I was definitely ready for a move. I told Shane I knew my discomfort was nothing next to the racers, but he pointed out that they chose their fate, while we were sucked in. Hmm, so true...

After lunch we headed back to the finish and since it was far enough into the race and the crowd wasn't as thick, I could reclaim a spot on my ledge to wait for Angela.
Megan, Avery and Travis wave her in.

Gun time minus 30 for her race time. Angela didn't do as well as Newport, which she expected to do better than due to the heat of Newport, so perhaps she started out a little too fast this time but definitely her hips gave her a lot of grief this time.

We yelled hard to get her attention up on the ledge so she could see Alli waving at her.

Before we left, we found Travis and Megan on the posted finish times. Wait... why is Travis' net time and gun time the same? Oh. Apparently he got the tag on his shoe wrong and the antenna was getting cracked so not all of his splits were registered and apparently his start time didn't register so they had to officially just give him the gun time for his start time. Well, we know by my pictures time data that he started 15 minutes in, so we can unofficially give him an accurate time.

The amazing finishers! I'm both so impressed and so confused by your bizarre addiction.

This is what their medals look like

The obverse and reverse.

New Halloween Food

2011-10-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

Last year I did a couple of Halloween dinners, but they were all ideas I found online. This year, I miraculously thought of two (TWO!) dinner ideas on my own. I'm not saying others haven't done something like this, just that I haven't seen them elsewhere. They came to me on my own. I'm thinking I've limited out on creativity here. Last year I had one great unique decorating idea and this year it's food. I must be done. It's too easy to see so many great crafty ideas online these days that I really feel like it's hard to come up something unique, especially since crafts and food are not my creative genres. I still feel shocked at the unique things I come up with in photography and maybe that area zaps any other creative areas... Anyway, without further ado, I give you Spider Soup and Ghost Toast:

Spider Soup: A "nacho" soup variation, ie. anything with beans in it for my kids.

A bloody base (tomato)
Maggots (rice)
Flys and beetles (black beans)
Spider's web (sour cream with milk to thin for piping on)
Spider (homemade tortilla chip)
Additional homemade Halloween tortilla chips via Halloween cookie cutters.
There's a slice of cheese under the web because shredded would have covered the bugs more and made an undesirable surface for the web.

Ghost Toast = french toast + ghost cookie cutter
The kids wanted other Halloween shapes after their initial ghosts, but I really liked the name that came to me when I first thought of it.

Emmett's First Day of Preschool

2011-10-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

This year Emmett started preschool for the first time. The first day he was excited to go until it was time to go. By the time we got there he completely fell apart and apparently cried most of the morning. He wasn't the only one, being in a 3's preschool it was all of their first experience which meant it was a rough day for most.

Emmett goes two days a week and on his second day he told me before hand in a brave little voice, "I'm not gonna cry." When we got there, I walked him into the front yard where some kids were making giant bubbles. "Do you want to go make bubbles?" No. And a big fat crocodile tear rolls down his cheek as his lip quivers. He was trying so hard! "Do you want to go play basketball?" No. After several other options all with a No response, he said Yes to Teacher Jana asking if anyone was ready to go in for music time. And that's how my brave little guy was able to say goodbye.

On his third morning he again informed me he wouldn't cry. As we neared the gate I could hear his breath hitch a bit, but no tears. As soon as we walked through the gate he dropped my hand and said in a brave, quavering, sad voice, "Bye, Mom." I told him I'd walk him all the way in and that I wanted a hug goodbye first. We went into the kitchen where the play-doh always awaits first thing in the morning. I got a quick hug and had him whisked busily away to play because I could tell that if I had doted he would have started to cry. But he didn't cry, so he got to go out to lunch with Mom and Dad that day as reward.

Day four he was cured. Happy to go, happily saying goodbye, he would proudly tell anyone that he doesn't cry anymore. It was just so cute how brave he was actively trying to be on day two and three!

So here's his first day pictures before he fell apart.

It's funny to me that these were sequential shots. I have no clue what that middle image is supposed to be in between the Emmett-the-Conqueror poses.

Nice... and cheesy.

The progression of images always makes me laugh... until he's done!

My sweet boy.

Carson's First Day of 4's Preschool

2011-10-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

Carson started back up in preschool on Sept 12th. He was super excited to see his "best buddy" Theo from last year. He'd been talking about Theo for about the last two weeks before starting and apparently Theo was doing the same about Carson. Now we have a standing playdate every Monday and those two couldn't be happier.

I love his wide eyed looks.

Oops, we interrupt this regularly scheduled Carson show for a psycho running through the studio.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

He's so handsome!

And cute!

And just down right fun.

Monster Trucks and Military Vehicles

2011-10-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

The boys went to watch their Papa in a tractor pull and then watched a monster truck show that the Sublimity Harvest Fest puts on early in September. I didn't go this year, staying home to work instead, but Travis took pictures.

On the way in, the boys saw these Humvees. They had fun climbing around them and trying out all the cool guns.

Avery on the Mark 19 full auto grenade launcher

All the boys got to drive this rig

Then they all tried the Browning M2 full auto 50BMG "Ma Deuce"!

And of course they watched monster trucks. Same as in 2010 and 2009, so I'll let those shots and videos stand. In the end the show wasn't that great anyway because the last three trucks in a row broke almost immediately. First a big piece of suspension broke and was dangling in the back, then a transmission went, then the third started spewing hydraulic fluid. Oh well, the boys still had fun.

Emmett's 3rd Birthday

2011-10-09T23:42:00.000-07:00

A month ago today, on Sept 9th my baby turned 3 years old. I guess that means I don't have any babies anymore. Or at least, that's what my boys keep telling me, that they're not my baby.

Emmett couldn't decide what kind of birthday he wanted. Oddly, the most commonly mentioned theme was a carrot birthday. Carrot? What? Why? Who knows. He also said a squirrel birthday, which sort of made sense since he's been big on those lately, always excited to see one. In fact, when he starts falling asleep in the car and we don't want him to we'll yell, "squirrel!" a la Doug in the movie Up and that always makes his head snap up. Once he said a Patrick birthday as in Patrick Star from Spongebob, but I wasn't interested in that and that really wasn't defining for him either, so that was left in the dust. He once mentioned a Mater from the Pixar movie Cars which would have been okay, except we've already done Cars 3 times and it still didn't feel like the right fit.

Not too long after we started asking Emmett what theme he wanted he just said all sneaky-like or all cranky-like depending on the day, "I'm not telling you!"

Fine. Then I'm not making a birthday party for you.

Finally, I decided I knew exactly what he should have. A Roo birthday. Back at the end of June, I posted about how Emmett had decided he was Roo and I was Kanga from Winnie the Pooh and then the rest of the family received characters as well. Well, if anything that has just become more ingrained since then. Emmett regularly refers to me as Kanga instead of Mom and likes to be referred to himself as Roo. Dad and brothers get called their character names too but with less regularity. Mostly it's a Kanga and Roo thing.

So, he got a Roo birthday. Not that you can find Roo on any purchasable birthday gear, so I just used coloring pages of Roo I found online. Here's the little bit of decorations I did and he absolutely loved! It was really cute when he came in and saw them he immediately pointed out with great excitement, "Look! There's me catching dragonflies, and me hugging Mom!" etc.

I went the same route with his presents.

Aunt Angela made a Roo cake for him, which was pretty good since she was just working from memory instead of checking against a picture!

I love Emmett's response I caught to this gift from Papa and Grandma Hunsaker.

I also think the "would you hurry up and open it" anticipation is cute too.

Heavy present! Hmm, squishy, what is this?

And a matching blanket! Which of course should immediately be put on the head and spun in. And a matching stuffed dinosaur!

Which was SUPER exciting to have. Obviously I didn't quite catch his throwing it in the air in excitement. Then he wouldn't let go of him while getting the next gift... Which was a blue stuffed dinosaur to match the set.

Then it was time for cake and ice cream and he sang to himself.

After blowing out the candles, all the kids got a chunk of arm or tail which was rice crispy treats covered in modeling chocolate.

And once the party was over, Mom and Dad put together all the new bedding on the new (to him - it was mine as a kid) big boy bed that Dad got ready earlier in the day and Emmett hadn't seen yet. Up to now he's still been in his crib which we just hadn't bothered with since he's been getting himself in and out of it without any trouble since he was 18 months. When he walked into his room that night his reaction was priceless. He was so excited! For about five days we didn't even have any problems with him sneaking out of bed after being put there because he was so happy with his new bed. He's back to his old antics of getting out constantly now, but we're just glad he loves his new bed.

Emmett's 3 year check-up showed him to still be off the chart tall, but about 90-95% in weight so he a lot more solid than Avery's ever been in his off the chart tallness. Despite that level of weight and his being more solid, we still have a problem with pants being too fat for him, which just goes to show how tall and solid he really is!

Avery's First Day of 1st Grade

2011-10-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

Avery's a 1st grader now! I can't believe we've now entered the (very long) section of our lives of full day school. Crazy!

Here he is in all his handsomeness on the first day (which was back on Sept. 7th)

Ah, what a nice smile

But Avery made a deal with me that if he gave me some nice faces then I had to take his picture being silly. (There's even one of him punching himself!) Also, I've never explained to him about modeling for the camera, so I think it's hilarious that he understands the sequence of holding a pose until you hear the click then change pose and hold and so on. So, as per his request, he gets all of these next pictures:

We paused a moment to grab some shots of all three boys. Stuck in the bright side-light sun, but oh well I wasn't going to get them (stinker Emmett) anywhere else and what I did get didn't last long anyway.

Alright, time to go.

*sigh* he's so big.

Once at school he was ready to dump me, but I saw tons of parents inside so I followed him anyway at a distance (and good thing too since I had to re-direct him the right way to his class). Then I just got a quick shot of him checking out his new digs because he was already trying to be too cool and refusing to acknowledge my existence. Thankfully, that's the last I've seen of that and he's happy to see me again.

Based on his experience at the private Kindergarten he went to, I was super worried about him and public 1st grade. He had a lot of trouble with distractions and inability to focus on work. Getting into the public school would mean a lot less teacher attention on him and I was worried about that compounding the lack of attention and/or him slipping through the cracks. On top of that, the tonsil surgery absolutely KILLED his speech and I was terrified of what that would mean socially etc. Thankfully, we did exercises to retrain his mouth and he made rapid improvements. He's back to where he was pre-surgery now.
As for being a "good student" I'm so pleased to find that Avery is doing amazing in school. He's one of the best kids in his class behavior-wise. One of the behavior motivating systems the teacher has is a set of 5 colored cards per child that they can lose each day. For each day they keep all their colors they get a single jellybean the following morning and 5 days in a row of keeping all their colors means a certificate to bring home. Of the 5 colors they can lose each day, Avery has only lost one so far this year when he got a little too rowdy with a friend. A handful of kids still have a perfect score, but Avery knows he's right there close to them. The mom of one of the boys in Avery's class who was at the private K with him last year even went home and told his mom how Avery is never in trouble now. I thought that was pretty funny. It's great because I feel like he's in a good positive cycle now. He obviously pays a lot of attention to the reward systems and best of all he takes pride in being one of the "good kids" which I think makes a world of difference. Hopefully he keeps it up as the work load increases over the year and he can improve in his focusing.

Girl's Weekend

2011-08-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

I just had an outstanding weekend at the coast with some great girls! We had an awesome time last year, so my friend Jocelyn graciously signed us up for the weekend again at her extended family's beach house. And I was extra stoked to actually be staying the whole weekend instead of leaving early this time.

Jocelyn, Carrie and I drove out Thursday and Kari and Becca joined us Friday. We walked on the beach, went shopping at the outlets, had late night ice cream at Cold Stone for Becca's birthday, ate plenty, and talked a truly phenomenal amount. It is beyond me how a group of women can talk so much. And yet we can.

On Saturday we took some group shots.

Me, Jocelyn+Curtis, Becca+baby, Carrie and Kari. We honestly didn't plan the wardrobe, so it was funny how coordinated we ended up on the last day right in line with picture time.

After one nice picture, of course we had some fun!

Can can!

In deciding what to do between group shots, I caught some funny ones...

Hula girls

Charlie's Angels

Hm, what next?

I love this one! I bet a caption contest could yield some funny results... sorry Jocelyn ;-)

Fight scene!

Pretty girls

Um, wind blown girls? I'm not actually sure what we're doing here. Titanic maybe?

Clearly, we had way too much fun! I'm so grateful for such good friends! Thanks Jocelyn for making it all possible!
Alicia and Amy, we missed you!

Birthdays

2011-08-15T23:13:00.000-07:00

Travis' birthday was on the 8th so on Sunday the 7th we got together as a family and celebrated his birthday and Katrina's birthday whose was on July 27th but we were gone doing our scuba training that weekend.

