A week of Blessings

Thanksgiving is always a time of thoughtful reflection for me. My family and I are so truly blessed all year long, and always have much to be thankful for. We are of course thankful for family and friends, a warm home and good food to eat, and so many other things as well. This year we were gone pretty much the whole Thanksgiving week, and I had a good opportunity to appreciate those things big and small that I was thankful for during the week. These items are listed in no particular order, but are things that the boys and I enjoyed this past week.


-My Grandma Beulah

I am always thankful for a chance to visit with Grandma. Grandma is 98 now, and still going strong. I am so glad that we had some time to stop and see her. It seems like the time always goes by too fast, but I am so happy for whatever time we can have together. I am also thankful that my boys have gotten to know her, and see her as the treasure that she is. They also really enjoyed the little treat bags of candy that she had ready for them!


- Childhood memories

I have eaten MANY a meal at this little drive-in. If you ever happen to be in Wilbur WA I strongly recommend the Billy Burger basket and a vanilla shake.


- The beauty of nature

This picture really doesn't do it justice, but the views of snow covered trees on our drive were simply breathtaking!


- Kids who travel long distances remarkably well

The kids did so well on this trip, especially considering how many hours they had to sit. It's funny how when they have a whole house to spread out in they can fight like crazy, but pack them tightly in a car for long periods of time and they play nicely together.










- Starbucks gingerbread hot chocolate

- Time with Paul

Paul has worked such crazy hours the last 5 months, it was wonderful to have a whole week off together. We all really needed it!

-Brother time

Paul and his brother Jason are such good friends, it so fun to watch them laugh and be silly together.


- Snow to play in

This is such a treat to my boys who so rarely see snow where we live!










Unfortunately it was really stinkin' cold, so they couldn't play outside for as long as they would have liked.






Fuller's favorite part was sledding down the hill across from his cousin's house.








- Craft time with Uncle Jason

Crafts aren't really Jason's thing, but he's a nice Uncle and Rowan demanded he join him.








- Passing on traditions

Paul and Jason taught the kids how to play "king around the court"

-Boys who love dogs

Anyone who knows Grayson knows that he is pretty much dog crazy, and his cousin's dog Anna is one of his absolute favorites!



-Elsie

This strong sweet girl is the thing we were all most thankful for this year! She endured 2 grueling weeks in the hospital, which included 2 surgeries to deal with a ruptured appendix, and way too many pokes and icky medicines. She proved to everyone what a tough little cookie she is, and was able to come home on Thanksgiving. We were all so happy for her to be home and on the road to recovery!



- Cousin Gabe

Fuller and Gabe were born about a week apart, and I think they were just destined to be friends. Fuller misses Gabe all the time, and begs us to move next door to him. I just love watching these two talk and hang out together!










- Aunt Barbara

This is one special lady, and we all love her so! She is always up for snuggles with the kids, and back scratches all around.


- Heat
This is the temperature reading from our van the morning we left. Believe me it felt like 6 degrees.





- "Famous Daves" rib tips! Sure wish they'd open one in Oregon!


- Montana Grizzly fans!

Happy Thanksgiving

We're off to Missoula first thing Monday morning, but before we go, a quick Thanksgiving message from Rowan.

A Message from the Universe

I am not a winner! I never win anything; contests, drawings, give aways of any sort. I should be used to it by now, it's been this way pretty much my whole life. This week our town's Safeway store is having it's grand re-opening. I don't always get around to looking at junk mail right away, so I didn't realize the details of this event. Yesterday Rowan and I went there to do some shopping, and in the lane right next to us an elderly woman won an ipod. She didn't even know what it was! Oh how cruel my bad luck can be! I stewed about this for quite awhile, which was totally silly I know. Then I went and looked through my junk mail. The flyer from Safeway actually says that they are giving away 200 ipods at random on Wednesday and Thursday. So just for fun, and because I wanted to get a turkey at a really good sale price, I went back to to shop again this morning. Right as I walked in they announced over the intercom that they had their first ipod winner of the day. Dang! I guess today wasn't my day either. So, I went about my shopping, and while I was in the back looking at turkeys they announced that they had their second winner. Holy cow! The universe is really rubbing in my bad luck now. So I proceeded to the check out line and bought my groceries, and my $16 off turkey. Right as I was leaving the store they came back on the intercom to rub it in really good- ipod winner # 3 for the day. The store was not at all busy during the 10 minutes that I was there, and yet three people won. Seems like the Universe made it pretty clear, "Don't even think about Michelle, you know you never win anything!" Argh! At least today I was able to laugh about it and find the humor. In fact I was laughing all the way home!

Grandad

On Friday morning I received a phone call from my mom telling me that my Grandad had died during the night. Grandad Jack was 91. Grandad was a kind and gentle man. He was a loving and caring father and grandfather. Age and alzhiemers had not been kind to Grandad in his later years, so that's not how I'll remember him. In my mind I'll always remember him siting in his recliner with some furry little dog on his lap, sharing his hard candy with me, and winking mischievously as my grandma complained from the other room about how bad his hearing was getting. He had a wonderful warm smile.



