First day of school - 3rd Grade

Ok, the 1st day of school is over, but I thought I would share this photo with you. I can't believe how much Hunter has grown/changed over the summer. He just seems 'bigger'. He is in a 3rd/4th grade split class. There are 28 kids in his class this year which is HUGE considering that there were only 22ish kids last year and 16 in his 1st grade class. He is only one of the 8 3rd graders in this class. It is his 1st split class.

Remember that we walk to school and luckily, Kevin was able to stay late and help me take Hunter and get him settled. Nate and Will don't make things easy in that area.

Do you see where there little hands are???

Don't worry, I got a decent photo after all - hahah! Although they don't look all that happy, but at least you can tell that since their hands aren't covering their face.

Whistler continued

Sorry, these are a bit late, but here they are nonetheless. I'm sure you've already ready, heard, etc that it rained every single day we were up there, but it was still fun to get out of Dodge. Here's a picture of Hunter, the boys and me! You notice that Will has his hands covering his eyes? Its something that the boys have started doing when it comes time to take pictures. Why can't I have boys that are like my niece and nephew? They see a camera and its like a photo shoot instantly!! Emylee and Bryson, you need to teach my boys.

And here is my Mom or aka Mommom. It was because of Mom that we were up in Whistler. She has a time share and she asked where we watned to go and this was it. The boys kept calling the condo "Mommom's house"


Here's one of the boys doing the "eye thing".

More wild animals

Kevin had BBQ some ribs and left the package out and before we could retrieve it we had guests...

Aren't they cute? The boys are still talking about the "Raccoons taking Dad's meat".
And here is a picture of me and the twins.
And here is a picture of Will

Our first night at Whistler

Just had to share our picture from last night. As we were entering the condo, by way of the door we had just exited this is what we saw ( although the picture was taken after the bear was headed toward the lobby)

I can dress myself

Haha - Hardly!!! Its such a funny thing to see the boys try to dress themselves when the get the inkling to do so which is few and far between. My friend Brenda's little girl who is just a tad younger than the boys has been dressing herself for a while as well as picking out her own "outfits". So here is a picture of Nate the 2nd time around trying to put his shorts on. Mind you they are shorts, not long pants and this was the 2nd time around since I had already taken them off and had him do it again. I'm sure he'll love these pictures when he's older.

Off he goes... At least he realizes he has to steady himself. There have been times that he's tried and then immediately fell over. By the way, this is all Nate.

Good progress your thinking. He's got both legs in.

He's looking a little worried/frustrated.
You didn't know a cute pair of shorts could also be a very cute boy skirt huh? He was kind enough to turn around for me.
Now is the I'm a little worried/frustrated look.

Hopefully, I will get some pictures of Whistler to post while we are gone next week.

The Fair

Well, we made it to the fair this year. To be honest, the only reason we go is because of Hunter. The little ones are only 2 1/2 and Hunter is only 8 1/2 - how many more years is that??? So here are some pictures - remember we left the Nate and Will home.

Not the most attractive picture but what the hey :)


Kevin and Hunter on the bumper cars - note, please don't ride this if you have a weak back!

Hunter really liked this ride. He got a ride out of each of us.
Hunter wanted to sit right in front.
I just didn't find any of this immensely fun. If I had a stronger stomach then I could have gone all day!
Kevin went in the Spinner with Hunter, but he refused to go back in because he said it was incredibly hot in there. Hunter did go in later by himself.
I thought this ride would be better for my stomach - it was a little...
We had to have at least one grumpy face...

The Ring of Fire...
Well, we did go on a few other rides, but you get the gist. One year and counting for the next one.

Little Voices and their Favorite Phrases

I don't have any photos for today, but I just have to get these down. All children have their little phrases and they are just too cute, but I want to make sure that I remember them for the future.

Will has been saying:

"Oh Yeah Baby" - now remember that he doesn't seem to be able to say the "y" sound and exchanges it with the "l" sound. So it actually sounds like he is saying "Hola Baby"

"Dynaco is all mine" - from the movie Cars (have to check spelling) He says this while he is riding his trike outside.

"It too big" - This is in reference to his "private property" All I can say is "boys!!!"

"Big one coming" Another reference to potty time

"I too scared" He says this and ends with fill in the blank. For example "I too scared" to go to his room, "I too scared" to eat dinner, "I too scared" to put on his pants

"I don't know" Now this is funny because he started saying this and then answering the question. I might ask him who a certain person is and he would say "I don't know" - Emylee or again fill in the blank.

Nate: Coming up with blanks here, but I will add to it. He is quieter though.

"Motorcycle Bike" that is what he calls his tricycle.

I need to think back to what Hunter used to say when he was a baby. He was always coming up with these big words though when he was little. It always was a bit weird hearing a small child using such big vocabulary.

50/50 Ain't so bad! Kevin and Hunter camping

Wow, its been a while since I've posted - apologies to those who check. Good news for sure! I think I can say that Will is officially 100% potty trained, minus any bumps we might have down the road. For the past week he has not had any huge accidents. He stays dry during naps and evenings. I've got him in "real" underpants during the day and have still been putting him in "nighttime" underwear at night due to the fact that I'm lazy and don't want to deal with any accidents if they do happen to occur.

On the other hand, Nate has tottally regressed and is doing his business willy nilly in the pull-ups with a handful of visits to the bathroom here and there. I don't think he'll be far behind though. I truly believe that he is simply trying to separate hiimself somewaht. Now don't quote me since I'm not specialist, but that is the way it appears.

My neice Emylee has been visiitng us this past week too. She is such a doll and of course is in love with the boys and they in turn with her.

