Critters, Heaven cost $1, Tater Capers, Birthday Dreams

 Couple weeks ago the kids had their Tuesday outdoor school with Daddy..and they came home with two of these beauties. Fire-bellied newts. So we set up a 10-gallon aquarium and made them nice and cozy. The kids enjoyed researching the new critters and feeding them worms caught in the garden. So far they remain nameless..

 Yesterday we went off to the Green Bridge Pumpkin Patch... it was awesome! All pumpkins are $1 - and on our budget that translated into PUMPKIN HEAVEN! The kiddos always like to get giant pumpkins.. and at this place it was no problemo. See the pumpkins in the cart? Ya those bad boys came home with us. Jonathan was the one who picked a tiny pumpkin because that's just how he rolls. We skipped the hay rides and other activities because you had to pay.. but no one was complaining.

 Alissa got in trouble for this - she looks to old. Okokok I didn't really get her in trouble but sheez that girl needs to slow down.

 And my little ham. What else can I say? Love that boy.

 And here my friends is the reason we can have giant insanely heavy pumpkins..Meet "the muscle". I couldn't budge those things.

 After the pumpkin patch we headed to grandma's house to harvest her potatoes! The kids thought that was just the greatest thing ever.

Showing off the loot! Alissa looks a little ragged.. it was a long day! Hahaha... We took these guys inside as well as an assortment of other goodies from grandmas garden. Jonathan scrubbed everything clean and Alissa made garlic mashed potatoes. They were fantastic!

On a completely unrelated but insanely cool topic.. it is finalized - We are going to Disney World in February with the in laws. Disney WORLD! Even cooler? First day there is my birthday. And all this for a girl (me) who has never been very far from the west coast. Excited? Serious understatement. Can I just hibernate until February? ? ?

Oh..and in case you were wondering... Home school? Ya it's the best decision I ever made. More on that another time.

Field trips, flags, co-ops, scouts, muffins.. ETC ETC ETC

 Our first "official" home school field trip was to Oregon Gardens for HOME SCHOOL DAY!

 First thing we did was ride the tour bus and see the whole garden.

 Forgot a coat for Miss Cuteness here.. so bought an adult sweater (kid dress) and she was good to go. Yay for gift shops!

 We went to the field of flags (this was a week before the gardens but I'm too lazy to switch them around hehe). Very powerful.. opened up some deep and interesting conversations with the kids about 9/11 and terrorism..military and flags.. lots and lots. Very special time.

 First home school co-op get together was fun! Art project was fun fun! All about symmetry.
 Girl scouts has begun! Brownies that is. It's going to be an adventure this year!!

And of course my first ever college football game. It. Was. Awesome. Beth and I had a blast. And it helps that the Ducks won.. won being a slight understatement.

SOOO much more has happened.. been so busy trying to find a rhythm with home school and life. Wondering how I ever managed to drop the kids off at school somewhere and miss all that time together. I really enjoy them.. enjoy teaching them and watching them learn. Today Alissa made applesauce muffins. She followed the recipe exactly. And for the first time I just stood back and watched. I kept my mouth shut when she put too little of this or too much of that.. I praised her efforts.. I walked her through how to safely put them in the oven and set her timer.. and then I marveled at the look of accomplishment and pride on her face when it was all done. She did it. All by herself. And I was there to see it. Feeling so thankful right now that we are on this road. Together. I love my kids so much.

Until next time.

Oregon State Fair 2011

 Oregon State Fair 2011

Tents and diapers.

 This is Alissa and Jonathan attempting a "sleep-over" in a tent they created in Jonathan's room. I know.. I said attempting. They actually made it quite awhile before I had to break up the party to have them get into their "real" beds. They had a blast.. giggling and playing in their tent.
Now.. on to my poor wiener. This is Pancake. And yes, she IS wearing a diaper. Apparently we are a tab late  getting her spayed. It's on the agenda!!! In the good news department it was a great learning opportunity for Alissa.. we had a LONG talk about what this means for Pancake..and one day for her. Yay for life lessons! Thanks Pancake.

Happy Birthday Jonathan!

