Christmas Morning

Chase showing off his new Honda Racing Hat, with woody woodpecker on it, his favorite!

Chase opening
Jame opening

James got his own new Lightning McQueen or "kachow-pow" as he calls it...And off he goes...

We had a great Christmas!

Funny Man James

James was watching Mater and the Ghost light from Cars and started cracking up hysterically! It was so funny...I'm glad I got to the camera in time...we ended up watching it several times ;)

Too cute if I do say so myself....

Snow Days

Snowy Elk Adventure

We just got home from quite the morning. We were up very early today to travel up to Jewel Meadows Wildlife Refuge to go and feed the elk! The drive was a little nerve racking for me, but enjoyable. The snow everywhere was beautiful. Grandpa Allen rode with us and the boys. Chase and James knew something was up and stayed awake the whole drive up, even though I told them to go back to sleep cause it was a long drive. We got there at about 8 am and could easily see the large herd of cows and calf's and then the bachelors off kinda by themselves. The elk knew it was feeding time and were patiently waiting for the wagon of hay. It was absolutely gorgeous!
We got all bundled up and waited for the rest of the crew, the volunteer ODF&W guy brought around the tractor and wagon with hay, and we all boarded the wagon. James and Chase of course thought that it was really cool! They took us a little ways down the road and into the field. We got to throw out flakes of alfalfa and the elk came right up to start eating. It was great being surrounded by so many magnificent animals! There were over one hundred head, from about three different herds that had all come together. Once we fed out all the hay, we turned around and parked to take pictures and watch them feed. I got some great video of males sparing and females bickering(over food). The calves were mewing to their mamma's and one large baby was lucky and still got to have some milk from mamma! It looked so funny, the calf was almost as big as the cow! James and Chase started to get cold, they just don't make warm enough foot wear for kids... James serinaded the whole valley, the elk listened to the strange sound. All in all it was a great time. So here are some pics... Oh, yeah, we even saw a coyote. What an awesome experiance!

Elk Pictures

Here's the coyote

The dark spot, kinda in the center, is a coyote.

MOPS moms night, ect.

Okay, so I'm not that great with pictures...but if I wait to have some, I will never keep this thing anything close to current.
I just wanted to express my gratitude for all of the mom friends I have through MOPS(Mothers of PreSchoolers). We just had our monthly "moms night out" tonight and oh my goodness. What Fun! Thank you to all of you. It is a much needed time to share our lives and our stories, knowing that we are each not alone. Learning that you are not the only one who has a warped first born ( OCD anyone?) hee hee, or any number of other occurrences/coincidences. Anyways, Thank you Stacie for opening your home to us and letting us make such a mess of your dining room while making our wreaths! I feel truly blessed tonight as I head up to bed, to have such great women in my life, not just you MOPS moms, but all of you. There are some I miss terribly, some I don't see enough of, and some of us are just so stinking busy... but all wonderful.

James at the Ag Show

I realized when I got home, that I took no pictures of Chase! Uh, oh! Bad Mommy! We had fun, just like always, going down to Albany and enjoying the Willamette Valley Agricultural Show (expo). I don't remember what day this was exactly. The kids like it and have fun checking out all the latest and greatest equipment in Daddy's line of work. And Daddy get's to spend time with the kiddos while working.