Sneak peek

Shhh!!! This is confidential. I'm giving you a sneak peek which will explain in part my absence from blogging/facebook/life in general--

It's another book underway (which is quite the challenge with both the cranky, teething 10 month old & clingy 3 year old underfoot!)

Gallery time

Pardon a little show-and-tell here...my boys have been flexing their artistic muscles lately, so I wanted to share a few that impressed me.

First is Benno's...and this totally caught me by surprise...he went from scribbling randomly across a page to drawing recognizable images overnight! He brought me this and I couldn't believe it--that nose, that nose, what an awesome nose...and the (3) eyes...and that toothy grin...(and he's 3!) 

He then taped it to the oven door for display.

Christopher brought this home from kindergarten. (His teacher convinced him to start writing his name as "Chris" because it was taking too long to write out his entire name.)

The profile of that wolf is fabulous!

This is Anthony's creation...a fun, mazy, squiggly ribbon.

And this jet flying through the air is Aaron's (which is more impressive in color, but he printed out just 2 copies--one in color to keep in his journal and a black & white (see he labeled it for us) for display on the fridge.) He created this entirely on the computer. (George has taught him Sketchbook Pro. I think Anthony did his on George's computer too.) 

I'm proud of my little artists. : )

And now he is six.

We celebrated Christopher's 6th birthday earlier this month!

For lunch on his birthday, we ate out--he chose Pizza Caboose, of course.

He had a soccer game scheduled that afternoon. He wore his "it's my birthday" star sticker on his shirt throughout the practice & game.

After the game we hurried home for a big tasty dinner & cake & ice cream. (I am not a cake decorator...I'm too busy/impatient to do much more than this.)

When I asked Christopher what he wanted for dinner, he said "Spaghetti and hard eggs." Strange combination, but I served them up as requested. : )

It took a few tries to get all those candles out, but he got his wish anyway. : )

A few days later we had his birthday party--I'd never done a friend party for him so it was time. He made it way too easy on my though...he requested a "Wii party" which is the easiest party EVER.

 

See what I mean? SO easy.

These cupcakes might look familiar. I made some almost identical to these for Benno's birthday in April.

(Notice the cupcake on his plate? He licked off all the frosting...little stinker!)

Happy birthday cute guy!!! We love you!

Mt Tabor

We've lived here for 7 years now...longest I've lived anywhere my ENTIRE life!

In all the time we've lived here, we've never explored Mt. Tabor, until a couple weekends ago and what a little gem that park is! Well, it's more than a park...Mt Tabor is a dormant volcano within the city of Portland...but it's a big park criss-crossed with hiking trails and reservoirs and playgrounds, etc, and the views of the city from up there are worth the visit.

So while hubbies were at the Priesthood session of conference, my friend Wendy & I and our TEN(!) children headed off to explore Mt. Tabor.

There are trails all over...we opted for the 1 mile loop.

All ten kids!

One of the world's best climbing trees

There's a big reservoir behind that fence.

Cute kiddos. (Poor Katie, the lone girl in our crowd of boys. She holds her own very well.)

The highlight of the evening was definitely the playground. The kids played on the merry-go-round FOREVER. There's a set of see-saws at the playground too--"an old-fashioned playground" according to the kids : )

My sweet baby....it makes me cold to look at him though he wasn't complaining. It was so chilly that afternoon/evening...we came unprepared since it had been so warm earlier and all of us were cold!

Other than the cold, it was a lovely park and a lot of fun!

Oh so funny...

Leaves, well sort of

***Sidenote: Can I take a moment to compliment Blogger on their new photo uploader??? SO much easier than it ever was before...much faster. Hooray.***

So back to the leaves...well, not leaves exactly. I was out mowing the grass a few weeks ago...and we have 2 big trees on either side of our front yard...and one in particular is a very messy tree. It drops stuff pretty much all year...and before it drops its leaves, it drops all this junk, but you can rake the junk up and the kids play in it as happily as if it was all leaves. : )

I think I had as much fun taking photos of the boys as they did playing in it. There are LOTS more where these came from...I tend to get carried away as you may have noticed.

I love Benno in that cape. (Thanks Jenny!) 

If you look closely, you can see Christopher's toes poking up from the leaves as he jumps in!

Won't be too long 'til the real leaves fall from the trees!

Pictures!

Way back at the family reunion in July, we had family photos taken--and I just got them a day or two ago in the mail from my aunt...I'm so excited about how they turned out! I'm so bad about getting our family pics taken--almost all the pics I have of our family are shots taken by some random stranger we asked while out hiking trails, like the pic above.

So considering we didn't know pics were going to be taken until after we'd already departed on our trip, thus our wardrobe choices were limited to what we'd already packed (and was clean), these are not too shabby, eh?

(Ok, just for fun...one that did not turn out so well. But see the colors were red, white & blue, for 4th of July... I like 'em better in black/white.)

Maybe one of these days I'll get my act together and go get one of those trendy family pics with us all perfectly coordinated, holding hands against some dirty old wall somewhere. : )

(Sorry, I really do like a lot of those pics, but I couldn't resist.)

Calling all Fit Gamers!

Ok friends. I keep saying I need to play another round of the Fit Game and now instead of just saying it again, I am doing it...and I would love some competition. Anyone else want to play?

I'm thinking I'll begin it starting next Monday, the 11th...so you'll have the weekend to splurge and enjoy unrestricted eating and lounging...but I'm flexible--if you really want to play with me but for whatever reason, you need it to start some time or other, just say so. And it'll go for 4 weeks from the start date.

I've actually been doing ok on the physical activity side of fitness for about a month...been rising at unreasonably early hours to run & work out with friends 4 or 5 days each week, which I really do enjoy. But my eating habits aren't what they should be--far from it--and the holidays are quickly approaching, yikes. So at least with all my working out, I haven't added any weight, but I'm not really losing it right now either (and I'd like to think a tiny bit of the weight is added muscle, but I doubt that really accounts for much.)

So who's in??? 

(And if you have no idea what I'm talking about or you need a refresher...see here. And check out the points chart in the side bar...fairly self-explanatory.)

Conquering Mt Adams

George did not join us for the festivities at OMSI & the Bluegrass Festival because he had plans of a much grander scale...he climbed Mt Adams that day!

His friend Chris is an experienced mountain climber and invited George to go up Mt Adams (12,281 ft!) with him. George jumped on the opportunity. I wasn't there of course so I can't comment much...the pics are pretty spectacular.

George described the way they set up their tents behind these rock walls trying to block some of the constant wind. He said it was bitterly cold (and this was in ideal weather!)

Because the weather was so nice that weekend, there were LOTS of people climbing the mountain.

I'm pretty sure that's Mt Rainier in the distance. In other shots, you can see Mt St Helens too.

I think this is at the summit.

Lots of wind. Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!

George has now climbed 2 mountains: Mt St Helens & Mt Adams! Way to go George!