Working with Dad

I love having a yard to work in.  Gauge loves having a Daddy that lets him help dig a fire pit.  Gauge found the little shovel behind the big blue shed.  The handle is broken to his size, but it has a full sized head so he really feels like he's doing a big job with it.  He tends to feel patronized when we hand him child-sized tools, even if its so he can wield the tool better to do the  job on his own!

Pima Air and Space Museum

Our new neighbor to our right is twice retired and now spends more time than he ever did while working volunteering at the Air and Space Museum.  As a volunteer he is allowed a few free visitors each month.  He offered the use of them to us and we took it!

This was really the kids' first experience with airplanes.  And so it was mostly overwhelming for them.  We spent most of our time in the old simulators.  Everyone wanted to push buttons and "fly."

More than once some kids got board waiting for mine to leave and stormed off (usually preteen boys).  But I wasn't going to end their imaginative play that just got rolling in the false name of "fairness." That being said, if a littler kid came up they would make room for him to join, or move to the side for him to have a short turn.

Cairn was most impressed by walking under the Blackbird.  Cerise loved the helicopter cockpit.  Gauge loved the button that allowed you to hear a helicopter taking off...  which made the whole hangar ring with the sound.

They all wish they could have spent more time in the Space hangar... and we didn't even try the WWII hangars or the boneyard.  We may just have to go again!

Late Easter Pictures

Sorry for the disorganization, but I thought that finally putting Easter pictures up would be more beneficial than fighting with blogger to get them positioned the way I want to tell the story of the holiday.  Especially since I have Aster and Gauge on my lap trying to help.

Grant got be-stickered during the egg decorating process.

Aster was actually old enough to look for eggs.  But after finding candy in her first one she saw no need to look for more until after she enjoyed that treasure.  I love that stage and always feel that lesson should be learned in life over and over again.  Be happy with what you have.  Running to find more won't be worth it if you don't stop to enjoy it.





We loved having Easter in our own home with our very own yard to hide the eggs in.  By the by, I got fed up with the whole bunny charade.  We've decorated eggs for the bunny to hide.  We've saved plastic eggs for the bunny to fill and hide.  I can at least see the semi-historical connection with other holiday figures, but there's none with the big bunny.  So we dropped the bunny and had Daddy hide the eggs for the egg hunt.  It took a lot of the stress of how to hide them so rodents and sun don't ruin the treats.

Again, sorry for the picture disarray.

Don't run with scissors

I don't know where my camera is right now, so I'll have to describe it.

There are paper shards in loose, scattered piles around the living room.  In the middle of one pile is a pair of scissors still clinging to one of Gauge's fingers.  He is curled around his pile of "important work" sound asleep.

He's been in a cutting phase.  Every paper in our scrap stack has been shredded.  All of his sisters' masterpieces lie in pieces.  He's perfectly satisfied to sit and snip for hours (ok... really it's minutes, but for a two year old time is irrelevant) at a time.  And come bedtime the past few nights it's easiest to ignore him as he sneaks out to clip some more.  After 10 minutes he usually goes to bed on his own.  IF we don't acknowledge him or do anything interesting to distract him.

Cairn used to have to scream herself out.  We let her read stories after bedtime to decrease the scream time as she fell asleep.   Cerise could (can) fall asleep at the drop of a hat as long as her thumb is in place.  I wonder what sort of bedtime ordeals Aster will put us through.

Halloween 2014

Did Halloween really happen?  Or was it just another one of many days that the children wore the Frozen costumes that their fabulous Aunt Cammie made for them?

 Well... I suppose we only do make Jack-O-Lanterns once a year (I know, how boring is that?!).  Cairn made a beautiful Elsa.  And I love, love, love her kitty pumpkin!  It was her own design!

 Can you tell that Cerise's hair got a bit of a red tint?  That was the life and death of my blush!

