Wild and Crazy!

Wow - for a busy work week, we sure had a lot of fun this week!

First up - - - for our Monday night activity we went bowling again. We pretty much had our side of the bowling alley to ourselves. Here's how we ended up score-wise (not that I'm competitive or anything): Dad - 140, Mom/Sam - 125, and Mason - 113. We love bowling . . . although we obviously need some more practice!

Then one night we got the football out. Daddy coached me on both throwing and catching. If you look hard in the pictures, you can see the blue/orange nerf football. Check out the spiral on this throw!And look at the form on this great catch!Once I got the throwing and catching down, I had to get in some running practice. This down was me and Copper against Sam and daddy. Guess who made the touchdown!Then on Friday, mommy and daddy said they had a surprise for us . . . they both had the day off from work and took us out for a pretty drive to see the fall leaves. Guess where we ended up? One of our favorite places doing one of our favorite activities - - - riding the Heber Valley Railroad. It was such a great day for a train ride! The leaves were changing colors and the train was nearly empty and the weather was warm and beautiful!Here's mommy and Sam with my engineer's hat on. Have I mentioned how much we LOVE trains?Here we are at the end of the ride. Three hours was obviously a little too much for Sam to hold on for - he fell asleep on the way back to the station. A great time was had by us all!We did some baking - Sam and I both love to help cook. Sam ended up this cooking adventure with a beater in his mouth and cake batter all down his shirt! Then on Saturday morning we got up early (although it takes us a little while to actually get out of the house and on the road) and headed up to Uncle Noley's cabin. It was another beautiful day! We found a bunch of cool lizards on the road up to the cabin. Daddy got out an caught a couple for us to play with. They were soft and yet bumpy at the same time. Here is a picture of Sam - that boy isn't afraid of anything!Uncle Noley and Aunt Christy were just finishing up some cabin jobs when we got there. We supervised from the ladder. Mom (who happens to be afraid of heights) wasn't too happy about the idea of us getting up there and running around. It turns out that some animals had made footprints across the cement off the back stairs of the cabin. There are moose, raccoon, and mountain lion prints. Uncle Noley thought it would be fun to add other prints . . . some of the fiercest animals around . . . Mason and Sam prints. Here I am leaving my footprints. Talk about concentration on my part to not step on any of the other prints that were already there!And here is Sam making his marks. He just relaxed and let mom and dad do the worrying about where his feet went. Here is the final picture of all the prints. This was a super cool idea! I kept going out all day to check on my footprints and make sure they were still there. We did some handprints over on the side too.Then since we already had the paint out, Uncle Noley found some plaster casts of real footprints he had made for us to paint. Here's Sam the artist.And here I am - We love arts and crafts about as much as we do cooking and sports and trains and the cabin! Talk about well rounded boys!Then "somebody" decided to get the squirt guns out and "somehow" a water fight broke out. We had two guns and a squirt bottle. Did I mention I'm competitive?Sam needed a little extra help holding up his squirt gun. Who knew that water could weigh so much!Let's just say it's a good thing it was a warm sunny day and that Aunt Christy's dryer worked. There were some very wet boys when we were done - and not just the younger ones!Daddy and I went on a great hike - we ran in to some deer and had elk all around us. The colors of fall were awesome!Then after dinner, we could hear the elk bugling all around us. So we went out and wandered around in the trees and called to the elk. Here I am with Uncle Noley's elk bugle. I could really make some good calls . . . although I don't understand why daddy and mommy were smiling so much! Uncle Noley is a very patient teacher!Sam Alert: Howdy everyone. Who knew we could pack so much fun in to one week. Here is a picture of me just hanging out seeing where an adventure takes us. Daddy says this "pose" is genetic. Here I am with mommy during the water fight. At least they were putting warm water in the squirt guns. That helped a little bit. It was so much fun!And here I am having a little snack of yummy chicken. Pretty cute, huh!

The Last Weekend of Summer

How did it get to be the very last weekend of summer already? That went by much too quickly!

Here is a picture of "the boys" reading books before bedtime. Daddy is a super great reader - he uses funny voices and can really tell a good story! We love it when it's his turn to read to us.

