Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Meanest Mommy in the World

Do you know how long it takes for my 2 year old to go through every person he knows possibly on this earth? About 5 minutes. That is a lot of people he knows. Why am I telling you this? Because we found this on the wall tonight in two different spots; ...and when I asked Christopher who did it, he proceeded to tell me that dad did it, Bekah Hewlett (that is how he refers to her now) did it, Porter did it, Zach and Ryeleigh did it (yes they are in Utah still-but what talent to get crayon on the wall from there), 'friend' as they call the girl next door did it, grandma did it, and a whole long list of other names did it-if you are reading this, you very well may have been blamed for this crayon drawing. He stood in time-out after the first-dad did it-and stayed in time out until he ran out of people and finally said; "Me did it mommy, sorry" with the biggest grin on his face you've ever seen. The little stinker. I made him clean the smaller of the two messes with a magic eraser (thank heaven for those things! I should buy stock in them!).He moaned and groaned the whole time, he couldn't scrub very hard, so it was taking quite a long time. It might have been a little strict and hard for a 2 year old to handle, but I was already at my wit's end with him for all the little fibs he was telling, and for not eating his dinner and spilling the whole bag of gold fish crackers on the living room carpet just minutes before discovering the crayon. Chad came and helped him with the last little bit by pushing on his hands while he scrubbed, I think he really might think twice before doing it again though-he was miserable cleaning it up!

Monday, September 29, 2008

You're mom goes to college

No, not really, but their dad does.
Chad had his first day at OIT today!He wouldn't let me take a picture of him on the front doorstep, like I wanted, so I had to use his first day of kindergarten picture, (isn't he cuuuute?!?)...I did get a picture of him walking to the car though (still soooo cute!)......so here he walks with determination, eyes on the prize, mind ready to soak up the knowledge needed for his chosen path.

He has 4 classes this term-Math, Chemistry, Human Anatomy and Medical Imaging Intro.

All of them are super time consuming and intensive-so that means all sorts of time spent studying and on homework. On top of all that he is still working on his Bachelors from University of Phoenix-which already takes up a good portion of his week, and once his hand heals he is going to have to go back to work too.

So that means a whole lot of leaving him alone while he gets edu-macated-it's going to be all sorts of tough! It'll all be worth it in the end though right?

Move Trash

So I can't believe in all the posts I did about our month long excursion in Utah that I didn't mention our new baby-not once. Not Porter, but our new car.
We are both so absolutely ecstatic with it-and that is sooo unusual for us.
It has everything both of us could want, for me; the leather, the captains chairs, 2 dvd players, and it's pretty. For Chad-it's a 3/4 ton, he got fancy gauges for it, he's planning on putting bigger tires on it and other stuff I don't get, plus he can do all sorts of 'manly' things-like tow and pull stuff with it.
It get's horrible gas mileage of course, but I think to be that happy with a vehicle, and to get such a great deal on it like we did, it's worth it to pay a little more at the pump.
Added bonus-it would take one heck of a deer to total out this bad boy!
Our other new thing is this trampoline that we got off Craigs list this week. We got a great price on it, since the lady was moving and just needed it out of her backyard so the house would show better. It has a safety net included that we still need to put up, so they shouldn't be able to get too hurt on it. They couldn't be more excited about it.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Love Machine & Holiday Card

I made a couple fun cards for our card swap...
I heart this one! I designed the robot and the love machine tag-scanned them in and made them a digital embellishment on photo shop-so I can use them again, and so I could mass produce the cards.

Inside:This one is a Christmas card, I jacked my own work, from a Christmas album I did last year:Inside:

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Just when I think...

...I am done blogging for the day, my kids come back from "helping" thier dad from picking up apples looking like this. Maybe you need a closer look. Go on, take it. I guess they thought their time would be better spent rolling and bathing in dirt then picking up apples. We have a whole backyard full of grass to play on. They choose the small patch of dirt. Typical Kids!

Apples of My Eye

I know, I know cheesy title...I'm cheesy what can I say? But this is not about cheese. It is about apples.
Anywho-We have two apple trees in the backyard that are FULL of apples and the ground around them is constantly covered in them. The trees haven't been pruned or taken care of-so there are just way too many and they are way overgrown. We will be remedying that this year-but until then we are gathering up 1000's of apples and putting them on the side of our yard in this hole that is now very full, you would never have guessed there was a hole there to begin with. It takes hours, and the kids are so done with it. Chad and I try to bribe them with treats and even money-but they are done. Most of the burden ends up in Chad's hand-singular. We have saved a couple and they actually taste really good-there are just SO many, we aren't bothering looking for the good ones, just trying to get them off the lawn. Next year we should have a pretty good harvest though-and maybe we can do some canning and be like all of you canning fools out there.
This is just a quick little snapshot I took of my kidletts today on the way out to the backyard-I don't know if I ever really thought of this door much, it's just on the side of the garage-but it is really cool. I love my house and all the quirky little things I keep finding in and about it-lots of great places for taking pictures! I will have to remember this door...

