Holden has a Girlfriend!

Or at least so he says. The other night came home and declared "Mia is my girlfriend". I guess we knew this was coming. I just did not realize it would be soon!!

Fun Holden Stories

I can't believe that Holden is already five. He is such a funny little guy. Always saying something out of nowhere and making my dear husband and I giggle. His teachers call him "the little professor" and "Mr. McCarthy". He recently had a play date with Grandma and Grandpa and they spent the afternoon gathering wheat, separating the wheat from the chaff, and grinding it into flour. The following day Holden asked his teacher if he could give a presentation to the class. The teacher later relayed to me that Holden was quite descriptive and gave the class a full and detailed account of what he and Grandma and Grandpa had done. At the end of his presentation the teacher told him thank you and asked him to sit down. Holden then said, as only Holden can, "but teacher, I'm ready for questions and comments". Which is so classic Holden it's not even funny!

Another favorite is when we went to Sacramento to visit Gabe's Grandma Jenny he appointed another gardener to take care of the school's garden. He was super concerned that something would happen to it in the next five days. So he asked his buddy Chloe if she would take care of it for him while he was gone. He even went so far as to inform all of the teachers of his selection.

Another classic is when my dear husband and I went to go watch one of Holden's school swim classes. We were quite surprised when we saw Holden in with the three year olds. (Holden can jump off the diving board and swim half the length of a nine foot pool). It was ridiculously funny watching him. He was so happy and proud of himself floating in the two foot pool. The teacher kept telling him how great he was doing. Little did she know that he was totally snowing all of them. Such a stinker. We are in trouble as he can talk his way out of anything!!

My husband and I are in love with this little guy and we can not believe that another year has passed. He is such a sweet caring boy. Full of life and full of laughter. I hope that he never loses his kind and caring nature.

Love you buddy!

Yurting is Exciting!

We had an exciting time yurting this camping season. Exciting is the only word that could possibly describe our experience. We left early on Friday July 3rd to meet up with my husband's Mother and her husband in Idaho City. While we were waiting we decided to go get an ice cream cone from a place that my husband's sister worked when they lived there. In Holden's excitement to get an ice cream, he slammed his finger in the car door. Completely. It was one of those delayed screaming moments. The one where your child starts inhaling quite a bit of air before delivering the deafening earsplitting shriek. His finger had started to bleed, so I dashed into the car, snagged a bandaid, wrapped his finger, and swooped him up into my arms. The poor guy. It must of hurt horribly bad. But after a little ice cream and the promise of camping, he started to regain normalcy rather quick - especially in light of his injury.

At last, we met up with Gabe's Mother and we were on our way. The Yurt that we stayed at required a fairly decent fire road drive along with a .2 mile hike. It was beautiful. At the end of the hike, the yurt was at the end of a point with an amazing view. The yurt was perfect - it had dishes and a wood burning stove and pots and pans and the most glorious propane burning stove that we've ever had while camping! Totally fantastic. Friday night went off without a hitch. Everyone pitched in with the unloading of our cars. We had time for a little exploring and then we started right in with making a fire and roasting hot dogs. Because I was camping with my in-laws who are absolute masters at this sort of thing, we also had homemade ice cream that was beyond tasty and insanely tasty dutch over brownies. After our feast, we washed down the kids and bundled them for bed. What is so terrific about camping, is that after the kids are in bed, we had a chance for some great adult time. We were able to sit around the campfire and complete our sentences without the kids interrupting us. It was awesome!

Saturday morning we woke up and it was darn cool in our yurt. After the woodburning stove was roaring I got the kids dressed. Holden had watched his Grandma warm herself by the stove. Without thinking about what I was witnessing Holden actually pressed his backside to the stove for a decent amount of time. After he pulled away he shrieked, "It's too hot!" I instantly smelled something hot and burning. Of course. He had burned a huge hole into the back of his fleece jacket. If I hadn't of dressed the kids in several layers, he would have suffered a small burn. Yikes!

The rest of Saturday went without incident. We took a safari into the forest. We hiked around the campground. The kids played with the friendly beetles. They hauled firewood back and forth to the yurt and to the campfire. And we spent some time lounging in our camp chairs and staring at the beautiful forest.
Saturday night the kids did not want to go to sleep. We listened to the giggle and chit chat for about an hour. I think each of us took a turn trying to con them into a slumber. Finally it was Mommy that they wanted and I went in and rubbed their backs until they drifted off to sleep.
Early Sunday morning Holden fell off the bottom bunk of his bunk bed. It was completely pitch black as I vaulted over to him so that he wouldn't wake everyone up. I grabbed him off the ground and put him inside my sleeping bag to help him back to sleep. He fell asleep after a little while.