Last minute, DeAnna wanted a family picture, so we may be all uncoordinated, but at least we're all there and smiling. Well, most of us are smiling. And the kids aren't encrusted with cake and ice cream yet, so it'll do.

In honor of the new scuba obsession and also of Shark Week on Discovery (which had just run), Angela made this outstandingly awesome cake.

Emmett helped with the candles of course.

It was really really good cake too!

These boys crack me up. Who knows what Damon and Avery are doing, and clearly Carson is catching on to what Emmett is doing, and in all I'm wondering if it's possible to catch a nice moment of that many boys all being nice... or normal?

Emmett, you're a mess.

Time for presents! Katrina got this firepit which will be great for their deck.

And Travis got... can't you just hear the "OOooo!"

A titanium (meaning very light weight and all the other best qualities) scuba knife. Please excuse his I-may-have-cake-in-my-teeth smile.

Travis didn't get a present to open from me... because he got to order his custom dry suit for his birthday. We cannot wait for that to come in so we can get back in the water. (Travis is rightfully sick of getting cold) So, a big happy birthday Travis!

The Help

2011-08-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

Have you read The Help by Kathryn Stockett? It's an outstanding book. One of the best I've read in the last couple years. With that in mind, some friends and I were very excited for the movie to come out, especially since the trailers looked like they were doing the book justice. So we went to a late show on opening day last Wednesday!
It was great! They really did do a good job with it! They were a little nicer with Skeeter's mother and I think some better coverage of the violence that was happening at the time in the beginning of the movie would've helped set the atmosphere of fear that Aibileen was rightly feeling in regards to Skeeter's request. That said, I'm glad they did cover Medgar Evars which helped escalate the stress.

Overall: See the movie! And still read the book!

Jocelyn, Kari, Carrie and me.

Avery's Surgery

2011-08-12T22:52:00.001-07:00

Three years ago Avery had his adenoids removed and tubes put in his ears because fluid wasn't draining behind his eardrums and he wasn't hearing very well. After the surgery, the ENT told me how huge Avery's tonsils were, but that he didn't just want to take them out then not having discussed it with me because the recovery is so much worse than just adenoid removal. What I've always wanted to know is why he didn't notice Avery's huge tonsils before the surgery.

Fast forward to now and Avery's tonsils have remained massive this entire time. He also sounds nasally more lately and is often all stuffed up. He didn't seem to have hearing issues anymore, but lately there had been the occasional concern about it (last time it was fairly sudden and very obvious). When I was a teen I had an absolutely horrible time with my tonsils, so we were also concerned that with Avery's obviously enlarged tonsils, leaving them in there may just be setting him up for more problems in the future. So we decided to see an ENT before school started again and see what was what.

Turns out one of his ears had some minor hearing loss due to fluid retention again and all in all it was agreed the tonsils needed to go, tubes needed to be placed again, and the ENT was concerned that the previous guy had likely left some adenoid tissue behind - which I guess is common with a popular procedure, but he claimed the procedure he used was more fine-tuned and took care of all of the tissue. Considering the last guy told me that taking too little or too much adenoid tissue could change a kid's voice (and I remember his vocal demonstration of the changes) obviously he probably had left tissue in there. The problem with that is the left over stuff can get big again.

So Monday Avery had surgery.
He specifically asked to see the tonsils after surgery. I will add that to the end of this post... with a warning beforehand... in case you don't want to see them...

Practicing for blowing up his balloon. He chose a red balloon because they didn't have orange. This is how the anesthesiologist get them to suck down the gas.

Avery was so sick of waiting for his turn. He was ready to get this show on the road! When it was finally his turn, he didn't even give me a hug, or wait to be led where he needed to go, he just took off through the doors.

When the ENT came to tell me about it, he commented on how refreshing that was that a kid came in so ready to go! The adenoid tissue left behind had indeed become very inflamed and were apparently quite large. I was assured that as far as tonsils and adenoids were concerned, that chapter in Avery's life was over. All tissue was completely sucked out of there.

When they got me to go to Avery, he was freaking out a little, which seems pretty natural if you wake up all drugged up, but in a lot of pain and don't know where you are and you're mom's not there. I really wish they would let parents be with their kids before they wake up so at least that type of freak out could be prevented.

Once he sat on my lap and settled down, it didn't take long before he was past ready to get outta that place! He even stood up and started to take off his IV so he could go. The nurse and I asked him about feeling sick, but he kept claiming it was just empty stomach sick, not pukey sick. Well, we made it about 20 feet from the door before he splattered his feet three times. So I went back to the door for some paper towels to wipe up and then finally we could go home.

That was the last of the puking, thankfully, and since then Avery's preferred not to take any medicine and goes quite a while before we make him, and he just keeps quietly to the couch, watching movies or playing the Wii... except that first afternoon.

Emmett showed up in front of me being silly and wanting a picture with my phone. Next thing I knew, Avery had the 3D glasses on too... and was dancing around, posing for the camera. After he got a little too lively, I told him, unfortunately, he had to settle down because he just wasn't allowed to exert himself yet.

So here's a whole slew of silly boys

Sadly, it's not been all fun and games since then, but I think we're supposedly past the worst days now so I'm watching for the improvement to begin. Of course, the sloughing off of scabs around day 7 can cause the pain to go up again, so we'll see...

Warning...

Beware...

Tonsils below...

Avery wanted to see them so they saved them for him. Obviously he needed a picture too.

Fishing

2011-08-10T22:41:00.000-07:00

Before their respective surgeries on Monday (Avery's tonsilectomy and Papa's ablation to take care of A-fib), Papa wanted to go fishing on Saturday. So Travis and Avery loaded up with Papa and they picked up Alli and off they went.

Travis didn't bring the camera like he was supposed to, so I got these two pictures from Ben.

And just like last time, Avery ended up with the only fish of the day. He's so happy.

When he got home, he was very proud and anxious to show me.

Cleaned out and ready to eat. I'm the only one who will eat it, but I'm sure glad I don't have to clean it!

Jocelyn Sees Blue

2011-08-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

After two girls, my friend Jocelyn is having a boy, and since boy is something I'm certainly familiar with, I threw a shower for her.

Unfortunately, in the distraction of actually running the shower, I managed to leave my camera inside until we were just about done and it was getting dark!

I went with a bird theme.

Did you know Hershey's makes cookies and creme kisses... and that they come in light blue wrappers? I didn't, until I saw a bag when perusing candy bars for game prizes. Nor did I know that there was such a thing as York Pieces and that they were blue and white. Perfect! Sadly, it wasn't until about 15 minutes after the last guests left that I realized my blueberry yogurt covered pretzels and cinnamon yogurt (white) covered pretzels were still in the pantry. I knew I was forgetting something! The simple table I planned had seemed even more simple than I thought it would be.

Chocolate or butterscotch dipped chow mein noodles make cute nests with yogurt covered raisins for eggs.

Mini cinnamon rolls don't quite look so nest like, but I still gave them cream cheese frosting "eggs."

A simple diaper cake. Doesn't this remind you a little of the carnival game where you try to shoot the moving ducks down?

Yea for baby boys! Congratulations Jocelyn!

And, yes, I did dress like the theme... blue shirt... birds... Just call me cheesy.

SCUBA

2011-08-05T21:46:00.000-07:00

I'm a scuba diver now!
Travis was certified back when he was around 13, but he had very few dives and hadn't been diving since high school. He wanted back in the water, but first he wanted to find out if I would be willing to join him. So back in March Travis surprised my by pulling up to a scuba shop when we were out for my birthday and signing me up for a discover scuba class (put the gear on and see if you can handle breathing underwater before investing in the certification class). I had absolutely no clue how I would handle it. It went great! So we signed me up for class.
So in June I finally had my certification classes. They were split between two weekends, the first being in the pool, and the second weekend being open water dives up in the Hood Canal.
Here I am in the pool.

My buoyancy skills rock! Thankfully! Seriously, I think that's made a big difference in enjoyment, that I haven't had to fight any of the skills, they've just come really naturally.

Here's the view from the balcony of Mike's Beach Resort on the Hood Canal, my first open water dive experience.

Travis came with me of course and got some diving in with the dad of another of the students there, but he did take some pictures for me on the last day during our last training dive.

All geared up

Safety check

Getting ready to go

Look how gorgeously smooth the water was this day! That's me at the very left starting to descend with my dive buddy.

And soon, we were all down.

While we were down, Travis spotted this Lion's Mane jellyfish near the surface. These suckers can get huge and you have to watch out for their seriously long tentacles which do sting and since they get so long, they can be super hard to see. This one was at least the size of a dinner plate with 10-15 ft long tentacles. We saw several while diving.

There's Justin, our instructor, leading us back in.

Having ended our last certification dive, Justin presented us all with our cards, but dropped mine! James, a Divemaster candidate assisting Justin, grabbed it up before I even saw.

Now, I've got it!

Debbie and me. Debbie is Justin's wife and another Divemaster candidate assisting the class. She's been great to have a woman to ask questions of!

Thanks for grabbing it James!

James, Justin, Holly (another student, there was another as well, but she took off before we got this picture), me and the amazing Debbie.

After the pool I had a lot of anxiety about this whole diving thing... but not for why you might think. The diving itself continued to come naturally to me. I was concerned that it was all going to just be "okay" and not amazing. What if we invested all this money and I didn't love it. Was I going to think diving was enough of a reward for all the money and effort involved in going diving?

The answer is YES! Getting into the open water and seeing all the life down there is a complete game changer!

So last weekend Travis and I completed our Advanced Open Water weekend class together. We spent Friday through Sunday at the Hood Canal with Justin and Debbie and were joined late Saturday by another AOW student who could only get part of her class done that weekend.

We tried out some new accommodations, Sunrise Motel & Dive Resort, and let's just say no one will be returning. It was an adventure though! This picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice, but that's all I've got. I absolutely cannot believe I got up there without my camera. Blasphemous! So I only took a couple shots with my iPhone.

Justin and Travis

Playing with instagram on my phone

Friday we did three dives at Sunrise. The first two were for my dry suit specialty and the third was our night dive for AOW. Night diving is very cool! Different, but cool. The aquatic life that's out at night is different than day too.

So, unfortunately, on top of lousy accommodations, the diving at Sunrise really wasn't all that good either. It's too bad about all that since the set up is nice with the room right on the water, making access right at your feet. But for Saturday we bought admittance to Sund Rock and did five dives there that day. The parking is very tight there.

The tide is way in here, but here's northern entrance. When the tide is out, it's a rocky beach down to the water.

Getting ready for dive four out of five there that day.

The rest of these pictures I have to thank Debbie for!

Finishing that fourth dive. I guess I didn't get the memo about taking off our hoods for a picture. At least I'm dry though. That's my new dry suit. Travis had to wear a wet suit because he doesn't fit the type that I bought, mainly because of his super huge feet, so he has to go with the more expensive custom fit ones.

At Sund Rock Saturday, we started with a deep dive for training, then had a fun dive at the north wall. The third dive was a training dive to the wreck. Justin usually does a frog kick that moves him slowly through the water, but we needed to get out to the wreck faster since it's further away and you don't want to use up too much air getting over there, especially since it's at 40-60' depending on the tide, so you're using your air faster when deeper too. Unfortunately, Justin hauled tail out there. Travis, Mr. Marathon trainee, didn't have any problems with that, but I simply couldn't keep the pace and it had me breathing heavily so I used my air way fast. Debbie thought she was gonna die, he was working us so fast! SO, trying to conserve air by getting there quickly totally backfired by completely overexerting Debbie and I. There has to be a happy medium. I wanted to know if we couldn't head out there shallow and use a surface reference for a cue on when to head deeper to find the wreck. (There used to be a buoy on the wreck, but the weather keeps ripping it off and it doesn't get replaced.) Debbie had the winning idea though. Run a line from the wreck, straight towards shore so that people can head out shallow and run into the rope that will lead them straight to the wreck. I couldn't help but wonder why that hadn't already been done.

So for the fourth dive, Travis and I went with Justin to run the line. When we found a big rick to tie off to at the shallow end, and Justin started tying it off, Travis and I found out what NO visibility is like. Tying the rope kicked up so much silt that we seriously only had visibility ranging between three and six inches. I could just see a couple inches of Travis' light beam, and same for mine, but with Justin busy tying the rope, there was no light to see him by, so I just held on to the neck of his tank so I'd know when he started moving away! Talk about something that could really disorient you!

The fifth dive was another night dive, much better though at Sund Rock. That was just a fun one for Travis and I and it was the first time the two of us went off on our own, while the other student who had just arrived did that for her training.

Sunday we did our last two training dives, underwater navigation and then search and recovery. Travis and I finished s&r really quickly, so after that the two of us got to head out to finish our air just us again. How fun to be out with Travis, just having fun. I love this!

After our dives, we packed up and then sat down to do our log books.

Just because I like this shot of Debbie's.

