Trains

It's been a while since we made a giant train track!





The boys loved it so much I didn't even make them clean it up last night, and I probably won't tonight either.

Avery's Battle Wound

12 days after The Chainsaw Incident, we took the butterfly bandage off and here's what's left. It's smaller than Carson's was, but closer to the eye.


And what's the point of taking pictures if you can't make funny faces?

Playtime

Avery has been giving Carson a lot of horse rides lately




Occasionally, Carson says he'll give Avery a ride, but he always lays down to do it


Here's Emmett having way too much fun with Lightning McQueen and Mater


Carson and Emmett really like playing in the window sill.


Emmett discovered a better use for the punching bag


and Avery and Carson had to join in




Such silly boys

Ma

I finally exist in Emmett's vocabulary!
His first word was "here" but after always hearing us respond with "thank you" he eventually stopped saying here in favor of thank you. That has been going on for several months and it took a while before anything else understandable came along.
As it now stands, I rank below:
Tank oo (thank you)
Da (Dad)
dree (drink)
draw (drop/dropped)
that (blanket/monkey)
hi
saw (sock)
That's right, I even rank below sock.
But that's okay, because two days ago when Emmett finally called "Ma" to me, it melted my heart! For the rest of the day he called to me a variety of "Ma" "Mom" and "Ma Ma" and it was so sweet.
When he wakes from naps I usually let him chat it out until he decides he's done and starts screaming before I get him. Yesterday, I didn't wait to get him because (it was so cute!) he was calling for me,
"Ma! MA! ma. ma. MA!"

Open Up

Sunday night we had Kevin and Katrina over for dinner and some Wii fun (and the Chainsaw Incident). Emmett is fascinated with little Julie. He was (repeatedly) trying to be a helpful boy and give Julie her pacifier. Repeatedly meaning he would remove it so he could do it again. Thank goodness Julie was so patient with him!


Emmett decided he needed lap time with Aunt Katrina too!


Emmett also tried to pick up and hold Julie and would lay on the ground with her when she was. He was very sweet with her and it was too cute!

An Eye for an Eye

Avery got to tell his teachers in preschool today that his brother cut him with a chainsaw.

Last night (right before we we're going to sit down with Kevin and Katrina for dinner) Carson ran into Avery with a toy chainsaw that Grandma Hunsaker had bought for Carson only the day before. Avery was hit just right and ended up with a good little split below his right eye. Of course it wasn't funny that he was hurt, but I couldn't help but laugh at the location. "An eye for an eye, I guess!" Why? Because just over 11 months ago Avery nailed Carson with a golf club in almost the same spot and the cut sizes and orientations are almost identical. (read about that here) However, this time we didn't go the stitches route. We started dinner while Avery laid his face on a cold pack at the table and Travis went to get some butterfly bandages since the only ones we had left were too big.
I didn't get a picture of the cut because I was busy cleaning up dinner when Travis took care of Avery, but here he is today after we took the band-aid off.

Pizza

This morning I noticed Avery working hard rolling the kids' punching bag over his Transformer blanket.
"What are you doing?"
"Rolling out my dough for pizza"
"Oh?"
"Yup."
When he finished "rolling his dough" he laid his Pooh Bear blanket on top, then ran around collecting balloons that are still around from his birthday. And there you have it: dough, sauce and toppings.
Avery's giant pizza.

Lounging with Daddy

My boys sure love their Daddy!

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve means yummy eats! I made two kinds of chocolates.


Cheese fondue is a must at New Year's and we also have a chocolate fountain. The chocolate fountain isn't actually Travis or my favorite, but I do think the best way to eat a strawberry is with chocolate!


Emmett didn't need chocolate, he was stealing strawberries all night! I kept having to snag the stems from him before he could eat them.


Avery and Carson had fun playing with a bucket full of cars that were their Daddy's and Uncle Kevin's when they were little.


