Baby Picture Sunday

This week Debi's theme over at Who Says 8 is Enough? is --


I Scream, You Scream

For Ice Cream!!!

We are at the Wild Animal Park here in this picture, both eating ice cream cones. They are 2 years old, July, 2008.

Click the button below to post your kids eating ice cream or screaming --

Then Sing's My Soul - She's Country

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVgbVACnoHo

(I don't know how to have it downloaded into my post, so you will have to go to You Tube to view it.)


This song right now is my son's favorite song. They will dance and sit or sit on the couch and sing to this song. When this song comes on the radio they will say "turn up the radio mom they are playing our favorite song!" I just wanted to capture that little memory of them, because they are growing up so fast.

Let me hear your favorite song, go to the link above and play along.

Ever Petted a Deer?

We visited a deer petting farm while we were in Arizona this past weekend. I had never petted a deer before and thought hey that might be kind of neat for the kids. The kid's did enjoy it. They were able to pet and feed the deer.

Deer are not that soft like they look, there fur is very wirery. They were all very friendly and very hungry!



Cody feeding the deer.

Chase feeding the deer.

Tatum feeding the deer.

Tyler feeding the deer.

On this petting farm there were also pigeon's, buffalo, peacocks, goats, pot belly pigs, camels, and many other animals.

On Tuesday, when Chase and Cody went back to school this is the one thing that stuck in their head and Cody told his teacher that he fed a deer.

Fishing

On last Sunday, while we were visiting Williams, AZ, we went fishing at White Horse Lake. Now White Horse Lake was about 10 miles from where we were camping. We could have taken actual roads to get there, but decided that a forest service road would a better route in the jeeps. This was a red hard packed dirt road that was awesome. The beautiful pine trees and the big and little house's nestled in the pine trees were spectacular.

When we arrived at White Horse Lake, this is what we found:



A beautiful lake with lots of fish, they said. There was a lot of people fishing. We found our good spot and started to put together fishing poles.


This is what Dennis is doing in this picture, of course he always had one (or two) kids around him waiting for their turn to fish.

In the meantime, Tatum had the container full of live worms and decided to open them and dump them out (I didn't get a picture) but it was too cute, she kept walking around saying "Ot-Oh", we figured out what she did after a few minutes. Only a few worms got away in the big escape.

Also Steve cut is middle finger with his knife pretty bad. It probably took us (him) an hour to get the bleeding stopped. It finally stopped bleeding, I really thought we were going to have to find the closest medical center for some stitches, but it has been healing good.


You can see him in this picture with his hand up but also fishing.

Cody has Tatum's fishing pole here and trying to catch a shark (that's what he told me!).

Here are some other pictures of us fishing:

Chase

Steve and Cody trying to catch the big one.

Cody fishing.

Every time we would get the fishing line casted for the boys, they would start reeling in and somehow get the fishing line so tangled up that it would take another 15 minutes to get it untangled.

About 2 hours after we got there, we looked over to our left and realized that a lot of the other people fishing had left because in the sky there was a huge thunder cloud as dark as night, over head. You should have seen us grab the kids and our fishing poles and we got out of there. It had taken us 2 hours to set everything up and probably 2 minutes to get out of there and to the car. It was probably a sight to see from a distance!

Needless to say, we never did catch any fish, but what an experience.

Visting the Grand Canyon

Over the weekend, we went camping in Williams, AZ, which is about 1 hour from the Grand Canyon. We went to the Grand Canyon on Saturday, the weather when we left our campground was starting to clear up from the morning rain. As we arrived at the Grand Canyon beautiful sky and white fluffy clouds, weather was good. The park was very crowded, which I suspect is the normal.

I had never been to the Grand Canyon before, what an amzing sight. Here are some of the pictures I took.

Chase, Tatum, and Cody

Steve and Chase

Everyone

As we were leaving, it started to get very cold, and this huge thunderstorm cloud, moved in on top of us. It poured rain and hail for about 20 minutes as we wre driving. It was really loud in the jeep and as it was letting up and stopping Chase says "Do it again Daddy!" He thought it was pretty cool!

I am Back

Yay! We got back safely yesterday. We had a great time camping and visiting the Grand Canyon. I will have some great pictures to post, of course!


I am sill having some blogging problems and can't get into some of favorite blogs. So I am missing you.

Sunday's Travels

Yes, if you haven't guessed it yet, we are going to the Grand Canyon today. I am so excited to be able to see the big hole in the earth.

We will be driving there ourselves and spending some time looking around and taking pictures. I am hoping to see some of the beautiful animals that can seen there, like the bald eagle or the falcon.

The length of the grand canyon is 277 miles, the width is on average 15 miles wide.

I will not have Internet service, which I totally bummed about, and I will miss all of you.

Saturday's Fun

*We will be fishing today in White Horse Lake.

