Alaskan Adventures

Little Sweetie rides a bike!

2012-02-11T22:56:00.000-08:00

Now that we're starting to see just the smallest beginnings of spring, the Little Sweetie has been determined to have me haul the bikes out of storage so that she can really start riding, since she's such a big girl now. And I have to admit that there is quite a difference between her "riding" in the fall and her "riding" now! She won't be happy riding in the bike trailer much longer.

Christmas tree decorating

2012-01-23T16:46:00.000-08:00

Each of the kids got to pick out and decorate their own Christmas trees (a first for the Little Sweetie). And here are the final products:

O Boy of course turned this into a Life Event. He spent HOURS decorating this tree. He kept asking for more and more ornaments and decided to use the multi-colored yarn he found somewhere as a garland. Then he turned his focus to what was (or at that point, was not) under the tree. He made, and wrapped, presents (sometimes more than one) for everyone in the family. At first they were all under his tree. Then he started shuffling them around, putting some presents under the big tree, some under each individual's tree. Very organized! The presents he made turned out to be books and toys we already owned, re-wrapped in old fabric. And, what I enjoyed more, he drew pictures for each family member. Mr. T got 2 pictures of monster trucks. The Little Sweetie got a picture of a flower plate she loves and a picture of her "best friend" Becca, labeled "BEC". Phil got a picture of one of his slippers (which O Boy loves to steal) and a picture of me hugging him. I think it said something like "Mom luv Dad" with the word hug thrown in there somewhere. I got a picture of a flower and I think another picture of Phil and me hugging. They were pretty great presents!

And here was our family tree. Another huge one, but very beautiful!

Fish hatchery field trip

2011-12-24T13:33:00.000-08:00

There aren't a lot of places to go on field trips on our island, but the kindergartners do get to visit our local fish hatchery to learn about salmon life cycles each year. Here are some photos of their trip.

Touching the salmon eggs.

Here is their guide cutting open a salmon so they could see the eggs spilling out. Pretty exciting stuff for kindergartners!

Touching and exploring everything...

Here are the eggs which are maturing and beginning to turn into tiny salmon. In these eggs you could begin to see the features of a baby salmon.

Everyone went home with their own set of salmon eggs but I'm not sure any of them lived too long!

Here are the workers who stand for hours at a time marking all the tiny little salmon before releasing them out into Blind Slough.

One of the best parts of this field trip for our boys was getting to ride on the school bus to the hatchery.

Red Ribbon week

2011-12-24T13:27:00.000-08:00

This year the boys' school celebrated a Red Ribbon week. Each day they got to dress up as different characters, which of course was lots of fun for especially O Boy.

Here is O Boy dressed up as George Washington. He helped me put this together after we looked at several pictures online. We borrowed some pieces of the costume from friends in town and turned one of his pirate hats into his tricornered hat.

He even had a little colonial pony tail!

Even though she wasn't going to school, the Little Sweetie was pretty convinced she should dress up too (of course as a princess!).

Mr. T dressed up as Davy Crockett in a really cool handmade outfit we borrowed from friends in town. We have a book called, "Davy Crockett Saves the World" in which he has a best friend who is a black bear named Death Hug. Mr. T remembered that and reminded me that he needed to take our stuffed black bear to school to complete his costume!

Friends in O Boy's kindergarten class who dressed up. I think they are supposed to be Queen Victoria, Abe Lincoln, George Washington, and Wyatt Earp, but I might be wrong!

Another dress up day was called "twin day." The boys decided to wear their Muckdog shirts and hats and O Boy and I made some glasses for him to match Mr. T's.

And of course little sister needed to get in on the photo op too.

School pictures 2011

2011-12-24T13:17:00.000-08:00

Here are our school pictures from this year. They are growing up so quickly!

O Boy, age 5 1/2 kindergarten

Mr. T, age 7, kindergarten

Little Sweetie, age 2 1/2

See-saw stuntmen

2011-12-24T13:15:00.000-08:00

We do a babysitting night swap with some friends in town who have 2 boys close to the ages of our kids. When they came over several weeks ago the boys came up with an exciting new use for our spinning seesaw. Instead of just sitting on it and going up and down and around, they added a third person to run and push the seesaw around as fast as they could possibly run! When I realized they were pushing the boundaries of safety a bit, I asked them to put on helmets. Then O Boy added the rest of the pieces of their "armor" - coats and gloves. No one got hurt and they did have a great time!

LB could barely keep ahead of the spinning seesaw!

Even the Little Sweetie got in on the action.

O Boy suggested they put on thick coats and gloves as part of their "armor."

They loved doing these intentional falls/rolls under the seesaw. That's when I suggested they put on the helmets!

You can see just how fast they got going.

2011 Christmas tree hunt

2011-12-23T18:35:00.000-08:00

This year we were thankful for beautiful weather for our Christmas tree hunt. The snow was too deep so we had to hike way up the road we can usually drive up, so next year we're bringing sleds in case that happens again.

The final choice. Even though we tried to get a small tree this year, we still ended up with a pretty big one. Not sure how that always happens. It is a beautiful one, though.

A snow eating break.

BK and the Little Sweetie just sat down next to this tiny tree and sampled snow off its branches!

BK takes the last of the snow.

Tired out from all the hiking.

The Little Sweetie got to "help" cut down her little tree with Daddy.

O Boy's tree

Mr. T's tree

Mr. T picked a very tiny tree this year.

Hauling the tree back out to the car. Mr. T really, really wanted to help carry the tree but he could barely keep up with the dads in the deep snow.

And the annual hot chocolate celebration back at the cars.

Marshmallow man

Unbeknownst to the parents, BK had been eating several of the marshmallows and, when O Boy asked for one more, had the last of the marshmallows in his mouth. So BK generously offered what was left of it to O Boy!

"Come on, O Boy, you can really have it!"

This is how O Boy decided to try to clean the hot chocolate off his face. It turned out to be a little too painful on the crunchy snow.

I LOVE this picture. The Little Sweetie was just informed that she couldn't have any more hot chocolate. And next to her, sidekick EK is sweetly enjoying her hot chocolate. Funny girls!

Another great year tree hunting with the Kandolls!

Harvest Party 2011

2011-12-23T18:18:00.000-08:00

We had a great harvest party this year, well organized by a couple in our church. There were lots of games, treats (of course) and even a jumping dragon. Mr. T spent most of his time on the jumping dragon. Our new church has a covered portico that is just the right size for a jumping dragon! :-) Here are some pictures from the fun night.

The Little Sweetie in a princess costume she basically assembled herself out of her costume box. The jellies were a must, even though it was absolutely freezing cold outside!

Mr. T went as either a monster truck or motorcyle driver, depending on when you asked him. Thankfully his costume was pretty easy: monster truck shirt and motorcycle helmet borrowed from our neighbor Nick Popp. The helmet he work in the door and then I think it came off for the rest of the night.