Such a fun weekend!

And here's all my credentials now. We just ordered Travis' dry suit today, so he'll take that class later and get that card then. In the short meantime, I get to be more trained than him.

We're really happy we've gone with the new crew in town, Blue Element Scuba for our training. Travis was originally certified elsewhere and we know others who go elsewhere, but the people at Blue Element are outstanding, the shop is super clean and well lit (not always so common with dive shops) and they're always welcoming and helpful when you come in, which also isn't always the case elsewhere. I definitely highly recommend them!

By the way, I've been on Blue Element's home page for a bit now. That's a crop from the second picture in this post.

Happy And Sad

2011-07-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

I am a lucky member of a great book club. Here we all are together last week for a party outside of book club. A party both happy and sad.
Anne, Dawn, Cindy, Alicia, Wendy, Carrie, Amy, Kari, Jocelyn, Heather, Becca, Marilyn, Shanda, Crystal and me.

A happy part of the celebration was having an adoption shower for Shanda and their handsome little 4 year old they just adopted.

As befits a party thrown by a book club, Mr. Man walked away with a library! I loved how his tongue would poke out in concentration!

He also came away with a great quilt made by Carrie!

So we all enjoyed watching the gift giving.

And we enjoyed some good food and conversation.

And then we celebrated a special member of our club. Alicia moved away this weekend to a situation that will be great for their family, but we will all miss her! Alicia has been an important member of creating an annual Favorite Things party, so we surprised her with a mini Favorite Things party for her.

These three amigas were close and I know they will particularly miss each other.

I'm thankful I have gained such lovely friends since our move here and can be part of such a great group of ladies.

Stained

2011-07-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

When we built our gate last year I wanted it and the fence stained soon after. The gate I wanted stained soon so it wouldn't bleach in the sun and turn ugly gray. The fence was already long since greyed and dirty. Looking at the gate blog post, the ugly grey fence is easy to see since I didn't get a before shot for this post. In any case, we did not get the staining done last year, much to my annoyance. So a week and a half ago I asked Travis if anything was going on that weekend. At his negative reply, I said, "Great! we're staining the fence and gate this weekend then!" Actually, I listed a few other things I wanted done too, but the staining took the whole weekend.
So Friday morning we picked up the needed supplies and that day Travis used the cleaner on the fence and gate. The results of the cleaner were astounding! The fence looked nearly like new boards with some of the color back in them. The gate was no where near as bad as the fence, but the south facing side of the gate had bleached to a light grey. With the cleaner, the color came back to to it as well.

We chose a stain that would match the color of the pressure treated posts in the fence. Here's the big gate finished and the little one still to do.

I had to tape off the rails on this side of the gate and use a paintbrush while Travis used a spray gun on the rest of the fencing.

Almost done!

The gate and fence look so much better now and this last weekend we did another little project. I'm sick of the boys playing in the dirt in this little section next to the rv pad, so Travis added the pressure treated boards along the base of the fence and stapled up some garden fabric to keep dirt from leaking under the boards. Then the dirt was raked out evenly and we added river rock. It looks great and no more dirt! Now we just need to take care of the dirt section on the side of the house in the previous picture. A shed will be going in there.

I look at that picture and can't believe how great it looks compared to before!

Parks

2011-07-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

Since the 4th of July parade doesn't start until late afternoon, we spent the morning showing Grandma and Grandpa the new crazy park and then Avery's school playground and attached park playground.

Go Grandpa!

Emmett reminded me a little of a windsurfer as he spun around

Avery made quick friends with this older boy and the playground and he was very nice with the boys, like hopping off here to let Carson on and spin them.

And he spun them here too.

Emmett wanted a push and Grandpa obliged.

Avery tried to pull himself all the way up, but lost it when he let go to grab the older boy's outstretched hand and couldn't get a good grip.

Love Emmett's silly faces

Hey mom!

More spinning

At the next playground, Grandma and Grandpa had some fun!

Who doesn't love a little kid with static flying hair?

Emmett wanted to try the monkey bars, but gave up. Avery showed him how it's done.

Then Carson took a turn and did great!

My monkeys

When the park is a regular stop, the camera doesn't usually get pulled out, so it's fun to have a particular excuse to go overboard with pictures.

Silver Falls

2011-07-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

On Saturday before the 4th of July, we took my parents out to Silver Falls State Park to show them a couple of the waterfalls.

Who needs a waterfall, when the drinking fountain before we even get to the trail is so fun?

I just love how green it is here.

Watch your head

Under South Falls

Under the waterfall the boys like to climb in this large hole.

One nice wave and then...

...Carson gave a series of these faces.

Time to keep moving

Being silly with Grandma and Grandpa

At the bridge looking back at South Falls

Grandma leads the boys in more silliness.

Lots more head watching on the way to North Falls!

There's a great cavern cut out under North Falls

Before we finished North Falls Emmett was screaming, being long since done and exhausted, so we skipped Upper North Falls and headed home.

A brief pause to splash in the creek upstream of North Falls.

I always love visiting Silver Falls and was so happy to show it to my parents.

Baking With Grandma B

2011-07-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

The boys love getting to make food with Grandma, usually baking, whenever she visits or we visit her.

Avery made a strawberry rhubarb pie with Grandma first, but we ate it long before I took a picture! Actually, I didn't even get pictures of the pie baking process at all! To bad considering Avery even did a lattice top on the pie! With the leftover crust, Avery and Carson each made a little cinnamon sugar pastry and I did snap a shot of each of them them. Carson was a natural with the rolling pin.

Avery had a little more trouble with it.

The next thing they made were little single serving apple pies.

Too much fun!

Egg was only needed around the edges of course, but the younger boys had too much fun "painting" the egg on and Emmett didn't grasp the edge-only concept anyway.

Silly Carson

Ta-Da!

And then, miraculously, they all looked at the camera at the same time for a split second and, even more miraculously, I caught them!

These yummy treats were dubbed "yummy nummers."

You know you want one.

The next day they got to make one last batch of yummy nummers.

Great focus, Carson, despite Avery trying to annoy you!

Oooh, so fun

Emmett wanted to roll, but he already got to cut out...

HMPH!

Beware the egg claw!

I don't know what happened, but suddenly he was staring at me and wouldn't stop. I eventually waved my hand in front of him at which point he cracked up.

So much fun to get messy baking with Grandma! I'm so glad she's up for that since they don't get to do many "messy" things with their Mom!

4th of July

2011-07-07T10:41:00.001-07:00

We had a great Fourth of July! My parents were able to come down again this year and we had lots of fun with them during the long weekend and more posts of that will come but for now here's our celebration of the Fourth:

(Be sure to watch the last two videos in this post!!!)

Like the past two years, we participated in Stayton's 4th of July parade.
Travis starts up the old 1937 John Deere Model A tractor that pulls us all in the trailer.

Avery actually gave me one nice smiling picture.

Carson, on the other hand, didn't want to look at me, until finally I caught this quick glance after which he even said, "There! I looked at you!" (now leave me alone!)

He refused to look again, but did make faces.

A little Avery smirk.

Julie was so cute showing Emmett how she could wave her flag out the side too.

Emmett showed off his flossing skills with some of the floss he stole from the hand outs we were giving. We gave candy too, of course!

After the parade we went to Travis' parents' for bbq and blowing stuff up!

My father-in-law has had the larger of these two cannons for years now and we shoot it every 4th and at New Year's. The smaller one he just finished making himself! He turned solid brass into the cannon and made the stand from a chunk of solid oak.

And this was its first firing! (So everyone was behind the vehicles and I came far over to the side so I could peak around for this shot) It was a much deeper boom than any of us were expecting.

The boys went to collect the steaming clump of newspaper shot.

But the increased oxygen to the glowing embers from Avery's run made it burst into flame.

Brave Avery took care of it no problem.

Sparklers!

Roman candles

Take cover! This was Avery's very silly idea but they all took it very seriously.

Watch out for the big bad dump truck that shoots sparks.

A second shooting of the little cannon. Both cannons were lit at the same time but big one went off seconds before the little one and the rapid fire of my camera didn't catch it. The cannon's are tricky to get, but I did get a better shot than this one of the big cannon last year.

Throughout the evening, Travis and Kevin spent time in the shop creating extra bangs for our enjoyment. This was the first one...

It popped, but less impressively than expected. Back to the shop to fix the mixture...

The second try was a complete dud. Some problem with the fuse likely.

Now for the third attempt...

This one was much better...

And the final one...

Even bigger. And we decided that would be enough before we attracted attention...

Megan having fun with a crackle whip. I was bummed that the whip we gave Avery ended up firing basically all at once so I only got one bad shot of him in the instant they went off instead of getting any pictures of him running with it like my favorite from last year.

This was one of Megan's friends who dropped her whip at the end and looked like she was doing a jig as she had to sort of leap around it.

Eventually we shot the mortars too.

Hope you had a happy Fourth!

The Reptile Man

2011-07-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

As part of our library's series of summer events, The Reptile Man puts on a show. He is very popular.
Here is an albino snake that snatched a very real looking toy rat from The Reptile Man's hand.

This year was our first time to see The Reptile Man and Avery was chosen from the crowd to be a helper! I wish I was ready in time to get video of Avery going up on stage because he literally danced his way up there he was so excited.

Avery gets a bit of a surprise...

And the boa gets a little frisky...

We waited until we were towards the end of the crowd to exit so the boys could pet the albino burmese python a bit longer.

Instead of petting and walking on by, I think Avery ducked under and nudged his way in to be a holder.

The boys can't wait to see him again next year!

Are You Kanga?

2011-06-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

Recently, Emmett asked me, "Are you Kanga?" After some explanation, I learned that I was Kanga, he was Roo, Avery was Tigger, Travis was Rabbit and Carson was Piglet. Carson didn't like that and decided he was Pooh. I thought it was funny that Emmett tagged his Dad as Rabbit. Somewhat insightful? Well, and Avery is certainly crazy like Tigger, so I thoroughly enjoyed Emmett's classifications.
When I told my Mom, she immediately determined she was Piglet, and we decided my Dad could be Owl. Not that he's long-winded like Owl, but he fits the wise old owl profile. I'm glad I can't think of an Eeyore in the family...

Silly Emmett. I mean Roo.

Dunes

2011-06-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

Kevin's birthday was Friday the 17th and being the last weekend before summer classes started up again for him and Megan, Katrina and I thought we should all head to the dunes for some fun for Kevin's birthday. Plus I wanted Avery to get his new quad on the sand sooner than later!

Kevin and Katrina staked out our camping spots Thursday morning and we arrived Thursday night after work. Shane and Angela came just for the day on Saturday. We left late Saturday night while Kevin and Katrina and Ben and DeAnna stayed through Sunday.

What's camping without critters? Very first thing Friday morning, before we could do anything, Avery found this fuzzy caterpillar.

Then the kiddos took off to check things out with Papa and Grandma.

Poor Julie had a rough time with that big heavy helmet.

DeAnna took this picture of them while they were out.

Since the kids were gone, I convinced Travis that we should go out too, because who knew when I'd get a chance again once the kids were back. We passed the kids and DeAnna took this picture of us.

Later in the morning, I took the boys for a ride in the Ranger again while Megan, Kevin and Travis rode their quads.

Kevin and Travis

Megan doing donuts

DeAnna took this picture of us hanging around after lunch

In the early evening, I finally got Avery his first chance to ride his quad. He's following me out and Travis is waiting to follow Avery.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to enjoy taking Avery out. My ride in Travis' sand rail in the morning and my very short run with the kids in the Ranger before lunch ended up all I got to do that day because no sooner did we get to the dunes with Avery, then I had to turn around and go back with a passed out Carson and Emmett. So the one day of gorgeous weather turned out to be fairly wasted for me.

After Avery got his run, DeAnna took this picture of him on their way back to camp.

Back in camp, we enjoyed a nice evening around the fire pit.

Inquisitive Julie

Happy Julie sitting with Daddy Kevin waved to the camera.

Katrina

Megan made some "cave art" on the side of the fire pit. I imagine it represents her and her horse Vegas.

And then Kevin added his own "art" to the scene... And Megan wanted to kill him, now that it looked like Megan was herding Vegas into Kevin's "factory."

Avery thought it was funny.

Actually, Avery was just generally happy. Oh, and just a few days prior Avery had lost his seventh tooth to a tortilla chip accidentally wedging the loose tooth out.

Silly Emmett

Ha! I caught you looking!

It's so dirty in the ashy sand around the campgrounds from the fire pits.

Julie has this battery operated quad (we left the battery out) and the boys had fun pushing each other around on it, despite its girlyness. This picture is funny because it caught Emmett trying to kick-start the quad.

Emmett had such perfect timing on the kick-start that I had to video him:

Travis was refusing to look at me, or smile, or give me anything.

Some tickling got a grin, but he kept his face averted, the stinker.