*Chase and Cody can't wait to use there new fishing poles.

*We will be going into town and seeing the railroad that runs to the edge of the "a large natural formation that can be seen from space".

Friday's Travel's

*We are going to be driving another 4 hours today.

*We will arrive in our KOA campground.

*We will be at a elevation of about 7000 feet.

*The town where we are staying is the last town in America on Route 66 to be bypassed by Interstate 40.

Where are we going?

This afternoon, we are leaving for a family vacation on the long weekend.

I thought I would make a little game out of it and have people guess where we are going. I will give you a few hints throughout the weekend.

*Tonight, we are driving about 4 hours, just to get "out of town".

*We live in Southern California.

*We are taking the motorhome and going camping in a campground.

Blogging Issues...

***** I am experiencing some Blogger issues with a few blogs - it says

Internet Explorer can not open _____blog name ______:

Operation aborted!


AGH! Anyone else having problems???

**I just unploaded Internet Explorer 8 but it still seems like it is happening. Not good. What I am going to do without being able to go to my favorite blogs.

Blueberry Pie Refashioned Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Blueberry Pie Refashioned Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Way Back When-sday

Age: 17 months

Date: October, 2007

Cody eating dinner, but the thing that caught my eye is his blankie (the blue ducky thing in his hand) This blankie is very attached to Cody or should I say that Cody is very attached to it. It goes everywhere with him. I think this started around a year old. It is not always in pictures it is always to the side of pictures or somewhere that Cody always knows where it is. We only have two of these ducky blankie's (one at school that stays there full time and one at home) I always hope that we never loose blankie I don't think that we could get through ten minutes.

Check in at Cheryl's blog to see more Way Back pictures:

Two for Tuesday

My Two for Tuesday picture at Eight is Great. Cody and Chase after a bath the other night wrapped in their towels that was made by love by cousin Amy.

Magic Marker Monday

A week ago Chase and Cody had there art show and open house at their school. Boy was it amazing!

I had noticed that their teacher hadn't been sending home any of their artwork being done during the day. I was bummed because I was getting tired of looking at the same artwork on my refrigerator from Valentine's Day. But because I heard nothing but major good things about the Art Show I waited.



The school was packed with parents and children everywhere and hanging on the fence around the playground for every child was huge drawings or paintings done by the child.





Walking into their classroom was another amazing event. One every wall and every chalk board, hanging from the ceilings on ribbon, on the windows, artwork everywhere. Everything from finger painting to gluing on feathers to seashells. Themes from transportation to animals they had done it all. It was all very overwhelming. I of course, didn't know what to expect so I didn't bring my camera. Now everyday there is 5 or more things in there cubby to come home. I can't wait to show it all to you.


See other great artwork here:

Makes My Monday

Chase had a perfect weekend with potty training. No accidents.

This is actaully two weekends in a row with no accidents. I am so proud of him. He is really starting to get it. He even went to the bathroom by himself a couple of times without telling me, until after he was done.

And having one (almost) completely potty trained ... Makes my Monday!!

We don't even want to talk about Cody and potty training ... that would ruin my whole weekend!

This is Chase with a little bit of shaving cream on his cheeks - he was watching dad shave and wanted some also!

Go to Cheryl's blog to find out who else is playing:

Earthquake

As I was just typing my last post, we had a 1.8 magnitude earthquake centered about an hour away from me. I don't really care for earthquakes, they scare me a lot actually, but this was a small one compared to the "big one" that the scientist say that we will be getting in the future. Chase and Cody slept right through it.

Jr. Fair and Auction

Yesterday, we went to the local fair and auction. Steve and I have went every year for the last 4 years and have purchased pigs and steers for meat. It also helps the animal owner way to college. The money that you pay goes directly to the 4-h or FFA student for college. It's a great way to give back to the community and we get some awesome beef and pork. This was the boys first time going to the auction, they had fun.

Sitting with grandma and grandpa on the benches watching the pigs get auctioned off.

We had to have ice cream while we were there also. It was melting faster then we could eat it (the weather was 85-pretty hot) and Cody's ended up on his shoe but life went on.

Cody petting a cow.

Chase really liked this goat. Going to the auction and fair, Chase was telling me that he was planning on getting on a cow and riding it. He would hang on really tight and not fall off. He wouldn't even touch a cow when we were walking around the barn!

Random Picture Challenge

Today's picture challange is:

9th picture folder

or

September, 2008

18th Picture

Here is Chase wearing dad's socks. They loved putting on his sock's and walking around in them.

September, 2008

Video Friday

I am late today getting onto the computer and posting this video. But this is from today. Chase loves bugs. He is getting more and more interested in bugs.

So he found a bucket today to put his bugs in. Normally he has a great story to go along with his bugs. So I got this on video.