O Boy as, of course, Tintin.

Cole the thoughtful hunter.

The tie-dyed teen twins did a fantastic job painting faces all night.

I think these 3 were Larry, Moe and Curley.

Grandma Mary in her "Whosoever Will" costume.

Dr. Who!

At Alaskan Harvest Parties, you see a lot of hunters and loggers.

Buoy bowling is always a hit.

This is actually an authentic soldier uniform that Ethan is wearing.

The Little Sweetie figured out that it was much easier to eat the apple if she just tossed out the rules and grabbed the apple!

Mr. T is still trying to get that apple!

The Little Sweetie didn't keep most of her costume on for long either!

Phil manning the ring toss station.

O Boy and one of his best buddies.

My wise friend Erin made a big batch of playdoh for all the little guys who came to the Harvest Party to play with and take home. It was a popular spot!

Two cute little dinosaurs

CC discovers that there's another dinosaur sitting next to him.

Comparing notes on costumes.

A lumberjack

The fireman cousins

Despite Cody's best efforts, I think Mr. T actually won this race. :-)

The Little Sweetie (with even more of her costume missing!) could barely lift the ball in the buoy bowling station.

The Experiment phase

2011-12-23T17:58:00.000-08:00

Sometime in November O Boy got into an "experiment" phase. An experiment usually ran like this: start with water, then start adding anything you can find on the craft shelf or in the kitchen and see what happens. In the "experiment" shown below that he did with Mr. T and the Little Sweetie I think the ingredients list included shaving cream, food coloring (Mr. T is adding) pepper, paper, glue, salt, peppermint extract, and possibly other things I didn't know about. One or two of these "experiments" he persuaded me to leave around for weeks to see what would happen to it (nothing much more than some evaporation). Now he's on to new things and I can breathe a sigh of relief.

Pumpkin Pie Making 2011

2011-12-22T16:44:00.000-08:00

Just before Thanksgiving we brought out the old favorite no-bake pumpkin pie activity for this year's playgroup crew. A good group gathered to make this delicious and fun treat.

The Little Sweetie adds the milk.

Mixing it up.

Adding the tasty pumpkin.

Taste test!

The following series of photos I took of RSue and the Little Sweetie licking the bowls, whisks and spoons clean after everyone was done making their pies. Somebody has to be the cleanup crew!

More snow silliness Fall 2011

2011-12-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

On a rare warm, sunny day I took the Little Sweetie and one of her good friends RSue out for a sledding morning. It was the first time ever that they were big enough to get on their sleds, sled down by themselves and walk back up on their own. Wow! Big kids!

O Boy buried in the snow on our deck.

Kickin' back in the snow.

The master of silly faces, Mr. T, in the snow.

One afternoon (it was already dark, but this is Alaska!) we got pulled all around our parking lot and up into the neighborhood next to our house by Mr. Nick on his 4 wheeler. Mr. T helped drive, O Boy rode on the back like a musher and I held on to all the babies in the dogsled. It was snowing up a storm as you can see by these pictures but TONS of fun. In the sled with me is the Little Sweetie, NPopp, and a visiting baby friend, TKligmann.

Mushers ready for a sled ride. Mr. Nick taught them the mushing commands and had O Boy say them to get him to stop and go.

A "castle" O Boy made on our deck.

And the obligatory "soldier face" from the soldier on guard at the castle.

Fall decorations

2011-12-22T16:05:00.000-08:00

This year as fall came around I went out with the Little Sweetie and got some leaves and then pressed them. Then I asked each of the kids to make a design or picture with their leaves and we stuck them up on the windows. It was a really beautiful way to celebrate the unique beauty God has designed into fall leaves.

In the middle you can see a man/creature that O Boy designed out of leaves.

This is another leaf man made by O Boy, "holding a balloon and walking with a cane."

This is one of the designs I made after the kids got bored with the activity! It was a nice, relaxing artistic outlet for me. :-)

Painting the castle

2011-12-22T09:38:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago O Boy had one of his best buddies over to play. I got out a cardboard box we had around the house and they painted it almost completely inside and out as "their castle." After that, it was pretty much forgotten. The process was waaaaay more fun than the end product.

O Boy looks a little grumpy in this picture because he wasn't too happy that Mr. T came out and wanted to join in the painting fun. It was a hard little lesson in sharing!

This was BW's side

A shot of the intricate scene O Boy painted on the inside of his wall.

BW painting around his windows. He wanted lots and lots and lots of windows cut out of his wall.

Inside O Boy's castle. This mural had all sorts of meaning attached to it that I can't quite remember at this time. I think it was a picture of the king on his throne with some other details.

Happy painters

Kindergarten Potlach

2011-12-22T09:32:00.000-08:00

Each year around Thanksgiving time the kindergartners learn a bit about the native (Tlingit and Haida) culture in our area by having a potlach. They make costumes, share native foods and come in doing a kind of native dance.

Here's Mr. T marching in with his teacher, Mrs. Willis. O Boy is actually in the background, beating a drum.

O Boy beating the drum.

Group photo

A nice smile from O Boy!

A sort of chaotic group shot of both classes. Can you find O Boy and Mr. T?

Big kindergartners

Parachute trials

2011-12-22T09:27:00.000-08:00

O Boy decided to make himself a parachute a few weeks ago. Shortly after he made it he had a friend come over and they decided to test it out. Here you can see ES modeling the parachute with O Boy "holding the jet he jumped out of." !! They've got all the required safety gear: goggles and a hard hat.

This is the parachute from the back. The chute (in ES's hand) was originally supposed to be packed in the box and then self-deploy in the air. They quickly discovered it was better to just hold the parachute and toss it up in the air after jumping. Much better effect.

He's taking this launch very, very seriously.

Here are two videos we took (with the moms giving commentary) as O Boy did a few test jumps.

This is EW with the same parachute on a few days later, and some added safety accessories (gloves!).

The Flying Sillies

2011-12-22T09:21:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago we had a friend, LH, over from school. The boys decided they'd make a flying course from one couch to the other across the room, with a mattress in between in case they didn't make it! This was pure boy fun.

SPLAT

Mighty men

Letters of the week

2011-12-22T09:18:00.000-08:00

This year in kindergarten the boys are learning about one or two letters each week. So for some of the weeks we have taken some silly photos to illustrate different words which have whatever sounds they are studying. Here are a few of the pictures we came up with:

Hand for H week

Hands again!

Hopping!

A very dubious HAPPY

Mr. T doesn't need much help to show HAPPY, but O Boy thought tickling him would make for a better picture!

A book from one of our favorite series. This one earned double points: Dazzling Diggers for D week.

A frowning DAUGHTER who apparently wasn't very happy to be on display for D week.

O Boy's beloved Doggy. He took this photo.