After some yummy foil dinners, it was time for cake for Kevin's birthday. After this shot, I helped light the candles since it was so difficult in the wind. Kevin came over with Julie to help block the wind and we got all but 2 candles lit when Julie leaned in and blew them out! All the center candles went out. *sigh*

So we had to re-light them.

Kevin tried to hold Julie back better the second time.

Finally we had them lit, and Julie and Emmett helped blow them out.

Happy Birthday Kevin!

As we ate cake, I was noticing the way Megan spoke to her Dad, with such animated superiority, and decided to capture some of that. We all had a good laugh at these pictures that I had to show around.

Saturday was much cooler and almost constantly drizzling. Plus it was really foggy, so even if it wasn't drizzling, the fog eventually soaked you. So I didn't take any pictures. We were all going to go out for a ride together in the morning, but then my quad (the one Travis was riding since his new-to-him Banshee wasn't ready yet for the trip) wouldn't start. The battery was dead. Ugh. So the only thing left for me to ride was Avery's little 90. That sucked. It's such a tiny engine and totally bogged down under my weight.

Most everyone had disappeared while we tried to get the quad started, so when we left it was just me on the 90, Travis and Avery in the sand rail, and Shane and Angela each on a quad. We only made it to the first big hill and Travis blew the condenser in his rail. Ugh again. So we sat in the foggy drizzle while he headed back to camp on Shane's quad to get a replacement. And sat and sat and sat. I had Avery do loops around us on his quad. Ben and Alli in Ben's sand rail found us and sat and sat with us while Ben and Travis tried to get it fixed. Finally I told Avery to get on Ben's quad that either Shane or Angela had ridden in so I could take him around for a bit of a ride in the vicinity. It wouldn't start. So I'm thinking, "Am I cursed on this trip or what?" Turns out whoever had rid it in had left the lights on and the battery was dead. Thankfully there's a hidden kick-start on that one and somehow that made it able to start. I'm clueless there, but it worked. So Avery and I rode around briefly and then Travis decided he wanted to take the rail back and see if my quad would start and I should just head back anyway since the Honda 90 couldn't do anything anyway. Ugh again.

So I went back. And started packing up our gear. Before I left the dunes, everyone had found us in our stuck spot and they all ended up coming back shortly after I did and we all had lunch. Late afternoon Shane and Angela left and Alli got to stay for the night with Papa and Grandma. They left gas for Shane's quad so I could get a ride later if I wanted. That ended up being the saving grace of the weekend. I did indeed get to go for a ride on it later following Kevin, Travis and Ben each on a quad. The drizzle even cleared up while we were out. The ride ended all too soon though considering it was my only decent trip out, but Travis and Kevin were tired and sore from all the riding they had already gotten to do so led us back.

So, all in all, it wasn't my favorite trip to the dunes considering the effort to reward ratio this time out, but such is life with three little kids. I didn't even get to ride my own quad! How nice it would be if we had a four-seater sand rail, or with a bench back row, so we would be equipped to ride around will all our kids with our own rigs!
Still, I'm thankful for some of the things that went right that you don't notice until they've gone wrong:
-no air mattresses lost air during our two nights (always a bonus when camping!),
-no midnight puking up hotdogs from Avery like last time (which I just realized I didn't include in that post),
-my foil dinner was fabulous for the first time since it seems like I've had disasters with those often in the past (from burning to Travis knocking mine in the dirt and there being nothing left to make a new one out of)
And of course we had some fun family time and the weather the first day couldn't be beat.
Despite the frustrations for me, I'm still always looking forward to the next trip out!

Beach

2011-06-28T18:54:00.001-07:00

After Travis' marathon a few weeks ago, the boys and Alli finally got to go to the beach while the invalid marathoners stayed in the RV. Considering the crippling heat the marathon runners experienced, it turned out to be the absolute best weather I've ever experienced on the beach!

Hauling a load

The others headed out to the surf

So Carson and I joined them. He has such a natural run. No flailing around or prancing or whatnot.

Looks like he takes his running seriously, too.

Then he kept running from the surf as it came in.

This one he decided to stay put on, with a little balancing help from his brother.

Emmett needed lots of balance help from Papa

Carson turned to run on this one, but too late, the surf was too high and he lost his balance

Poor guy

Look at me, Mom, I'm dripping wet, cold and miserable... and you're still taking pictures?!

It was such a warm day, Carson was fine, he just walked safely with Grandma from then.

Avery, on the other hand, was ecstatic with joy to be at the beach.

I love how he looks like he's dancing in the middle one.

But this leap was my favorite.

Who doesn't love to slosh through the surf.

We all went for a long walk down the beach.

Of course, after all that wet walking in the surf, sand sticks to everything.

Bulldozers

Digging like a dog

Funny face

Feet burying

Running like dogs

And at the beach, of course you have to build sand castles. Although, the tops didn't quite turn out the way they expected.

I definitely wish every day at the beach could have as fantastic weather as we had this day.

Little Yellows

2011-06-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

Last year I got a nice picture of a wad of baby garden spiders (Argiope aurantia) amongst the grass. This year, the backdrop was a little less picturesque. Mid May we found they had infested Emmett's tricycle.

I was able to get several better macro shots this time though.

Here they are, all cocooned under a layer of webbing...

...until you shake them and they scatter!

All balled up...

...all shaken out. Yes, we had fun messing with them.

You do have to watch out when you shake them up though... They drop off tendrils of web that can easily float into you!

This guy must have lost his web tendril, and was stuck trying to climb back up the red metal bar. He kept losing his grip.

Mostly back to cozied up.

Emmett was fascinated, but not a fan of their choice of home. They're long gone now and likely only one to a couple of them have survived to Last year I didn't ever spot an adult garden spider anywhere, we'll see this year. I'm not sure I really want to see a grown one, they're really creepy looking all grown up, but I would like to see the zig zag pattern web they make. I can't help but wonder how they got on the trike. Was the adult female living under the tray where we didn't notice her? Creepy.

Honda 90

2011-06-16T13:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend we'll be camping at the dunes on the coast and Avery is so excited to take the new toy...

At the end of May we bought a Honda 90 ATV for the boys. It's perfect for Avery now, with room to grow, and with two boys to follow, it will likely be well loved.

Travis drove it out into Papa and Grandma's front field for Avery to have his first run.

This picture makes me think some sort of hero music should be playing...

First instruction

He's a natural!

After several loops around the front yard, Avery decided he was ready to move on and started to take off around the house. Travis decided he could go and of course Avery headed right for the packed dirt hill. Here's video of that.

Then Papa came out with his 4-wheeler and he and Emmett played follow the leader with Avery, taking him all around and through the trees, for some great practice at steering and control.

Emmett loves riding the quads!

Following Papa down the hill again!

Then Avery got to be the leader. He did a great job!

Carson tried it out, but had trouble grasping the light touch on the gas.

So Dad hopped on and after showing Carson how to do it, let Carson run the gas and steering, with just some occasional correction from Dad.

Then I had a turn with Carson. He didn't want it to end!

Until Papa brought the Ranger out. Then all the boys just wanted a ride. Although, why he wanted to go down into the dregs of the pond, I don't know.

Looking forward to the dunes this weekend!

Visit From Grandpa

2011-06-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

We had a very short visit from my Daddy. Yesterday afternoon he arrived in time for lunch. Then we showed him the crazy new park by us, then the scuba shop and instructor I'm learning scuba from (more on that later!), and we took a trip to the library. After Travis got home we went to dinner at our favorite Mexican joint, La Hacienda Real, and then introduced Grandpa to dessert at Limeberry (a self-serve frozen yogurt shop).
This morning we enjoyed Avery Cakes with Grandpa and then it was time for him to go...

Or was it?

See, Mom, we've got him trapped!

I eventually managed to pull them away from the door for a picture with Grandpa.

And then it was really time to say goodbye.

Already this afternoon, Emmett has complained, "I want Grandpa."

Thanks for coming, even if it was such a short stop! We love you Grandpa!

Marathon Man

2011-06-13T22:12:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Travis ran his first marathon! He ran it with his sister Megan (also her first) and his sister Angela got "pressured" into walking it.

Pre-race

I cannot understand what he's so happy about. They're just about to cross the starting line, not the finish line...

And off they go

And off we went to the other side of the park to a spot where we'd see them come back by after an almost 3 mile loop through some ocean-side hotel blocks of Newport.

The boys had a great view to watch for Daddy and Aunt Megan, until Emmett started running off, so they all had to park it on edge of the street at my feet.

There's Travis and Megan! There was a family cheering people on near us with a little girl who kept shouting, "Great job! You're almost there!" ALMOST THERE?! Talk about false advertising, they're not even 3 in yet!

Mile 4 official shot

Mile 10 was their official shot that you could buy right after the race

Free shuttle buses ran through the course. People could get on and off wherever to cheer on their runner(s). We just stayed on, and watched for them to pass. We saw them about mile 13-14.

Mile 14 official shot

Coming down the last hill to the finish!

WAHOO! Crossing the finish line! More about their time at the end of this post.

Official shots of them coming to the finish

And the photographer took a few of us too.

Angela walks it on in. Lookin' good!

Good thing they didn't have chairs in the runner's cool down area. I don't think Travis could have moved if he had sat in one.

And here's their fancy finisher's duds. Travis is in love with the shirt. He says it feels like nothing's on, and he's big on staying cool.

So here's the list of obstacles that were working against Travis finishing this marathon:
-He only had 2 months of training (typically training should be more like 18 weeks) due to a hip injury.
-Less weight to run with would have been easier
-He knew he had to hydrate more than the average guy to keep his extra large frame all hydrated, but he was unprepared for how much he really needed.
-The heat was out to kill them all. (and there were more than one who ended up with IV's in or taken to the hospital)

Travis and Megan thought they would finish between 4 hours and 4:30. Obviously the picture shows that didn't happen. The major issue on the day was the heat, but even without that, Travis thinks he probably still wouldn't have finished quite in that time due to his unwitting lack of proper hydration catching up with him.
The marathon started in Newport, but headed inland along the bay to Toledo. The cooler temperatures right at the coast rapidly disappear as you move inland, leaving a large chunk of the course to the mercy of the inland heat. And it was a HOT day. The high in Toledo was 87.5. Even Newport airport hit a high of 78, so for the coast it was smokin' hot. Unfortunately, we've had a horrible spring, so there has been zero chance for anyone to get any heat training. All the runners were really hit hard, and I heard over and over people lamenting not having any heat training yet this year. Travis even ran about 2 miles during which he had stopped sweating. That's a dangerous place to get to. Taking the boys to the beach later, we enjoyed the best weather I've ever experienced at the beach, but for all those poor marathoners, it was just bad.

I'm so proud of him accomplishing this feat. I think there are so many marathon runners out there that people generally have lost sight of what an amazing feat it really is. And considering all the conditions working against Travis, I'm all the more amazed by it.

As far as his weight, the good news for me is he'd like to loose 20 pounds before the next one, so finally I won't have him sabotaging my weight loss goals anymore!!!

Yes, I said "the next one." I knew he was going to keep going, but it gets worse. He and Megan saw several people with Marathon Maniacs shirts on and they had to find out what that was about. Turns out there's a club for psychos who are addicted to that much running. Now Travis and Megan want in. So instead of the ONE marathon I thought they would do this fall, they will be doing THREE marathons to meet Marathon Maniacs entry level criteria of either 2 marathons in 16 days or 3 in 90 days.Yeah, that's entry level, there are eight higher levels the top being 52+ marathons within 365 days! See, it's completely a club for psychos. Their "InSane AsyLum" page is full of thoroughly mentally deficient examples.

One of the fall marathons, the Columbia Gorge Marathon, I'm very excited about though because they have a "kids marathon" that Avery is going to run! The kids have to show up race day with their log of 25 accumulated miles and then they race the 1.2 miles that day to finish out the 26.2miles. Avery is super excited about getting to run a marathon with his Dad and the t-shirt and medal that come with it! Carson is devastated. He wants to too, but he'll have his first chance next year as kindergarten is the bottom end of the age requirement.

And so I'm sure this post is only the first in our new adventures as a running family. (Yes, I am running too, my piddly little amount that I can manage in the mornings. Maybe someday I can aspire to a measly 10k, which would still be a great feat for me!)

Mother's Day

2011-06-11T16:22:00.000-07:00

I never posted about Mother's Day this year, but I received a hanging basket of flowers, a giant wall clock, and a large full length mirror. But possibly my favorite gift was one brought home from preschool by Carson. He took great pride in these purple petunias for his Mom. Purple, after all, is my favorite color, and these are perfect.

It has since been removed from the cute basket and put in a white pot on my front porch. Then the other day Mr. Punk, a.k.a. Emmett, pulled each of the many blooms off of it. Of course, there were several blooms on the way, so the plant would be colorless only a short time, but still, I did not appreciate his destruction. And a frustrated Carson exclaimed, "Now I have to get you new purple flowers!" Sweet boy. Then today, he was so happy to see a new bloom had opened and told me all about it with much ado.

