The Lake

Sometimes the boys and I go to a lake near the house to feed geese. Dean rides his bike and I walk Jack in the stroller. The geese are almost as tall as Dean and definantly taller than Jack.

Halloween 2009

This year the boys and I spent Halloween with our next door neighbor and a friend of theirs. Lucas was in Canada, so he missed out on all of the fun. It was neat to watch Dean get into the spirit of things.

Dragon Dean roaring at Horsey Jack and Ewok Jacob.

Jack in the stroller watching the older boys trick or treat.

Dean was so fascinated with the dog flashlight, that he didn't realize he was carrying around candy until we were finished.

Mr. Clean

Jack is a very organized child. If I leave my shoes out, he will go and put them away. Everything has a place, and he quietly moves around the house making sure that things are where they should be. This week he found Dean's little broom and got to work on the garage.

Sit in Your Chair

"I AM sitting in my chair, Mop!"

Hallucinations

This is one of those entries where I entertain you at my expense. A few weeks back we had a couple of torrential downpours. Or maybe those two days were just full of regular old rain, but after two years with a dry river bed it seemed like a lot of rain. Dean and I ran errands and bought rain boots for his little wet feet. He splashed, jumped, hooted, and hollered in those red and black rain boots. Then refused to wear any other shoes for awhile.

In the days following the rains, I have been viscously attacking mushrooms in our yard. All kinds of mushrooms. They ranged in color and size and became interesting to me though still annoying. I was afraid some might be poisonous and one of the kids would eat one. Heck, they've tried to eat everything else we have in our backyard.

One day I realized there were grasses growing in my otherwise empty hanging pots. All of them are fairly high above my head, so I was tipping them side ways and reaching up to take out the grasses when I found these beautiful amazingly bright pink mushrooms. They were incredible. Dean and Jack were out with me, and I didn't want to pull the pot down to study and remove the miracle mushrooms, so I left them thinking I'd look them up on the internet and remove them later

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I spent a few nights searching for these mushrooms, but never saw a picture of any that were quite so bright. So, I finally set out to photograph them before I disposed of them. I took down the pot and was surprised at how much one particular section looked like butterfly wings. Man nature was amazing. As I got down closer to pull them out, I realized that they were not indeed mushrooms. I was wrong...oh how I was wrong. When did I put THAT in there?

Jack Walks

Although Jack took his first step a few months ago, he has recently decided it is time to walk. I can't believe how fast he's grown. I look at him now, and I see a little boy. A very young toddler. I no longer see that little bitty baby I brought home. This is exciting because I know what is coming and how many cool things I get to teach him soon. But, alas, it also saddens me. I morn the lose of the baby.

Oh Poop

It was grocery day. Well ok maybe way PAST grocery day. So far past that I decided we needed to stop by a local coffee shop to get breakfast so Dean could have milk. Well, ok because any excuse is a good excuse to have someone else make me coffee and yummy muffins.

We had to go through our usual to get Dean dressed. I couldn't find his newer shoes (the ones that actually fit) anywhere. "Dean, where are your shoes? Have you seen them? Help me find them, please." "They gone," he said. "Uh, gone where? We just had them yesterday," I responded. "They go to Nanda. (pause) Yesterday." "That's very interesting Dean. How'd they get to Canada?" I ask in a futile attempt to track them down. "They go with daddy on an airplane. It ok, mop. I no like them anyway. You take them back to the store. I no like them."

I finally found them next to the front tire of my car. The flat one. Yeah, that's right, the FLAT tire on my car! After deciding it probably had enough air in it to get us to the grocery store, we set out on our original errand with no more goof ups...until...

I handed Dean the broccoli that he was very insistent on holding. What could it hurt? I thought. It's just broccoli. How cool is it that he's that into broccoli. As we walked through the grocery store a constant stream of words regarding his love for broccoli were accompanied by his imitation of eating it "all up". The coolness of pretend eating wore off for him and his beloved broccoli quickly became a hose. He began spraying noisily at items on the shelf. Then I had to open my big mouth. "What are you spraying?" "Poop." he responded. "Wait, did I hear you right? You're spraying poop? Out of that hose?" "Yeah," he said. I could tell he was only half listening. So I asked him what he was spraying again. He looked real thoughtful. "Pee-pull. I spayng pee-pul," he said carefully. Darn it all! I think I just gave him the idea to spray poop at people. What have I done?