Busy Week!

I asked the boys today what their favorite thing was that we've done together this last week. I gave them these choices:
Going to the pre-game football party complete with free BBQ, snow-cones and bouncy castles

Watching the Pendleton Bucks play in their first home football game (which they won)

Seeing the parade and getting gobs of candy

Going to see Rodney Atkins in concert (ok - that was just me, but it had my vote!)

Spending the night with Grandma and Grandpa in Hermiston

Playing coyote with all the PPD (Pendleton Police Department) kids at a BBQ

Attending Awanas (or Iguanas as Owen calls it)

Going to the Pendleton Round Up and watching us some rodeo

Visiting downtown and eating fun food, buying swords and going to the carnival

Spending the night with Granma and Pappa out in Pilot Rock

Attending 2 birthday parties

Hanging out with mom (I offered this one up but they just looked at me like I said something in Japenese)


They both agreed that it was a tie. The rodeo and the carnival blew all the other competition out of the water. They loved the rodeo for lots of reasons but it was mainly because of the animals and all the people. My boys are people watchers just like their momma.

This is as close as I want my boys to ever be to a bull. It was staring them down like it wanted them for dinner. It could have been because my boys were telling him what a good boy he was and how handsome his fur looked, but I doubt it. My boys are impressed with any form of livestock.


Hands-down favorite was the horses. Caleb loved them and even though Owen was a little scared of them, he still admired them as well.


After we looked at the animals it was time for a little rodeo. I don't have any pictures of that because, well, because my camera stinks and all the pictures are blurry. I do have pictures of Cowboy Tootsie Roll and Cowboy Peter Pan as they intently tried to figure out what was going on.

Here's Owen looking for the princesses. The Round-Up Court came to his Pre-School and they all oohed and aahed over him and gave him stickers and a poster with their pictures on it. My boy is in love. That picture is the first thing he whipped out of his backpack that day and he had it hung up on his bulletin board in 3 seconds flat. He kept asking me "When do we get to see those girls again!?" This had better not be a sign of things to come.

Caleb stayed tuned to the action no matter what he was doing. His eyes were watching those cowboys and cowgirls chase and rope the calves and steers. He loved it when the cowboys had to follow the steers into the holding pen to get their ropes back. I don't know why. It just cracked him up though.

Wednesday night, Mark and I took the boys downtown and did the eating out and vendor booth thing. We had a great time and then around 7:30 we got a wild hair and decided to let the boys go to the carnival. Now, historically Owen has been too short to ride the rides and after one year where he sat watching Caleb ride an airplane ride through the tears in his eyes, we decided we weren't doing any more until Owen could do them too. This was the year.

I have hardly seen the two of them so excited. They were like kids at the carnival for the first time. Wait - I guess that's what they were. And let me tell you, it was sooooo fun to watch them enjoy every little thing about it.

Here they are after their first ride:

Now this ride was towards the end. This ride is now on my list because I blame it completely for the vomit I had to clean up at 11:30 that evening. It started out good. The boys were still on a carnival high and here they are waving to Mark and I.

Then the ride started. And it kept going and going and going. Pretty soon, Owen wasn't waving anymore. Owen wasn't even really answering me when I asked him how he was doing. In fact, by the time the ride ended, Owen looked a little pale. Hmmm. No more rides for Owen that night and while we did let him bounce in the bouncy castle, he seemed fine once he was off that ride.

But like I said, I was cleaning up vomit at 11:30 that night so apparently he wasn't fine. Oh well, it was still worth it to see their faces after that first ride!

Kye's Big Day

Poor Kye.

Ever since school has started for me and hunting season has started for Mark, she has not been getting the normal amount of exercise that she's used to. During the summer, Mark would often take her on a run with him in the morning and then I would take her for a walk again later on. She loved it.

In the last three weeks she has not been on any runs and I have only had the time to walk her twice. So today, the boys and I loaded her up in Big Red and took her somewhere just for her.