T-Ball

2011-06-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

Avery played t-ball this Spring through his school. I arrived to pick him up early on two of the days to get some pictures, and then on the last day (back in mid-May) all the parents were invited to come and play a game with their kids.

Go get it Avery!

Throw it in! (Can you see the ball?)

Emmett! Get down!

Nice hit!

Put the bat down, Avery...

... or just take it to 1st base, whatever.

Finish up the day with everyone running the bases a few times.

Get it Avery! Avery's friend Zachary likes to wrestle for anything in his vicinity, even if Avery's was the name called on the grounder the coach hit to him.

Throw it in!

Safe!

I think this is mutual support in trying to get the ball to first? In any case, his tongue is sticking out and it's funny.

Get it Zachary! Wait, EMMETT!!!

EMMETT! Get off the field! Stop chasing Zachary! Yeah, I had to go down and get the little stinker. Before I was able to grab him he was throwing balls onto the field too.

For the last day when the parents were invited to play, I invited Grandma H to come out and watch too. I set my camera and handed it over to her when I was in the field or at bat.
Avery and I warming up together with some catch. He liked to just throw it hard, and I had to do a lot of leaping about to catch it. Then I would remind him to throw nicely to me and I'd get a rocket to me instead. In other words, when he doesn't get too crazy and he focuses, he's got a great arm!

When it was time to play, the kids were adamant that we would play kids vs. grown-ups instead of paired with our kids.

Throw it in Avery!

Line drive to third

On second... with some outstanding posture. Gotta work on that.

Great hit Avery!

Almost home...

...happy skip...

...and score!

Ready!

Making fun of the grown-ups.

Time to receive their ribbons

With buddy Zachary

We love Zachary's family! He's the oldest of three boys just like Avery!

End Of Year Festivities

2011-05-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

End of school year that is. Tuesday was Carson's last day of preschool and yesterday was Avery's last day of Kindergarten. The Pre-K class and the Kindergarten class join up to put on an end of year program which was last Friday night.

The theme for the night was Paris in the Springtime as a send-off to the owner of the school and another of the teachers whose husbands were whisking them away to Paris the following morning! The theme was really great, and the program was a lot of fun. They sang to us in French as well as English and had dances prepared as well.

Before the main program the gymnastics class put on their own cirque du soleil. Avery didn't take that class but some of his friends did.

After an intermission for cleanup and setup, the main program began. Pre-K on the left, K on the right. Avery is of course the tall kid in the middle of the back row.

The next shot I took made me giggle. We're just barely starting the program (Bonjour Mes Amis) and can you tell what Avery thinks of all this?

Avery wasn't the only one though, this cutie from Pre-K just kept yawning the whole way through.

Hi Avery!

Super cute dance from the Kindergartners with the boys in top hats and the girls had cute red and black umbrellas.

Oh, look, he does sing! He actually did do pretty well. Only during one song did he really zone out and stop singing, but then realized and started singing again. I had Travis record video with the point and shoot while I took pictures, so I have that on video. Au Revoir Mes Amis!

After the show, the kids had to collect their stuff. For the Kindergartners that was a big hot air balloon each had made and an awesome Claude Monet{esque} vase of flowers done with oil crayons (or something like that?). Additionally, a teacher informed the crowd that the backdrop would not be going back to the school, so if anyone wanted a part of it, they were welcome. 30 seconds later when Avery came to me and I congratulated him on a great program, he completely ignored that and asked:
Did you hear Teacher Sarah say we could take stuff home?
Did you have something particular in mind?
The Eiffel Tower Mom (as in, could there be any question what I would obviously want. Duh.)
So here's his Eiffel Tower. We will hang it in the playroom.

As these kids are at a private Kindergarten, most are separating off to their respective public school next year. Avery happens to have four of them joining him at his school, so that will be nice for them walking in and knowing someone. So Saturday evening, the family of one of the boys in Avery's class had an end of year/goodbye party for the whole class + families + teachers. They have some amazing property which they've done some amazing things with. Here's the view from their deck. Near to far, they have yard, pathway, big stone steps, huge patio with grand fireplaces, playset, expansive yard, massive garden, more yard with a spiral rose garden in the making and a super cute chicken coop.

This is the spacious patio. By this time of the evening, several of us wives had gathered around that fire back in the corner...

Looking through the pergola to the big grassy area with the rented tent for the occasion and the rented hit of the party. The fenced back is what surrounds the garden section and beyond that is the chicken coup area.

The big hit! Carson and Emmett are waiting impatiently there at the corner for their turn (they kept the numbers inside manageable and rotated groups in and out, also separating the little ones from the big ones. Thinking about it now, they should have had an adult rotation too! It wasn't just a big room, it had an obstacle course section, a central open area and a giant slide!

Outstanding party. We may be parting ways with many of these families, but some of those parents still have years ahead of them at this school like we do with Carson and Emmett (who will start the 3's this fall!) and we've made some good friends.

Easter

2011-05-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

Here is a post with gratuitous pictures from the Easter happenings around here and with family.

Coloring Easter eggs

Not sure what this is about, or what that hat is about

Carson likes the hat though.

Hey look! They're all smiling and looking at the same time!

Emmett's doing this leaning in thing in pictures lately. It's really cute, but he doesn't smile when he does it. I think he's trying to put on the face of serene love or some such.

Eggs!

I like Avery's magically appearing invisible guy.

What's funny here is a squirrel went by and they all had to jump up and look. Next thing I know, Avery's telling his brothers a story about how squirrels attack people. Great. But Avery is all seriousness as he explains how once a squirrel almost attacked Uncle Kevin. Okay... So there he is, being extreme Mr. Serious telling this story that sounds like it should have a evil soundtrack and a flashy title of "When Squirrels Attack!" and all the while he's wearing his ridiculous St. Patty's hat from school. I couldn't help it, I busted up.

Easter Sunday morning. Being the super duper awesome parents that we are, we made them all get ready for church before they were allowed to go down the stairs to find their baskets. And part of that time was spent discussing what Easter is really all about. BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Now you have to sit on the stairs nicely so Mom can take your picture too. Mwa ha ha.

Again, with the leaning in thing. His faces doing this crack me up.

So then his brothers decide to get cozy too.

Love the Emmett look away. If only I could get Carson's super shifty eyes to look at the camera for a change.

Easter Baskets!

Triple decker crabby patties!

Spongebob Easter eggs!

Monster trucks!

Easter dinner was at the in-laws of course and this time we were in charge of rolls and stuffing. I like my new basket I used for the rolls.

After dinner Emmett helped himself to a cupcake. I don't know why he's cleaning himself mid-dessert, but it's cute.

Who needs hands?

Grandma and Papa had a giant basket full of stuff for the grandkids.

Then they had a very small Easter egg hunt. Avery and Carson got those hats from Grandma's basket, but Avery's was definitely too small for him, so later that night we had him give his to Emmett. He was okay with that once we reminded him of the hats he already has.

On the way back home I attempted a self portrait in the moving car with my phone. Half a blurry face later, at least I'm documented as existing this Easter. Travis is too, just not in this blog post.

Back home we had our own Easter egg hunt

Carson, I see one very close to you, do you?

Time to compare.

It was a great Easter, with lots of fun as well as good refreshers on why the day really is special.

Easter at School

2011-05-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

The show and tell theme the week before Easter was, of course, bunnies and such. Avery had yet to take Monkey to see his school for show and tell and with the year running out, the options to fit him in to a theme were running out too. Avery was pretty upset about that, so I came up with a plan involving card stock, a pink crayon and a hair elastic, to make Monkey fit the bunny theme. Avery thought that was awesome and apparently dressed up Monkey was a big hit for show and tell.

Carson's Easter celebration at preschool was Thur. Here's all the kiddies baskets lined up and waiting. That's Carson's blue plastic one in focus down the way there.

When the kids got back from the park to collect their buckets, Carson was holding hands with his best bud, Theo. I wanted a pic of that, but in a crowd of kids, a head popping in the way is all too common. Check out Carson's silly tongue though.

Off to Grandpa and Grandma's! The kids visit the neighboring nursing and rehab center weekly, but this time it was for an Easter egg hunt. The patients had the eggs.

Emmett was with me of course, but he just kept a hold on his stick and didn't seem to mind that he didn't have his own basket.

A hug for an egg!

Then it was back to the school for an egg hunt in the field... in the rain.

Time to come back in out of the rain before they get to check out their loot.

Many kids decided to try one of the hard boiled eggs the kids colored at school.

One bite: Hm, not bad.

Second bite: Whoa! This isn't good after all! Look at that face, he looks betrayed! That's okay, Emmett and I will eat all your hard-boiled eggs Carson.

Afterward, Emmett got to enjoy some play time outside at the school for a change while we waited for Avery to get out. Don't fall, Emmett, the sharks will eat you!

Future star in the making.

Friday was Avery's turn for their Easter celebration.

I took two shots of him picking up this egg, the first was just him picking it up, but I like this one showing him "oooing" as he spied his next one.

With friends

Checking out the loot, but refusing to look at Mom.

One of the things Avery brought home from the Easter celebration was this potted grass. I have no idea how long they've had them going in the classroom, but obviously the teachers have it down to a science when to plant the seeds with the kids. All the grass was perfect and pert, not a blade was bent over. It was well grown in and had never been trimmed but was an even four or so inches high. This picture was taken almost two weeks after and it was getting unruly.

It took us just over two weeks more to get around to cutting it. Avery had been begging to "mow his lawn" that whole time, it just didn't happen. Finally on Thursday Avery had his chance.

Here's a before and after. It was really out of control before.

The chick was so happy, he was dancing on the lawn.

Back on the windowsill! And as testament to how much grass likes to be cared for and properly trimmed, here we are only three days later and there's a good amount of those blades that have grown as much as two plus inches already!!! I guess I should have Avery mow his lawn weekly just like Dad does his...

Anyway, the kids had a great time with Easter fun at school!

A New Park

2011-05-17T11:20:00.001-07:00

Considering all the park time Carson and Emmett got while Avery was in school and we took Grandma to physical therapy, Avery was getting jealous! Once a week Avery's good friend Zachary from Kindergarten comes over so on this particular day we had lunch and then went to the new park near our house for the first time. Carson and Emmett were lucky because that made double park time that day since that morning had been one of their trips during a physical therapy appointment.

This new park is crazy! There's a small play structure that's more typical for the little guys, but the rest of it is all new to me!
Here's the skateboard thing.

Zachary's mom gives commentary in this. She had just arrived, hence the "wow" about this crazy park.

This "disc" thing spins and all these kids were hilarious trying to work it together.

I heard Emmett whining and just missed with the camera a very funny scene. Emmett kept sticking his feet in these holes and getting them stuck. The funny scene was as I came around the structure I caught a glimpse of both his feet hanging one each out of those two holes. What an awkward way to get stuck! He managed to slip the bottom one out and I took this picture after he got himself righted, then I had to help him free his top foot.

Carson had a lot of fun in this seat, and gave me this funny pose for a picture.

Here's what the seat does:

There's a lot of spinning things at this playground and this one I've internally deemed the spinning sail since it reminds me of a wind-surfing sail.

Emmett wanted a ride

but then he just stood there staring at it and missed his chance. Notice also the rope obstacle course in the background. Whatever happened to a good ol' big swirly slide and monkey bars?

A fun, if strange, park. I'm glad we have one so near our home, too bad the walking distance is completely negated by it being up a super steep hill! We'll have to stick to the park by our elementary school for walking visits.

Park Time

2011-05-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

Travis' mom had knee replacement surgery in April and once she started physical therapy we drove her there for a few of her first appointments. During two of those appointments, Apr 18th and 20th, I took Carson and Emmett to a nearby park.

The first day as we left the office I heard a train, so drove over for the boys to watch. How often do you purposely drive to wait for a train to pass!? The irony was not lost on me, but the boys loved it.

To the park!

Emmett wasn't sure about the fireman's pole... so he just jumped. Which of course the dumb point and shoot camera can't capture quick shots like that and with such a drop, Emmett wasn't about to repeat that stunt.

Silly boys

On the see-saw with Mom

Don't you go down that hill Emmett...

Emmett! I said don't go down the hill!

My sweet boys also brought me flowers.

C'mon, Mom! Help me! Push me!

Smile! Well, that's a little cheesy, but I'll take it

You want cheese? I'll give you cheese!

I taught the boys about blowing dandelion seeds.

And it was time to go.

Next visit, more of the same.

Carson finally tried the fireman's pole

And they had lots of fun on the see-saw together this time. Emmett's so big that they're close enough in size for this to work.

These two best buddies are just too fun to watch together.

