4th of July

My three favorite pictures from the 4th were all of the boys' backs while they watched fireworks. They were just so darn cute - in the top picture you can see the fireworks off Pilot Butte in front of them! But the best of the night was this of Dillon holding hands with Uncle Brandon. First of all, Dillon hardly ever holds hands with people, not even me and look how happy he is in this picture....you know you're alright if he lets you hold his hand :)

We walked and found a place right in front of the butte and had a great view, Jim was recording the video and you can hear Carter's little voice in the background :) The video is a little blurry, but really cool! There were several explosions on top and I think they were trying to make it look like it was a volcano blowing up......?

Happy Birthday Carter!

Our man is 5 today and we celebrated a little yesterday with bikes, scooters, race tracks and Sun Mountain Fun Center YAY! Everything was blue, his favorite color.....blue bike, blue on his scooter, blue cup cakes, blue notebooks and magic markers, he's quite a little artist right now!...blue blue blue!
Here is Papa and all the boys watching Jim in the batting cage at Sun Mountain, they are like stair steps all in order by size :)
Grandma had fun playing with markers one afternoon! Yes, I said "Grandma" had fun, HA!

Rub-a-dub-dub.

You smiled, didn't you?

In Loving Memory of Jeffry, 02/06/89 - 05/30/09

The photo above was taken the weekend before he went into the hospital, the photo below was at his Celebration of Life.I think his friends (and Uncle Brandon) have been keeping the local tattoo parlors pretty busy :)
This picture of Jeff and his Mom was one of the last taken of them together, such a handsome guy with his mamma. My hope is to be able to collect recent photos of Jeff with his Dad and Step Mom Denette...Jeff had an amazing family every which way he looked :)Lisa holding her son at his Celebration of Life...


We love you and miss you tremendously Jeff, but we know you are now in the best hands of all. Much Love, and Big Jeff Hugs right back atcha nephew. Love, Us

Indoor MMA

It was so wonderful having everyone stay at our house over the last few weeks, we feel so lucky to have such a fabulous family for all of us to go through this hard time together. As difficult as these last few weeks have been, we did manage to have a little fun and games :) Here is Drayson with Uncle Brandon in a head lock or triangle hold or whatever the heck this move is called:

Jim and Brandon during the Brotherly Bonding Battle:

And OF COURSE we held a pee-wee-super-lighter-than-a-feather-weight MMA event too:

For Jeff

These kids are all amazing, these are some of Jeff's friends who all came together last night for him. Being there with all of them really lifted our spirits, and I have to thank them for that.They had all these candles formed in a heart, all of them had been lit and when we all stood in a circle for a moment of silence, prayers and good thought....all of them blew out except this one. It stayed lit until we were done. Its Jeff's candle. And its in his hospital room with him right now....

.....Lisa has been telling Jeff that he is the light of her heart. These guys didn't know how fitting this was. Thank you girls, for getting everybody involved to help support each other right now, and for the time you spent with me, it really meant so much to me and I would love to be able to keep in touch with you and include Jeff with us next time...plus I want my own Jeff Nelson shirt someday :)

With Love to you, Jeff's Aunt Jessica

Jeffry

Here are some of our favorite pictures of Jeffry having good times with us :)Who else do you know that can do back flips off of any stable object?Everyone needs an older cousin to give them super-wedgies...dang, those poor boys were hurting after that! It was sooooo worth it to Jeff though.....

And I know what you're thinking - everyone has a picture of Jeff sleeping on thier couch. But I bet they aren't this cute. This was about 5 years ago or so, I think Dillon was around 2 and just loved Jeff....but thats probably because Jeff never gave him any wedgies.

And later that night.....it was all about Jeff and his baby.

Hi. I'm 3......

****** 04/29/09, Birthday Day! I had to add this funny story to this post: The other day I was shopping in Fred Meyer with Carter and Brayden and Brady was hanging off the side of the cart singing the Queen song..."Got mud on your face...Big disgrace...We will, We will ROCK YOU" over and over again and I looked up to see a super nice family smiling and being entertained by my son's singing. They looked familiar and I realized that it was the Beaties, the pregnant man, his wife and thier cutie pie daughter (he is pregnant again, due in June) What super nice people! Its just funny...first it was the Extreme Home Makeover right next door to my old house in Corvallis, then it was Meet Your New (pirate episode) Mommy down the street from my mom's house in Albany, and NOW leave it to our Brayden to entertain the Beatie Family! Hee-hee, Oh Brady...Happy Birthday! ********

....well, at least on the 29th I will be! (how cute is this photo?!) Thank you Aunties and Uncles and Cousins and Grandparents for filling our home with fun and good times for Brady's birthday :)I would never have thought that he would end up being shy about everyone singing Happy Birthday to him (he buried his face in his hands through the whole song!), but the rest of the boys didn't mind taking care of those candles...I think we alllllll got a piece with just a little spit on it :)I wish I could figure out how to add music to this video - it would be the song by Foghat: Slow Ride.....Take it ea-say....


We had so much fun!

Snow, Sun, and Undies

Central Oregon has no idea what season it is. We went from snowing on April 15th to.......Walking around on the Pilot Butte Trail in 80 degree weather and intense sunshine on April 18th.

We ditched Brady's diapers about a month ago, and he has been an amazing big boy about it. The first couple of days he sobbed averytime we sat him on the toilet and then all of a sudden it wasn't an issue and now he like to get himself dressed and says "I love undies" We love that he is becoming such a big kid....even if most of his clothes are on backward and inside out most of the time :)Hi Bob The Builder! We see you peeking out of those sweat pants!

Next up: Brayden's 3rd Birthday!

No Training Wheels!

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!

Nice Catches

Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! They are like the seagulls from Finding Nemo.....Mine! Mine! Mine!

They are always so impressed when Brady catches the ball too :)

Carter spelled out his name with blocks, I want to print this picture and hang it in his room!

Grandma with the boys.....a few of them at least. Jimmy, Dillon, Carter and Cousin Drayson.

On To New Projects....

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!

This brings me to Jim's latest project (well, ok - at least one of his latest projects) SO LONG MOUSE CAM (the frog he brought home escaped, thank goodness.) HELLO.......KID CAM!

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?

Now, how do we get him to wear it all day long at school? Hmmmmmm......

Update on 'Operation Mouse'

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.


We haven't seen a dang mouse since all of this junk has been sitting in my kitchen. YES, I've been living with all this crap on the floor of my kitchen. I have to take the "weights" off the modified mouse trap JUST so I can open the dishwasher! AND as a bonus, Jim is FINALLY BORED of the whole 'mouse cam' project now and just this minute he brought home a frog for the boys to set up in an aquarium because its too cold and snowy to let it go outside right now. Apparently, the frog is now our pet that we are providing shelter for until spring.

Really, I'm not kidding.

Does anyone know what frogs eat? You know we'll have to feed IT now too....