Attack of The Killer Whale

"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.

Over The River and Through The Woods To Grandma's Attic We Go!

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:




Years ago, before we had kids, my mom bought the cutest little old house in Albany and we rented it from her and started our family there. Then when we bought our first house and moved out, she moved right in! It has been so great being able to go back and visit our old home where we started our family whenever we want - how often do you get to go back to the old homes you used to live in and see what they look like now?! Anyway, while we lived there Jim was crawling around the attic and found a "secret" little room that we always thought was really cool...there were old, old beer bottles and handwritten notes back there and everything. Now, the boys are old enough to crawl back there and see it too and it got us talking about how when you're a little kid everything in your memories seem so much BIGGER and more of an EXCITING MYSTERY than they are when you go back to visit them as an adult. So, we had to take pictures of the secret attic room an how to get there for the boys when they're older....Here we go - first you go upstairs...

Then you go to the back of Grandma's wardrobe and through the little door....much like the Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, isn't it?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 :)

A Few For Fun

Snow Boots...Snuggles...

Duke The Dog, The Cat and the Sleepy Little Boy...

And snowball fights...

Merry Christmas!

Brayden wanted to sing Jingle Bells for you...

Dillon made a Christmas card for us, translated it reads: "Dear Mom and Dad Merry Christmas and I hope you like the card and ornament I made you Love Dillon" We loved them both, including his fancy d's :)

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!

Weekend In The Woods

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?!

I'm so glad everyone could come and we could spend that time together! Next time sooner than later, alright?

Beds, Bags, And Drawings

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 :)

When we went to go visit my mom, she had an extra dog. I guess somebody had left him there and didn't come back and wasn't feeding him or taking care of him and she didn't want to give him back anyway. But she couldn't keep him either and didn't have the heart to take him to a pound or humane society because he was such a good dog and way too cute to do something like that. So I brought him to live with Uncle Brandon and Auntie Jessica! His name is Duke and he loves the boys and the boys love him. I have to admit that we have never had a boy dog, and certainly one that hasn't been "fixed" before, so Dillon was asking what those round things were by his tail. Oh Boy. I just said they were boy parts because Duke is a boy dog and we went on with whatever we were doing, you know - no big deal, right? Dillon later wanted to draw a picture and asked me what he should draw and I said, why don't you draw Duke? This is his picture of Duke The Dog :)

Oh HAHA! Too funny! I have to say that Duke is actually much cuter than this and probably won't have those boy parts for much longer, so its good that we have a picture of him....with them....I guess.....oh boys.

Dillon has been teaching himself to write in cursive. Really, he has been teaching himself (he even spent the entire first half of the day on Veteran's Day sitting at the table practicing while there was no school that day) Then there's me.....I had to hop online to find, then print out a chart of all the upper and lower case letters written in cursive to re-learn how to properly and artistically 'draw' these letters of our English alphabet. Its been a while, I suppose. So I had to put this photo first and foremost, heres to you, Aunt Lisa!Our boys all have certain special things that they bring to bed with them each night, and we have discovered that it is more important to them to keep those special things covered up at night than it is to keep themselves covered up and warm. Also, the boys have genetically inherited a trait from one of us - I won't mention who, but its not me - but quite often we catch them sleeping all cozy with thier hands down thier pants....maybe its to keep them warm since they give all thier blankets to thier stuffed animals? Here are Dillon and Brayden during the same night, keeping cozy that is :)

Ahhh, SNUGGLES! Thank goodness that there is still enough room for everybody on Mommy's lap. Until Miss Kitty pushes her way in and takes one of thier spots. Poooor Dillon.....

Halloween & Dillon's 7th Birthday!

I've been volunteering as much as I can in Dillon's classroom, and of course I always go on Halloween! I actually remembered to bring my camera and I got all the cutie kids singing Happy Birthday to Dillon - such a shy guy up there :) HeeHee, Thats our boy! This is the 2nd year in a row that he has had another friend in his class whose birthday is also on Halloween, pretty cool!

Our little Ninjas had a blast, Brayden refused to dress up at all this year....even though he knew he would get candy for it. Oh well, less candy = no complaints from me!

I just love that Dillon was born on Halloween, so far it has turned out to be the best day of the year for everyone. This year Brady thought everything was his, and Carter was just as excited for Dillon's presents as Dillon was - A couple of Carter's very loud and excited key phrases were, "Thats what WE always wanted Dillon!", and "Thats the one we saw on Ebay!" Dillon agreed right away :) It was absolutely hilarious and I'm terrible for not having it on tape.


Carter decided to wear his pants backwards all day for Halloween.....all day!

It was late for the little one, and here we have him on video trying to fall asleep - if only everyone would be quiet already...super cute!

I Want To Be This Guy When I Grow Up

I have never been much of a runner. In Middle School I remember running a 14 minute mile, walking half the time. I'm not sure why this is either. I can walk or hike all ALL DAY. I can even do sprint/walk intervals for 40 minutes straight, but ask me to run for more than 10 consecutive minutes (still not reaching a mile all these years later) and I'll be red-faced and huffing and puffing while coming up on that 9th minute, ready to start walking the rest of the way.

I've even set a goal to jog for 3 miles, and gradually tried work my way to it over a month's time. By the third week I realized that I jog too darn slowly to reach the 3 miles in a reasonable time, otherwise I would be jogging for an hour just to log in 3 miles. So then I said to myself, "Thats OK. This is a big goal for me. I will be proud to jog for 30 minutes straight and I don't care how far I go."

Almost three months later, on the stinking treadmill at least 4-5 days a week, 10 minutes is all I've got and I STILL can't run a mile in that 10 minutes. Hmmpf.