Monster Killer

2011-05-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

Carson and Emmett play so well together, and a few weeks ago around bedtime Emmett kept needing help from Batman because the monsters were coming. So here, caught with my phone, is Batman killing one of the monsters.

Flying

2011-05-12T10:52:00.000-07:00

...or not. Emmett loves this. Carson wanted a turn... and it freaked him out.

Meanwhile, Avery just had fun being tortured by Aunt Katrina.

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm

2011-05-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

In mid April Avery's Kindergarten class had a field trip to Woodburn's Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm for Tulip Fest. I was photographing a wedding that day, so Travis had to brave the elements and even more bravery to handle all three boys on his own. I sent him with my point and shoot and from the pictures it looks like the boys had a good, wet time of it.

While they waited to get going, they made these "dirt monsters" which are now sitting in clear plastic cups on my windowsill over the kitchen sink growing pathetic, weak patches of sickly looking grass and getting moldy on the bottom.

Cow rides

They all loved the racing ducks.

Go, ducky, go!

This was a cool pony tire swing

And Carson and Emmett's thoroughly enjoyed this slide

They also played in the hay bale mazes and slides.

And played in some dry beans

I don't know how much time they spent actually looking at or in the tulips with all the fun stuff kids would rather do, but Travis took this one picture of the fields that I quite liked. Looks very Oregon.

Stickers E

2011-05-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

Silly Emmett. Last night he had some fun with scratch off stickers for some deal out of the boys' Highlights or High Five magazine.

And then he just hung out with Dad with them still on the rest of the night. (Emmett should have already been asleep at this time, but a too-nice Dad sometimes lets E sit with him when he keeps getting out of bed).

Cart Buddies

2011-05-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

They're getting too big to share a cart now and they end up complaining a lot. Today I showed them they could scoot Emmett forward some so they would each have enough shoulder room. Carson took it upon himself to put his arm around his buddy and they were very cute...
until Emmett leaning on Carson got too heavy...
Well, it lasted a little while. Then Carson decided the baby seat sounded like a good idea so he could be high up and have all the space to himself. Fine with me.

An 80's Themed Birthday Party

2011-04-26T16:49:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month I went to an entirely too fun 80's themed birthday party for my friend Kari. When I was getting ready, Travis came up to say goodbye as he and the boys were leaving and he stopped dead with a "whoa" when he saw me. "Well, I was coming to give you a kiss goodbye, but..."

"Well, now's the time, I was just about to put this on, so hurry up while the gettin's good! Unless you want hot pink lipstick too?" At least he didn't tell me I should wear a trench coat to get in the car when my ride got there like one of my friends' hubby's wanted his wife to!

And then when I came downstairs Avery was running toward me and seeing me brought him up short. Ususally, Avery is Mister Charm with his compliments. This time, I could see in his face he was not sure if this was a look he should compliment. I assured him it was a costume and his relief was obvious. SO funny.

So Travis took my picture with my camera phone just before leaving. This picture does NOT do justice to the extreme pink lips or masses of blue eyeshadow!

The decorations were great!

And the games were fun to play, but even more fun to watch!

Look, me too, except I didn't turn the flash on for the picture taker and it was still set for having the flash fire.

Way too much fun, amazing outfits, awesome food, outstanding decorations in an awe-inspiring lodge with the coolest ladies around equals a great night! Happy Birthday Kari!

Jane Eyre Giveaway

2011-04-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

There's a super fun Jane Eyre giveaway over on the Reading For Sanity blog. If you want in, you'll have to hurry because it ends tomorrow! Or don't hurry, because there are already too many entries I'm up against! ;)

And because I hate posting without a picture...

An Embarrassing Story And A Cop Car

2011-04-20T17:23:00.000-07:00

A slightly embarrassing story.

On the 8th I was on the Mall of the Oregon State Capitol Building to photograph a wedding couple. When I'm carrying my photography stuff, I don't carry my purse or big fat wallet, instead I put my drivers license and debit card in my photography bag. Except on the 8th I didn't. Apparently I only put them in the small, slick pocket of my slacks. No wonder they disappeared.

Later, after the wedding, I retraced my steps to no avail. So I had my debit card canceled and dreaded a trip to the DMV later on and possibilities of identity theft. But that afternoon I received a call from a state trooper.

"*GASP* Did you find my stuff!?!?"

Probably taken aback at my exuberance he started speaking with just a "...well..." and in that moment I had a terrible flash of conscience and leaping of my heart as I wondered if this state trooper was actually calling to tell me my husband had been smeared on the highway since he was out driving his motorcycle at the time...

"...well... I do have two cards here..."

*Oooohhh, thank goodness, be still my beating heart... and hallelujah he has my stuff!*

Turns out one of our state representative's wife was out strolling the lovely grounds and spotted my stuff. So the trooper arranged to stop by the house the following day to return them to me and give me the state rep's info.

The state trooper was great! He gave the boys a tour of his cruiser including showing them what all those buttons are for.

And when they sat in the back, we all reminded them that this ought to be the only time they're ever in the back of one of these rigs! Avery has his arms behind him testing out the arm space for a cuffed bad guy.

And before the trooper left, Emmett got to turn on all the lights.

So on Monday the boys and I took a trip down to the capitol building to deliver to the Good Samaritan herself a framed 8x10 of this cherry blossom picture that I had taken that fateful day. After all, it's because of the cherry blossoms that she was out on the grounds. How thankful I am for kind people! I would have liked to take pictures of the boys in and around the capitol building as it was very neat to go through and show to them, but Emmett was a complete pill and could not be let go of. I'll have to return sometime with just Avery and go for the tour.

Keep an eye out, I'm sure I'll have more blossom pictures on Laurie Marie Photography soon. In the meantime, the pictures of the couple I was photographing that day are up there now.

Carson's 4th Birthday

2011-04-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

We had Carson's 4th birthday party the last weekend of March. All the family came over and we had dinner then it was time for Carson to open gifts.
We asked Carson for a smile and he gave us this cheesy grin. He showed zero curiosity about the blanket covered something.

Then the other two lined up with Carson.

"Two new puzzles!" (And those weren't all. He's such a good puzzler!)

Carson makes these funny faces and I managed to capture one.

This caused some definite excitement, but he was still oblivious to the blanket covered object...

This Mac opens up and lays out different scenes to play on.

A good laugh at the card Uncle Kevin and Aunt Katrina got Carson.

When he finished all the gifts he thought he was done. Still he was clueless about the blankets. With prompting he unveiled...

Then it was time for cake. Aunt Angela had been working on her cake decorating skills for a cousin's wedding with a cake for Julie, Avery and of course her own daughter Alli, and while the wedding has come and gone, she still wants to work on it. That's great for us since she volunteered to do Carson's cake and took that weight off my shoulders. I had wanted to make a Lightning McQueen cake and she took that and ran!

Time to blow out the candles! (With a little help from the sidelines)

Happy Birthday Carson!

Coast

2011-04-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

During Spring Break we went out to the coast with all the family and this post is chock full of pictures from that day.

We started at Hatfield Marine Science Center which we love for being free and just the right amount of museum for the little kids.

Then we went out to the Yaquina Head tide pools

Avery is such a little man

urchins boring into the rock

Escargot anyone? These are everywhere.

Gettin' a li'l learnin' from the park ranger.

That's Carson saying "I'm Patrick Star..."

After a stop for lunch, we went to Road's End. I've never seen this beach all rocky like this. Avery enjoyed taunting the waves.

And throwing rocks at it. It was very choppy out.

There's the point that Travis and I climbed around to get to the hidden beach when we came out for my birthday. We couldn't walk down to the point because the tide was so high and honestly it seemed like a lot of the sand had been washed away. It seems like usually this beach is nice and wide .

What a gorgeous day it was!

Emmett rubbed sand all over his face and got it in his mouth...

...so naturally he was trying to spit it out. Watch out Dad!

Cute little Julie

One minute Avery's building in the sand...

...and the next he's washed out and we had to scramble back to the big rocks. So, it was about time to go.

Funny story: On the way home we got stuck in some really bad traffic due to a nasty collision. Just before getting to the jam, we stopped to change Emmett's diaper. The family carload in front of us didn't realize we weren't just behind them. When we got jammed, they loaded up a bag of snacks and Angela came trotting back to deliver it. Well, trotting isn't the right word. More like funky, crazy lady dance. What an embarrassing surprise when she realized the silver Odyssey she was entertaining a couple cars behind them wasn't us!

We also saw a gorgeous rainbow on the way home. I just saw a good rainbow less than a week before this one! We may get a lot of rain here, but these aren't that common! What a great day!

Willy

2011-04-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

Willy is a bear from Kindergarten. He's for the boys. The girls have Lily bear. Each day except Friday the "child of the week" gets to draw the stick that says who gets Willy and Lily for the night. He comes with a binder of page protectors in which goes a drawing and an explanation of what Willy did with the child he goes home with. On this last visit from Willy, I caught Avery reading to him and Carson. I love that Avery is getting reading down and that he loves it too.

Proof

2011-04-06T15:06:00.000-07:00

This is a really hard one. Somehow Carson got lucky and did it a few weeks ago!

Silver Falls

2011-04-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

For one of our Spring Break activities we took the boys up to Silver Falls.

C'mon Mom!

I'm comin' cute boy, I'm comin'

There was an awful lot of water falling down. I don't recall that I'd been to the Falls during Spring before and the amount of spray at the bottom was definitely more than I remembered! Hmm, yes, check out the pittance falling in a summer (but still cloudy!) shot from a couple years ago over on Laurie Marie Photography.

Who ordered the rain? We were rather wet by the time we hiked out and our trip was cut short. Oh, well, it was fun!

My Birthday

2011-04-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

For my birthday, which landed on a Wednesday, we went out to dinner together as a family. Travis bought cake making stuff that evening on the way home for work, but of course it was too late to do anything with it. Thursday night he had a dental continuing ed seminar so he made the cake late at night after that. So it wasn't until Friday that we lit the candles and they sung to me. After last year's cake mess, Travis played it safe with just the 9x13. Let's not count the candles, though, shall we?

I did however get cake on my actual birthday. My friend Becca showed up with a slice of chocolate heaven from Konditorei and totally made my day! Isn't that the best!? Thanks Becca!

On Saturday, Travis' parents watched the boys so I could have a day out with my man. We went to the coast despite the iffy weather (it's always iffy at the coast anyway) and it turned out to be a great visit! The drizzle kept to just the time we were in the car between beaches!

When the tide was right, we climbed around the point at Road's End to the hidden beach behind it.

We both had to hop on a rock when this sneaker wave came up.

Such a beautiful, rocky beach!

I spotted a float, so Travis had to nab it to add to his Dad's boat.

Travis under a rocky outcrop.

The view from inside.

On another beach, blue skies were chasing the clouds away!

A jetty on another beach... Watching the waves...

Is it a sneaker..?

Yup, he's moving...

Although he didn't actually have to. I love seeing the surf come in over the rocks.

A week later we had my birthday dinner with the whole family so what with that and some other bits my birthday celebration was really spread out this year. I was feeling the love longer. :)

Stretch

2011-03-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

Travis had been training for a marathon when he injured his hip. He went to physical therapy for a while but had his last appointment on Monday. He's happy to be back to running, even if he has to take it much easier for a while yet. Earlier in March he was stretching after a PT appointment and Carson joined him. I had my iPhone handy to take their picture.

Switch!

Then Emmett had to push his way in.

Great job boys!

Emmett didn't have the patience to hold one pose and made up some of his own.

Rainbow

2011-03-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

Double rainbow today!

Shamrock Lunch

2011-03-17T23:28:00.000-07:00

"Mom, what is that?!"

It's shamrock pancakes for lunch!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Emmett's Second Haircut

2011-03-08T17:43:00.000-08:00

Last night we took all three boys for haircuts. This was only Emmett's second cut after we gave him his first back in October. Emmett was begging for a cut just like his brothers, but I brought my little camera along to record proof of how he actually took it. He did all right, but after being sat in the chair he decided he was done and Daddy had to sit down and hold him. Sometimes he got whiney and squirmy, but at least the world wasn't ending the way it used to for Carson.

Look how long the top had gotten!

Look at that dirty look he's giving me! In the background Carson is getting his hair cut and Avery is dancing.

Such pouty lips!

He wasn't a fan of the razor.

Look at him peaking in the mirror

He's getting there

And he's finally free, or rather, he really won't hold still for anymore. At this point, with that cranky face, he exclaimed, "Hey, what's the big idea!?"

Snow

2011-02-27T12:20:00.000-08:00

Last week we had just a skiff of snow that didn't last at all, but I thought I'd try taking a picture of it through a couple windows.

But then this weekend we got a bit of snow that stuck. They forecast more than what would happen of course and the mass hysteria was ridiculous, but the boys certainly enjoyed it. Wednesday morning we got about this much and then it melted away.

