making his daddy proud!

odin has learned the way of the wireless mouse.

AMEN!

ronan has been paying attention to family time. at dinner he just folded his arms right along with the rest of us and none of us had specifically taught him. honestly it hadn't even occurred to me that he might get it. he is a champion arm folder now, he does it every chance he can get. he even folds his arms before me when he sees me holding my breakfast bowl. i caught him the other day making the sounds of prayer words while he sat arms-folded on my lap. kids are amazing.

ronan's solution

i had mark build me a gate that can keep him out of the toilet and the tub. odin can still access the toilet for his needs, so this should work for everyone.




i have also been working on child locking all of my cupboards so the boys enjoyed one last play around in my bathroom cabinet before i put all my toiletries down there. finally i have space on my counter. should have done THAT a long time ago.

is it beginning to sound a lot like christmas yet?

with a baby expected shortly after Christmas time, i have decided to be a little bit more on the ball with getting ready with gifts this year. with the distance to town-not to mention the price of just getting there-the kids in tow, and (will be) being too huge to navigate the crowds, i am a little loathe to run down to town to spend way too much money on toys that will just cause fighting and messes. so this year i am going to experiment with a homemade Christmas. well, at least for everyone but mark. i don't think mark would be able to use any homemade technology that i could devise. so for him maybe a few coupons for a good time to go with his new video card and memory sticks.

i have been wanting to do this for a long time but have not felt ready to tackle the plethora of ideas available on the web. so i have been wondering about simple homemade gifts or items that you all have received, made, or are contemplating. i think i could get the idea juices flowing better if i wasn't overwhelmed by ALL the good stuff out there.

c'mon ronan

we don't have a door to the bathroom in the computer cabin so i have the hardest time keeping ronan out of the toilet. i had just gotten off the phone with my sister discussing the existence of locks for toilet lids. what do you know. i came into the restroom and opened the lid to discover this in my toilet.

contents list

• daddy's flip flop
• two dum dum wrappers
• one receipt
• the base to my corded phone
• paper from the trash can

sigh....

a visitor

we have a bear on the property who doesn't show up often, but every now and then we see evidence of his presence. yesterday morning we woke up to find our trash cans had been pulled out of their enclosure and dumped about. we found this punctured can and odin said "that bear could kill me. but not when i am in the bedroom cabin" we certainly hope not.

'the fight' one of our favorites yet

can washable markers be more fun?

and right here are my bad eyes...

odin and mark entertain each other very well.

father and son campout

mark and odin decided to make their father and son's overnight campout here camp bullfrog instead of going to the san juaquin river with the ward. in general we felt it would be better not to camp on a riverbank with a two year old. mark sure felt better about not having to worry about him the whole time. instead they pitched a tent in the woods here at home and made their own fun. odin had a blast. we left the tent up for future adventures here and we have had campfires and playtime in the tent on several fun occasions now.

a boy, oh boy!

We have found out that we are having baby boy number three due on january 4, 2009 and we are very pleased to be the parents of three handsome boys. i mean we can already tell that the next one is going to be very much as cute as the older two! he looks just like them based on this 3D ultrasound we just had. we are scheduled for another at the end of october when his features are more obvious, he is only 19 weeks right now.

odin is very excited to have another brother, we told him that Heavenly Father might choose to give him a sister (before we knew) and he protested that Heavenly Father doesn't want us to have a sister, he wants us to have a brother. that made the technician a little nervous when she first thought she saw him as a girl, but we have had several obvious confirmations that it is a boy between the two ultrasounds that we have had so far.