Paint

What do you get when you give toddlers a little bit of paint from each color of the rainbow? One color - Brown.

Typical Responses

Here's a quick video of typical responses from the kids. Miran wanting the camera, Savannah hanging out, and Isaac crying for relief.

Daddy's Smile

Isaac definately has daddy's smile. Isn't he a cutie. You can't tell me the girls aren't going to be swooning over him in the years to come. He's getting so active lately, smiling and giggling. He's wanting to grab hold of things and play with them. He has been so much fun and the girls are having more and more fun with him. Savannah can't seem to put him down. Every time I turn around she's hauling him around to the next place taking care of him. He seems to enjoy it most of the time.

Isaac's Baby Book

Erica Hite, one of the designers created a series of baby book layout templates at ScrapGirls. I was so excited to see this. I've wanted to do a baby book for my kids but it was just too overwhelming. This takes all the guess work out of it, and yet I can still enjoy creating and choosing my own colors, papers etc. I thought it would be fun to post the finished pages here when I get the completed as well. Some of these still a few more elements to add - obviously the other half of his ancestors and journaling from Beau. When we get that caught up I'll repost those.

Bike Ride

My Mr. Fix It Husband has this great attitude of "if we don't have one I'll make one!" So being students and not being able to go out and get a new bike cart to pull the kids around he had to use his creative engineering talents. From wheelchair wheels, kitchen racks, a piece of wood, frames from a bouncy horse, twine and other odds and ends he created his own bicycle cart. Using blankets for cushioning and belts from our closets to secure them in, the kids have a blast going for a ride with dad. There's even enough room to strap Isaac in the front in his car seat as well. They often leave mom for some time to herself and go see the town behind dads two wheels and love every second of it. Savannah even had to bring and strap her baby in. She sure couldn't let the baby miss such an amazing ride.

Give me a Break!

Whether I deserved it or not, I took a break from school and research projects and went on a . . . um . . . emotionally enriching, relationship enhancing outing with my father and two brothers. Ok, alright, so we went on a snowmobiling trip for three days. But it wasn't all just fun and games, we had to work hard, relying on good teamwork on multiple occasions to dig out the snowmobiles when we buried them. Hey . . . ok, so you can snicker under your breath if you want, but it was a great trip, we had a great time, and I wasn't just trying to duck out of any responsibilities the first chance I got. In all seriousness, we had a great time, and I enjoyed spending some quality time in recreational activities with Dad, Alex, and Phillip. A family friend, Beau Nicoll, went with us and stayed both nights. Some others showed up both on Friday and Saturday, but didn't stay the night, Dave Burton, Uncle Mark Mackay, and some of his friends. Here is a clip of Alex, Phillip, Beau Nicoll, and Dad jumping. We wanted them to jump closer together but this the best we got.

The temperatures were a little warmer than usual the whole trip, especially in the cabin on the second night, the fireplace roasted us all out, but the snow wasn't sticky enough to cause problems with the sleds. We pulled our food and things up in toboggans, and they tipped over a couple of times. Although we lost eight of our eighteen eggs, which we had to clean off of the rest of the food containers (note: wrap eggs in separate plastic bag to prevent mess), and three sockets, thankfully these were our only casualties the whole trip. We did stage a fake accident though where Beau Nicoll gets run down by Dad on his big Arctic Cat. We made a fun little movie with it that I will post here when it is all put together. Alex seemed to outdo us all in burying snowmobiles. He dropped right into a creek once, which we can't fully blame him for, because he had already crossed at that location once, I guess the second time was too much and it just dropped him. He also stuck Dad's big sled pretty good when he tried to go higher up the mountain than he had just gone on a lighter snowmobile, and it got stuck pointing into the sky away from the mountain.

It took us a while to get to him, to help him get out, and Dave Burton ended up tipping his sled over when he tried to get close. You can see how deep the snow was when I post the pictures here. I enjoyed both climbing the steep hills and working my way through the trees. The snow conditions were great and let us go lots of places we wanted to. Shalae took advantage of the time I was in the mountains, and had arranged with her mother to teach two digital scrapbooking classes. She is always looking for more potential addicts to get hooked on it. It is pretty neat to see people get excited about recording family memories, definitely a worthwhile hobby that helps keep family relationships strong. The girls loved playing with their grandparents on both sides, and Mirian never let us forget that my parents dog was outside. The poor girl is pretty scared of dogs. Between daylight savings time change and staying up late talking with family, it will take us all a while to get back on a good sleeping schedule. All accounted for, it was a great break!

Rooster Tail

I have to say that Mirian has AMAZING hair! She is constantly strutting around this rooster tail. It doesn't matter how many times mom tries to put it in a cute little pony tail it is out within minutes. So most of the day she runs around looking wild along with Savannah. Savannah on the other hand refuses to have her hair fixed.. "It hurts" she says, screaming bloody murder and throwing her body about... occassionally we can convince her that she wants to be pretty and we'll get a really cute braid or ponytail, but within an hour of running around, and changing her clothes 10 times she too sports the same wild hair as Mirian.