That meant Thursday (when more snow would come) was set for school delays or cancellations. I didn't think it was worth all that but then on the way to taking the boys up to Papa and Grandma's house (they're at a higher elevation and always get a bit more when the snow comes) I had to take a detour up the hill. Why? Because the person directing traffic at the bottom of the hill said they had had 12 cars in the ditch so far that morning and it was blocked off with getting the last few out. Good Grief! School delays and cancellations aren't ridiculous, complete and utter inability of the people here to drive in the snow is ridiculous. When we were done at Papa and Grandma's the road crew had cleared out apparently done pulling people out. And then I passed another truck in the ditch. Make the count 13 in one morning.

Anyway, we obviously had no difficulty getting up the hill and here's the boys playing in the inch and a half or so of snow there.

"Look Mom! I made hands--look I made mittens" -Emmett

Get busy shoveling!

Avery tried to show Carson how to throw the snow to the side

It didn't take long for Emmett to head out the the horse trough and promptly stick his mittens in and soaking them.

Watch out!

No matter which way he leans, he can't seem to get the snowball out!

Grandma came home then and decided to make a little snowman with the boys. When she went inside to find some gloves, Emmett started to take off with her snowman start

After too much frustration with the snowballer, Emmett decided to try the old fashion hand method!

It works! He got Grandma. Good shot, Emmett

Watch out, Grandma will retaliate!

Why must tears always accompany everything with this kiddo?

Here comes Emmett with another snowball!

Oh, I guess he's going to be helpful now instead of violent.

Avery didn't have anything to do with the snowman after a brief attempt at rolling. Instead he worked hard at shoveling a pile of snow together and then pulled the little track-hoe over to dig.

The final little snowman with some dirty rocks and a pine cone nose

That day had a lot of off and on snow and sun so in the evening I saw the snow sparkling in the sun through the window

By the time I got outside with coat and gloves the snow was petering out again but I still like the little bit of sparkle.

Since the snow was stopping I paused to take some macro shots of our snowy rhododendron bushes shining in the sunset.

For a few more see Laurie Marie Photography.

Crazy E Has Style

2011-02-23T14:36:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from my cell, catching Crazy E these last few days:

Those are Nerf gun darts applied by his own father

A sweater vest pulled on backwards and Dad's snow pants. Um, fashion police?

More snow pants fun

Dad's boxing gloves utilized in a new style

Watch it, Mom...

Hobo Avery

2011-02-20T14:35:00.000-08:00

After the boys' crazy game the other day, Travis suddenly shouted for Avery to show me his feet. Hobo Avery. GO THROW THAT SOCK AWAY! He didn't. Travis found him wearing it again later and marched him to the garbage himself. I don't know how that one got so bad, but for some reason these kids don't want to get rid of their holey socks. Ugh. Meanwhile, that's Carson checking his socks for holes too!

iPhone pic played around with in the PS Express app.

Boys

2011-02-19T13:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the boys started playing a new game. I took these pictures with my cell.

Who's king of the mountain now?

Unfortunately, this was directed straight at the tv stand and one of them was bound to get their head bonked, so Dad told them to stop and why.

Did they stop? No. They took into consideration the "why" and simply changed direction. *sigh* Boys.

Bellevue Trip

2011-02-18T16:09:00.000-08:00

Early this month Travis and I went up to Bellevue, WA for Travis to attend a dental seminar and for me to have a nice break with him. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency where the seminar was and we had a great time!

This was our room:

We were happy to eat again at Maggiano's which we miss from our time in Milwaukee, WI and the Bellevue location is the closest one to us now! We also hit up Jimmy Johns which we've missed since Milwaukee too! Those are in Oregon, but we need one in Salem! While Travis was at his seminar I enjoyed great shopping across the street from the hotel at Bellevue Square Mall, and traveling around with my camera. Some of my photographs from the trip can be seen on Laurie Marie Photography at:
Bellevue Botanical Gardens
Bellevue, WA Downtown Park
Bird | Fine Art Photography

February is Dental Health Month

2011-02-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

February is National Children's Dental Health Month so last week Avery's kindergarten class went on a field trip to the dentist office of the mother of one of his classmates. Avery had a great time, but was sure to tell everyone his Dad was a dentist too. Thankfully, according to his teachers, that's all he said and they thought he was cute about it. That's good since the morning they went he was a little cranky about the class not going to his Dad's office.
Avery brought back a bag of fun stuff from the office and the following day while Avery was gone to school Emmett played "doctor."

The timer for how long you're supposed to brush your teeth kept getting taken out of its casing and it didn't take long for it to get broken... thankfully on the hardwood so there was no blue sand in my carpet.

Pirate Glasses

2011-02-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

They're not sunglasses anymore, they're Pirate Glasses! Gratuitous iPhone pics from this morning when we took Avery to school.
Arrr, Matey!

Windy Day And Washers

2011-02-15T16:19:00.000-08:00

For the last few months our washing machine has been shaking our house down, progressively getting worse and worse. Saturday we went out to look at washing machines and ended up coming home with a washer/dryer set. Cool beans!

While we were out the wind really picked up and at one intersection the line holding the lights snapped free and we saw the fire fighters running after it to hold it down while they figured out what to do.

Same intersection, across the street, another light had broken free of the bottom cable and was waving all over the place.

Travis' brother Kevin was out that day too and he saw something much more tragic. A large branch broke from a tree and blew into a motorcyclist, causing him to swerve into oncoming traffic and get nailed by a truck! It makes me sick thinking about such freak accidents like that and of course we don't even know if the man survived. I wish we could have closure on a story like that. My thoughts go out to anyone involved.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T21:14:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day! No, we were not new and original this year, but we did do a whole rainbow of colors instead of just red and purple like last year. Template via MADE.

The boys made Valentine's for their Dad and we went and surprised him for lunch.

We had pink heart pancakes with Valentine M&Ms for dinner

And what would the day be without Emmett leaving a lovely red Valentine for me too. (I'm feeling some Goo Gone love tonight.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Go Pack Go!

2011-02-07T22:39:00.000-08:00

The family always gets together for the Superbowl, but with some rabid Packer fans in the family and our affinity for having lived in Wisconsin for four years, we were more excited about this game than usual.
Since Kevin is the big Packer fan, of course he and Katrina had Packer gear on and little Julie had a cute cheerleader outfit. For a while, she had fun with Emmett pushing her around.

Up the hall

And back down the hall. Over and over.

Alli had a turn pushing too

When Emmett and Julie weren't fighting over either the Toy Story or Princess couches, they snuggled up.

In our family, only Avery had a packer shirt, but the rest of us found green and gold to suffice.

The boys each had Julie's hat crammed on their heads just for kicks.

Carson hammed it up for the camera.

But most importantly, we all enjoyed watching the Packers win!

Go Pack Go!

About Us Blurbs

2011-01-30T18:25:00.000-08:00

It's been a whopping 2 years since I updated the About Us blurbs on the right side of the blog. If you want to read the old ones, they're posted here along with a little collage of some super cute pictures of Emmett when he was only 4 months old! That really makes these two years seem like a long time! Meanwhile, here's the new ones that will grace the sidebar, and hopefully I can try to update them once a year instead of in another two! Although, I can't imagine Travis and mine will change much from here.

I met Travis in Institute at Oregon State University in 2001 and we were married Aug 2002. We have 3 boys, Avery, Carson and Emmett. After four years in Milwaukee, WI for Travis to attend Marquette University Dental School, we now are back home in Salem, OR. I love photography and run a business, Laurie Marie Photography. I love nature and feel like I can't get enough of its beauty. Going to the dunes is one of my favorite things to do, as I get nature and driving fast on a quad or in a sandrail! I also love book club.

Travis is a dentist here in Salem at Hunsaker Dental.
Travis' other accomplishments to date: a general handyman extraordinaire, general construction, pro concrete finisher, woodworking, fly tying, good general vehicle knowledge for fixing our cars, etc. etc. He's very useful to have around!
Travis loves going shooting, riding his motorcycle, woodworking, working on/fixing things, going to the Oregon dunes with his quad and homebuilt sandrail, hunting, fishing, crabbing, snowboarding, and water sports.

Avery was born in Dec 2004 and is now 6 and a Kindergartner. He loves being a big brother to Carson and Emmett.
When he grows up Avery still wants to be a dentist and all the other "jobs" he was going to do as well have taken a back seat. Occasionally he thinks he'd like to be a dentist as well as whatever type of science related job strikes his fancy. Avery continues to be off the chart tall, and while he's not as skinny as he used to be, he's still skinny.
Avery tells me what he loves: riding the quad, karate (which he "practices" at home), playing with his toys, SpongeBob, everything science, dinosaurs, bones, animals, reading science books, watching science shows, flying kites, the snow, playing with his brothers, riding his bike, playing on the Wii, going on dates with Mom.

Carson was born in March of 2007 and is now almost 4 years old.
He loves his brothers and doing whatever his brothers are doing. Carson has amazing patience when it comes to puzzles. He is an incredible puzzler. He loves fruits, vegetables, chicken nuggets, nachos or any type of "nacho" soup, pb&j and that's about it. At least he loves fruits and vegetables! Carson is our sweet sensitive boy and struggled a little saying goodbye to Mom for a while when going to his preschool, but he's doing better now. His fixation with Lightning McQueen and the movie Cars continues, but he also loves Toy Story, Tom & Jerry and a few others. Carson is still tall, but not off the chart like his brothers.

Emmett was born in September of 2008 and is now 2 years old.
Emmett is our Mr. Mischief. He's not just curiously getting into things the way Avery always did, he actually looks to make mischief. He looks for things he can do to get a rise out of someone. He loves to be loud and run, but still loves to be cuddled. Emmett loves taking Carson to preschool so he can have some time to play with play-doh and other fun things not available at home. Emmett loves to go go go, running, playing, everything, he's on the go. Emmett continues to be off the chart tall, but he has more breadth than Avery. Maybe he'll be our football player.

Mustache

2011-01-29T15:53:00.000-08:00

Carson is enjoying the mustache look lately. Here's a couple from my camera phone.

I cut a red pepper to look like a heart for Carson and Emmett and Carson discovered an awesome fu manchu mustache after biting the bottom of the heart off.

Sunny Day

2011-01-24T15:12:00.000-08:00

Saturday was a lovely day, in fact, it's still quite nice out, so the boys went out to ride their bikes while Travis washed the cars.

The boys did try to help with the washing, but this was all they managed around the whole van and then quit it.

Instead, they drove and ran back and forth through the soapy water.

Splash splash splash

Who doesn't love to splash?

Spokane Again

2011-01-21T11:46:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we went back up to Spokane for a short visit so Travis could attend a dental seminar.

So Avery had to make Avery Cakes again the first morning (and had more from the leftover batter the next morning)!

Grandpa showed him how to crack an egg and then let Avery do the second one. That picture didn't turn out.

Carefully pour the eggs and oil

Carefully pour the milk

Mix.

Grandpa even made an A for Avery. Obviously he followed that up with a C for Carson and an E for Emmett too.

And of course there was more Dominoes.

And Mom pulled out a box of little "choking-hazard" toys that had been put away for so long since there was always a baby around, but now that the kids are old enough it was time to bring it out. Carson loved the farm animals. We lined them all up in groups, then set up a pen and he carefully added as many to that pen as he could.

I love this kid's patience in carefully playing with things!

"Mom, I love them!"

Setting up the "humans" just right to feed the animals

This poor guy was out of luck though.

"Look Mom, I'm in a tunnel!" Whatever you say, Emmett.

Avery also wanted to make cinnamon rolls with Grandma. Carson and cousins Chloe and Jace helped out too.

Then I found Avery and Jace relaxing together. I can't help but wonder how this came about.

So we got the other kiddos to get in there too (Emmett was napping)

Silly boys!

When Emmett woke up he came in and matter-of-factly climbed up next to Grandma like that was obviously the natural thing to do.

Soon it was time to say goodbye and hit the road. The truck had already been filled so we were good to go for the whole trip (the truck's tank is big enough that we don't have to stop like we do with every other vehicle) and we made great time. We even saw a rainbow over the gorge. It was a great drive home... until...

Until we were 15 minutes from home (after 7 hours of driving) and Avery says, "I'm not feeling so good" then starts throwing up all over the place 10 seconds later. Thanks for the warning Avery. Turns out the poor guy hadn't been feeling good for a while but was trying not to be a bother by not saying anything. Obviously that back-fired when not saying anything turned into a much bigger mess. I think we will travel with barf bags from now on. We know too much junk (like at New Year's) makes him sick, and we've decided junk plus driving does too. He puked all over Grandma H's car after eating a bunch of McD's and then driving around a while. He puked right after getting out of the car with Gma H and Papa after Papa let him eat a whole sleeve of Oreos. And now grilled cheese and fries (and to make it worse that's a much greasier meal than he typically gets when we do fast food) from Jack in the Box plus hours of driving with us got him. Ugh. So gross. At least he can look at all those incidences and realizes that he needs to take it easy with that kind of food. And despite feeling better after we got home, he willingly decided on his own to pass up any dinner and take it easy. Poor kid. What a bummer way to end the trip, but the rest of the trip was great!

