Thankful

 I feel very thankful for the life I live.  Thankful for my husband, my kiddos, my family and friends.  Thankful for this town we have chosen to call home and all the outdoor living we so easily get to enjoy.  I am thankful for the curiosity to learn and the motivation to become better and the grace to be where I am at.  I am thankful for good food, good beer, good honey and good bread.  I am thankful for beauty in the world and positive energy.  I am thankful for wisdom learned from challenge and strength earned from courage.  And last but certainly least, I am thankful for the day after Thanksgiving half off every sock in stock Fred Meyer sale!  =-)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with Grandma Alice and Uncle Topher.  Super special for Alice to have her two boys together for the holiday.  It was fun to spend the day preparing the feast after a nice morning run with David and Mango at Shevlin Park.  Grandma Alice kept the kids busy painting, reading, IPAD gaming, and playroom playing.  The kids enjoyed lots of Grandma love during her stay.  Piper even scored two spend over's at Grandmas apartment.  Special time for everyone!  As for the Turkey dinner, it turned out perfect, though I think all Piper ate was a whole can of olives!  Where did these picky eaters come from?  "Ha", my parents are thinking, "I wonder!"  

As always Uncle Topher was a hit, even during an after Turkey dinner food coma cat nap!  All three kids couldn't get enough of Uncle Tophers attention.

We even managed to squeeze in a Christmas tree hunting outing.  It started out super fun, getting all bundled up and stomping through the snow, but then a little sibling pushing match spiraled the evening down hill.  Watch the video if you must, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fi3gngC5kM but just know that no nap for Piper several days in a row leads to this beautiful display of emotion. We love you Piper!

Thankfully we had extra hands and Piper was able to pull it together in time to be carried out by the mighty Uncle Topher.  And Jett got a free ride with Grandma Alice, way to go what a strong Grandma!
 

We had quite an adventure finding this tree. Even though it was the first and only decent one we saw, it turned out to be a perfect fit in our living room. Thank you TREE for sacrificing your life to be enjoyed and loved by our family for the next month.  It is a beautiful display of all the ornaments David and I collected throughout our lives as well as the latest additions for Piper and the boys.

 I love this picture of Grandma Alice and the kids!

It was a successful tree decorating morning, now the trick is to keep the ornaments ON the tree.

Check out our sweet sock monkey tree topper!

A fresh tree in the house is such a fun tradition, even though is seems so wasteful.   Thank  you again TREE.

Calvin was a big help putting up lights outside!

This is really our first year actually putting up lights since we normally have traveled for the Holidays.

Well actually we stayed home two Christmases ago when the boys were born, but we were a little too distracted to be messing with outside lights that year!  =-)

We are excited to stay home this year, it is fun to make a nice display of lights since we are on a main road.  We (Dave) has more to do but looking good so far!

I love seeing the personalities of Calvin and Jett blossoming right now.  They are so sweet to each other, yet can just beat on each other the very next minute.  The other day Calvin started running towards the pantry door, Jett saw him coming, but wanted the door closed, so he slammed it shut just as Calvin was about to get there and Calvin slammed right into the door and fell to the floor.  Jett immediately crouched down and patted Calvin on the back so sweetly and softly saying sorry brother are you okay? Calvin cried but recovered pretty quickly and off they went together.

I am happy to say that words are finally starting to connect and communication is on the uptick.  In fact Calvin seems to be trying to tell jokes and loves to laugh at his silly sayings.  Today he and Jett were playing near the bee hive where there are lots of dead bees on the ground (don't worry this is a normal part of hive life).  Calvin came up to me and said "Bees poop potty....Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!"  He thought that was so funny that a bee would poop in the potty.  By the way, yes, potty talk is on the brain right now, Calvin has pooped in the potty several times now.  Not every time, but doing pretty good!  YAY!

Piper had her first Tae Kwan Do class and seemed to really like it.  She was visually the youngest lil dragon in the class and has a lot to learn, but she seems excited about it.  "FOOT, FIST, WAY...SIR"

These silly boys were hiding in this bag before bed the other night.  So cute, they really thought we couldn't find them when we pretended to look all over the house for them.  Sometimes they will put their hands over their eyes and "hide," such sneaking little guys!  =-)

Here is one more video, this one is of the boys having fun on their fire engines.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c861qgK6Pf4

Boo!

The leaves have started to fall, and make for a super fun afternoon activity.  These pictures say it all.

If you haven't seen the honey badger video on youtube yet, open another window now and watch it...he is said to be the most bad ass in all the animal kingdom.  The Honey Badger don't give a shit!  Dave had a lot of fun creating this home made honey badger costume, he had the most bad ass costume at the Deschutes Brewery Day of the Dead warehouse party.

And the kids had a Serengeti theme going on with the giraffe, elephant and park ranger.