Double points again: Daughter with a Duck!

Doctor

Doctor again. Usually we had to take two of each shot since one set of pictures goes to O Boy's class and the other to Mr. T's class.

O Boy was thrilled to find Dong Dong Dong in one of his Tintin books so we had to get that on camera.

One of the Little Sweetie's favorite books: Dentists

The next series of photos we took for F week. It was the kids "flying"! I posted all the pictures because they each captured a different, and pretty funny expression as the kids tried to "fly" down the hall. You can see that the boys decided having a cape would help their attempts.

Sometime during this week I was trying to encourage Mr. T to come play with playdoh (not one of his favorite activities). We were talking about the letter of the week (F) and he decided to make a fox in a box with me. I think I helped with the fox and he made the box.

Fox in a box

First day of snow 2011

2011-12-21T23:09:00.000-08:00

Back in November we had our first big snow of the year. When I picked the boys up from kindergarten, we invited some friends to come over for an impromptu snow playdate. They made a pretty nice snowman, we made snow angels and of course wrapped it all up with a snowball fight!

Making snow angels with the Little Sweetie. I think she was all scrunched up because of all the snow hitting her face!

Later on that evening we had some friends over for dinner. The boys all put their snow gear on and went back out again into the (very wet and melting) snow. They scraped together enough snow to make this little snow fellow and came in sopping wet. You can see how wet they are by how shiny their snow gear is.

Snowmachining with the Popps

2011-12-21T13:22:00.000-08:00

The other day our wonderful new neighbors invited us out to come help perfect Mr. Nick's new snowmachine trail through our yard and out into the muskeg. He agreed to give the kids snowmachine rides if they'd help him work on the trail. And he had them hauling lumber, stomping down snow and working hard...when they weren't crawling around in the snow playing.

O Boy on his own little snow mound.

The Little Sweetie loves NPopp and loves to give her big hugs. She was the NPopp handler in the sled and held on tight to make sure she didn't tip over! I think the Little Sweetie thinks she is her own personal, living doll to play with.

The Little Sweetie crawled all the way up this little snow hill and turned around to say, "Look, Mom! I did it!" And then, of course, NPopp tried to climb up too.

Here's NPopp trying to keep up with the Little Sweetie and the big boys.

Once we got up to the wide open muskeg behind the airport we stopped for a granola bar break. You can see the girls in front of the dogsled that all the kids rode in. Mr. Nick made this. It was pretty bumpy but exciting. For a good part of the way O Boy hung on the back with me like mushers. Despite Mr. Nick's best efforts, (just kidding, Nick!) we never fell off and got left behind! :-) Brittany and Baby Z rode on the snowmachine behind Nick and the rest of the kids rode in the dogsled until O Boy and I decided it might be less bumpy and a bit easier to ride in the sled with them.

Silly boys

God has designed muskeg trees to be so unique. They are scraggly and sparse, but so unusual they are beautiful.

I love this series of photos. NPopp was way past her naptime at this point and very, very tired. Her expression does not change despite all the drama going on in front of her with super expressive Mr. T!

I love to snowmachine! Can you hear him making the engine revving noises?

Sledding with the Boudreaux

2011-12-21T13:10:00.000-08:00

The day after Thanksgiving we had a huge amount of fluffy, deep snow around to sled in. The dads thought they might try to play football in it but in the end it was too deep even for that. But it was great for sledding! If you landed deep in a drift you were just covered with a puff of fine, light snow. God gave us a beautiful day of clear skies and great weather to appreciate the incredible beauty of winter in Alaska and the gift of special friends.

Heading back up the hill after a successful run.

The toddler sled looks like it's headed for a crash, if my expression is a good guide.

O Boy and BB crawling around in the drifts looking for bears.

Phil heads down with EW, who is enjoying eating the snow while sledding. Talented boy!

The Little Sweetie, LB and Mama Manna look a little tippy on that sled!

Thanks, Boudreaux and Wards, for sharing such a great day.

HL Hunley in Legos

2011-12-21T13:03:00.001-08:00

O Boy and I found a great book at the library the other day about the HL Hunley (confederate submarine that mysteriously sank). Since he loves the Titanic so much he dove right into the mystery of the Hunley. We watched some videos of how they finally found and brought it to the surface and I printed out a picture of it for him so that he could build it out of LEGOS. And after working very hard for an afternoon on it, he came up with a pretty fine recreation of it. Then he started in on a model of the ship that raised the Hunley and the truss they built to bring it to the surface. I never cease to be amazed by what God has built into this boy's brain.

O Boy with his model of the Hunley. He even used string and tape to recreate the ropes they used to detonate the bomb.

I don't have a good picture of this to add, but this actually does look like the setup they used to raise the Hunley (except for the fact that the truss he built is only about half the size of the Hunley due to the constraints of working with Legos!). They lowered it over the Hunley to brace it, supported it underneath with inflated slings and then brought it up in one piece to the surface. You can watch some amazing videos on it on youtube.

This is a setup he wanted me to take a picture of: the Hunley ramming its torpedo into the Housatonic. Seems like they may have overshot a bit on the ramming job!

Toddler Gym

2011-12-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

The other day the Little Sweetie's friend LB came over and they decided to use my weights to "exercise". This was the result:

LB figured out pretty quickly that the Little Sweetie had BOTH light weights while he was lugging around the 2 heavy weights. So he negotiated a compromise and the both ended up with one of each!

Little Ballerinas 2

2011-12-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

Here is the Little Sweetie and two of her best buddies doing their version of a ballet dance:

Little Ballerinas

2011-12-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

Here is the Little Sweetie and two of her best buddies the other day at our house. They were born in January, February, and March of 2009 and will all be turning 3 very soon!

Oregon trip: car washing with Papa

2011-11-17T22:21:00.000-08:00

This post is incredibly old as you can see from the pictures, but I've had it in my drafts queue so I thought I might as well just publish it! These pictures were taken 2 summers ago when we were down in Portland staying with Mimi and Papa. Papa, of course, drafted the kids into a car washing crew and then (I think) spent the rest of the time taking pictures of THEM washing for him. :-) I'm sure he probably had to do it all over again once they'd "finished!"

This little baby is determined to help!

Good thing there is so much for her to wash at her baby height!

Oregon trip: Salem Carousel and Children's Museum

2011-11-17T21:11:00.000-08:00

Another special event from our summer trip to Oregon 2 summers ago was a visit to the Salem Carousel and Salem Children's Museum. Phil and I were away by ourselves for a few days at a cabin so Mimi and Papa had the kids all to themselves for these adventures. You can see by the pictures that they all had plenty of fun without mom and dad around!

The children's museum has a dramatic play area and the Little Sweetie and Mr. T immediately took up costumes and started to perform happily.

O Boy spent his time quietly lining up bugs on ledge that ran around the side of the room.