We went to the Aquatic Center:

She was beside herself with joy and her tail whacked Owen in the face not a few times. (Caleb was smart enough to get out of the way but for Owen it took a few whacks). Once inside the Aquatic Center, we quickly noticed there were dogs everywhere. Big ones, little ones, ugly ones and puppies too. But our Kye dog didn't even notice. Once we had that tennis ball she never took her eyes away from it.

We must have played fetch for at least an hour and I kept expecting her to get tired and want to take a little break but nope, she just wanted to fetch so that's what we did. Owen hung out on top of a table (a huge dog (mega-huge!) came and sniffed him and that was the end for him). Caleb would venture off the table every once in a while to take a turn and throw the ball. Kye didn't care who threw it, she just wanted to retrieve it.

After an hour we had to leave and our puppy looked a little sad. We gave her some dog biscuits though and she perked back up. She's laying here at my feet right now snoring and I don't want to wake her up but, I think if I asked her if she had a good time today she would undoubtedly say yes.

We love our Kye.

Kinder (gulp) garten

These last few weeks have been a blur.

Getting my classroom ready for 25 eager and excited 2nd graders.

Gettting my children used to daycare again. "Are you tired of us Mommy? Have I been bad? Why do we have to be here?" - Owen asked me. I cried the whole way to work.

Soccer practice, Awanas, End of Summer BBQ's, family events, working in my classroom ... you get the idea.

None of those things caused me too much stress though because my thoughts have been consumed by one thing. Caleb starting school.

This little boy of mine. The one who is so smart and loving and yet so hard to love at times. His stubborn nature and emotional outbursts drive me crazy and at times I feel like the only reason I still claim him is because no one else will.

You know that saying ... "When he was good, he was very, very good and when he was bad he was horrid." Well, that's Caleb. Not in the sense that he throws fits or screams and yells or even is openly defiant. He is something else entirely and when he is in a mood - it is all black. I never know how to handle it. I have always been sunny - I don't do black and so I don't even know how to fix him and make the black moods go away. Mark and I have tried everything - ignoring him, spanking him, grounding him from things, and of course praising him for appropriate behavior in a hundred different ways.

I have been dreading Kindergarten because I have wanted him to grow up emotionally so much more. I don't want him to be that kid in class that the teacher dreads having. I don't want him to not be liked by the other kids. I want him to love and enjoy school and show the teacher what a sweet and loving boy he can be.

My fears were confirmed on the first day of Pre-school.

Caleb will be going to morning Pre-school before kindergarten and on the first day his teacher met with me. "Caleb had a very hard day today". Now, as a teacher myself, I definitely read between the lines on that one. After getting the specifics I was so angry I could barely look at him. I knew I had to get him home and away from me before I said things I would regret. Later that evening, after he had been sent to bed early, had no dessert after dinner, done chores without Owen's help and been spanked by me for disobeying his teacher repeatedly I sat down with Mark and asked "What have I done to make him turn out this way? He is always worse after being with me all the time. I have done this."

I didn't rant for long. That's not my nature. I did talk long and hard about Caleb with Mark and we spoke about a lot of good things. I am still praying daily for him and daily for me. That I will be strong enough to be the kind of mom he needs me to be. Strong enough to handle it if he's the worst kid in his class and help him change. Strong enough to love him willingly even when no one else will.

So far, Kindergarten has been good. He has received a stamp on the hand every day for good behavior and I know that if anyone can handle him and teach him how to handle and control his moodiness it will be his kindergarten teacher. She is someone I have admired for years and if I am ever half the teacher she is then I will be doing well indeed.

This son of mine. I tell you what. I haven't had any grays hairs yet but I sense some coming!

Don't Worry!!!

We haven't died!

We haven't dropped off the face of the Earth!

The aliens haven't abducted us yet!