Why is it when I go to take a picture and say "Say cheese!" The boys almost always tilt their heads back for a nice neck shot and close their eyes?  I remember Piper doing this also when she was about two years old.  It's kind of funny, but really, delete, delete, delete...

We started off Halloween  at the Shops in the Old Mill.  Super cute to see all the different costumes. Of course our little candy monsters, loved loading up their pumpkins with candy, their bags were full before the night even started.

The honey badger and his cobra snake

Yippee for Halloween, what a fun day!

The final destination was the annual party at the Donnelly's in Northwest Crossing.  Such a perfect trick or treating neighborhood and fun to go out as a big group.

FOUR

Piper Vida is Four!  It feels so great to love this little girl.  To watch her experiencing life and growing up before my eyes is such a gift she gives me as a parent.  I know the best place to be is here and now.  But I have to remind myself of that because it is a day like yesterday when Piper turned another year older, that I can't help feel a little anxious about time passing too quickly.  This is such a fun age where we can see how independent and capable Piper is, yet she still likes to be held and carried and snuggled.  One of Pipers favorite ways to end the

evening is with "back tickles all over my body."  It is interesting to hear the thoughts she shares with us.  She has so many thoughtful questions, it is beautiful to see the innocence and wonder in this little girl.  I love that when she counts, she says "one, two, three...." and when she gets to about twenty one or twenty two, she jumps to "ONE HUNDRED!"  She says it with such amazement as if it is the biggest number in the world she can imagine.  On that same note, Hawaii is the furthest away she has ever been, and to her it is as far as she can imagine.  So I love it when she says "Mommy, I love you all the way to HAWAII!"

Piper recently learned how to ride a pedal bike with no training wheels.  It happened so fast I think it even surprised her.  It was only a month ago that she started to ride her strider balance bike.  She was so good at her scooter that she never showed much interest in the bike.   But now several of her friends are riding pedal bikes and that seemed to motivate her.  We found a little red bike on craigslist that we put training wheels on and she had another pink bike that didn't take training wheels.  She had been riding her red bike with training wheels in the back ally all afternoon a few weeks ago and just before we  were headed inside she decided to give her pink bike a try.  I was holding her shoulders off and on just helping her stay balanced, then all of a sudden I was running behind her not holding her anymore.  She was like "I'm doing it, I'm doing it!"  It was so cute to see how proud she was of herself.  Later we were in the garage working on her bike and I asked her how she felt about  learning to ride her bike.  She just stood up and said, "I think I'm going to take a bow."  And she really did bow, to no one in particular, I think it was a bow to herself.  

 Piper had school on her birthday, she was excited for the circle time celebration where the birthday kid gets to walk around the circle holding the earth ball representing the journey around the sun to equal one full year.  Piper walked  around the circle 4 times and we got to share something special about Piper for each year of her life.

It was a super special day for Piper, she got to have strawberry ice cream with her pancakes in the morning. We went to bouncing off the walls with

with gma and gpa after school.  Then open presents before eating her special request of homemade mac and cheese for dinner.  Then of course was the grand finale of a pink cake with marshmallows and four candles.

Her favorite present was a photo album I put together with pictures of her over the last few years.

I love you monkey moo!

Back ally bike riding is a favorite activity these days.

While Grandma Linda has been in town, she had several spend overs with Piper.  They had special time playing imaginary games, going to the parks and even went to a real movie at the theater.  So that left Dave and I with special outings with just the boys.  One of the days we did a nice hike at Dillon Falls, the aspen leaves are changing and the colors are amazing this time of year.  We had fun following them around exploring the pine needles, cat tails, grassy trails and watching Mango have his puppy crazies.  

Dillon Falls was such a hit, we decided to go back again with Piper and Gma, this time we brought the net and caught craw fish.  Piper was feeling brave and even picked one up by herself.

October just wouldn't be the same without a visit to the Central Oregon Pumpkin Patch!  We went mid week in the late afternoon and pretty much had the place to ourselves.  The best part was riding in the wagons for the kids.  I liked running through the corn stalks.  Check out this beautiful picture of my mom in the corn!  I love it.

Thank you Grandma Linda for coming for an extended stay.  It was great to have all your help and fun to see you and the kids enjoying each other too.  We had a great time and really appreciated all the extra paddle board outings we got to sneak in!  It was a jam packed last couple of weeks, so I bet you will need to sleep for the next few days to recover, thanks for everything...you are great!

Special shout out to Pat Shaw for handing down these cute sweaters that Dan and Mike Shaw wore thirty some years ago.  I can only imagine the mischief these sweaters have been through.  =-)
And on that note, check out the adorable down coats that our friend Eric brought back for the kids from Mt. Everest this past Spring.  I think these monkeys will be cozy in the cold this winter.

Here is a fun shot of Grandpa Skip reading to the boys.  He loved seeing how much the kids had grown and watching the personality differences especially of Calvin and Jett.