Both activities are very much in keeping with all 3 kids' personalities!

Oregon trip: Mr. T's Chainsaw birthday

2011-11-06T18:10:00.000-08:00

This blog post has been sitting in my drafts box for far too long! It's time to get it published.

For Mr. T's six year old birthday he asked for a chainsaw birthday party. Thankfully, we were in Oregon with a Papa who is always very willing to share his chainsaw with any interested little grandkids! And, I was also surprised and thankful to discover just how many people had also made chainsaw cakes and posted their photos online! Using several of these different photos as our guide, Mr. T and I made this fun chainsaw cake:

Then we headed out to the Farm for the big event. Here's Papa gathering the wood they were going to cut up with his #1 assistant.

Next step, chainsaw!

Setting up the boards:

The birthday boy and his chainsaw:

Look at that scrunched up nose on O Boy!

Thumbs up! This is fantastic fun!

These two cousins weren't too sure about the whole chainsaw thing! Too much noise!

O Boy is looking a bit concerned about this!

No party at the farm is complete without a tractor ride with Papa.

Style Show: Little Norway 2011

2011-11-06T17:57:00.000-08:00

Every year during our Little Norway Festival we have a Style Show as part of the festivities. At this event, all the families in town who own Norwegian costumes put them on and show them off for admiring tourists. Narration is provided so that you know where all the costumes came from, what region of Norway they represent etc. Some costumes have been in the Style Show for years. This year the Little Sweetie was asked to wear one of the regular costumes because she looks the part and it fits her! It was a very fun event to be a part of; it's a very special Petersburg tradition. My camera battery died as she walked out onto the runway holding our friend Helen's hand, so I only have pictures before the actual event.

Watching DVDs during the long wait.

Meeting another tiny model. This little girl came out, saw the whole crowd watching her and began clapping for herself! She was so pleased to have such a large audience!

The Little Sweetie with our friends the Martins. The Little Sweetie walked down the runway with Helen (in blue).

Pretty little "Norwegian" girl!

Little Norway parade 2011

2011-11-06T17:51:00.000-08:00

I'm catching up on some very, very old blog posts these days. These are photos from last Spring's Mayfest parade. The boys marched with their t-ball team the Muckdogs.

We had a fun new entry of our high school's amazing new drum line. They were LOUD but great!

Friends dressed up in their Norwegian costumes.

The Little League representatives. Mr. T represented the t-ballers and helped carry the banner.

This is a church friend who works for AK Airlines all dressed up as the airplane. Mr. T is always happy to give hugs and get his picture taken with these big dressed up creatures. O Boy is most often NOT!

One of our local stores is celebrating their 90th year of business. So everyone who is related to this family business (and it's a big family!) marched in the parade. The kids rode in shopping carts.

Amazingly, I got a photo of O Boy giving out a hug to Sammy the Salmon.

One of our local doctors decided to get into the Viking spirit with his dog...

More Fresno memories

2011-11-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

One of the most special parts of the Linkcare experience is the Kid's Club they run for kids 3 and up. So sadly, the Little Sweetie has to miss out on all the fun but the boys make sure she knows all that she's missing. :-) And O Boy usually always remembers to pick her out a special candy treat every day in addition to the one he picks for himself. She also gets to play with the other 2 little 2 year olds and a very special babysitter most days during Kid's Club. In fact, the Little Sweetie loves this babysitter so much that, each night when we share things we are thankful to God for, she thanks God for Becca her babysitter. Every night.

Kid's Club is run by amazing Grandma Kathy, who truly loves each kid individually with her whole heart. She learns what they like, learns what they are like and ministers to them each in a special way. I'm not sure how she does it, but God must enable her heart to grow a bit more with each new kid she meets. Here are the boys giving her big hugs on their last day with her. One of the special things she does at Kid's Club is have each kid put their hands and name on the wall around the room. That way, she'll always remember them after they've gone!

Standing next to their hands.

One of the families we became friends with here at Linkcare in Fresno was here for 2 months with their 6 kids. At the beginning of that time they decided to plant a garden of sorts in the back yard behind their apartment in our little compound. Since all the kids are 8 and under the garden was planted a bit haphazardly and now, in all its full summer glory, it's a total jungle. But it's a very fruitful jungle! Before they left they asked us to take over "caring for" the garden. This basically means we turn on and off the sprinkler once a day! We also get the fun of rooting around in all the green chaos to see what surprises we might find. And then we go pass out all the produce around the compound to all the current residents. Our most recent harvest included 2 massive zucchini and many large, beautiful sunflowers which are now spread around to all the Linkcare apartments. Thanks, Rudds for passing this fun project on to us! I have to admit that this is my absolute favorite gardening experience ever. I didn't have to plant anything, there is no weeding required, and this California ground is like magic for seeds! They even scooped out the seeds from a store-bought cantaloupe, dumped them on the ground and there are now baby cantaloupes growing everywhere. Amazing.

The zucchini haul

The Little Sweetie wanted her picture with her own personal "baby coocummer".

Check out the size of these zucchini:

The first of the sunflower harvest:

There are several families here at Linkcare right now who have kids the same age as ours. All the kids are connecting really well and providing our kids with some really fun playmates during this phase of our life. Here is the Little Sweetie and one of her new girl buddies, GG. This day they decided to dress up like princesses.

Here's a memory that's only tied to Fresno because it happened here and I just had to record it in our blog. The other day I was working around our apartment and Mr. T yelled to me, "Look Mom! I be a leopard!" So I went out and he was dangling his arms and legs off the couch just exactly like a leopard would in a tree. I don't know why I found this so hilarious but there was just something pretty funny about Mr. T declaring himself to be a leopard, of all things...completely out of the blue. Guess he's watched one too many Zoolife episodes with good old Jack Hanna.

Fresno-Chaffee Zoo

2011-10-18T15:22:00.000-07:00

One of the special things we did while in Fresno this summer was to visit their fantastic zoo! Wells Fargo sponsors a free day each month when all kids under a certain age can go into the zoo free. In addition, they have dozens and dozens of Wells Fargo employees all over the zoo handing out free food, leading activities, manning fun animal info booths, leading tours...or even just standing around on a blisteringly hot day dressed in a dog costume. It was a great zoo made even more wonderful thanks to all the helpful people around that day! We went with some of our new Linkcare friends, the Arteagas and had a great time with them.

O Boy and Mr. T with the Wells Fargo dog.

Here, some Wells Fargo ladies were sharing facts about llamas and allowing the kids to pet one.

This photo was actually taken at the very end of our zoo day. It was EXTREMELY hot and we'd already done the whole zoo when we discovered THE DIG PIT. This is a massive pit in which almost life sized cement skeletons of a few different dinosaurs are buried in pea gravel (and in various stages of being uncovered by kids). Scattered all around are shovels, brushes, and kids digging like mad. O Boy could have stayed here the entire time. I wish we would have discovered this fun spot a few hours earlier. Just gives us more reason to come back to Fresno someday!

