Pinewood Derby Day!

Today was the day of Colten's Cub scout Pinewood Derby. It was a big day in our house and everyone eagerly went to the school to watch Colten compete. I remember my brother building a derby car when he was in scouts, but I never realized how much planning and effort was involved in it. Colten was supposed to get his derby car at a meeting in December, but we couldn't make it. We went to another meeting to get it, but the leader had misplaced them. Colten got his car last week when another scout in his class was able to give it to him.

I'm really happy my parents live close and my dad has all the woodworking tools, because with only a week I know it would be difficult to finish Colten's car here at home. Colten and my dad looked up plans on the iPhone, drew out plans, and Colten did all the cutting, sanding, painting of his car. The trickiest thing was getting the weight right at the 5 oz. mark. I'm so proud of Colten for spending time and hard work to get his car finished. The best part for him was placing first in his age group and second over all. He got two trophies to take home and set next to his car. I know Colten was disappointed not to take first overall, but to take second out of fifteen cars total is really good. It's a good lesson for him to learn about being proud of his efforts and not always winning. Colten sanding his car
More sanding.....

Cutting the shape on the band saw

Trophies for 1st and 2nd place.

Colten painted his car to look like a lizard with orange paint and hand drawn scales. It even has eyes, and a mouth with a red tongue!

18 months old!

Dear Cooper,
You are now 18 months old. That's a year and a half! You have grown and changed so much in the last six months! You are now not only walking, but almost running! You try so hard to keep up with those big brothers of yours. Out of all my boys, you are the most physical one so far. You climb everything...the bunk bed (scary!) the top of the couch, onto table and counters. Of course you love to play with everything up high out of your reach you shouldn't be playing with. One of your favorite things to play in is the toilet... flushed or not, with your brothers' toothbrushes. I've started stocking up on kids brushes just so we can throw the nasty ones away. Every bathroom door now stays closed if you are up and about the house.
You've gotten so tall now too! You're 33 inches (77th %tile) and we've had to turn your car seat around. You love that you can see forward and look where we're going. You're also tall enough to reach things up on counters and can open doorknobs. I'll be installing the knob covers on the bathrooms soon. You get into everything you shouldn't and love to spread things around to see how big a mess you can make. I feel like all I do is follow you around the house cleaning up after you and waiting to catch you if you fall.
You don't weigh that much yet, only 25 pounds, but some days it feels like you've got lead in your diaper.
I'm so excited because in the last few months you've started talking!! You don't have a huge vocabulary, only about 15 words, but you are adding to it all the time and starting to see the value in communication. Momma and Daddy are very popular words, along with Blue (the cat) puppy, Binky, ball, book, shoes (you love going out) and others. You understand everything I tell you, and react when I tell you, "No!" You jabber in gibberish plenty too. It is easy to tell when you are trying to communicate and we are just not understanding (or we're just not letting you do what you want to do!) you throw the biggest tantrums. All your life I've been saying you're the child making sure I want no more, and you're doing a good job of it. Your temper fits are throw down, blood-curdle screaming fits, and the best thing Daddy and I do is put you in your crib for a time out. Of course this invokes more screaming, but after a few minutes you calm down and you get out.
The other milestone that fills me with joy is your sleeping. I can finally say you are regularly sleeping through the night!! It happened all of a sudden, mostly because I think you're done teething for a while. I am much happier to see you early in the morning when you've let me get a good night's sleep.
As the days pass, more and more of your personality shows. Daddy and I enjoy watching you and wondering which of us you got the stubbornness, your temper, and your endless energy from. My favorite times with you are snuggling up reading books or nursing, still your favorite thing to do with me. You've grown so much, and keep surprising me every day with all you do.

Baby Shower!!!

This last weekend we had a baby shower for my SIL Jackie at my house. She and my brother are expecting a little boy "Eddy" March 16. I am so excited for them and wanted a chance to spoil my nephew and SIL. Here's Jackie with all her presents. My mom found a tiara that said "New mom to be" on it an so she looks like a glamorous queen.

Eddy's room is aviation themed (cool since my brother is a helicopter pilot) so my Grandma Hisaw made a baby blanket with the perfect material.

My brother's in the army, so camo was the color of the day. These will be perfect here in rainy Washington.