1992 My mom, me, Grandad, and Grandma

Farewell my bovine friends

When we first moved here one of the things that Grayson and Rowan loved the most was the field at the end of our street. It really wasn't anything exciting, just a field with some trees, a little old house, and two cows. But to my children who had spent their entire life up to that point living in an inner city neighborhood, the concept of cows living on your very own street was pretty darn exciting! The first few months we lived here we walked down and said hi to the cows quite often. We spent a lot of time wondering what their names might be, and making up our own silly names for them. Now three years later the cows aren't quite as exciting, but the boys still take note of what they're doing if we are walking or driving by the field. Some months ago we received a notice that a developer was going to put 30 some town houses on that field. We were so disappointed! (and apparently so were many other neighbors, as people did what they could to stop the town homes from being built). The last we had heard about this was that the developer had changed his mind and was going to build houses instead. We still weren't happy about this, but it was a little more acceptable. Then we didn't hear anything for awhile. Yesterday as I was driving home from picking up kids from school I noticed that not only were the cows gone (probably they've been gone awhile and I just didn't notice), but there was a bulldozer there knocking down all of the trees. The kids were outraged. Fuller said, "who would be stupid enough to think that houses are a better idea than cows!" "Someone who wants to make some money" I told him. This afternoon we drove by just in time to see them knock the whole back part of the house down. Progress I guess. I'm with Fuller, the last thing this town needs is more houses, what we could really use are more fields of cows to look at!

The former home of two really cool cows.

He's the quiet one?

I have always thought of Rowan as my loudest child. As much as we have talked about it he still doesn't seem to understand the need to use an "inside" voice. In fact sometimes I wonder if he has an "inside" voice. So I was very surprised by a conversation that he and I had yesterday. I had some errands to run in town, and after we were done I took him out for lunch. While we were waiting for our food he said, "Mommy aren't you glad it's just you and me here and no big kids?" I said "yes, I like getting to spend time with just you too." Then he said, "I don't like it when Fuller and Grayson are with us, because they're just too loud all the time, and I just like to be quiet all the time." Very interesting!

Weekend sports update

This weekend marked the end of another soccer season. Fuller's last game was early Saturday morning. Paul took the day off to come watch him play, and Paul's dad came out to see the game as well. Fuller's team finally won a game! Yeah Hammerheads! They finished out the season with a 11 to 1 record, but were so happy about winning this game that it seemed to make up for all the other losses. Poor Fuller twisted his knee in the first half of the game, and was limping pretty good and in pain, so he had to sit out the second half. At least Paul got to see him play a little.

In other sporting news, Grayson had his first basketball game on Saturday. This is his first year playing, and his team had never practiced before since their first scheduled practice turned out to be on Halloween. So, picture if you will a team of 6 and 7 year old boys who don't really know how to play basketball, don't know each other, don't know their coach, and don't know any rules. It was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time! Luckily the other team was just as clueless. They were shooting at the wrong basket, hitting their teammates in the back of the head with the ball as they attempted to pass to players who weren't paying attention, falling on the ground A LOT, forgetting that they needed to dribble and not just grab the ball and run, etc. At one point the high school guys who referee the games were laughing so hard they could barely speak. It's going to be an interesting season!

Halloween 2007

The boys were up and excited very early for Halloween! When I walked into the living room Grayson and Rowan both ran over and excitedly proclaimed "IT'S HALLOWEEN!" We had some turmoil over the fact that Rowan got to wear his costume to preschool and Grayson didn't get to wear his to school. They still don't seem to understand that I don't make the rules EVERYWHERE. Somehow this was my fault. We got the big kids off to school, and then Rowan and I went to his preschool Halloween party. He was more than a little excited about all of this!




They started the party off with cupcakes to frost and decorate with gummy worms! Nothing like a good dose of sugar at 9:30 in the morning!



The fishing game was Rowan's favorite! They played lots of other games, did an art project and got to go outside and hunt for a pumpkin.




This year I sadly realized that none of my kids want to be cute for Halloween anymore. They'd rather be "cool" or scary. Rowan was a ninja turtle "because they are good fighters". Grayson couldn't really decide what he wanted to be, so he was a combination Power Ranger/ vampire. That way he got to be cool and scary. Fuller was a Wizard, but I think got a little offended when one of neighbors asked him if he was a witch. Obviously a Wizard is way cooler than a witch!









Paul took the boys out trick or treating for about an hour, and they got way too much candy! I stayed home and passed out candy. I got one little surprise visitor, a dragon who was probably about 2-3 who just opened the front door and walked right in, (much to the horror of his mother yelling from the driveway.) It was very cute, and reminded me of when Grayson was 2 and tried to walk into every house we went to.



This is a picture of just Rowan's candy, so we really have three times that much in the house. Being the candy police is not going to be fun!