Happy diggers!

One of the things I loved about this zoo was how interactive and filled with playthings it was. Here is Mr. T and the two Arteaga kids in a life-sized shell next to the Galapagos turtle exhibit. Our friends the Arteagas chucked at bit at the irony: they came to Fresno to see a Galapagos turtle from Ecuador, where the Galapagos islands really are!

Riding the (pretend) Komodo

Picture time in the Wells Fargo carriage

O Boy the turtle

One of the other things I loved was the chance you had to touch/feed some really unusual animals. Unusual like a stingray. I thought it interesting that they billed this exhibit as "fun for the whole family!" Not a phrase I usually associate with stingrays. At any rate, we did watch them, touch them and feed them though not without a bit of hesitation on at least my part!

The assistant here was holding this stingray up for the kids to pet because "he's an old, friendly stingray." Good to know!

Trying to feed the stingrays. O Boy's hand was just too short so we eventually asked for some help from the Wells Fargo volunteers all around.

Another very special spot allowed you to feed a giraffe. This was lots of fun! Here is Ruth and her two kids getting their turn.

He's got quite the tongue!

After being in zoos literally around the world, Fresno-Chaffee gets my vote for the best hands-on, kid-friendly zoo I've been too!

O Boy's first book

2011-10-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

Color fun in Fresno

2011-08-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

Today we had some outside fun with our Linkcare friends. Some of the kids colored with fingerpaints, some with sidewalk chalk and some colored THEMSELVES with both. Everyone was ready for some pool time at the end of the activity.

GG discovers how to make PURPLE (which the Little Sweetie immediately wanted to copy). GG is the Little Sweetie's new mentor in all things girl-related.

Little Caleb's mommy, Deb, came up with the idea to fingerpaint and provided all the supplies. Well, the kids willingly provided their fingers.

CG wanted a closeup shot of his face to capture his fine job of chalk-face-painting.

Wild indians painted for the warpath.

O Boy, Mr. T and CG all colored different sides of the same tree (trunk, roots and all) with all sorts of pictures and writing which they referred to as their "heiroglyphics".

CG's side of the tree.

Raven's Roost Spring 2011

2011-08-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

When a few of us decided that hiking season was ready to start up again, we decided to see how much of Raven's Roost we could tackle. The kids were ready for some serious hiking because Doris and I finally had to convince them to turn around after more than an hour of steady hiking before they got too tired to hike back out!

We always like to take a rock throwing break after the first 20 minutes or so.

Mighty hikers!

We're pretty sure this lichen is called Fairy Barf (there is a sample of Fairy Barf lichen that looks exactly like it in the Visitor's Center that helped us make that guess).

Here's a little video I took of the Little Sweetie as I hiked behind her. Unfortunately I forgot about the whole orientation issue and so the video is flipped! But it's fun to listen to her little toddler dialogue as she hiked.

Mr. T turns 7

2011-08-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe but our oldest boy is a big 7 year old! Since we have been down in Fresno, CA at Linkcare over his birthday, the folks here who run the Kids Club gave him a wonderful birthday party. He had a beautiful cake with a scuba diver toy on top, ice cream, a fun birthday hat, and a whole bag-full of little boy presents. Added to the fun were all the new friends the boys have made these past few weeks. It was truly a special event for a special guy. Mr. T was looking forward to it all day long! For dinner we took the kids to a local taco place with a playplace (at their request). This was total fun for our little Alaskans who only get to enjoy playplaces when we come down south. It was a day full of fun to honor our precious Mr. T.

Majestic Eagle Lodge

2011-07-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago a friend from church invited us out to the new lodge down the Narrows where he works. It is beautiful Majestic Eagle Lodge. It's my new favorite place to recommend to anyone traveling to Petersburg! The wonderful owner/chef and her able assistants treated us to a delicious meal and a fun tour of their well-built and well-organized cabins, lodge and property. Come for a visit!

Here are the kids following James, our kind host, down to the boat on the beach.
A fun day at Majestic Eagle!
This cool swinging bench was handmade by one of the Majestic Eagle workers.

Muckdog Memories

2011-07-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

What a fun first year we had watching the boys play t-ball. I put a bunch of photos together that were taken at several various points throughout the season. Fun memories!

O Boy gets to play catcher.

Caught brown-handed: you can see how he spends his time in the outfield. One dad on the team suggested that each team should have buckets and shovels for the outfielders so that they didn't have to spend the whole time digging holes with their hands.

O Boy as catcher

Thankfully there is a play structure up at the ball fields. Even if they are tired out at the end of a long game, they always have energy for some time on the playground!

At the top of the world!

I am scared to think that she might be swinging to build up speed for her upcoming shoot down the slide.

Top of the spider web "Just like the big boys, Mom!"

Good game, Muckdogs and Bulls!

Goooooooo Muckdogs!

Big smile for the crowd.

Fans staying warm in the dugout.

He came in from going around the bases saying, "I did it, Mom!"

Made it to first base!

Mr. T ready to take a swing.

And he's off!

A big wave from 1st base.

Mr. T heads home. I'm not sure he can see where he's going with that helmet on!

O Boy getting a reminder from Coach Matt to "touch the plate!" as he comes home. You can see the big ham, Mr. T, in the background.

Fishing on the dock with the Haleys

2011-07-21T07:26:00.000-07:00

Fishing lessons from dad

Getting some excited instruction from Logan to REEL IT IN FAST!

O Boy's flounder

Two fine fishermen holding two fine smelt.

Finally willing to hold a fish. The whole time Logan was encouraging O Boy and Mr. T to pick up the fish and hold them and Mr. T stayed as far away from the fish as possible. Then finally at the end he was brave enough to take the plunge and hold one of the wiggly, slimy things! A major sensory accomplishment.

A great day at the docks.

In which an iceberg zooms by...

In which the boys experience the triumph and tragedy of fishing, all in the space of 10 seconds.

Swimming lessons

2011-07-21T07:20:00.000-07:00

Part of our homeschooling set-up this year provided us with money to use on swimming lessons. We did 2 sessions and in each the boys made great progress with the helpful instruction of Miss Judy.

BBQ season is here

2011-07-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

Now that we have fun neighbors we can have neighborhood BBQs! So in early June when we had a string of warm days we invited our new neighbors the Popps and the Martins, along with some other church friends, over for a makeshift BBQ. It was pure summer fun: messy and delicious.

Happy boy eyeing his hot dog. I think he's planning his attack.

There were plenty of dogs, babies and kids to keep this BBQ lively. At one point the Little Sweetie started squealing because baby Jack (in the center) had figured out how to crawl over to her and start in eating her hot dog bun! She was too weighed down by a plateful of food to figure out how to get away but too small to keep it out of his very eager reach.