Mud

2011-01-20T13:17:00.000-08:00

Back on the 11th we had a little bit of snow fall that just dusted the ground and probably melted within a few hours. But seeing the snow, the boys just had to go outside and play. A short while later Carson came upstairs into the office like this.

Oh, look, the mud keeps going.

And going and going and going, right down to the muddy boots still on his feet that he walked up my carpeted stairs in. *UGH!* He left a big muddy streak on the wall by the back door too. I don't think his going outside to play was worth it, and based on how quickly he came in, I don't think he thought it was worth it either.

Shooting

2011-01-19T14:46:00.000-08:00

On New Year's Day, loads of the Hunsaker family drove into the Cascade foothills to go shooting. I didn't go. Carson would have hated the noise and Emmett would have needed to be left strapped in his car seat to keep him safe, he's just too young and all over the place to be let around that kind of thing. Also, this new location they shot at turned out to be particularly child unfriendly because it was right off the road without a lot of room to do anything but shoot, so there would be no taking them off separately to play in the snow or anything. I didn't get to go last year either. Travis wants to make it up to me by taking me shooting just the two of us for a date, which sounds great, we haven't done that since before kids, but that's not quite the same as going with the whole family. It's been three years since the last time I got to go with everyone.

Here's Travis, Angela and DeAnna shooting the .50 cal. Check out what happens to the stuff on the table when Travis shoots. Angela and DeAnna show how the gun kicks.

Shooting 50 cal BMG from Laurie H on Vimeo.

.

Here someone shoots some Tannerite, a legal exploding target.

Shooting Tannerite from Laurie H on Vimeo.

That gate was like swiss cheese from so many people using this place as a shooting range.
Here's a picture of what the .50 looks like in the fence

This is the inside of the tube. The lump at the bottom is what the .50 did to 2 inches of steal. All the other lumps and holes higher up are in a section of steal that's only half the width of the base. Only the .50 made a mark in the double thick section! That's some serious power.

Here's a picture I found showing a good comparison of the .50 to other bullet sizes. That's the .50 on the left.

Avery also got to shoot and even his his target on the first shot.

Avery's turn to shoot from Laurie H on Vimeo.

New Year's

2011-01-17T12:22:00.000-08:00

I only took one picture leading up to midnight. Avery ate too many sausage, cheese and Ritz cracker sandwiches and then puked it all out. So I had to take care of him and then he curled up in my lap and fell asleep and this is the one shot I took with my phone.

When midnight came I woke Avery and asked if he wanted to participate in the merry making outside.
He did, although I don't think he was in the best mood. In fact, when the kids were on the porch waiting for the adults to finish with the guns and the cannon, I caught this shot of the punk mid-naughtiness.

Finally, the grown-ups were done and the kids got to play with a few sparklers and poppers.

This was Emmett's first sparkler!

Olivia loved her sparkler

Avery's popper turned out to be rather stuck and aunt Angela had to help.

Happy New Year!

The Drive Home

2011-01-16T21:34:00.000-08:00

This is basically a scenic post. Before I get to the drive home, I said in the first post about Spokane that we went out the morning that Spokane was freshly blanketed in snow so I could take pictures of the winter wonderland the city had become. Most of those I have posted over on Laurie Marie Photography, but here are two others from the morning:

I can't help but wonder, is this the crazy duck lady's house?

The local public pool was looking a lot more private than public.

On the drive home snowy Spokane could only partially be seen through the icy windshield. It was sunny and glistening out and I wish there had been a little of that on my snowy photographic expedition the day before.

Watch out!

Back in the gorge, the sun had just recently set when we came to the first views of Mt. Hood.

The boys did really well on the drive, thankfully, and we made it home in decent time.

Today, I'm actually getting this posted after we just got back from Spokane again for a short weekend there for Travis to attend a dental seminar. The drive home didn't end up quite as decently. The details can wait for that post.

Avery Cakes

2011-01-13T16:02:00.000-08:00

Avery loves to help cook. Since Grandma B. is extra patient about that with him, it's one of the special highlights of seeing Grandma for Avery. For this particular post, it's Grandpa who helped Avery cook. One morning we were in Spokane, eating pancakes, and Avery proclaimed that he wanted to make a new secret recipe: Graham Cracker Pancakes. So Grandpa (who's always experimenting with new and different pancake recipes) made a recipe for Avery. They even ground their own wheat flour to use in it! So, this particular recipe has been christened "Avery Cakes" and they are quite delicious. Avery loves them. Think you want the recipe? Sorry, Avery has decided this is a top secret family-only recipe. In fact, he would be concerned if he knew I told you they were graham cracker pancakes!

Family

2011-01-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

Part of our trip to Spokane included dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, the Old Spaghetti Factory, with all of the family who could come. That would be my Mom down on the end saying hello. She must know if I have a camera to my face, I will use a picture like this!

Grandma came down to our end of the table after we ate.

My Uncle Benji sits thoughtfully.

Cousins (actually they're second cousins once removed, but cousins works) Karley and my niece Chloe.

Back home, my sister Morgan came over with her kids Chloe and Jace. We wanted a picture of all the kids but Carson wasn't feeling good and had fallen asleep in Travis' lap so we just piled them all around Travis.

Emmett rather took to Morgan. When I put him to bed that night he asked where she was and gave a great sigh when repeating my answer "Morgan went her home." It was very cute.

But he's a cute kid.

Also a playful one.

It was a fun evening!

Dominoes

2011-01-11T13:24:00.000-08:00

Avery was very excited to play dominoes again with Grandma again. He still remembers them from Thanksgiving 2009! Oh, and in my Mom's defense, she did not have this Fall tablecloth on for Christmas, she had to put it on so the dominoes would work or they just slid in place when you blew on them on the slick wood.

Those two have way too much fun!

There they go!

Carson came to join in the fun

Well, he got the end down anyway.

But he's still figuring out how this directional blowing thing works...

Okay, I know I'm biased, but I love that picture of Carson! I think seeing his thought process in the picture and just how cute he is already makes this an adorable photo!

After plenty of lines of dominoes, Grandma taught Avery how to play the game of dominoes and that's a new favorite. They played many times during the visit. Somehow I didn't get a picture of that.

Second Christmas in Spokane

2011-01-10T18:26:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas we drove up to Spokane to see my family.
The boys were very excited about another Christmas and took to wearing the Santa hats immediately.

They were also super excited about the snow. When we got there it was just hard and crusty, but Avery still spent a good part of the first day out in it.

Emmett got an elephant mask for Christmas and my cousin Tammy modeled it for us all. My cousin Lori from Tennessee who I haven't seen since (I think) I was 16 when our Grandma Benjamin died, was also visiting.

And then the snow came! Lots and lots. Well, about six inches anyway. Avery ran alongside Grandpa the whole time he used the snow blower (which was on half the block!) letting himself be blasted by the snow.

He has about 4-6 inches of snow plastered to the side of his head here!

Have I mentioned Travis is training for the Newport marathon this summer? I haven't, but he decided to right after Thanksgiving. Even in all that snow he went running. Look at the frosty sweat on his eyebrows.

Travis and Dad got the driveway dug out so we could go out for me to take pictures of the snow covered parks. At one of our stops, we took the boys into the greenhouse in Manito Park. Notice Avery is now wearing a giant flannel coat and Grandma's gloves? Yeah, well, turning yourself into a human snowman by getting blasted by a snow blower makes for very soggy outerwear.

The greenhouse was decked out in lights (which weren't on) and had candycane flower arrangements.

And the boys really liked Santa's sleigh and reindeer.

Back home, it was time to build a snowman! Carson "helped" for a very short time and then was ready to come in.

Carson is our puzzler. He's so like his mother. So he stayed warm and dry while Travis and Avery worked on the snowman (and Emmett took a nap)

That broken lawnmower deck saw a lot of mileage from Avery. The snow was way too fluffy for rolling, so Travis had to painstakingly pack it on a handful at a time.

Don't forget to catch the snowflakes!

This was cute, Avery leaned companionably up against the snowman and gave me a big smile through the window, clearly posing for a picture. That doesn't happen often, so of course I was happy to oblige.

Carson took a break to show his Curious George how progress was coming along on the snowman.

Once Travis had the snowman to height, he marked lines where he was going to sculpt it to look like it had been rolled. And then suddenly our snowman wasn't a man anymore. But only long enough for Travis to get a laugh from me.

Finishing touches. So cute that Travis sticks his tongue out when he works sometimes.

And there you have it. After a lot of work and a few hours, here's Travis' ~6' 9" snowman.

More Spokane to come.

Christmas

2011-01-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas! Before bed on Christmas Eve Dad read to the boys How the Grinch Stole Christmas

And I closed with their favorite and mine: Santa Mouse

I wonder what Avery is "Oing" about

But Carson's face takes the cake.

Excited about having just put out cookies and milk for Santa

This year Santa got chocolate milk. I think the boys were trying to butter him up for some extra awesome presents.

First look in the morning!

The cookies are gone!

Avery working out who this gift is for

It's for Emmett, but he was willing to share.

But then Dad collected Avery and Carson's chairs so they could each have their own space.

One of the gifts for Emmett was a pair of fleece Lightning McQueen jammies which he instantly wanted on.

After I took off the cardboard he happily yanked the pants on right over what he was already wearing!

But he needed some help with the top.

Carson just sat hugging one of his gifts he was so happy.

Love watching the excited faces!

Avery is literally jumping for joy here as he shouts "AWESOME!" over his set of science books.

But a favorite amongst them all was the Mater the Greater set. This has seen a lot of play. Notice Avery has added a monster truck for Mater to jump over.

Then it was time to go to Travis' parent's for Christmas.

Julie had an adorable Santa outfit. She likes to climb so the gate has to be put up.

Of course that means Emmett got frustrated when he got stuck on the other side and forgot how to get to the front stairs to get back down. Actually, we thought he forgot, but then when they tried to show him the front stairs he balked at them, so maybe he didn't forget, he just doesn't like them because they're round so the steps are narrow on one side and feel more exposed with an open banister on one side.

Time for presents!

Emmett found a seat for himself.

I tend to capture some great faces of Angela a lot.

Happy Avery

Happy Carson for Avery

Avery also got a guitar which Carson wasn't so happy about - he wanted one too!

Happy Carson for himself

Happy Emmett. Love the tongue.

Hope you had a great Christmas day too!

With Great Anticipation

2010-12-24T20:48:00.000-08:00

We've decked the halls and enjoyed the view

We've thought about the meaning of this wonderful season

And now we wait with great anticipation...

Hope you have a:

2010 Christmas Card And Letter

2010-12-23T13:57:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

Feliz Navidad!

May Yours Be Merry and Bright!

Season's Greetings!

and...

Holiday Crafts

2010-12-22T15:14:00.000-08:00

I already posted about Avery's Holiday Workshop, but since then I've taken pictures of the other crafts Avery made at the workshop as well as his school projects and have decided to post a few of them too. Since we can't possibly keep every school project, I try to take a picture of each one.

Remember the gingerbread cookie Avery made? A few pirates looted it.

I know I already showed the dove in the Holiday Workshop post, but here's a closer look.

Here's the cone I tried to explain. The ribbon was painstakingly threaded through tiny hole punches so that no knots were necessary. The bell was also small enough that it could be threaded on the ribbon and stay put without any knots. The cone was prepared for us ahead of time.

This is made of gold and silver bells threaded on a silver pipe cleaner.

The rest of these are projects they did in school.
This was one of three ornaments they each made and had hanging on their tree in school. It's my favorite of the three.

This was another of the three and I can see that this could be a fun one for kids with endless possibilities.

And this is the third they had hanging on their tree.

This was one that Avery brought home as a gift to me earlier in December.

Here's one more of Avery's projects. I know there's no way to tell in this picture, but the other Mom's at the workshop wanted to compare their hands to Avery's when they saw how big these "antlers" were! Seriously, the kid has big hands.

Here is another of my favorite Christmas projects to come home, but this one is Carson's. That's his palm and two middle fingers.

I love all these holiday crafts! They're so much fun and I love that the kids come home with some really quality ones from this school.

Roofing

2010-12-19T22:42:00.000-08:00

Saturday was a particularly insane day with a bridal shower and a photo shoot for me, two back-to-back 6 year old birthday parties (the second was a sleepover! What a brave mom!) for Avery and Travis spent the day fixing his sister Angela's roof which was damaged in the tornado.
When I finished my photo shoot I had to switch cars with Travis so I could go pick up Carson and Emmett from Grandma and I stopped a minute to get the handy-man's picture.