What a day. My baby is five years old. Started the day with Alissa complaining about a sore throat - immediately my radar went up because her grandma has had strep! YIKES! To the doctor we go.. and the results: NEGATIVE! Thank GOODNESS! Alissa was very worried about missing out on the days fun. After the doctor appointment we picked up Jon from his grandma's house. I asked Jon what he would like for his birthday lunch... ANYTHING... and he chose Burger King (big surprise haha) and a frozen coke. I should back up a bit.. for breakfast I told him he could have aaaaanyhting he wanted and he picked..drum roll please...garlic toast. HAHA.. okie dokie. So garlic toast and chai started the day. He also wanted time to play "foresthunter" game. Cutie pie. Okok..back to lunch. After burgers I asked what he would like to do for fun..aaaanything.. and he picked Pietro's Pizza to play games. We played a round of mini-golf followed by a ton of other games. Favorites: Roller Coaster simulator, and their new gun game where you shoot stuff and things happen. Wow.. super descriptive I know. Similar to the one at Enchanted Forest but this one you get randomly squirted in the face with water..fun times. When we went to the ticket counter to get our prizes (junk) there was a very nice (creepy) guy who gave the kids all sorts of extra stuff. He even rigged a game for the kids to spit out a ton of extra tokens. How very sweet (scary) he was. And then, plastic prizes (crap) in hand..we headed home. Jonathan wanted a little more game time and then a "CUDDLE PUDDLE!" with mommy on my bed. Lots of airplane rides, tickle games, and otherwise silly fun. Alissa wasn't feeling so hot still so spent most of this time on Jumpstart.
Around 5:45 we headed to Padingtons for "Daddy Pizza" with the grandparents. Jonathan got to open presents and chow down on his favorite pizza. All in all a wonderful day. Other then a doctor visit for Alissa of course.
So Jonathan.. my boy. How can I ever express how much I love and adore and thoroughly enjoy that kid? He is spontaneous, mischievous, fun and sweet as can be.
Speaking of sweet just have to add a fast story. While at the doctors Ali got a throat swap and the lab tech offered her a sticker.. she dug through the sticker box until she found a super hero sticker and stated she wanted that one for her little brother because it was his birthday. The nice lady then said that was very sweet of her and she could go ahead and grab a sticker for herself too..to which Alissa replied, "No thanks." What a kid... ok back to Jon..
My little man... I will forever cherish his cuddles and love..his giggles and his efforts at getting away with just about anything. He is a giving, loving, amazing person. I am so proud of all that he is and he is only just five. I can't wait to see what kind of man he turns out to be. Love and adore everything about him. Happy birthday Jonathan my little man who loves to shop and battle the bad guys as Catawack Boy!! Hehe.. Five. Unreal.

I chickened out, creative genius, giant bone, and all nighters.

So I was going to make a blog post surrounding a video I took of myself playing guitar to show my progress. I had every intention of posting the video. No really.. I did. But then I chickened out. I might try again.. but until then I wanted to share my little mummies -

 Gotta love two kids and a roll of toilet paper. Creative genius in action.
On a totally different note Alissa bought Pancake this bone yesterday... and today gave it to her. And poor Zena just kept giving me the eye.. the "But..but..I'm older and pitiful and you love me and *I* didn't get a bone" look.

 So... I went out to the freezer and pulled out this monster.

Her puppy eyes just lit up.. and I'm sure her tongue is frozen to the bone at this very moment. But she is a happy old dog.

On a final note got to hang with my mom for an all nighter last night/this morning because we took grandma to the ER and ended up transferred to Portland. What a cluster. Not really sure yet what it was but I know grandma is on her way home now. Yikesoroni. I thought when I woke up that I actually didn't feel to bad for being up until 5am.. now I feel it. Every minute of it. I'm going to go take a nap.

Until next time...

Goodnight.

Don't put that on the blog! Insanity! BLOOD!

Sitting at the table eating dinner and I look up to see Alissa doing this... looking a bit more serious and focused (I grabbed the camera to document so in this shot it's more posed). Anyhow.. back to the point. What do you think she was doing? That's the million dollar question. This little girl wearing the "I Believe in Magic" shirt, eating a "daddy burrito" and looking out the window. (By the way I told her I was taking a picture to document this momentous occasion and she yelled, "MOM! Don't put that on the blog! hehe). Before I tell you.. here is the guy on the other side of the table -

What he is doing is a bit more obvious. Can you guess? Okay okay.. that's too obvious. Jon is just being a boy.
Today we went to Costco. On a Saturday. I think that has to be the definition of insanity. Apparently half of Salem and all of our neighboring towns are insane. They were all there with us. We went with Grandma Adams and had lunch of Costco pizza and hot dogs - YAY! Then back to her house for some R&R and my new favorite show - "Chopped". Loved the heck out of it. At some point during the show Jonathan was on my lap and I notice his hand is red.. hmm..then one glance at his face and holy cow we had a bloody nose. Cleaned him up and life was good. Alissa was busy decorating a giant box in the living room and turning it into a house.
You want to know what Alissa was doing? I didn't forget.. just got side tracked. Anyone guess by now? I doubt it. You see Alissa was looking out the window like that and... *drum roll* controlling the trees with her fingers. Yep. Making the branched move back and forth just like her finger. Magic. Beautiful. I am glad to have this blog at my fingertips again.. because I never..ever..want to forget moments like these.

And while you have the camera out Mom..take a picture of this!!

Mom! Mom! Over here! Take a picture of this!

<3

Success, waiting games, knocking on wood, community support, and midnight lovin'..

