Jim and Carter had some special one on one time together on Saturday and they spent some time learning to ride without training wheels! Carter was so excited to be alone with Daddy and he did great without the training wheels :) His little eyes were all lit up and sparkley about it - we are so proud!
Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! They are like the seagulls from Finding Nemo.....Mine! Mine! Mine!
Grandma with the boys.....a few of them at least. Jimmy, Dillon, Carter and Cousin Drayson.
I did this fun little planting project with Carter and Brayden, you are supposed to use shamrock seeds and after they sprout you will have shamrocks growing at the end of the rainbow - the little beads below the 'clouds' is the gold at the end of the rainbow! I couldn't find shamrock seeds so we just planted what ever flowers I want to eventually transplant into the yard. Fun project for us.....but Dillon had another project in mind:
He made his own football gameboard with playing pieces, dice and written, drawn-out plays! This guy is so into football lately - it started out with the Steelers being his favorite team, then they played in the super bowl and won it. Dillon sat and watched the entire game with Jim and Jim's dad, his Papa. It is amazing how much he knows about football now. He definitely knows way more than I do....way, way more. I should be embarrassed, but I'm not. Jim and Dillon plan out plays throughout the house and they all throw the football around every day...they don't miss a day, and yes - we are allowed to throw balls in our house! If you have ever been to my house, this is the reason why we don't have a single picture/painting/photo or anything else hanging on our walls....anywhere, except a single clock. He is in 'Daddy Heaven' with all the boys head over heels for football!
It is still in it's preliminary stages getting the bugs worked out - but here is Dillon testing it out. The camera is at the front of the helmet, with the red, yellow and white connectors at the back of the helmet. All the wires go right into the backpack which holds the battery, etc. Haven't you always wanted to see life through a child's eyes? Ok...well. Here is an update on our mouse situation. We ordered mouse traps that you can catch mice in and let them go. They are little green plastic boxes that the mice can get into but not out of and one of them is labeled in the photo below. But this wasn't interesting (or entertaining) enough for Jim, so what does he do? He drills a hole in the mouse trap. Yep, makes perfect sense.
He is so creative that he came up with this plan to catch the mice. He drilled a hole in the clear plastic cover that replaced our heating vent cover under the sink cabinets. Then he ran PVC piping (elbow joint and all) from the heating vent, THROUGH the actual mouse trap, and INTO a regular shoebox sized storage bin (aka Modified Mouse Trap) with a lid and weights on top of it.....so the mice won't get out should they be lured by the smell of peanut butter coming from the light at the end of the tunnel. Now the cameras are pointed into the Modified Mouse Trap and the night light has been moved to a more strategic position.
And yes, this little project was also done after I had gone to bed one night :)
Needless to say, all these homemade tunnels and the commotion have scared the mice too much to make a showing or even attempt to venture out into the unknown.....so I'm left to ask the question: Was all of Jim's effort a total failure? Yeah, I think not.Well, you can't say that our two indoor cats have a boring life...us either for that matter! Lets start from the beginning though. A number of months ago, the boys and I were visiting Grandma in Albany and Jim found a little white mouse in our cabinet below the sink (where we have our garbage can) He caught the mouse and released it, but we figured that since it was white, it must have been somebody's pet that escaped. Story over, right? NO. Lately, we started noticing that Milo & Missy had been spending alot of time looking into the heating vent under the cabinet. So what does a security guy like Jim do? Install a "mouse cam" of course.
What did you expect? ....Nana, you HAVE to come over and see what your son has done now.
My kitchen has wires and extension cords running all across the floor and counters so all of us *and the cats* can see the mouse better. Not only has Jim installed a tiny little camera under the cabinet so we can record the mouse (and see how many there are), but it is hooked up to our TV and we can watch it all on TV, like a show. The vent cover has been taken off and replaced with a clear plastic see-thru cover securely screwed in and complete with air holes so the cats can smell and hear the mousey but the mouse can't get out. There is a permanent night light running off an extension cord so it can shine light into the space under the cabinet for better lighting . This is what we, and the cats, see from the outside:
Jim has constructed a little "toy" for the mousey. It is a plastic dome hot glued to a piece of wood for the bottom, and has a little hole no wider than the size of his pinky finger that the mousey can crawl into and out of to lick up all the peanut butter that is inside. All this busy work Jim does is done AFTER I've gone to bed, mind you.
Here is what the "Mousey Cam" sees: Remember, this is all under the cabinet. You can see the mouse's head squeezing out of the little hole in the plastic dome and the two cat faces in the background.
I told Jim this morning that I feel like we are all so lucky to have him. Jim, that is, not the mouse. Our lives would be so boring without him and all of his little ideas and projects. He said to me that "Oh, we would just find other things to entertain ourselves with..." True, but they would be regular, normal, boring entertaining things. Nothing like we're used to having!We've done quite a bit in the last couple of weeks. I spent three weekends in a row away from home, the first weekend was snowmobiling with the boys. The next weekend just Brayden and I stayed at Grandma's in Albany and helped her paint and pack. We visited a bunch of nostalgic places in Corvallis before moving my mom to Bend the next weekend. Brayden was very happy to have me all to himself and was a super angel spending all that time in the car that weekend. We ate breakfast in a bar, HA! What bar allows minors until 2pm and has crayons?
Then Jim had the boys run more wires under the house. These guys have run wires for tv's, computers, the security alarm, outdoor cameras, you name it....and Jim has yet to crawl under our house - the boys have done it all for him!
My third weekend away from home, we helped my mom move and I think it was the easiest move ever. Jim backed the truck right up to the front door and out we went. Couldn't have done it without Jim's brother Brandon, my mom feels so loved and lucky to have these "two sons" she never had. 