Marshmallow monster!

We made our own makeshift fire pit out of a metal tub and some wood we scavenged from our yard along with a few pieces from Popp's woodpile.

3 guesses as to what she's been eating...

Messy kids, happy kids!

Sleds are good fun all year 'round in Alaska.

Crab lessons with Popp

2011-07-21T06:15:00.000-07:00

While my mom was here Nick Popp, our new neighbor, graciously offered to take us all out on their boat to go see if their crab and shrimp pots had caught anything. It turned out to be a beautiful day out on the water and we harvested quite a lot of crab. And as usual, with Nick, it also turned out to be a day full of lessons spiritual and practical. He's a born teacher!

Thanks, Mr. Nick for a wonderful day of learning and fun!

Mr. T and I were in charge of restocking the bait buckets with dead fish pieces. Pretty slimy and smelly!

Mimi volunteered for buoy duty; she was on the lookout for any Popp buoys and had to haul them in with a hook as Nick cruised by them in the boat.

Finally, a shrimp!

Learning about how the crane works.

The Little Sweetie really wanted to touch the live crabs but decided she should put on this enormous glove to do so.

O Boy found a beautiful snail in one of the pots we hauled up from the deep. He really wanted to keep it but we suggested it would live longer if he threw it back at the end of the trip. Our compromise was that we'd take pictures of the snail from all angles so that he could remember it. We took the pictures, he was happy and the snail got tossed back. Thank you, God, for digital cameras!

Mom gets a lesson in how to efficiently clean crabs.

In which Nick shows the boys how much fun it is to pop the head off a shrimp:

In which Nick discovers why he wasn't catching many shrimp:

In which Mr. T is pretty proud of helping haul up some shrimp pots:

Hauling in more crab:

Moving the trailer

2011-07-21T06:14:00.000-07:00

Our wonderful new neighbors, Nick and Brittany Popp recently bought the old church to renovate and live in. They provide all sorts of excitement for our kids. Nick loves chainsaws, ATVS, snow machines, hunting for bears, fishing etc. and so our kids go running over often to see what fun things Nick is up to. They also bought the old trailer which had been used for years by the church as SS classrooms. They'll use it for storage and as a shop. But they had to get it from one side of the parking lot to the other. So they graciously brought in all sorts of huge equipment for our private entertainment to accomplish this task. Our boys (and the Ward boys) hauled out all of our construction equipment to work with right next to the moving site. It made the guys driving all these big machines a bit nervous so my mom and I tried to restrain the excitement and keep them as far back as possible, but it was hard. This was a very exciting event!

All we were missing was popcorn for this show.

Sandy Beach Hike

2011-07-21T06:02:00.000-07:00

We know Mimi is always up for a good hike so while she was here we also did a bit of the new Sandy Beach hike with several friends. I was amazed and pleased to see how it has been improved, with new boardwalk and bridges everywhere over what used to be deep mud pits you had to slog through or around. So thanks to whoever has been improving this great hiking trail!

So many wonderful sticks, so few hands

(and mom wasn't volunteering to haul back anything bigger than her pockets!).

The clever and beautiful new troll bridge. This bridge was designed by the same local architect who also designed our church. And yes, that is live moss growing on the roof!

Strong boys!

She wanted to get up on the log like the boys but then changed her mind when she saw just how high it really was!

Heading out to the beach for some rock throwing/tide pool exploring time.

Throwing rocks with Mimi

I warned her that it was a Devil's Club leaf, but she thought it could still double as a hat/umbrella!

3 Lakes adventure

2011-07-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

Another experience we shared with my mom while she was up in Petersburg was a trip out to Crane Lake that turned out to be fairly full of adventure. We shared the adventures with Beau Ward and his two boys.

Beau brought his canoe along with the idea that we would put in at the Crane Lake trailhead and canoe around in the streams all around that area. No matter that these streams are made by beaver dams which would have to be somehow passed over. He was pretty sure this would be a good idea. I didn't realize until we got out there that he hadn't ever tested out this idea.

They had plenty of fun in the canoe even before it hit the water.

Heading out to meet the canoe

Beau had to haul the canoe all the way across the field to get it launched. And then haul it all the way back!

Everybody made it precariously into the canoe. We paddled around a few corners and hit a beaver dam. We then tried ferrying all the kids out to teeter around on the soppy grass on the edge of the stream, but it very quickly became apparent that this was not an activity well suited for 3 adults and 5 small kids. So everyone got back in the canoe, we paddled right back around the corners and got out to hike instead! We hoped to go out in the rowboat that is always there at Crane Lake but, when we arrived it had disappeared. We later found it in one part of the lake but with no oars.

Mom obviously didn't pack the right clothes for this trip! I expected it to be sunnier out the road (isn't it always?) and it was actually colder!

Of course O Boy brought along his trusty homemade (and fairly dangerous with large hook) fishing pole. All the boys took turns dropping it in the water whenever they got the chance. Lots of fish sighted, only sticks and weeds actually caught. But they were undaunted.

We shared the picnic platform at Crane Lake with a large family who brought along some binoculars which they were very brave and generous to share with our delighted boys.

"There are fish down there! Why aren't they biting?!?!"

O Boy The Experienced Fisherman was very confidently giving EW pointers on where to drop the hook, how to hold the pole etc. etc. etc.

Adventure #2: Beau decided to show us the trapeze/net/dangerous thing that some clever people have strung high in the trees next to Crane Lake. Since he has been up there with 15? middle schoolers and it didn't fall down and since two other friends from church, Kristen and Emma (and Kristen's tiny dog) were up there already (goading us) encouraging us to come up, I let the kids start climbing up with fear and trepidation. The fear and trepidation were on my part. EW and Mr. T went up first one at a time with Beau and were in total boy heaven once they got up. They wanted to scramble all over the thing, bounce, and any other mildly dangerous activity that might make me even more nervous. Then, to make matters worse, the 2 year olds decided they had better go up too. O Boy wisely decided to stay on the ground with Mimi and focus on fishing and taking photos. If only I could have joined them. But with Kristen up in the net shouting, "Come on, Mom! Take one for the team, Mom!" and my 2 year old clambering to get up, I figured I'd better bite the bullet and go on up. Now that I can say I've done it once and confirmed that it wasn't at all fun (for me), I can safely and forcefully decline any further offers to go up again. The kids, on the other hand, absolutely loved it and would probably go up again and actually move around (which I stifled while I was up there since it made the net move and made me feel like I was going to roll out). I told Phil when he got home that he and Beau are welcome anytime to take the kids back and play in that death-defying net again. But I'm not coming!

Emma, EW, Mr. T and Kristen

Mr. T gives a big smile for the camera. This was fun, fun, fun for him!