So you can imagine how I felt when I read this headline in the local paper a while back. But once I started reading past the photograph caption, I started feeling a little bit better.....I guess while 91 year old Mr. Lauderback was in highschool and then while attending the University of Oregon in the mid-1930's he tried out for track and awaited a varsity letter that never came. He ran too slow. Near the age of 43 he started running a mile every day for 20 years. At 65, he was running a 6 minute mile. Then at 91 he broke the world record for the 1 mile run in the 90-94 age group! He ran a mile in 10 minutes, 52 seconds! Better than I did when I was 12, better than I can do now at 30. And now here he is running up the 1 mile, 500 foot incline of Pilot Butte in the local Pilot Butte Challenge in under 19 minutes! I have yet to walk up that old volcano since we moved to town.....but now I have hope knowing that time is on my side, even if it takes me another 10 years to run a dang mile in 10 minutes or run for 30 minutes straight. So I decided that this is the guy I want to be when I grow up.

What Day Is It Again?

Its October 10th. OCTOBER. 10TH. And it started snowing last night........And you thought it was getting cold where you live....silly, silly, silly. Well, unless you're the one in Wyoming. Then you are most likely more chilly than me :)

Rise & Shine Boys! They lasted a whole 5 minutes out there this morning. Such Brave Little Toasters.

What's That on the Back of Your Head?

Carter's morning hair, before & after:

Who are you? Carter, or Brayden? Brayden, or Carter? Could have been twins I tell you.

A Few Random Shots

Jim recently drove to La Grande for work and along his 10 1/2 hour round trip commute these were my favorite pictures he took. I have never been on the route he took to La Grande, well, I've never actually been to La Grande and these pictures are a part of the Eastern Oregon Outback that I've never seen. Really, what a huge, diverse and beautiful state Oregon is.



Here are the boys having fun, Carter swings like a maniac and Brayden thinks he is doing life defying tricks on the bench swing.

Auntie Jessica (Jeahss-ja-ca as Brayden says) reading her favorite book to the boys, titled "I Am NOT Going To Get Up Today"

Uncle Brandon snuggling with the other boy. (i.e., leftovers)

New Phrases & Tumalo Creek

Brayden is a fun, innocent, bright and growing little guy, however, he is....well, two. And along with being two years old he is broadening his conversational skills. He tells us things like "I lub you" & "You best". We have a special family thing that we tell each other "You're the best [fill in a name] ever, in the whole Universe!". Also, in tune, he is singing a couple of verses from his favorite song called Moon, Moon, Moon. And he is also telling us (ok, mainly me) "NO Mommy, NO. Cop it Mommy, cop it!" (Cop it means Stop it and he says it REALLY loud)

But the newest phrase that only I have had the privilege of being told is "I be mad at you Mommy, be mad at you" He says this in a warning tone, much like a tiger gives a warning growl before attacking. In either case, you must learn to walk away when given the warning....before its too late. So here I am trying to record him singing the Moon, Moon, Moon song and this is what I got:



I actually have another video of him right after this, where he told me "COP IT!!" and I told him that its not nice to talk to your Mommy like that and he quickly said "Sorry, Mommy, Sorry..." Then finished the clip with more of his be mad at you's - but the video was too long and wouldn't upload to blogger. So sorry.

Tumalo Creek

Tumalo Creek is so much prettier than I thought it would be, the creek sits below that natural rock wall above. Its really nice to find a shady place like this on a hot day, it can be hard to find a good amount of shade around here sometimes! Going to Tumalo was our last little outing before school started, we drove out to Prineville Reservoir first that day, but Jim and I are lush, green Valley people at heart who happen to like lots of trees and we found the place to be too barren, dry, and hot (pictured below) and we have no desire to go back. This made walking around Tumalo Creek spectacular.

But let us not forget.......Brayden is still mad at you Mommy. Little Stinker.

Crescent Lake & The Cabin In The Woods

We just had the best family vacation ever! Thanks to Uncle Chuck and Aunt Judith for letting us stay at thier home in Crescent Junction and more thanks to Grandpa who unbelievably entertained us with boating, beaches and food! Here are the boys at Grandpa's house ~

They even got to operate the excavator! This was a true boy's DREAM vacation ~Here is the family on the deck with a view of the forest (Nana, Jessica and Brandon, Aunt Tina, us and John with the silly face)...a big black bear was seen on some of Uncle Chuck's additional property just over our shoulders a couple of nights before, and left some paw prints and bathroom remains that were found even closer....so exciting, HA! The boys fed the horses who detected the bear not far from their little enclosure. They were the nicest horses, the black one is the mommy and the spotted one is her son. Thank you Steve for letting us feed them a little hay snack!~

Some views of Diamond Peak and Crescent Lake from the top of the neighborhood ~
Grandpa took us out on a pontoon boat and this was the first time Dillon and Carter have ever been pulled behind a boat (with their cousin John holding on to them of course!) They LOVED it and we had such a good time that we now have to figure out how to get our own boat now.....ok and our own cabin too....eventually, right?!
This was a pretty long vacation from home for Brady, and by the time we had gotten out on the boat he had missed his daily nap for the fourth day in a row and got scared and cried everytime somebody jumped in the water thinking they were going to get hurt. Then he cried about wearing the life jacket and couldn't stop himself until he fell asleep while still standing up :) He was much happier when we reached the sandy beach and Jim made him a shade hut to hang out in.

This was such a great getaway, and I wasn't quite ready to come home. So we will be bringing the boys back soon! Thank you so much Uncle Chuck, Aunt Judith & Grandpa! This was truly such a special time for us :)