Monday, September 22, 2008

Mystery Solved

We have been a little crazy lately and have gotten out of the habit of our weekly "Discovering Oregon" trip. A reminder of what that is for us-when we lived in Utah we didn't really get out and do anything that Utah had to offer-you know the things people come to Utah for. For instance Chad has never been to Canyonlands or the Arches and I have never been to Lake Powell. Not once. I know..pathetic right?
Well when we moved to Oregon we promised ourselves we would not do that here. For the most part we haven't let that happen-we have seen and done so much while we have been here. We used to do something weekly, but it's been awhile.
Since we have been in Klamath Falls we have done a few cool things around here-Lake of the Woods, The Lava Caves and of course Crater Lake. We decided we need to get back on our weekly discovery trip.
So this week we 'Discovered Link River Trail.'
In 1867 Klamath Falls was settled at the Link River and named Linkville. It wasn't changed to Klamath Falls until 1893. It was named Klamath Falls after Klamath Lake and I believe that was named after an Indian tribe.
Since we have moved here, everyone that has never been here asks us if there are falls here. We hadn't seen any-just a lot of lakes, until today. There might be bigger falls somewhere down the river or somewhere else in town-but this is all we have seen. We found it pretty humorous that the town could be named after this water fall. So the big mystery has been solved!
Along the trail there were many berry bushes to pick yummy berries from.
It took a lot of convincing to get Bekah to try one-so much that I had to threaten her to take her back to the car if she wouldn't. She sobbed and sobbed until she finally tasted one and then we couldn't stop her from picking them....
Or the flowers.
We had no problem getting Topher to try the berries-and this is what his hands looked like after a few minutes-he also had them all over his face and legs and feet...I swear this kid can get so messy-so quick!There were also these orange wild plums, I think they were, that were OH SO GOOD! I want a tree of my very own. The kids probably ate 50 each. I'm sure I ate twice that!
Porter slept in the snuggly the whole way up until the last 2 minutes, so he had pretty perfect timing. He loves being in the snuggly or the sling.Me and the kids in front of the river. Such a fun walk-the kids can't wait to go back, and I'm excited to have something so fun so close!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Morning Mush Munchers

These kids love Grandma Mona's mush. Almost every morning we were in Utah she had a pot of it on the stove waiting for them when they would wake up. This is something that all the grandkids love and something they will always remember about visiting Grandma Mona's.

Farm Day

Priscilla has a membership to Thanksgiving Point and got us all in to the farm for half price,the kids rode the ponies, the wagon ride and fed the goats and big horses. Lots of farm fun for cheap-can't beat it! This is a stop we always have to make when we visit Utah-I wish we had something like this by us!

Meet Tuffy B

While in Utah Chad was set on getting Topher a teddy bear, since all little boys need a bear. I was excited because that meant I could convince him to make another trip to Build A Bear. I love that place! So Tuffy B was created, B for short. Topher was a little sick when we went here, so that's why he looks a little drowsy(all the kids got a fever at least once while we were in Utah, not to mention Bekah got a cough and Topher got a runny nose). He had so much fun and that bear has barely left his side since he got it. Welcome to the family Tuffy B!

Learning to Share

I thought it would be funny to see if Tuffy B's clothes fit Porter-they did, and it was funny.

Roar!

While in Utah we went to Thanksgiving Points Dinosaur museum which is the largest dinosaur museumin North America-I didn't know that. It was really cool. The kids loved it and you could seriously spend all day there-IF you don't have five kids under five and three more one and under. Still even with that many little ones we did manage to kill a couple hours and only had one lost kid scare (Connor again- I swear that kid gets lost more than my sunglasses and that is saying something!).
There were lots of dinosaur bones, sand pits to brush for fossils, a sand and water table to make the dinosaur toys extinct-lots of hands on things-I have SO many pictures, I got tired of looking through them, so I don't even know if I got the best ones! We will definitely have to make another trip back to this place and probably soon!

And he shall be called...

Porter Samuel Hewlett. There was never a sweeter baby blessing. We had Porters blessing last minute at Scott and Suzanna's house. He smiled through the whole beautiful blessing. Chad gave it and seriously it was so good. Most of his uncles were there to stand in the circle and all of Chad's family was able to be there. It was so special to be able to have them all there for it.
He looked so cute in his clothes, even in his goofy hat that Suzanna and Mona insisted I took a picture of him in. We couldn't get a decent family pic-but whatever!