"He gots the grasshopper!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!!

Yesterday was Mike's birthday. Wow 22 years...yikes! I have to tell a little story about him. When we lived at the 'apartment' in Oregon City the boys were real good about finding all sorts of homeless critters to offer our home to. I'd find all kinds...allllll kinds....We had an old fish tank that became a little village of critters. Mike and Doug had invited a praying mantis to 'join' our family. So into the fish tank he went with all the sticks and leaves to make it feel more at home. They searched the libray to find out what a praying mantis eats. Discovered it was grasshoppers so they went out shopping the wild back yard for a morsel for the mantis to munch on. They found an abundance of the hoppers and had fun capturing a couple and carefully placing them in the Mantis den. Well to the boys disappointment the mantis wasn't hungry for a few days. One day as J was messing with our new video camera recorder, Mike and him walked over to the Mantis den to capture, for posterity, a look at the wild critter. All of a sudden you hear Michaels little 5 year old voice exclaim...."He gots the grasshopper!" The mantis finally did get hungry and we have Mike's little voice recorded to prove it. WE LOVE YOU MIKE!!

Me fine!

I always thought that 'dog clothes' were just a tad eccentric....but then I realized there is a time and place. We had very coooold weather here...10 to 20 below...our poor Saydie Dog was freezing her tush off every time we needed to take her out for her job. (We don't have any yard). She'd rush outside happy and anxious as ever. Then two minutes out she'd look at us and lift her paws up one by one and seemed to say..."are you crazy". So we broke down and got her a winter outfit and it was hilarious watching her walk, but it didn't take her very long to figure it out.

Sometimes when you ask Max if he wants something or let him know he needs to do something he'll reply "My Fine"....... I escaped once again to Tacoma the weekend of the 12th to get a snuggle from two of my favorite kiddlies. Here's Max with one of his favorite christmas story books sitting under their beautiful christmas tree.

Ryan is definantly into food. He gets his little bird mouth going and sits up in this cute little chair and munches away.

This is one of my favorite pics of a super cute Ryan. Getting him to smile and laugh is priceless.

Tony was sacked out on the couch and Max decided he would take a nap with daddy. So he crawled up onto the couch with his "nite, nite" (blankey) and laid there for about a minute and then "all done" came back down to build some more airplanes with his blocks.

Catching Debbie in cuddle times with Ryan.

These trips come not often enough. But I'm glad we have the benefits to make the flights as often as we can. Thanks Tony and Debbie! So until next time...."My fine"......

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Tis the season to decorate....the challenge is it's a new home and thats always a quantry to try to figure out where all the christmas stuff goes. Thankfully we put Mike and Nicole to work during the Thanksgiving weekend to pull up all the christmas boxes and we had several minds going as to where everything would go. Engineer Mike built our tree in a box and made it look respectful. Then we put everyone to work decorating it. They did a spectacular job!

A not so flattering picture of Mike, but I couldn't figure out how to delete it....sorry Mike. So someday... I need a patient person to tutor me in Blogging 101...any volunteers?

Coooooooooooooooold

Hi! We are alive! The winter deep freeze that dumped itself onto Billings, MT went from several days of below zero temps that took your breath away as you stepped outdoors, to now a much milder 30 degrees. Amazing how you appreciate even a little warmth! And I must say the snow is really noisy...it's really dry and squeaky and moans and groans as you walk on it. No snowmen in sight, it just doesn't stick, but I have seen some creative snow angels on my morning walk to work.

Thanksgiving adventure

Thanksgiving was a really really small group this year. We were able to have Nicole join us for the week and get to know her a little more. I made a menu & posted it on the cupboard.

Looks pretty fancy.....but we really did have lots of left overs.

Doug' sparkling personality added the touches to this pic

Hey Jensons and Mays does this game look nastalgic?? Had to initiate Nicole into the Epperson games.