My Dad had to come back down for just a one night stop-over and he couldn't stay up all night. It worked out great for us because that meant I could take Carson and Emmett home for a decent bedtime and let Grandpa stay with them. Avery we let stay up but with the warning that it would be really late and we didn't want to hear any whining about it. Of course he got tired, but he didn't whine. About 11:45 he came to me and in a tired voice that was full of 'wow, this is hard, I'm not sure I can do it' tone started with "Mom..." and since I could tell where he was going I interrupted him.
"It's tough staying up late, huh?"
"Yeah." feeble chuckle
"Well, I know you're tired, but it's almost done."
"Okay"
Since it was too wet, we couldn't really do any fireworks like in past years, but some guns were shot and the cannon was lit once. With such a short end, I can see why Avery thought it was rather anti-climactic.
"That's it!?"
You could tell he was wondering why a New Year merited staying up so long just to do that.


The funny thing is, Avery's always saying "I'm gonna stay up all night long" or if the boys are up late and we tell them it's really late he always wants to know "is it the middle of the night!?" There's something mythical about the "middle of the night" for him. So when we got home and got Avery ready for bed, when Travis suddenly said, "Avery! Guess what? It's the middle of the night!" Avery's face lit up like that was the coolest thing ever. He did it. He finally made it to the middle of the night. Who cares about New Years next to that?

A Holiday Favorite

This is absolutely one of my favorite things about Christmas time - the Christmas cards! I love getting the catch-up on friends and family from the year. Getting them in the mail is like getting to open a present every time one arrives. I managed to shove most of the the cards we got into this garland and I feel like it warms the room. They make for one of my favorite Christmas decorations!

On the 28th, after having to say goodbye to my parents, we spent the day putting away the Christmas decorations (and I went shopping the sales for more!) Maybe it was a little early to take them down, but the tree was a definite fire hazard and if that was coming down, so was most of the rest of it. The one thing I've left up is my lovely card garland. It will probably be around for most of January.

Snow!

Yesterday we went to Portland with Travis' parents. On the way back it was snowing quite a bit, and apparently we missed the worst of it. Later, the traffic got so bad that people were stalled more than 6 hours and were running out of gas. Many cars were abandoned on the freeway.
It was nice to go to Portland, but I missed the opportunity to traipse around in the snow with my camera! By the time we got home, it was dusk. There was only a thin layer at our house.
Carson gently reached down and touched his hand to the snow. I showed him I could make a hand print too. Then Avery wanted one next to mine. So I called Travis over and told him to join it. I should have had him get Emmett too! Here's Avery, me, Travis and Carson:


Emmett wanted to take off once we put him down in the snow


After getting inside, Travis told the boys to keep their shoes and coats on and took them out back to try the rock climber in the snow.






At this point I think the snow had turned to sleet and it was time to go in.


After going inside, Emmett took exception to the bit of snow still on his fingers.

Since the boys didn't really get to play in it, I hope that's not the last of snow we see this winter! We really just need to take a trip into the mountains so they can have some real fun.

Shooting, A Stitch, And Less Exciting Matters

The day after Christmas, everyone went shooting except my Mom and I stayed home with Emmett and Carson. As much as I love to go shooting, I didn't particular want to get stuck just babysitting in the cold or just sitting in the van as would inevitably be the case since nothing could be done with Emmett and Carson wouldn't like it either. So "Less Exciting Matters," except to me, means Mom and I did a puzzle. I haven't done an honest adult level puzzle since before Avery could climb. I used to do them all the time and it was so nice to puzzle again. It was only doable with two of us working on it so we could finish in the space of Emmett's nap time. Carson loves puzzles so much he really liked helping us, although it was rather frustrating for him.
Back to Shooting. I'm sure everyone had a blast. Apparently a cop showed up at one point since someone had called concerned about the racket (they were up in the coast range, it's not like there's a ton of people there). I guess the cop basically took a look around at the fun family affair, chuckled, and said carry on.
Here is a picture Dad took of Avery getting to shoot:


And on a side note, Travis' little sister Megan recently managed to get her thumb in the way of some cross ties (or something like that) on a crazy horse and got it ripped up nicely. This girl takes more injuries, and in stride, than anyone I know. It's easy to tell from her clean, lotioned, soft skin that she hasn't seen a day of labor in her life. ha. I suppose when you practically live with horses, that's what your hands look like. This was what she had to show us on Christmas. One stitch is going straight through her thumbnail.