I picked her up last weekend down at Mom's. I took the boys down with me and got a chance to visit with my friend Brenda as well. Can you believe not one picture was taken the entire time there. So sad. But truly, I will blame it all on Kevin. I met him down at work and he was late and then we all rushed off. He was supposed to hand me a smaller camera since he was taking mine on his camping trip with Hunter.

Here are a couple of pictures of their weekend trip. They had a great time and it was good that they got to go off and "bonding" time.

The Good, the bad and the ugly plus tid bits

Ok, there isn't a lot of ugly, but there are some hints of bad here and there. Here is a picture of the boys sitting on the "naughty couch" since this the place we send them. They weren't really being too bad, just not listening. When I took the picture we were at the end and they were hamming it up a bit. Nate was trying to give me a sad face.This is a look we see on Will's face (he's on the right) quite often. He tends to wrinkle up his face with all types of expressions. Its funny because this is so Will, Nate never does it.

Now here is a good. This is a picture of Nate making me coffee. They have refound their Starbuck's barista aprons and having been going around the last couple of days making coffee. This morning, Nate actually brought down my almost finished latte cup telling me he had made me coffee.
And my last story that just made me feel good just happened earlier this afternoon. I had waited and waited to get on the treadmill while the boys were napping and I finally got my rear in gear and got on. I only had 3 minutes left when I saw Will peek his head out the back door. He just stood there and waved at me (I'm in the garage). Then I yelled(not angrily just loudly - sounds bad) at him to go inside and watch some cartoons and I would be right there. So he waves one more time turns around and off he goes. Then right after that, Nate comes out and waves and smiles at me. Then Hunter comes out and wants me to know that the boys are awake. I tell those two that I'm almost done and I'll right in. Off they go without a fuss. How nice was that? It was tremendous.

One other story for you. The other night, Will wakes up and says that he is scared of dinosaurs. Who knows where that came from. Kevin told him that dinosaurs are all gone and he didn't have to worry. So then he went around for several days asking us "dinosaurs all gone?"

And one more update. The boys are still working through the potty training thing. Will is proceeding ahead and doing great. He generally doesn't have any accidents and I've got him back in underwear and he always tells us when he wants to go. Nate on the other hand has regressed. In fact, I've got him back in diapers for right now because he was using the pull ups like they were diapers. He will still ask to go occasionally, but doesn't really have the initiative at the moment. Que sera sera.

Okie dokie that is all for now, unless I think of more....

Moving along

Well, the boys decided they wanted to sleep in Hunter's room for the first time. They did just fine on the bottom bunk. According to Hunter though he got up twice with one of them to go potty. What a good brother. I was thankful that the boys did not get into our bed at all - wow.

Aren't their little bottoms the cutest!!


The next night they wanted to sleep in Hunter's room again, but they ended up all on the top bunk with Hunter. He didn't seem to mind so....

GRRRRR.... What is up with people????

Guess What??? Kevin walked out the door this morning only to find out that someone/somebodies had stolen our BOB Bright Red Double Jogger off the front porch. Yes, I realize we didn't have the think locked up, but really....

What is up with that!!!! I am so PISSED really. Anyway, we did file a report and I will be calling consignment and pawn shops today, but even if it were "kids" what does that say about them and their upbringing? And I do realize that even kids who have been raised "right" still do "wrong" things but I am still allowed to be mad.

Last spring, somebody went and stole the twins' push toy and that was during the day at some point. And again it was in the front yard, but for pete's sake they were playing with it throughout the day.

Ok, that's my gripe for the day. Thanks for reading.

Some time at the Park

One of the best aspects of living where we do is the fact that we are surrounded by parks. Today, we chose to go to the one that is at the end of our street. Its usually very quiet and that was the case today. Here are some pictures of the boys.

This is Nate
Here's Hunter looking a little squished in the tube slide.
Here's Will
Here's Will having a jolly good time putting rocks into the play structure. This actually occupied him for quite a while. At one point, a little boy joined him. Very fascinating, I'm sure.
This is Hunter and ? either Nate or Will (haha). Its amazing how versatile rocks can be.

And last one. This is Nate saying that he was a cat. The picture doesn't quite capture it all, but he was meowing and scratching at the log. Don't know where he gets that one.

Oh Yeah Baby!!!

Today I have a little tidbit is all. I want to record Will's latest phrases he has been sharing with us. The first one is "Oh yeah baby!", except for the fact that Will cannot say yeah, rather it comes out as "lah". So it actually sounds like he is saying "hola baby" :)

His other phrase he's been using is "I don't know" in regards to EVERYTHING. No matter what you ask it is "I don't know".

Otherwise, not much is going on here. It looks like it is going to be a cloudy day here.

A Leisurely Morning and don't leave the plums out!

When it was just Kevin and myself we would often go out for afternoon drives just for fun. Even with Hunter we would just cruise and look at areas we didn't visit regularly or whatever... Obviously with today's gas prices we don't just drive for the sake of driving, but we sort of did this morning. We headed south and visited an area that has a lot of houses for sale. We aren't looking to buy, but it is fun to look at prices and new houses.

While we were there we saw LOTS of deer. Here is one that Kevin was especially impressed with. I won't go into details as to what was going through his head! They are all very tame and this one was right at the side of the road.

Now the next part of our day has to do with plums. We went to Costco yesterday and bought a package of plums. Needless to say, the boys love them. Last night, we caught Will poking his finger into the plums from the outside of the container saying "ooohhh nummm". Not too much damage until today.

Kevin came in and there was the container of plums on the floor and this what I took out of the container.

Please don't ask where I was, because I don't know. Now we have to hurry and eat the rest of them. :)