See- right up to the front door, perfect. I can't tell you how nice it is to have both my mammas in the same town finally :)
My Aunt and Uncle sent this email to me today (Hi There!) I have gotten a similar email to this a long time ago and have thought about it quite often. The way the brain makes it's right and left hemispheres work is very curious and intriguing to me. Probably because I am kind of ambidextrous, kind of. I am left handed, but only write and hold silverware with my left hand. I throw right handed, and dribble, golf, bat, play tennis, heck I even do kartwheels right handed. I have a really hard time deciding which leg should go first if I were to do something slolomn like snowboarding, even thinking about it right now -I think I'm leaning towards the right foot forward but its a really hard decision for me to make!
So why only two tasks left handed? Well, now wait, make that four tasks. I change diapers left handed, the boys (and anyone else doing the changing of their diapers at my house) were always confused about which way they were supposed to lay on the changing table. And even though I am comfortable using the computer mouse with my right hand, I am even more comfortable using it on the left side of the keyboard, which means I use the opposite fingers to click than right-handers use. This is also something people get confused about when using the computer at my house.
Here is the email:
Only great minds can read this. This is weird, but interesting!
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearhcer at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are,the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit apboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
The boys and I went snowmobiling at Grandpa's house for the first time (me too!) over the weekend - We had so much FUN! There was even a little snowmobile that Carter and Dillon got to drive all by themselves, holy cow are we lucky or what?!
Dillon lost his first tooth over the weekend...finally! 
My mom gave us this super cute little tooth fairy pillow a long time ago and when I was somewhere around 17-18 years old and waitressing at the Big O in Corvallis (where Jim and I met) I used to get $2 bill tips and silver dollars from time to time. I saved every one of the $2 bills and coins so my future children would get them from the tooth fairy! I've been saving those for so long now, it was so fun being able to finally do it!
And I just like this picture of Carter :)
I'm learning alot from these two books and had to share them :)
"Get me! Get me! No, get meeee! Knock ME down with the whale next!" Oh what fun we have when its too cold to go outside.
We went over the river and through the woods to my mom's house and spent Christmas with her - really, there are real signs that tell you you are traveling on the Over The River And Through The Woods Trail over the Santaim and Tombstone Passes on Highway 20! What a winter wonderland adventure....the snowy white "trail" below is the highway. Just gorgeous.
As bad as it looks, we actually made great time and our car handles really well. Jim even tried to make the car slip and slide and it was hard to get it to do so, plus he is an amazing driver in the snow. And just in case you've never driven in such weather, her is a little video of our snowy winter roller coaster ride:
Once you are though the door in Grandma's wardrobe, you come crawling down that little tunnel looking area on the right for about 10 or 15 feet, and then around the corner to the secret room on the left...and this is the ONLY way to get there...
Ooh! Spooky! HAHA! Too bad there isn't yet another door to crawl through! I'm so sure that all children love finding cool little secret places like this, how lucky that it's in Grandma's house for them to explore :)
We had such a fun Christmas this year, my mom is wanting to move to Bend in the near future and this may have been the last time we got to have Christmas at her house, our old house, so it was very special....even though Brayden was sick with a tummy ache the whole time and ended up throwing up a couple of times all over the floor the day we went home, but it wouldn't be Christmas if somebody wasn't sick, right? We hope your Christmas was just as good :)
Snow Boots...
Snuggles...
Duke The Dog, The Cat and the Sleepy Little Boy...
Brayden wanted to sing Jingle Bells for you...
Carter wasn't in the mood to add a picture of his own today, but I thought this one was cute. Missy claims people as her own and could care less if you want her in your face or not (literally in your face, she would lay ON your face if you let her) and on this day Carter belonged to her.
We are wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas this year!
So...my Dad is in Cabo San Lucus napping on the white sandy shores for the winter and while he is gone he gave Jim and I the keys to his house near Crescent Lake. Well, I took those keys and invited all the Scott Ladies for a girl's only weekend. No kids, no men, so nice. I didn't even bring my camera and I actually stole all these photos from Jim's sister, Tina (Thank you Tina!). Beautiful lake photos aren't they?!
Well, Brayden is 2 1/2 and was more than ready for a big boy bed. For years I've been wanting to keep the boy's crib even though we won't be needing it any more. Its just one of those things.....all of my babies slept in this crib and I have a funny story about baby beds. When Carter out grew his baby bassinet I sold it at a children's consignment store, thinking we were done having babies. Then When we found out that we were having Brayden the Bonus Baby I went out looking to buy another bassinet and found Carter's original bassinet for sale at a completely different consignment store. The timing was perfect and the people who had bought Carter's bassinet were done with it and put it up for sale at this store and I bought it.....again.....but for Brayden that time! So you can understand why the crib was something I wanted to keep (not because we're having more babies, but just because I want to keep it, so there.) Jim had the perfect plan to do just that - he cut the legs off and raised the mattress part and voila'! A custom made toddler bed was made, we had spent zero dollars....and I got to keep my babies' crib :)
I found this picture on our camera of the boys playing with plastic bags. I could have sworn that somebody, somewhere told me never to let children play with plastic bags, or use them to dress up with for that matter. No wonder the boys have so much fun with Daddy when Mommy's out. Don't worry, Jim is a big time safety freak, if you will, and I assure you that everybody is fine. But I don't think I'll share a picture of the swingset in the backyard with the obstacle course ropes tied all over it.....It would worry Grandma too much. But hey, the squirrells like the ropes too!
Here is Brayden drawing a picture at Grandma's house last week. He said it was for Daddy :)
I'm so glad everyone could come and we could spend that time together! Next time sooner than later, alright?