Not much exciting to report.. but I'm afraid if I leave this idle too long I will fall back into old habits and my poor little blog with get neglected again. Since my last entry, I finished editing the wedding photos and delivered them. The family was happy - SUCCESS!

Matt has narrowed down his Harley choice to one or two bikes now it's just the waiting and searching game. .waiting he doesn't like, searching not so bad. The fun part of the process is test riding all these fun bikes. I am so happy that he will be able to ride again.

As for me, I'm on round three of antibiotics as of today - ARGH. Didn't help that I have a cold on top of all this other crud, but I think I'm on the mend. *KNOCK ON WOOD* Ya I know I said that before.

Went to Walmart today with the kidlets to get their "back to school" supplies.. which basically meant looking at a couple different school lists and giggling.. then picking whatever the heck we wanted. There was a lady who asked me if Jon was starting school this year, and when I told her yes and it was home school she was very encouraging. And another lady apparently overheard because she walked by, grabbed my arm, and said "Good for you" with the most kind look. Getting so much support and understanding from the community is really neat. Everyone knows how bad schools are getting. I asked Jonathan while we were out, "So, we gonna pack your lunch for school?" He said, "Yes! On wait no we can make what we want can't we we will be HOME!" hahaha.. I love those moments. We will be home.

And this one is for Alissa so some day she can look back and remember.. how every night her cat Kisses came into the house to sneak under the covers with her. This is not an uncommon sight in the middle of the night here.

Empty cameras, early mornings, and Harley's.

Matt took the kidlets out fishing this Sunday in the Detroit area.. I stayed home to get some R&R. I sent him with the little point and shoot camera to document their adventures for me.. and when he came home I was all excited to upload them. And much to my surprise this is what I saw -

Yep...that was ALL I saw. Two pictures. LOL! Okay.. I should give him a bit of credit, at least he remembered he had a camera. Note Jonathan's outfit.. guess who likes to dress himself? Hehe.. they had a ton of fun and came home with 7 fish. We ate them all.

This week has been pretty laid back. The kidlets have had VBS (Vacation Bible School) from 9-12 every morning. Alissa is NOT happy about that by the way... "But MOOOOOOM I wanna sleep in." Ya, well.. we can do that when school starts. Sleep in?? When school starts?? Oh man life is good.

As for me.. I am on the mend slowly but surely. Been busy editing photos from the wedding and...and...and.. ya not much else. I am looking forward to returning to the land of the living.

Oh! I do have big news before I close. Upon much soul searching and prayer we have decided to start shopping for a motorcycle for Matt. We want to start an Oregon chapter of BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse). And you can't start that without a bike.. Matt will have to suffer through his first Harley..poor guy I know. I am excited to start that journey.. Most of the praying is that we find the right bike that we can afford. If it is meant to be we have faith it will happen.

Until next time..

Jugglers, parades, and infections - OH MY!

On Wednesday I brought the kidlets to the library to see a juggling show. Little did know it would be hil-ar-i-ous. The guy was a crack up and an amazing juggler. The kids loved the show.. and more then once Alissa looked at me and asked what was so funny. I love when they can mix adult humor in that goes way over the kiddos heads.

In other news.. yesterday was Alissa's long awaited parade. As in - she has been planning this for about 6 months. So we dug the o' wagon out of the garage and the kids decorated it. Alissa also insisted that we throw candy.. so Matt went out and bought a bag full for them. We headed out to Bush Park bright and early and met up with Ali and Jon's preschool group. Creative Discovery - Best. School. Ever.

The parade was a success.. both kids had a blast. Mom was stinkin tired. Which brings us to my third topic..

I have been fighting a yucky infection that started with a hair folicle. I am sparing the details here but I will say it is no fun. Trying to entertain the kidlets while feeling like poo is not so great. I took them to the theater to see Rio (awesome movie, too cute) and had them running around in the indoor park on Thursday all in an attempt to entertain with minimal mommy effort... I'm just not up to it yet. Went back to the doc yesterday where they piled on more antibiotic and other things.. Is this just part of getting older? All of a sudden a simple thing that my 20 year old body would laugh at and kick its butt.. but my 30 year old self just rolls over and cries. HAHaha.. Anyhow.. today Papa is coming over to entertain so I can hibernate. And on we march in this parade called life.

I give you: "Blog With Video and Picture"

I give you: "Bear Falling From Tree"

I give you: "Bear Behind Glass"



I give you: "Boy Who Tells Goat Who's Boss"

I give you: "Girl Who Whispers To Goats"

I give you: "Sister Protecting Brother From Sharptooth"

I give you: "Girl With Dino Wing Span"

I give you: "Jerks Walking Into Picture"

I give you: "Picture Without Jerks"

I give you: "Boy Who Conquers Lions"

I give you: "Girl With No Fear"

I give you: "What Happens When Girl Has No Fear"

The end.