My mom passed on lots of things she had from Ed's room. It'll be nice for him to have some of his stuff for his son.

My dad's family, Grandma Montgomery, Aunts Beth and Barb, and cousin Mandy all got Jackie the high chair she's been wanting. It was a fun party, my house got cleaned, and the best part was visiting with family.

It's the small things...

This post started out as a posting of all my snow pictures... until the power and internet went out last Wednesday. Pictures are at the end of the post if you want to see all 2.5 feet of snow we got.

I always thought it would be fun to experience pioneer life. After the power outage last week I know that life would be tough. When you think about how much of our lives in modern times depends on electricity, having it out for a week, I have an new appreciation for the small things in life. Our power went out Wednesday night from branches, heavy with snow, fell and broke power lines. The power came back on briefly, only to go back out with the ice storm that broke off tree tops and split trees in half. In all we probably lost around 100 trees, either that were topped or split right down the middle.Living in the boonies is lots of fun, and believe me I LOVE the privacy, but if you've never been a country person, snow storms and power outages are very different in the country. We live at the end of a private road in a private development, located off a small, no-shoulder country road. My girlfriends always love to tell me how steep the hill is just to get to my house. Being in the country means no snowplows!Tony and I took the kids out in the new (to us) truck Wednesday to get dinner and escape the house for a while. I remember driving down the hill and clearly seeing the tire tracks, and figured out that the line in the snow between the tires was the trailer hitch leaving a mark in the snow. Yes, that's how deep the snow was! None of the country roads were plowed, and not even the highway was until on our way home. Even with four-wheel-drive, it was tough getting back up our road and we wound up parking in the cul-de-sac because our second hill was just too much. Our neighbor got her little Rav4 stuck there on Monday night in the snow and waited for AAA to come and help tow her, they didn't make it to her door, only a few hundred feet more up the slick hill.Once the power went out we started up our generator. Tony got a great deal on it a couple years ago, but we've never really needed it until now. Most of the time our power is restored pretty quickly. We discovered the generator is very particular about it's oil level and likes it topped off every several hours. Having our power out is a big deal. I've got minimal heat from our propane stove, but no fan, no way to cook, and the worst: no water. Without power our well doesn't work so no flushing toilets or washing hands. We melted snow for washing and flushing the best we could, but I still felt gross. The kids all wanted to play but it is hard with only candle light. Tony gave them a glow stick to use as a night light, but I didn't sleep much because I was always listening for Cooper to wake up and me not hear him since the monitor was out.
Thursday morning came and Tony was going on call and went into work. As he was walking up the drive to his truck the generator died. We didn't know about the oil level touchiness then so he left for work and I had no generator. Tony called an hour later to let me know he made it into our small town, and that he'd had to cut his way through all the downed trees and branches to get there. With a dead (to us) generator and bad road conditions, Tony told me to take the kids and dogs and abandon ship to head to my mom's. Being on call with the bad weather, Tony figured he'd be working round-the-clock until the power was restored to his plants, and I didn't see him again until 48 hours later.
It took my brother and dad 2 hours to reach my house, which is only 2 miles away. My brother had not only 4WD, but chains also, and the two of them made quick work of all the trees on the roads. Power lines were down everywhere so any hopes of wanting power back soon were gone. Trees were falling so often that as we were loading things up we had to dodge the branches coming down. You'd hear a loud crack and immediately look up ready to run if a tree was coming your way. We couldn't get my jeep out so we all piled into the truck and made the slow trip back to my parent's house. They were without power, but my great-grandmother's wood cook stove was great heat and the propane range let us cook; two things I couldn't do at my house without a generator. They also have a generator that runs their well so we could take hot showers and run the fridge occasionally. That night the cell tower lost power and we had no communication with the outside world at all. Tony was working and I was dealing with my kids and dogs, but I got to talk to him really quick Friday morning from the neighbor's house.
I never realized how fast my kids got dirty just playing inside. I'd never be able to be a pioneer with basin baths! EWW! My kids were filthy! It was hard not being able to see well in the dark either. Lantern light is better than the dark, but try reading a book or seeing what's cooking! My mom and I decided to make biscuits one morning and got the cook stove all fired up. It took 30 minutes just for the oven to get to 200! It needed to be 400 for biscuits. Dad had the generator going so we decided to cook them in her range oven. Much faster and much bigger than the little stove!I went home on Saturday because Tony got the generator going and was able to come home from working for a while. I even got the jeep out eventually. Monday we got our generator transfer hooked up so we were really comfortable being able to run our house electrical panel with the generator! Yeah for our furnace and a microwave!
Having the power out was really tough on the kids. They couldn't go outside with trees and branches falling like crazy and they couldn't play with so many things they were used to having inside. My kindle and iPod were well used for games and we would plug all the chargers in when my dad was running the fridge.
The power company finally restored power Tuesday afternoon, so we were out of power for six days total. I was most bummed about having to miss my girl's weekend at the beach. I really wanted to go, but couldn't even get my jeep out for the drive.Most people were surprised at how much more severe the snow was at my house, but I think just the little bit of higher elevation makes the biggest difference. My parents only live two miles away, but they got a foot less of snow. I love my hill, but I don't like it in the snow, though it is GREAT for sledding! Not only do I get more and worse weather, but I can't get up the hill. I'm grateful for our gas-guzzling SUVs that are able to get through it most of the time though. Living in the boonies is great, but I pay the price with lack of road clearing and being the last one to get power at the end of the line. Saying I'm out of power is different than living in town without power. Out here I'm isolated without basics and have only myself and my generator to depend on.
Here's what my poor trees look like now! My FIL has plenty of yard work awaiting him this spring when he returns.

