Thursday, October 30, 2008

Truck Full of Leaves

Step One: Help dad fill the back of the truck full of leaves.

Step Two: Stomp them down so you can fit even more leaves in the truck.

Step Three: Pose for some cute pictures.





Step Four: Climb up on top of the truck.

Step Five: Jump!

Step Six: Jump again and again and again...

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Got Leaves?

Our neighbors were out the other night and we stopped by for a chat. There were lots of leaves piled up and laying around so Noah, Noah and Oliver all had some fun!

Both Noah's getting Oliver.
Oliver getting back at Noah G.

Noah G. and Ollie getting Noah.
No one was safe I tell you!

Best toys ever!

Their dog, Chloe, getting in on the action.

Where's Oliver?

Monday, October 27, 2008

200th Post Contest!!

Time's up people. Thanks for playing and I can't wait to see who the winner turns out to be!

So I noticed earlier that I was just a couple posts away from hitting the 200 mark here in 2008! I wanted to do something special for my 200th post so I decided to do a contest! You will have two weeks to make a guess at the question below BUT the winner won't be announced until January 1, 2009! The winner will receive a box full of homemade stuff like soap, applesauce, apple butter, baked goods and maybe a few other fun things that I find between now and then! You will have to leave a comment and the one who comes closest will win!

How many total posts do you think I will have by the end of 2008?

Here are some possibly useful bits of information...I had 209 total posts in 2007 but didn't start blogging until March. I am currently a few posts behind and still have a lot events to come for the rest of 2008. Both of my boys have birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, possible visit from family, Christmas, etc. are the things that quickly come to mind. If you are like my husband, go figure out a mathematical equation to help you figure out your guess, if you aren't then just leave a fun comment and a guess. Be sure to sign your name if you leave an anonymous comment so I can find you if you win! Good luck!

Pinto Spooktacular 2008

Shana, Ron and Trevor were in Boring OR this weekend attending and showing in the Pinto Horse Spooktacular. I spent a day away from all of my boys on Sunday for a much needed "me" day and headed out to the show. It was nice to be able to chat with my sister, spend time with the horses and watch the classes without having to worry about the boys. Thanks boys! Anyway, I took a TON of pictures, even more than usual. I had my camera, which is what the below pictures are from and I had my sisters camera which has probably another 200-300 pictures for her to go through. I mostly played and took pictures with her camera because it's like the one that I want to upgrade to! So not only did I get to spend a day at the show but I got to play with a different camera. I'm hoping they splurge for a zoom lens soon to give me something else to play with next time. Shana, Ron and Trevor all showed/had classes so it was a BUSY weekend. They had Hal, their newest pony, Rubi, who was full of herself this weekend, and Beni, who is a sweetheart, with them this time. They are all a little fuzzy looking because they decided to do minimal shaving/cleaning on them since they are now relaxing and getting fat in TK's pasture until April. I hope my sister posts the final results of the weekend on her blog soon because I couldn't hear the announcements at all. The P.A. system was horrible. Anyway, I picked out 20 of the pictures that I had on my camera and put them together below...

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Birthday Preparation

A certain two year old in our house is starting to grasp the concept of birthdays. He is very excited that we have been talking about his party and brings it up at least once a day. I decided tonight to ask him about his cake...

Me: What kind of cake do you want?
Ollie: White.
Me: Just white? You can have vanilla, chocolate, banana, carrot, spice.
Ollie: Just white please.
Me: Okay, white cake it is, what kind of icing do you want?
Ollie: White.
Me: Really? Just white? You can have chocolate, cream cheese, vanilla...
Ollie: Just white please.
Me: Those are excellent manners but we can make your icing a color like blue, red or your favorite color right now...yellow!
Ollie: No, just white.
Me: So you want a white cake with white icing?
Ollie: Yes.
Me: Do you want to make it into something? A monster truck? Blue from Blues Clues? Diego? Baby Jaguar?
Ollie: Hmmmm, a white circle!
Me: Really? Are you sure?
Ollie: Yes mama, a white circle please.
Me: Soooo let me make sure, you want a white circle cake with white icing?
Ollie: And my name?
Me: Yeah, we can put your name on it, what color should we write your name in? Red? Blue? Yellow? Green? Orange? Purple? Pick a color.
Ollie: Write Oliver in white!
Me: (laughing and thinking I've got the easiest birthday cake to make - ever!) Okay a white circle cake, with white icing and your name, Oliver, written in white. Is that right?
Ollie: (giggling and clapping) YES!
Me: I think I can do that little man.

Meet Buster

This is Buster, he is my Dad and Lavelle's new dog. He is a Lhasa Apso and if my mind serves me well, almost four months old. I think he's kind of cute. What do you think?

How about this picture of him running around the backyard, is this a cute picture of Buster?

Look! It's two cute boys!

Oliver loved running around with Buster and making sure that Buster knew who the balls in the backyard really belonged to.

Just in case there wasn't enough cute in the above pictures, here is one last shot for you.
Hello Buster, nice to meet you.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Annual Kanthak Karate Halloween Party

Tonight was the annual Kanthak Karate Halloween Party and we all had a great time. Potluck, games, pictures, live band and goofy gift raffle were all part of the fun evening. Here are a few snapshots of the evening:

Noah decided to wear his Executioner costume tonight. He even colored his knuckles with a red marker so that it looked like he had had a busy day or two.

I forced Oliver to be a cute giraffe tonight. After all the attention he seemed okay with being a giraffe, maybe I'll get away with him not being Spiderman on Halloween.

Noah playing one of the games...this one was shoot the dart at the Mr. K caricature and try to knock it over!

Oliver posing with the mummy, they almost have the same smile.

Mr. B, the construction worker.

Mr. K showing the Executioner who the real boss is.