Christmas

Christmas morning Travis and I woke up pretty early. About 7:30 I was in the hall and heard Carson say to Avery, "Avery! It's not dark anymore!" I guess that was the cue for them to come out.
First things, first: "Look! Santa really came, he ate the cookies!" So it's the missing cookies and not the hordes of presents under the tree that tell you that, Avery?


Before anyone could open anything, we had to have breakfast. Travis made Avery a snowman:


Um, I'm not actually sure what he made Carson, a teddy bear?


And then he called me in for mine and look what my sweetheart made me!


Finally, after Mom had to take a pesky picture, it was time. The volume of presenst under that tree are obscene. My parents had a huge part in swelling the mass. I think they enjoyed being able to give without worrying how much could fit in suitcases as was the inhibitor the last four years.


Emmett was slower to eat than the rest of us, so we started opening without him. This is him calling to tell us he's ready to join in the fun.


It's funny how a new baby gift can be so interesting to older boys...


I made my Mom this bag (as you can see, red is her favorite color) and one in the same colors for myself while I was at it! I was so proud of my little sewing skills that I wrapped mine up too for me to open. I know, silly, but I felt good about it!


Grandma and Grandpa got the boys each a new monster truck. They're great! They don't want to stop even when they hit a wall.


Time to check out the stocking loot!


This was a cute moment because Emmett kept pushing the button that would play the truck's radio and he was bopping his head along, thoroughly enjoying the tunes.


Carson checking out my new mirror


After our Christmas morning, we all went to Travis' parents' house. My Mom really enjoyed holding Kevin and Katrina's little Julie


Emmett always likes checking in on Julie too.


Travis, Avery and Carson stayed at the Hunsaker's while Mom, Dad and I took Emmett home for a nap and to prepare our part of Christmas dinner.
That evening after an excellent Christmas dinner, Carson had a serious discussion about coloring with Grandpa Benjamin


And Travis tried out his new remote control rock crawler.

Ben also showed us all (Travis had seen it, having helped him move it) his latest purchase, a full size pop dispenser he's going to hook up out in his shop. It can hold pop cans, 20oz bottles or Snapple style bottles.

Since Christmas, we've found that one of the biggest hits of has been the many puzzles we bought for the boys. Carson especially is quite the puzzler.
The monster trucks, 150 piece wooden block set, more Transformers and Transformer bedding for Avery, Carson's own Transformer, and a big dinosaur for each boy have also been great.
Another love was the blu-ray set of Planet Earth I got for Avery, Planet Earth being one of his favorite things to watch. P.S., if anyone's interested, we got the BBC version at Costco for half the price of the Discovery version. The only difference is it's an English chap narrating instead.
Travis (and the rest of us, frankly) are loving his new PS3, especially since that means we now have a blu-ray player and the Netflix streaming is a great bonus.
I am loving L.O.V.I.N.G. my new lens so Travis did a good job with that one (although he knew I thought if money was to be spent on me I wanted that or nothing at all.)

Another hit gift has some background: Avery's best stuffed friend is Monkey, and Carson's is Curious George, so I thought it only right that Emmett have his own monkey. He hadn't yet attached to any stuffed friend, so we went through the stuffed animals that have been put away since Milwaukee and found 3 monkeys that none of the boys probably even remember. All three were put in a box for Emmett and I hoped he would find one interesting and attach. Hallelujah, my plan worked. He definitely chose one, the smallest one in fact, over the others and he's definitely attached to it since then.

What a GREAT Christmas!