I have started to receive death threats and nasty phone messages from people about not posting on this blog. (They were both from my grandma - she takes this thing seriously!) I promise tomorrow I will share Caleb's epic adventure of "The First Day of Kindergarten". I promise. I promise. I promise.

Halloween in August

Please don't tell Caleb that Halloween isn't for another two months. He is having entirely too much fun right now. If he isn't drawing pictures for me to hang up, he and Owen are playing the boy version of "dress-up". They go around with guns and are "Army soldiers" and I get shot/killed no less than 10 times while walking between the laundry room and the kitchen. They are usually camped out under the dining room table, snickering when I step on a "bomb" (aka - my dishtowels). Their 2nd fav. game of the moment is "lions". They are lion cubs and I get to be the "Mommy" lion. (I never ask to play - I just get assigned various roles.) The two lion cubs then proceed to "hunt" around my house. They go around first and place twisted up blankets everywhere that doesn't make sense (in front of the fridge, in the closet, behind the toilet - eww!). Next, they "stalk" their prey - the wily snakes of Africa. When they have had their fill of snakes, they come to me demanding some "zebra cereal".

These two can keep themselves entertained for hours doing this, so please, don't tell them that Halloween is a loooong ways away or I will send one of Caleb's one-eyed witches to get you!

Zion

On the way home from Arizona, Mark and I decided to spend 1 night in Zion. Neither of us had been there before and we thought since we were this close, why not? Zion is a hiker's meca but I did speak with a couple who live in a neighboring town and they said that at least 1 person dies falling every month. Just something to think about before you go traisping around the place. Unfortunately, I didn't run into this couple until Mark and I had dragged the boys along a dozen different trails.

Zion had some pretty cool stuff in it. Tunnels...

beautiful views...

trees growing in the oddest places...

and some very pretty cactus.

There was a lot of different wildlife in the area. Some things we saw were chipmunks, lizards, birds, deer and a fox.

Zion has a bus system that works really well. Because the roads are so narrow and traffic would easily occur, they have made it so that you park your car at a main place like the musuem or main lodge and then load onto the bus. The buses come every 10 minutes or so and there are 8 or 10 different stops that the bus makes. You can get off at whatever stop you want and hike around. When you are done looking around that stop, you just wait at the bus area until the next bus comes along. Since there is a bus every 10 minutes you never have long to wait. It worked out quite well.

The boys love the outdoors and they had a lot of fun walking around and looking at the different things. I told them not to touch the cactuses and within 3 seconds of my turning my back, Owen was crying. No surpise - he had touched one.

We did one easy hike that led down to a river. It was so peaceful down there and quiet. I loved it. Mark noticed something and brought the boys down to investigate.

Do you see this thing on my hand? It's a frog! They were everywhere. You would take a step and see all these little brown things jumping around. Caleb wanted to bring this one home but I told him this was a special frog that was waiting for his princess. I hope she comes soon.

All in all, this was a great stop on our journey and I hope that you get the chance to go someday as well!

That kiss.

It was magic. Magic, I tell you. It still is.

Two weeks past my 21st birthday and suddenly I was a Mrs.

I remember my Mom and Grandma crying and my Mom saying "Are you sure Honey? Are you sure Mark is the one?"

"Yes, Mom. I'm sure." is what I said out loud. What I whispered softly to myself was,

Yes, Mom. I'm sure because...

He is the holder of my secrets.
The weaver of my dreams.
The one who lifts me up and keeps me there.
The one who makes me feel beautiful.
He is the mirror I want to look into for the rest of my life.
The one I want to dance with in the rain, walk with in the forest, sing with in the shower.
He laughs at all my jokes.
He hugs away all my tears.
He is my other half and the one I choose to spend the rest of my life with.

Ten years have gone by since that fateful day and they have only served in making me love my husband even more and drawing us ever closer. He is still and will always be my best friend and my most favorite person on this planet.

I Love you Honey! Happy 10th Anniversary!!