Owen Funny

I caved in to the excited pleas of Perrie and put up our Christmas tree yesterday. She wanted to hang some red balls on right away. Owen immediately grabbed his bat and ran over for batting practice. Those little cheap balls held on for dear life and stood up to his beatings real well. Perrie was concerned for the little fellows and begged me in tears to stop him. I had to suppress my laughter as I wrangled the bat away from him. (right after I grabbed the camera) He then proceeded to get his work gloves on and with his toy ax in hand he tried to chop down the tree. Here is an action picture of the scene (not too good but…) He also called the nutcrackers “cowboys” which we thought was pretty cute. It is going to be a fun Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my Grandma K. She is not doing well and we spent part of our thanksgiving at the hospital visiting her. She has influenced my life a lot; more then I know I’m sure.

My love of crafts came from her. She was always knitting or sewing something. She worked in a crafts store for many years and always made the holidays special with her handiwork. Each Christmas she made us a new ornament. I will always remember the care bear Christmas and my handmade doll clothes.

I also learned to enjoy cooking from her. She could make any dish or pastry, and liked doing it too. She loved having dinner parties and made them really fun. My birthday cakes were always very special. Certain foods will always remind me of her, like wild rice casserole, homemade mac and cheese, fudge, potato chip cookies, homemade scones with soup and many more.

I love hearing her old stories and smiling in disbelief as she tells me of her wild youth. I wear her out making her tell me the stories of her life. I’m afraid I waited too long to get them all. Our elderly have so much history and knowledge in them just waiting for someone to ask. Please don’t wait till it’s too late. Love you Grama!

How to be Silly

1. Personify things. Give objects emotions and personalities. Examples;
"Blankie is sad you wont lay down with him" (Pretend to cry)
"The shirt monster is coming to get you, yum yum yum"
As the broccoli is running off "No, no don't eat me!"

2. Dance crazy without thinking. Just let your body be taken over by the music. Kids are good at this. Do the Russian squat dance or a graceful ballet if the music tells you, or just spin around till you get dizzy. Our favs are classics for kids, Nutcracker ballet, Shrek soundtrack and many others. Classical music is fun because is has alot of emotions in it.

3. Sing Songs. I think singing is a very powerful mood enhancer, kids know this but we forget as we grow up and get too serious. We love Raffi- he sings "Baby beluga, & Down by the bay." We also love fun church songs, kindermusic and for some weird reason Enrique Englesias "Escape." (this is all I'm allowed to listen to right now)

4.Rename Food. Garbanzo beans can become dinosaur eggs, broccoli is little trees and bagels become donuts. (this could start a new diet trend)

5.When reading books, make different dramatic voices for each character. Kids love this. The three bears is a favorite.

6. Play Fun Games. Hide and seek, hide the pumpkin/tractor/remote control/whatever is around, puppet shows, dress up, mini olympics, obstical course, play house, play resturant, shoe store, grocery store, marco pollo, ....

You certainly don't have to have kids around to do these things. I'm sure your husband would like to play hide and seek with you, you could change some rules (LOL). Next time you are feeling blue or the gray clouds and rain just wont go away try some of these ideas that help us.

What about you? How do you stay fun and silly?

Everday Hero

I had to post these pictures, they are so sweet. My kids have some amazing role models in there lives. Owen is so lucky to be close to his papas and greatpapa. They each have something special to share with him. I believe kids really need these heros. Owen got some powertools for his birthday and feels very big and important now. He is often saying "I help." Lately he has been helping out his papa and insists on wearing papa's leather work gloves around for hours.

Fairytale

My brother, Will, had a fairytale wedding this fall in Montana. Here is a few of my favorite pictures...

Here is a link to the National Geographic Geobee. Geography bees are very popular at Perrie's school so I am trying to keep some sort of my intellectual brain alive. Check it out for daily quizes.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geobee/

The Three Bears

We went to Montana for my brothers wedding (pictures to come) and stayed around after to play at Glacier National Park. One word- BEARS!

I didn’t really expect to see any, because that seems to be there big marketing logo. We camped at a remote lake in the park and within a few hours a giant grizzly bear walked right thru our campsite as we were making dinner. It was very intense. He looked over at us but didn’t stop his graceful stride. I grabbed Owen and slowly walked toward the car, just in case! I didn’t have my camera handy of course. All our heads were on a swivel after that and needless to say I didn’t sleep too well that night. I felt extremely vulnerable; my false sense of safety was gone. The park ranger said it was extremely rare to see a grizzly, that they must be coming down from the high country for the fall. I consider us lucky to have seen him, now that we are home in our safe, strong walls.

We also saw 2 other black bears (from the safety of our car), a baby one on the side of a hill and a large black bear off the side of the road. We were lucky to see mountain goats and rams up very close. We saw tons of deer and 3 foxes one night. Not to mention the mountains. They were very powerful. I have often wonder what western Washington looked like before the cities and suburbs, now I think it must have looked something like Montana. I pray this sacred place always remains wild and raw and dangerous.