I gingerly rolled over the edge and stayed frozen where I landed and put the Little Sweetie in my lap (she wasn't very happy about that).
Here's the Little Sweetie peeking down through the net.
Peeking over the edge of the boardwalk

After we hiked back to the parking area the boys decided to drop the pole in the water again to see if this time they might get a bite. In this stream you could really see all sorts of tiny fish swimming around. Amazingly they actually did love swimming right up to O Boy's huge hook (just enough to tantalize him); but of course none volunteered to take a nibble.

Getting some tips from Mimi on where to place the hook to get the best chance of snagging a big one. (And by big one I mean about 2 inches long.)

They really didn't want the Little Sweetie getting in on any of the fishing action and were not too interested in giving her a turn with the fishing pole. What would happen if a fish actually decided to bite while SHE was holding the pole??

Fishing off the boardwalk.

Happiness is sitting on a creek bank with a stick, a string and a hook hoping for a bite.

A picture for dad in Russia: we miss you, Dad!

Mimi with the crazy kids

Just as we were loading up the cars to go home, Mimi noticed some small red berries. She picked one and confidently announced, "If we'd used these as bait, we definitely would have caught The Big One." Hope springs eternal.

In which O Boy tries to be a chimney sweep because Dick Van Dyke just makes it look so cool.

In which O Boy reveals his (admittedly not very successful) fishing strategy:

June highlights

2011-07-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some memories from our early summer.

O Boy and Trevor were each given a Reese's Peanut Butter cup while Phil and I were away for a few days. It was so special to O Boy that he first saved it to show us and then he also asked for a picture of it. Can you tell they don't see much candy? Gracious!
I believe Mr. T ate his peanut butter cup immediately.

Partly due to the fact that their room was being painted and partly just because they could, the boys spent a few nights sleeping on the floor in Mimi's room. The entire floor was a jumble of boys and blankets.

Mimi took us out to eat at Papa Bear's Pizza while she was staying with us and we sure had fun!

I thought I'd try and take a picture of the Little Sweetie all dressed up for church to send to Phil in Russia. But unfortunately it sort of dissolved into a comedy of errors. Mr. T wanted to be in the picture and so I suggested that O Boy join in too. He was NOT happy about that idea and so after a few very comically unhappy pictures, I settled for 2 out of 3 siblings.

My mom took this sweet picture of Mr. T and his wonderful speech therapist, Heidi. She's known him since he was just tiny and has been an amazing blessing to Mr. T individually and our family as a whole. She's kind of a social worker/speech therapist/sensory integration therapist/cheerleader/PT/OT combined and we are truly thankful for all that she's done for Mr. T over the years. After our first year of flying to Juneau 2x a month to see her, she graciously agreed to begin coming to Petersburg 1x a month to see not only our family but a few others as well. It's been a wonderful asset to have access to such an amazing speech therapist and has really enabled us to feel much more confident about staying in Petersburg these past many years.

Our favorite new way to do hair is to pin it back with one of our (6 year old) friend Saphire's beautiful flower clips. She and her mom make all kinds and colors and they are just beautiful!

For a while now I've been trying to figure out how to transition the boys' bedroom out of the nursery phase and into more of a big boy room. So when my mom was here while Phil was in Russia we did a crash course in room renovation: we tore down the old baby border, painted the whole thing, and put up new construction truck borders! And all this in about 48 hours. We joked that our method of painting/room renovation would have greatly stressed both Phil and my dad out. We had kids in the room while painting, let the kids help probably more than we should have and never really did a meticulous job of prepping the room with drop cloths. But the end result looked great and we did complete the job! Thanks for helping, Mom!

Spring fun

2011-07-20T07:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a random scattering of photos showing some fun memories from the spring:

All ready for bed!

Safe and stylish

A big bald eagle just off our deck

Two sweet little girls playing house

Another one of O Boy's disguises. I'm not sure what he told me this character was supposed to be. Maybe an old farmer?

Buddies and friends

Dandelions make the most beautiful bouquets!

Swimming lessons

2011-07-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

The boys had a final round of swimming lessons before our summer travels began. They both got to the point where they could swim short distances without any flotation. Pretty amazing! We're thankful to God for what a great job Judy did with these wiggly little fish.

I love this series of pictures. Meticulous O Boy was told to float on his back, and so he did...

Zoomers

Still floating....

Still floating...

Red light, green light with the zoomers. These boys loved this game!

Swimming through the hoop

Still floating! Judy seems to think he might be there all day.

Through the hoop

Mr. T swims without any flotation! He's like a little otter in the water; he just sticks his head down, his bottom up and splashes his way full steam ahead.

Here's O Boy swimming on his own!

Judy puts up with a lot to do these lessons!

He loves the water! Here he's doing a good job of showing me how he can keep his mouth closed while swimming, a major hurdle for him. Usually he splashes around with it wide open, coughing and spluttering all the way. !! We've really been working on getting him to keep it closed.

Daddy's home!

2011-07-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

We were all pretty excited to have Dad back home after almost 2 weeks in Russia.

Big hugs at the airport

Tickling starts before we even leave the parking lot

No rest for the jet-lagged; wrestling started almost as soon as we walked in the door!

We're so thankful you're home!

Sugar Shack with Mimi and Grandma Alice

2011-07-20T07:07:00.000-07:00

While Phil was in Russia my mom came up to visit, brave some rough potty training days (and nights), give support, and have some fun with us! Thankfully we had some beautiful days and made some special memories. One of the fun things we did was take our real grandma (Mimi) out to visit our adopted grandma's (Grandma Alice) fantastic garden at the Sugar Shack (her rental cabin) since my mom is a wonderful gardener herself.

Here's a rare moment: O Boy voluntarily posed for this picture and actually asked me to take it! Notice he's smiling too. Will wonders never cease?

The Little Sweetie tried to jump from Grandma Alice's deck onto her path and didn't quite make it. But she looked up with a smile for a picture!

We love Grandma Alice! But maybe not posing for pictures.

Here's Mr. T's version of "Hey Mom! Take a picture of me!"

Pretty girl with pretty flowers.

I think he was trying to feed the hungry fisherman.

Counting down to Mimi

2011-07-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

When we knew that Mimi's arrival was getting close, O Boy thought we should come up with some way of counting down the days. He remembered that last year we counted down to our Oregon trip by placing airplanes on a map and all the kids loved our first real Advent countdown at Christmas. So we brainstormed ways of tracking the days and came up with this brilliant idea.

I had my dad take a picture of my mom with her arms and legs outspread. We then split up the picture into different parts, printed all the parts out as large as I could and laminated them all with contact paper. Then I cut up all the parts into individual body parts. It was getting a bit gruesome at this point but we decided to go ahead with it. Each day as we got closer to Mimi's arrival one child got to put up one of Mimi's body parts. Very instructional. And hilarious.