The kids hoping their name is called during the raffle. Noah actually won a Blazer bobble head. Okay, so it was my name called but I let Noah claim the prize.

As the night went on, Oliver modified his costume a bit. Cute, right?

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Help Me Spidey!


So I was just going to pull one of the many costumes that we have in the playroom out and dress Oliver in whatever fit him for this Halloween - cheap and easy people. However, the last two days he has been demanding to be Spiderman for Halloween. I'm surprised at his commitment to this character so I am now seeking a 3-4T Spiderman costume. Anyone have an extra laying around? Sad thing is, I have a couple but they are both beyond big on Oliver...maybe he can go as the Shrunken Spiderman attacked by the evil doing Shrinky McGee whose shrink rays only shrink the super hero and not his costume! He'd never know right??

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Uh-Oh It's Magic

Note: Joel is the one that should be writing this post, I don't know much about these games. If I mess something up, I apologize now to all of you Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic players.

Over the summer, a couple of the neighborhood kids introduced Noah to Yu-Gi-Oh cards and the game of dueling with those cards. Joel started to tell Noah about a card game that he used to play called Magic. Noah started asking Joel more and more questions so Joel finally pulled out some of his cards and started teaching Noah how to play. Apparently, there is a lot involved with different colored decks, lands, manna, creatures, enchants, trample, attack, defense, etc. so they are taking it slow and adding just one or two elements of the game a week. Noah really seems to enjoy his Magic time with dad and is, in my opinion anyway, picking up on the game quite quickly.

Practicing for the Corporate Ladder

Joel brought the ladder in the other day to retrieve something from the top of the plant wall and Oliver quickly took advantage of the situation. Kept telling me, "I need to practice mama." The camera was sitting right there so I snapped a few shots and wondered if someday he would climb the corporate ladder with such glee.

"I up tall mama!"

Hold on tight little man, that climb can be a tough one.

Nice to know your feet are planted firmly.

Turning the camera on me!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Handlebars

We made a quick trip to Bad Monkeys Bikes Board and Skate shop today and picked up a couple of parts to make handlebars for Oliver. Here's a couple quick shots of him trying them out. Noah also hopped on for a ride around the neighborhood. The last shot is after Joel trimmed them down a bit and put on the grips. I think they turned out pretty nice. Next is a place for Oliver to put his feet, Joel came up with a couple of ideas for that today too.


Saturday, October 18, 2008

Dew Ya Dew Dew Ya Love Me

Yes people, I know I have issues, you all know I have issues but this time I'm coming out with them, throwing them out there for all of you to see and make fun of. So here's the story...I went out this morning to try and get a few pictures of the leaves on the ground. For some reason the fact that the backs of the leaves were covered with dew but the fronts were not fascinated me. I wanted to capture at least the dew laden backs of the leaves so I grabbed my camera and started shooting. While out taking pictures, the song below got stuck in my head. It's not a song that I would normally listen to, not a song that I own, not even a song that I've heard lately but it embedded itself upon my psyche and refuses to leave. So here is what you have to do, listen to this song while looking at a few of my favorite pictures. While you're at it, send me a comment and tell me what song you last had stuck in your head and why! This could be fun...







Friday, October 17, 2008

My New Car

I've waited ALL SUMMER for my new car to arrive and it finally has and I'm excited! We took my Trek and added an Xtracycle to it, basically extended my frame a bit and upped my load capacity. I can go grocery shopping now and not worry about how I'm going to fit it all into my backpack!
My new tricked out ride.

Ready for groceries, kids, coolers full of beer...

This is Oliver's new spot, we will add a handle bar and foot pegs for him.

My mom tried to snap a picture of Ollie and I on the new setup.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Turn Down the Volume

Oliver came running up to me and told me he learned how to whistle...



This is him whistling after I showed him how mommy could do it using her fingers...

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Too Early for Hide & Seek

I've never been much of a morning person. Yeah, I'm forced to be one at times but given the choice I'd stay up all night and sleep until 9 or 10 a.m. Most of you know that I work at night so when that alarm goes off at 7:30 a.m. it's can be a while before I'm fully awake and aware of what's going on. I go into an autopilot mode of sorts - get up, stagger down the hall, wake up Noah, get Noah's clothes for the day, make the boys breakfast, make Noah's lunch, etc.

So this morning I walk into the boy's room and look over towards Oliver's bed, he usually greets me with a perky, "HI Momma! I awake too." There was no greeting and once my eyes focused a little bit I realized he wasn't in his bed (please excuse big brothers dirty sock that, I am sure, was tossed on there last night).

Being in my not-a-morning-person stupor my first thought was, how in the heck do you lose a toddler? Then I started wondering if I was playing a game of hide and seek and just didn't realize it in my pre-coffee state. For a brief moment I started to panic and that quickly woke me up a bit... listen for the TV that Ollie will turn on if he wakes up before the rest of us, no, I don't hear the TV, scan the floor to see if he rolled off of his bed, no, he's not on the floor, look at Noah's bed to see if he climbed in there, no, that looks normal too. No, wait, that bundle under the covers looks a little bit bigger than it should. I step closer, re-focus my eyes a bit and sure enough, there he is curled up with big brother. An extra sweet moment considering the two of them have really been fighting lately and probably a moment that I wasn't supposed to see. No self respecting, almost 8 year old boy wants anyone to know that when his little brother got scared last night he brought him into his bed to make him feel safe. Shhh, don't tell him I told you okay?

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Sunflowers

Every year, around the entrance of the corn maze at the pumpkin patch, they have beautiful sunflowers and other sunflower like flowers. I look forward to the few quiet minutes that I have, while Joel runs the boys through the maze, to take some pictures of these beauties. I play with my camera settings and snap away. These are my favorites from this year.