 Gauge refused to pose for a picture without his sisters.  But everyone loved his Rock Troll costume!  And Aster... She was just a snowball.  Too small to be Olaf, but just big enough to be thrown at someone (don't worry... we didn't really throw her).

 The combined loot of our night Trunk or Treating.

(She's 3 months in this picture)

2014 County Fair

So, once upon a time October happened last year....

There was the Graham County Fair

 Cairn and I got to march in the parade with the Girl Scouts!

 Cairn and Gauge

 We let Cairn and Cerise each choose a ride.  Cerise chose the airplane.  Gauge was devastated when the ride came to an end.  He really thought the little wheel in front of him was driving the ride!

 Cairn chose the dragon roller coaster.  This was the one ride she couldn't go on last year so she was super excited to go this time!

 The kids all got a prize for the hobby horse rodeo.

And when we had seen it all, we settled down to listen to live music.

Back to Blogging Soon

Yeah! We're in a home all together and we have internet set up so I'll be doing some photo dumps in the coming week.  But first, here are the kids on their new blankets from Patti and Cammie!

September

My little mycologists.  They ran off to explore when we stopped halfway up the mountain (Aster needed to eat to help pop her ears).  When I saw their collection I broke their curious hearts and told them we weren't taking unknown fungi home.  The result?  I have 20 pictures to help identify them.  I call that science class.

Gauge is such a cute hiker!  The grass was often over his head, but he just plowed on, following his sisters everywhere.

Ahhh.  And here's the reason we went further up the mountain than our usual haunts:

Wild raspberries grow wild along all the creeks at the top of the mountain.  Unfortunately everyone in our valley go berry hunting.  So our handfuls were a bountiful harvest.

Cairn braved the brambles with me and scraped her arms a bit.

Aster slept through most of her first hike.

Gauge just walked in and captioned this one: "There's me walking in the grass and i have blonde hair and blue eyes"

September...  I turned 32.  Next year I need a bigger cake so we can see more than just candle glow.

Gauge is the cutest big brother... even when its frustrating.  He gets right up in her face and stays there saying, "Hi Aster" the whole time.  Or he'll walk up to me and try to pry Aster from me so he can have a turn.

I had once promised myself not to take naked baby pictures because mine was put on display in the entry way when I was 12.  But they spent the last end of the summer digging this "pool" and were so excited to swim in the rain water it captured.  I didn't know until I went to snap the picture that he had tried to get into his swim suit, failed, and went to play in his birthday suit.

They set up a table and chairs in the field to eat second breakfast.  They were just moving in on the cherry tomatoes when we had to clear out quickly for the tractor that came to plow up the wild tomatillo plants in front of the cotton.

August

I took the month of August off from Girl Scouts.  We did school work as I felt like it.  Really, the kids are so much better behaved if we have the structure and activity of school in our day so we had school days more often than not.

 Of course, school this year has an extensive unit on life studies, namely how life changes with a new baby.  Cairn is like a little Mommy and loves to care for Aster...  So does Gauge which is much less fortunate.  Cairn holds her, calms her, can change diapers (as much as I appreciate the gesture, she becomes the self martyr if I let her do too much) and so much more.

 In case you're ever in my home and wonder why we have three half loaves of bread...  This monster is the cause of it!  We bake bread whenever we don't have enough left overs for lunch (or a half loaf from the previous batch).  I'd be fine with a PBJ sandwich everyday for lunch... but Gauge only eats the fillings and Cairn won't eat it unless there's nothing on it.

  My Grandma (Gloria Wheeler) came for Aster's baby blessing.  That weekend was quite the blur...  but look!  Our friends the Wrights came too!  Josiah was as excited to hold the baby as Gauge is.

I didn't listen to my mom and dry clean the blessing gown as soon as possible after Cerise's blessing.. and there's no dry cleaners in town...  and Cerise apparently spit up a lot in the few minutes she wore it.  It was yellowed so we packed it away again and blessed her in this cute dress (a gift from Donielle in Grant's office).  Sorry Mom for not listening!