Here is a picture of when she was only partially complete. Unfortunately the pieces tended to curl once they were placed on the window so we had to use lots of sticky tack to keep them nice and flat. That, and the fact that she looks a bit like a Picasso creation due to our haphazard arrangement of the pieces, sort of added to the strangeness of the whole thing. But I will reiterate, the kids loved this. And Mimi was a very good sport to endure being chopped up in this way. She'd call to get reports on how she was developing as the days went on.

Fun with the Ward boys

2011-07-20T06:37:00.000-07:00

The Ward boys were down for 3 weeks while our Mimi was visiting so we had them over to play several times. Here is Mimi giving a little t-ball workshop for the boys. Once a PE teacher, always a PE teacher. Great catching position, Mr. T!

While Ty and Mr. T were doing t-ball, O Boy, EW and the Little Sweetie decided to paint part of our house with mud. A fun idea until I realized that it actually didn't wash off all that well. At that point they got switched over to painting the retaining wall instead and I scrubbed down the house!

Reseeding our dandelion fields for next year's harvest.

I guess she thought Beau needed a bit of help pushing Ty around.

After bike riding (hence, the helmet) they decided to show E and Ty all the new trees they've learned how to climb lately. In retrospect, the bike helmets weren't such a bad idea after all.

More dandelion blowing. My cousin Jenny inspired me to try capturing this on film but so far she's been much more successful than I have. It is a tricky shot!

I may be 2, but I can still climb trees! At least as far up as my dad can reach!

Ty was desperately trying to catch a small white moth that was flitting around on the grass. He kept at it for several minutes, always just a step behind the moth.

Snack time!

Watermelon is the perfect summer snack: juicy, messy, and sweet!

I love this shot. It could have so many captions.

I think they are both thinking, "Did you take the last piece of watermelon???"

Offering a grimy, half eaten piece to Mimi. She looks thrilled!

O Boy discovered that he could prop a bike with training wheels on the edge of a deep mud puddle, pedal at top speed and produce tremendous sprays of muddy water! This was extremely hilarious to all the kids. This was why sprinklers were invented; moms wanted their kids to play in clean water!

Muckdogs' first practice

2011-07-13T06:49:00.000-07:00

This was our first year diving into the wild and wooly world of t-ball. Our coach was WONDERFUL Coach Matt and he was ably assisted by several awesome middle schoolers who were all great with the kids (very patient!). Having never really been around t-ball before I was surprised at how hilarious just about every aspect of this sport really is. From their attempts to catch and throw to each other to their complete inability to run bases in the correct order to their expressions of total delight when they actually got a hit...this is a fun sport to watch! Both boys were on the same team and they looked forward to just about every practice and game. Even though each team "scored" the same amount of runs each game, they were pretty sure the Muckdogs were The Big Winners every time. And so they were.

Here's our friend Jack (who is very, very good at all things baseball) very patiently playing catch with Mr. T.

First time hitting off a tee.

Getting a lesson in base-running. You can see O Boy's intense concentration.

This boy LOVES t-ball!

Zooming 'round the bases!

Coach Matt watches O Boy's swing.

Superheroes

2011-07-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

O Boy, Mr. T and their friend EM spent a very happy afternoon recently all dressed up in some very crazy costumes. Then they decided to cover the living room with our wonderful IKEA couch cushions to jump onto. Pure boy fun resulted.

Sandy Beach Fishing

2011-07-11T06:58:00.000-07:00

When we were at the ferry terminal beach a while ago O Boy found an old fishing lure attached to some fishing line. He quickly asked us to tie it to a stick and dubbed it his "fishing pole". Now typically whenever we head to a beach he makes sure to grab it! Here are some pictures of him fishing with Mr. T at Sandy Beach. So far they've only caught seaweed.

Caught something!

After O Boy and Mr. T headed across the creek the Little Sweetie decided she should too.

She loves to try and keep up with them!

Nametags

2011-07-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

Quite some time ago O Boy decided that he needed to make nametags for himself and each of his siblings' beds. This is the result of him trying to figure out how to spell their names:

This is /l/ /nay/ /uh/!

Now they will all know where to sleep at night and no one will get mixed up!

Big Harbor Project

2011-07-07T06:35:00.000-07:00

We are big fans of Theodore Tugboat at our house. I actually prefer that show to most of the Thomas episodes since they have a gentler sense of humor and are much kinder to each other. Many weeks ago out of the blue O Boy decided he wanted to make a big picture of the Big Harbor, where Theodore Tugboat lives. We had some big sheets of cardboard leftover from school stuff so he started off by painting one a lovely blue. Then he and I started in drawing several of the different characters. After a while (and after he realized they are all online since I was printing pictures just for us to look at and draw) he decided to simply start cutting out the characters I'd printed out. Then he carefully arranged them according to how he thinks they are arranged in the Big Harbor and voila! Our own Big Harbor. You'll have to click on this one to really see it up close.

Early Childhood Fair

2011-07-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

Every other year all the organizations around town that focus on, or serve, young children put on a great fair for kids. There's always lots to do and make and even some interesting foods to try sometimes. This year the Alaskan Native Brotherhood/Sisterhood was giving away "Eskimo popcorn" or herring eggs for everyone to try.

Here is the high school gardening club booth. They made little planter boxes for kids to paint and fill with several different kinds of seeds to plant. We'll see how ours are doing once we get back from our summer travels.

Of course, since we live next to a national forest, Smokey the Bear has to make an appearance. The boys also got a Smokey comic book with the story of how Smoky became famous and it's one of their favorite stories to read.

You know that all they have to do at a children's fair to bring smiles to kids' faces is drive in some construction equipment for them to climb on. And that's what someone did! Here's Mr. T in a skid steer happily "driving" around an imaginary construction site.

The Little Sweetie wasn't really into construction equipment on this day. I think she's also bumped her head on the skid steer just before this picture was taken. !!

Mr. T NEVER gets tired of getting up in various kinds of trucks. Here he is in a firetruck, narrating how he is driving to a fire.

Here he is with our friend Kaleb from church up in the Coast Guard Auxilliary boat.

Pool Party

2011-06-19T14:42:00.000-07:00

Some living areas have community pools and clubhouses. We've never really had close enough neighbors to feel like we're in a neighborhood. But this spring Nick and Brittany Popp and their baby Naomi, friends from church, bought and moved into the old church building across the parking lot from us. Shortly after that, the Martin family moved into the old parsonage/nursery building for a while. They also have a baby. Instant neighborhood! So now that we have a "neighborhood"...these are our community pools! We had a little neighborhood pool party back in early June. Thankfully, we had a big kid noisy/splashing pool and a baby pool where the babies could sit a good distance away from all the hilarity going on at the other end of the deck.

The babies weren't quite sure what to do with the bubbles all over the pool...or the 3 big kids zooming back and forth spraying water all over the deck!