Writer's Workshop: #4

Once again thought I would do some writing along with MamaKat - Writer's Workshop:

The Prompts:

1.) Define goodness...joy...sorrow...and anger using pictures you've taken.

2.) Tomorrow I will do it differently. Here's how...

3.)Describe a 'sound' from your childhood. What was it? When did you hear it? What does it bring to mind?

4.) I remember when...

5.) Right now is the best time to start. What's your first step?

I remember when I was riding around on my grandfather's tractor on the property when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I would sit upon his lap and "help" him steer the tractor, move dirt or brush. One day, we were riding around on the tractor moving dirt by the garage. The edge of the bucket on the tractor hit the top of the garage and went through the wall. Now, my grandfather says to me " oh no, we just crashed, don't go in and tell grandma." Well that all it took for a 6 year old, that liked to tattle tail, to hop off the tractor and run as fast as I could into the house to tell my grandma that papa had crashed into the garage. She thought that he was hurt or it was a major crash. My grandma ran outside with me and obsessed the situation. Which was nothing that her 6 year old grandchild was describing to her. It ended up having about a 12"x1" whole in the side of the garage. No one was hurt or anything.

My grandfather still to the day that he died love to tell that story. He would get this huge grin on his face and show with his arms how I was running, so fast into the house. I remember this of my grandfather and it brings a smile to my face every time!

Wishing Well Wednesday

Today I am wishing for a

Clearview Invisible Retractable Screen Door

Maybe if we get one of these types of screen doors my children would be able to open and close it - with tearing it off the hinges, or walking through it. It would also keep the flies out - where the open door that we have right now lets every fly in that would like to come in.

Well, maybe one day my wish might come true - see if your wish will come true also. To play along go here:

Tuesday's Blog Party and Winner

We have a winner for the $25 American Express Gift Card:

True Random Number Generator

Min: 1

Max: 32

Result: 5

Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Congratulations to: Jessica at The Deneke Family

(I will contact you through your email for your address)

***Also, if you are looking for a vacation either to Denver, Colorado or Florida trip go over to Debi's blog here. Donate and you could win the trip. The auction item is on until the Saturday the 16th.*** Remember your donation goes towards a great cause fighting CANCER!

Way Back When-sday

Date: June, 2007

Age: 1 year - ack (almost 2 years ago! Where does time go?)

Cody pushed Chase on this ride on toy for weeks. Chase didn't do much pushing though. It seemed like a lop sided deal to me, but they were happy with they arrangement!

Go way back in pictures with Cheryl at:

Two for Twos-day

Cody and Chase sitting on top of Dad's Distruction Derby car during opening ceremonies.

Go and check out other Two for Twos-day pictures at Eight is Great.

Loose Teeth Sundress GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Loose Teeth Sundress GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Mystery Spice Monday

Amy over at The A to Z Twins hosts Mystery Spice Monday's, so I thought I would join in.

This week I am featuring -- Nutmeg.

This weekend for our brunch on Mother's Day, it turned out very good.

Hash Brown Casserole
Foodnetwork.com

Ingredients
3 tablespoons butter
1 small yellow onion, chopped
4 cups frozen shredded hash browns
1 pound bulk sausage, mild, hot or sage
2 1/4 cups whole milk
8 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
8 cups cubed French or Italian bread, crusts removed
2 cups (1/2 pound) grated Cheddar
2 cups (1/2 pound) freshly grated Parmesan

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray a deep 13 by 9-inch casserole dish with vegetable oil cooking spray.

Melt the butter in a large frying pan. Add the onion and saute over medium-low heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the hash browns and break apart. Saute until soft, about 5 minutes.
In a second frying pan, saute the sausage, breaking apart large clumps. When the sausage is cooked through, remove it from pan.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the milk, eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg and mustard, briskly to blend.

To assemble, spread the onions and hash browns evenly at the bottom of the greased dish. Place the bread cubes evenly on top of hash browns. With a slotted spoon distribute sausage as the third layer. Pour the milk and egg mixture over these layers. Add Parmesan as the next layer, while then adding the Cheddar.

*Cook's Note: Save a few tablespoons of Cheddar for the last 10 minutes of baking, where you can add a fresh topping of melted Cheddar.

Bake the casserole, uncovered for 45 to 50 minutes, until puffed and golden brown.

Makes My Monday / Magic Marker Monday

On this Monday after Mother's Day, I wanted to show off the artwork that Chase Cody and cousin Tatum made for the grandparents.

About couple of weeks ago we went to a Color Me Mine shop to make gifts for grandma and the great grandma's.

We did flower pots for the great - grandma's. Inside the flower pot I put a pretty springtime bouquet. They loved it!

And for grandma, she received a beautiful platter with hand prints on it. She absolutely loved it!

The Artwork done by my children and making the grandparent happy makes my monday!