The next morning we were all kicking around the yurt and Holden was still snuggled into my sleeping bag. Finally it was time for breakfast so I asked him if he was ready to get up. He responded that his, "lip still hurt". I thought -- lip STILL hurts? Interesting. So I pulled down the sleeping bag and was simply horrified by what I saw. His mouth was huge!! There was also a teeny amount of blood right above his chin. We snagged some ice and had him hold it against his mouth. After everything was set for breakfast I decided to look inside his mouth to check to see if his teeth were okay. Inside his lip was a mess. I discreetly asked Grandma to take a peek. I whispered in her ear that I thought that he bitten all the way through his lip. We all took a peek and we all decided that he had completely bitten through.

In a flash my husband I packed up our stuff and started a shuttle to our car. Remember that we had a .2 mile hike in? We put Holden in the car last. Of course he had a fever. Of course he looked terrible. Of course we were over an hour away to our house and an urgent care center. Ugh. On the way home Holden kept throwing up and then crying because it hurt his mouth. Poor guy!

The urgent care person confirmed our fears. He had indeed bitten all the way through. We went home, unloaded our stuff, and started taking care of our poor little Holden. In spite of all of the excitement. We still managed to have an amazing time!!

Lions & Cousins - Oh My!!

While my sweet husband's sister was in town, we took all of the cousins to the zoo. It was so much fun to get the cousins together and let them properly terrorize the town. To our shock, the cousins were terrorized by one of the female lions at our zoo!! The kids were standing in front of her cage when all of a sudden she stalked up and looked a little angry. Then wham! She struck her giant paw against the glass. She did it again, and again, and again. It made poor Spencer scream! Luckily I had my trusty camera to catch the moment.

We later found an elephant statue that misted and a jeep that sat all three Cousins.

Everyone seemed to have a good time. Cousin Lucy slept through most of it. I did manage to sneak a quick photo of her as well.

"Guy Code"

While my husband's relatives were visiting from Portland, Holden was asked to explain what "Guy Code" was really all about. His answer, "Geico is saving money." I think he might be telling us in his own way that we let him watch too much television.

Holden's First Sleepover!

Holden had his first sleepover on Saturday night. I am happy to report that everyone survived! After a University of Idaho Alumni picnic we scooped up his friend and brought her home with us. After a couple of fun games (Chutes & Ladders and Candyland) I could tell that they were getting tired. They were also terrible at losing -- so it seemed like a good idea to do something else. I then tossed all of my kids into the bath. They had an incredibly good time in there. I don't think my bathmat has gotten quite that much of workout in its entire life. ;o) After bath time I helped all three kids into their jammies, brushed their teeth, and then ushered them into Holden and Jack's room for books. All three kids got to pick out a book and then I read it to them. Jack sat on my lap and Holden and his buddy sat on my left and right side. We were very cozy and the kids were sleepy and cuddly. My favorite! After books, I put Jack in a pack-n-play in my room, and the big kids to bed in the bunk bed. They were all out like a light in about five minutes. Pays to wear them out ;o)

The next morning everyone woke up early. Seriously early. Jack was awake and bopping around about 6:30 and Holden and his friend were awake at 6:50. So they were allowed to watch a few cartoons while I made pancakes for breakfast. The kids scarfed them down like we had never fed them before in their lives. Very cute.

Then after breakfast we all headed to the zoo. The kids were wonderful at the zoo. We had such a great time that we did not realize that we had zoomed past lunchtime and were zooming past Jack's nap time. Jack indicated as such as we ran for the car. After we got home I put two very sleepy boys down for a nap. I absolutely love having both kids nap at the same time. Such a treat to have grown up time right in the middle of the day!!!

After nap the kids were refreshed and ready to go - and thanks to their concurrent nap - I was too!

Easter

It's been too long since my last post! I was reminded today by a friend of mine that I really should get crackin! Due to the fact that I have a few cute pictures of the kids, I think I better start with Easter and work my way towards May ;o)


Easter was a blast this year! Holden and Jack went to a park with a few of Holden's soccer buddies and they ran around liked crazed monkeys picking up as many eggs as humanly possible. We "hid" over 100 plastic eggs, so it was not difficult to find them. Jack would pick up an egg, open it, eat the candy, and then discard the plastic egg. Smart kid. The older kids figured out that he was doing this and then would shake each plastic egg to ensure that Jack had not pilfered the goods. Holden was all about quantity. His basket literally spilled over with eggs. Jack had three.

After having had a "test run" on finding Easter eggs, I thought Jack would be a shoe in for his school's Easter egg hunt. Of course not. He ran past literally a hundred eggs and did not pick up a single one. I finally grabbed a few for him as they were disappearing fast and he happily munched the contents. Such a silly boy.