Go Beavs!

Thanks to Bumpa, Grammy, Uncle Lance and Auntie Laurie, our family is decked out in Beaver gear and ready to cheer our Beavs from afar!

A little O - S - U cheer ... or is that a TOUCHDOWN!?  We'll hope it's a touchdown!

Cousins Benjamin and Trevin are probably decked out in orange today too and are probably hoping their Longhorns have a few touchdowns also!  One thing we know for sure - a team wearing orange will win the Alamo Bowl this afternoon (here's hoping it's ours!).

UPDATE:  Sigh....it wasn't ours...

Christmas 2012

2012's edition of the Christmas Holiday was another memorable one!  We enjoyed being home at Bumpa and Grammy's with Uncle Geoff's family there too.

Bumpa and Grammy have lots of experience in entertaining grand kids and the kiddos kept begging for more!

There was plenty of snow for sledding and even a wipe out at the bottom wasn't enough to dampen their spirits.

The beautiful snow covered mountain range of my youth.

Sweet Aislyn with her sparkly eyes and infectious grin.

Engrossed in Angry Birds on Grammy's iPad.

Three sweet chillins'.

Santa surprised us all with a quick, Christmas Eve rest stop.  Lane was the only one willing to get close.  The rest of the kiddos were not sure what to think of the big man in red.  The only thing that coaxed Morgan out of the back room was the fact that he had a little something in his bag for her.  Even then, she would NOT sit in his lap.  So family pictures with Santa will have to suffice.(:

Unwrapping gifts with Auntie Jocelyn's help.

Both Lane and Morgan were happy to find Lego's in packages with their names on it!

Now Christmas is behind us and now we're looking ahead to New Year's.  Hope you all enjoy a happy New Year!

A Week in Pictures

This week was memorable in that Daddy was off to Chicago on a business trip.  While he was gone, we had two No School days due to two separate storm systems that dumped about 2 feet on us.  Thankfully Daddy thought to give me a tutorial on how to use the snow blower.  It was needed!  What I learned really quickly was that it is not nearly as easy as he makes it look!

A snowy winter wonderland.

Another look.  I had to get a picture of the icicles before Ryan shoveled the roof.  He managed to get an earlier flight to make it out of Chicago before they started canceling flights due to weather.  After a long trip home today, he told us all hello and then headed right back out to start shoveling.  Poor guy.  (But boy were there three excited kiddos and one happy wife when he walked through the door!)

Meanwhile, all the snow has me feeling a bit like this:

I don't know what it is about snow gear but it seems like just after you get them all geared up and send them out, one of them has to go potty, or a glove falls off, or a poopy diaper aroma fills the air.  It's almost guaranteed!

While we weren't out playing and blowing snow, the kids found a new section in our little 'library.'(:

And we did our best to stay warm while making a few little gifts. Is there any better combination then hot chocolate and marsh mellows?  (If you are the 5 and under age group at least!)

Happy Holidays and we hope you're all staying warm!

Snowy Days

The snow has hung around this week and the kids have been making the most of it. 

Sledding is definitely the activity of choice.  They started out trying to sled down those stairs you see behind Lane.  That quickly got nixed (I'm such a mean mom!) and they decided the small hill next to the house would work.  It isn't much of a hill but the frozen puddle at the bottom means they slide a fair ways.

Of course there are other ways to entertain oneself on a sled (and yes, she did narrowly avoid the tree!).

Hmmm...how does this thing GO?!  Another example of the 'Monkey see, Monkey do' phenomenon that occurs on a regular basis around here... 

These two boys love digging in snow too.  However, one of them does NOT like gloves (or a hat for that matter).  Apparently the 'Monkey see, Monkey do' phenomenon does not apply to practical situations, only the 'let's see if we can make Mommy cringe' situations! 



Photos in a Winter Wonderland

Snow arrived just in time for our annual attempt at getting a holiday photo (quite accomodating, huh?).

We wish you all the best this Holiday Season and in the New Year!

Special Visitors

Special Meetings are a wonderful time and this year we had two very special visitors.  We hadn't seen Lyle since we moved from Oregon.  It was so nice to catch up and spend some time with him.  I failed to get a picture though.

Our second visitor was an old friend from my college days whom we haven't seen since before our kids came along.  Lindi's been overseas and it was so fun to hear of her experiences.  I love friendships that pick up right where you left off, even though years have passed in between.  They are truly special friendships!

Morgan pored over Lindi's map and was fascinated by all the foreign names.  Lindi was happy to repeat names as many times as Morgan asked.  And she asked many, many times!(: 

Thanksgiving 2012

We enjoyed turning Thanksgiving into a week long holiday out on the farm with Grandpa Larry - we figured with a 12 hour one way trip, a few extra days might be nice!  They certainly were.

The old gnarled trees in the reservoir are one of my favorite places on the farm.  All the kids love it too.  No need for toys when there are trees to climb and sticks to play with!

Here they are, trucking off to explore with their cousin Colter.  At least until Daddy showed up with the quad!

The temperature dipped down towards the end of the week (-9 degrees with the wind chill-brrr!) and so outdoor explorations were put on hold.  Lots of fun things to do inside too.

I was entertained watching these two interact with each other.  There were a few toys they were a bit territorial about, but for the most part they really played well together.

Belly laughs!  I sure wish I knew what goes through their minds sometimes!

Part of the reason we made it a longer trip was so Ryan could get some hunting in.  Here are the boys with Ryan's pheasants.  Now I'll have to figure out some recipes for pheasant.  Any suggestions?!   

Off to the shop to clean some birds...

 The older cousins were especially kind in providing electronic entertainment. 

And Grandpa was especially patient with Logan's fascination with John Deere tractors.(:

A Random Post

It's been brought to my attention that some time has lapsed since my last post.  It seems we've just been busy with day-to-day happenings and I've hardly had the camera out.  Although I could tell you about the afternoon I spent searching the house for a lost library book, finding assorted toys and books in every place I looked but not the search and find library book I was looking for.  How's that for some irony?  A lost search and find book.  Ryan did eventually find it hidden behind our floor-to-ceiling bookshelf.  I'm not sure how it got there, but it will be the first place I check the next time I can't find a book.  I suspect our 2-year-old now thinks it's fun to slip books into that particular slot!

In other news, Lane has completed his first quarter of Kindergarten - and a big quarter it's been!

He received the September Student of Character award for his Kindergarten class.  His siblings and I attended the awards assembly at the school.  It's fun to see him in his new environment and I'm proud of him and how well he's adjusting to school.  We've been sick this week and he had to miss a day and he was so sad thinking of all the fun things he was missing out on. 

At the parent-teacher conference today, Ms. P. shared this with us:

Apparently Lane told her that the frowny face made him sad so he decided to draw 9 smiley faces so he could be happy instead!  Awww!

And finally, Lane's school didn't celebrate Halloween, they celebrated "Dress like a Pirate Day":

Here's our pirate and his two firefighting siblings.  It seems to be a pattern around here, if Big Brother gets to do it, siblings must be included!  I didn't have pirate costumes for all of them but Morgan and Logan didn't seem to mind.  They very happily traipsed around in their firefighting jackets instead!

October Means...

1. A renewed interest in the yard:

 There's nothing quite like playing in the leaves!

2.  Carving pumpkins:

We grew our own this year, so there were plenty to carve.

3.  Trolling for Rainbows:

  

Die-hard fishermen grin like crazy when the fish are biting even if it's cold, rainy and choppy!  (Of course, little die-hard fishermen don't have to stray too far from the heater.)