My Painting

This is a painting I finished today of the last rapid of a section on the American River that Roy and I kayaked with 2 of his siblings. Roy signed me up for a painting class for my birthday. I have been working on this painting each Wednesday for several weeks and today was the last day of the class. Since I have no place to paint at home and seeing as I could have this baby any day, I knew I had to finish the painting today. I would like to have done a few more things to the painting, but I hurried through and at least it's done and I won't have to worry about an unfinished painting after the baby comes. :)

Daring Little Jumpers

We have quite the jumpers in our home! When we were at my parents' house, McKinley was jumping from the top of the second half of the split stairs to her dad, standing at the bottom. You can't really tell in this picture, but it was quite a distance! Luckily, Sage didn't have a desire to follow in McKinley's flight path for this activity. She was happy to play a game of catch from the top of the stairs and had an impressive throwing arm if you ask me. :)
The kids' room is in the process of being transformed to make room for all three of them. Roy has not yet finished building the bunk beds he's been working on. At this point, I'll be happy when one bed is done so we have room under the bed for some things. We just got a second matress, which we put under McKinley's matress on the floor for now. McKinley has been jumping from the top of the toy box (stacked on top of the under-the-bed box) to her matress, but now it's much more bouncy and fun. Sage has not been able to do it by herself until the other night when Roy encouraged her to try. Maybe I'm just a little too careful, but Roy sat on the floor ready to catch her just in case, and she did just great! She didn't have room to spare (as she landed on the edge of the bed) and bounced forward onto her face after landing on all fours each time, but she loved it!
McKinley was all about the tricks she could do in the air. Is anyone surprised? She was turning around, jumping over her daddy's head, jumping with her eyes closed, and anything else she could think to try. I should have had the video camera going. At any rate, I think we have a little dare devil on our hands.

End of November

It's been a while since I've posted, so these are kind of random. I just wanted to remember these cute little things the girls do on a fairly regular basis. They made waffles one morning, taking turns putting ingredients in and using the hand mixer.
This next picture shows McKinley cutting celery sticks for dinner with a small sharp knife (always supervised). Yes, she's in her pajamas and had been wearing them all day. They were passed down from one of my friend's daughters the night before and McKinley loves them! I think she would wear them every day if I let her and if I never had to wash them. ;) Sage is cutting a banana with a butter knife. Most of her banana made it into her mouth rather than the little bowl I provided her with. It's really what I expected. They love to cut and are very careful.
Matt and Suzanne were in town last weekend with Lydia, so those of us who live here, got together at Gramma and Grampa Hansen's for dinner. The kids always love to play together. Matt has a job opportunity here, which would be great to have more family around, but he would be giving up a lot with his career dreams and what he loves to do. They have a tough decision ahead of them and we wish them the best whatever they choose. :)
Roy went with his friend, Scott, to cut down a couple trees in the mountains last Saturday. I haven't seen the one Scott chose, but ours is pretty cute. McKinley and Sage helped me get out some of the Christmas things while Daddy was gone. We actually just the stockings out and the train that goes around the tree. We listened to Christmas music on line and had a good time.

Favorite Activities

This hoola hoop that the kids are standing in is bent out of shape, but the kids don't care. It has become thier rocket ship. They climb inside and race around the house in it, taking turns being the astronaut captain in control. I love thier imaginations!

McKinley and Sage love to pull all the cushions off the couch and jump into the pile. They've gotten pretty creative with their jumping. It's fun to see how Sage tries to copy all of McKinley's tricks (spinning in the air, jumping sideways, diving, doing summersaults, etc.). Our living room -- the first thing you see from the front door -- doesn't always look perfect, but the kids have fun.

Treading Thin

I left McKinley and Sage with my parents today while I went to an appointment with my midwife in Boise. The girls love to go to their house and Sage always goes straight for the wooden duck in my dad's office. It's funny that this would be such a beloved toy since it's really just a decoration and there are plenty of other toys to play with. Sage usually just takes the duck and plays with it, but apparently, today she felt the need to replace it with something else. My dad said that after taking the duck, she returned a minute later with this silver knight and carefully placed it on the shelf, moving it back and forth until she was satisfied it was in just the right spot. We had a good laugh.

After loading the kids and myself into our mini van, my mom noticed my front tire was low and wondered if we needed to air it up immediately before driving back to Nampa or if I could wait until a more convenient time. I was wanting to get home for Sage's nap. My dad came out to give his opinion and noticed the belt showing through the tire and was afraid we'd end up blowing it. I knew the tires were wearing thin because I had to have a flat repaired a couple months ago and they said they couldn't legally put the tire back on our vehicle because the tire didn't have enough tread. They were nice enough to put a used tire on for free to get us through until we could replace all four. I guess we'd put it off a little too long as you can see. We were lucky we didn't blow a tire.

Thanksgiving

We went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving this year. It was a small group consisting of my parents, my dad's mom, and our little family. Though there were few of us there, we were not lacking any food. We had a delicious smorgasbord! My parents went all out with very little contributed from us.
I feel very grateful that our kids get to know one of their great-grandmas and both sets of grandparents. It's nice living close to family.

The kids entertained themselves with Grampa's wooden duck (always a favorite), the doctor's kit, and other various toys. I worked on coloring file folder games for the girls and we all watched the movie Ratatouille. It was a great day!
McKinley wanted to type her name and a few others. She did hers in the sentence above and these are others that she typed: Sage, baby.

An Eventful Day

First thing this morning, the girls got started making Thanksgiving cards for grandparents and their dad. They got so involved drawing and gluing fabric scraps on their cards that it kept both of them busy while I made dough for the rolls we'll have tomorrow. As much as I love to have them help me, I have to say it was very nice to make the dough by myself. It's a lot faster and less messy that way. Their cards turned out so cute too! I was proud of them.
After lunch, I gave McKinley and Sage each a piece of dough to make their own monkey bread while I made the dinner rolls. It's kind of a tradition that they enjoy when I make rolls. Since they would only get one clump of dough (enough for a small loaf pan), they made it last. They pounded, rolled, cut, dipped the dough in butter and cinnamon sugar, and put it in the pan. One might think that would be enough, but they squished it all up after that and did it again. McKinley ended up with monkey bread made of tiny pieces and Sage had a cinnamon swirl loaf. My floor needs a good mopping now, but they had so much fun.


They were proud of themselves when they got to share the finished product with their friends who came over (ages 2, 3, & 4) while their parents went Christmas shopping. It was a full and active house, but we all had a good time.


With every busy day, it seems there has to be some fiasco for me. Today, it involved Teton. I freaked out the other night when I saw a mouse run into our garage. I put some mouse bait blocks in a couple places that I thought were safely out sight and talked to the girls about what I had done and told them not to try to get to them. I didn't have this talk with Teton and since he's hardly ever in the garage, I didn't think it would be an issue. Maybe I just wasn't thinking (sigh). Roy was in the garage working on the bunk beds that he's building for the girls and had Teton out there with him. Teton stuck his nose between the wall and the freezer and was able to get the poison. Roy had to rush him to the vet to get him to vomit the poison out. I, of course, feel very bad about the whole situation (to say the very least) and hope we don't see any negative effects from it. It's a painful lesson to learn, but I won't be using anything like that again!

I'm looking forward to a nice, semi-relaxing day with family tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!