We've had great weather recently - certainly warm enough to be outside playing. Mommy and daddy had some house/yard/garage jobs to do on Saturday so we worked hard. But every so often we would take a break to play. Can boys ever get tired of playing with bubbles? I say "NO way"!
My T-ball skills have really improved lately. I was hitting the ball every time and some of my hits were definately home runs! Ok - at least second base, but really far out there. Trust me! Check out my hitting stance.And look at these action shots - a swing and a hit!And another swing and hit! Look out LA Dodgers . . . here I come!Mommy found this cool "Koosh-ball" game as we were cleaning out the garage. It takes a lot of concentration to play this game - just look at the concentration on my face! Oh - - and a little something extra for you . . . check out my little brother in the background. I keep saying that he's quite the climber. He's always climbing on something or other!I finally earned some extra tracks for my trains. Daddy helped me build a super great train track for all my trains and playsets around my bedroom. And then daddy got creative with the camera. Here is a cool picture of me playing with my trains.And finally - daddy and I had a "campout" downstairs on my pirate ship last night. (Use your imaginations people!) We play pirates a lot - I am the Pirate Captain (mommy calls me Captain Crunch). Dad is the First Matey and Sam is Swabby Sam. Mom is Cookie - more specifically, my term of endearment is Cookie Dough. Imaginations are great things!Sam Alert: Hey everybody! I hope the warm weather never ends. I love being outside and doing new things. Who invented bubbles? What a great thing bubbles are!
Sometimes it's nice to just to have a little quiet time - reading and rocking all by yourself. Ain't nothing better!

Slim Pickin's

So our photos from this week are pretty weak - hence the "slim pickins". It was a busy week and every time we did do something fun, we didn't seem to have a camera with us. So here are the pics we did find on our camera today - Enjoy!

This one is from Labor Day - more lazing around. Sam is definately the climber in our house, but I can give him a run for his money when the mood strikes me.

Here I am hanging with my daddy. He's a good guy!
This was also a picture from Labor Day afternoon. Sam and I had a movie fest - - we'd never seen Toy Story before. Woody and Buzz are now some of our favorite friends.
We went to daddy's school's carnival on Friday night. Of course, no camera for that - and I rode some great rides and slid down some great big slides. But a picture of our ice cream fun after getting home from the carnival will have to do. Here is Sam eating his ice cream treat. And for those of you who are very observant - an extra photo treat . . . . yes, those are Crunch Berries in the green bowl and . . . . yes, Sam did mix his ice cream with them and eat them. Crazy boy!We've shown you "ice treasures" before, but here we are again finding the treasures in our ice block. Mommy found some fun new things to hide in our ice. We LOVE this activity!And . . . . finally I like to call this picture the "Tiki Dance of the Sticker Boy". This is what happens when you don't want to take a nap and have a book full of stickers . . . . and then daddy sneaks up with a camera to see you doing the dance. How embarassing!Sam Alert: Howdy! What says summer more than fresh corn on the cob? Nothing, in my humble opinion. This is one good thing about having lots of teeth - - - I can munch corn on the cob with the best of 'em. Have a great week.

Lazy Labor-less Days

So it is the infamous Labor Day weekend and we certainly aren't laboring much. All of the boys at our house are fighting colds and my fight isn't going very well. The doctor is worried about my pneumonia coming back and so I'm on more antibiotics. Ugh - will this ever go away? Here is a picture of Sam and daddy during our lazy weekend.

Sam and I did a fun craft this week - decorating dinosaurs. Here is Sam "glittering up" his dino. And here is a picture of me working on my dino. The concentration involved is astounding!We played in the sprinklers again this week. It's a good thing the front lawn needs some extra watering! Here is an action shot with me and the sprinkler!And what says "summer day" more than eating popsicles without shirts on?And for our loyal readers - do you know what comes after eating popsicles? Bath time! Here's Sam playing in the tub.Lazy days also involve playing in the yard. Sam loves to do anything that has to do with walking and so Soccer is our game of the month. Here we are playing soccer again. And somehow after a game of soccer we end up wrestling. How is it that I always seem to end up on the bottom? No fair!!! I think daddy is involved in some way or another.

Another fun thing we did during our lazy weekend was try on our Halloween costumes for this fall. Here is a sneak peek . . . .

And a sneak peek of Sam . . .

Everything fits just right - you'll have to check back at the end of next month to see the full costumes. We're scary though! After trying on costumes I decided to play in my pirate costume - argh mateys! Ahhhhh, here's to lazy days!Sam Alert: Howdy everyone . . . Sam here. So life is good except for a nagging cough and a very runny nose. We're just hanging out enjoying the family. This is a picture of me playing with some of my favorite things - pots and pans and balls. Toy stores are full of fun things that cost money but you just can't beat pans and balls!And here is a picture that mommy says she was just waiting to capture. I have a true obsession with the dog's water dish and I LOVE to play in the water it always seems to hold. Fortunately we were outside and mommy didn't care if I dumped all the water out. Ahhhh - heres to more lazy, wet days!