Snow Day!!!

A picture is worth a thousand words....

Beating back the blues

Now that Christmas is over and I've had a somewhat relaxing time off with my boys, I'm ready to start making some changes in my life. Some people would call them resolutions, but I'm likely to fail at them, so I'll just call them changes. I'm hoping changing a few things within my control will help me fight back the seasonal depression that hit me hard this year. It doesn't help that Tony gets this same depression so we're both often lumps around the house, only able to do the minimum to keep the family going.
I've started working out in the mornings before school and managed three out of five days this last week. 3/5 isn't bad for a first week! I've also started watching what I eat a little closer and making sure I'm eating more fruits and veggies. It doesn't sound like much, but when I can barely make myself get out of bed some mornings, getting up early to work out a little or making myself eat salad instead of chocolate is a HUGE accomplishment.
The best thing is that I'm noticing good things, no matter how small! I'm sleeping better each night and I've got more energy. I've even got more patience with my kids at school and home, and seem to have a little bit of that *spark* I had starting out the school year.
I've had a lazy day today, but I'm looking around the house realizing I need to really kick it up in the next few weeks to get the house looking good for my SIL's babyshower in February. I'm hoping the sun will come out some tomorrow making me want to go outside and pull weeds and get some rays, even as weak as the winter sun is.
I'm also determined to blog more if only as a place to look back over my plans and help me keep on track. I haven't lost any weight yet, but I'm sure sore from building muscle with the workouts. I don't need any drastic measures, just starting to feel more energetic is telling me to keep it up and not give up.

Happy New Year 2012!

I was watching the news this last week and it said that a majority of people were disappointed with 2011 and were looking for a better year in 2012. I am looking forward to a better year. 2011 hasn't been a terrible devastating year like it has been for some people, but it has challenged me in ways I've never thought I would be. In 2011 my family has been torn apart by divorce and put back together. I've learned lessons in love and how precious love can be and that I can't be sweating about the small stuff, when bigger things are what count. I've learned so much about forgiveness, honesty, and what really matters most in a marriage.


I'd love to say that Tony and I are completely different people and we've resolved all our problems, but that isn't true. We're the same people we were a year ago, we've just learned to tolerate each other's differences. Instead of spending time upset and resenting Tony for not helping out more around the house, I'm happy he's playing with the boys so I have time to get housework done. I'm learning to enjoy things that Tony enjoys and while I may not enjoy the same things, I'm at least understanding why he enjoys them.
It has been a long hard year, but it means 2012 can only be better.

My 2011 soundtrack would include "Stronger" by Sara Evans, and "God gave me you" by Blake Shelton. Both songs clearly describe what 2011 was like for me.