Short and Sweet

Feeling pressed for time, I'm just going to give you a brief re-cap of the weekend's highlights. On Saturday, we harvested our christmas tree and decorated it- big outing for the whole family (see pictures below). Owen went to the birthday party of a 1 year old and afterwards, slept for 16 hours- 3pm until 7am the next morning! He also discovered his love for "neg-nog" and would drink a whole gallon if I didn't cut him off. I've been christmas shopping and crafting like crazy and have completely neglected my house... dirty laundry and dishes and piles everywhere. Its sort of driving me crazy, but at the same time, I just can't bring myself to do anything about it. Poor Luke opted for a weekend with the family due to the threat of high winds and freezing spray, only to watch a clear, calm, perfect deer hunting weathered weekend slip by. So that's about it! Enjoy the pictures!

naked bullet re-loading with daddy

Owen loving the party favors

"helping" the birthday boy open presents

picking out our christmas tree

Luke dragging the tree back to the car

(do I even need to tell you how many

references he made to dragging-out deer?)

The finished product!

We're Back in business!

Sarah’s Thoughts: My last regular post was recounting Halloween and now here we are, two and a half weeks before Christmas! This is going to be a special year because we're not traveling! We get to celebrate this year at home with Owen, my brother and my parents. In light of my overspending tendencies at Christmas, I’ve been trying to focus on homemade presents. The problem is that I have about 6 x 12 different projects brewing and only 2 1/2 weeks until D-day, not to mention my full-time job and my 2 1/2 year old. Despite these obstacles, I’m spending every spare moment crafting my little heart out. I hope that old saying about it being the thought that counts, is true because there’s a good chance that all of these little crafts are going to turn out pretty hokey.... but, what's a girl to do? In the meantime, I'm loving it!

Low- The nastiness I found when we removed the outer cover of Owen’s car seat. Pulverized crackers, peanut butter and smashed dried cherries...

High- Toss up between getting to spend the afternoon with my brother and my hot Friday night date at the annual Christmas party for all of the dental offices.

Luke Update: When I asked Luke what he’d been up to this week, he said, “Oh, you know. Same old thing. Still dreaming of bigger and better jobs and bigger and better bucks.” He started back to work for the state mid-November and will be there through the end of the legislative session in mid-April. This time of year, there is very little going on in Luke’s office, so if you need any internet research done, he’s your man! Besides working, Luke has been getting out deer hunting on the weekends. He did manage to shoot another deer on his way home from a five day deer hunt, just before Thanksgiving so we are going to make it through another winter! Phew! Luke spent this most recent weekend at home working on our exterior christmas lights. After spending 2 hours out in the 20 degree weather, he discovered that its time to invest in some new lights...

Owen Update: Owen is all about Christmas and he doesn’t even really know about the present part yet. I think he’s going to freak out when he makes that discovery. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Luke was out hunting and I decided to pull out our Christmas decorations from the attic. In order to gain access, I had to back the car out of the garage, fetch the foldable ladder from the shed, assemble it, climb into the attic and retrieve the Christmas boxes and then do it all again in reverse. Needless to say, Owen had some significant “alone time” in the house with the Christmas boxes. When I came inside, it looked like Christmas threw up in the living room. Ornaments all over the floor, rolling under the couch, wire decoration hangers gouged into the carpet, Christmas books and stockings and present tags and lights strewn everywhere, and Owen in the middle of it all shaking and yelling, “Tismas! Its tismis time!” I wish I’d had my camera!

Owen and his daddy

cousins

baby, it's cold outside!

exploring ice.

who knew you could throw a rock onto a lake

and watch it slide?

me and my hot date, out on the town

Winter Fun

While we're waiting for our camera to return from the fix-it shop, we thought you might enjoy a little video footage of this weekend's sledding activities. Hope you're staying warm and a Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

(I should mention the idea, most of the filming,

and all the sweet editing of the video is courtesy of my

innovative, thoughtful and talented husband.)

Bummer

Our camera is broken. Not sure what happened, but I'm not feeling the blogging motivation without pictures! Stay tuned... I'll be back!

Full-on Fall

Sarah’s Thoughts: Last Tuesday evening, I came home from work a little bit early. Owen had just woken up from a particularly long nap and was in a great mood, so happy to see me. Luke had thrown dinner in the crockpot earlier in the day and I’d made rolls the night before. I decided it was the perfect evening to carve our pumpkin. Owen babbled excitedly about pumpkins as we cut off the top and dug-out all of the goo and seeds. He’s been really into this penguin show lately, so we decided to carve a penguin pumpkin. I drew the design and Luke carved away. Owen and I washed, salted and roasted pumpkin seeds. We lit a candle in our penguin pumpkin and then ate our delicious dinner of slow-cooked meat and fresh rolls. It was one of those perfect fall evenings that you might remember during the days of endless summer activity. I didn’t think about the scattered piles of clutter or the fact that Owen doesn't have daycare come January. I just felt warm and peaceful happiness. The only thing that was missing was a wood stove.

Low- Christmas music on the radio this morning. Come on, now! Who in their right mind thinks that’s O.K.?

High- Realizing that it was really 9am instead of 10am and I had an extra hour to get to church this morning!

Luke Update: We woke up to fresh snow on Saturday morning, so Luke was dressed in camo and out the door before I finished my morning coffee. He headed up a nearby mountain ridge in search of fresh deer tracks. Sadly, all he found were fresh brown bear tracks... Guess that’s why they call it hunting! In between his Mr. Mom duties, Luke has started a new project. He’s working on another laminated net, similar to the one he made last year, but with some improvements, thanks to insights gained from a season of field testing. Once he gets the wrinkles ironed out, he’d like to move into production mode and try to sell them. Until you see his booth at the public market, you’ll find him in the garage, sanding and gluing away, in between diaper duty and slapping together a pb&j.

Owen Update: Yesterday was quite a big day. Owen was so excited about the snow that it was all we could do to get his boots on before he blasted out the door. There was only an inch or so on the ground, but it was enough to make a good-sized snow man. Owen loves our new yard decoration and makes sure that we greet it when returning to or leaving the house. Now that all the snow has melted, our snowman looks a bit odd standing in the front yard. I unsuccessfully tried to remember the words to “Frosty the Snowman” to gently tell Owen the snowman might not be around all that much longer, but I guess he’ll figure it out soon enough!

The fun didn’t end with the snowman- last night Owen got to try his had at trick-or-treating for the very first time. Extremely exciting. He wore a spiderman costume that my cousin Jason, brought back from Thailand (you may have seen it before if you’ve been a long-time blog reader). Owen didn’t care much for the hood, but he really enjoyed knocking on doors. If the door didn’t open promptly enough, he’d walk right in and make himself at home with the candy bowl. He didn’t like the houses with spooky decorations though, “too scary, mama.” He’s never had much of a sweet tooth, so when we got home, I let him spend some unsupervised time with his loot. He opened a lot of wrappers, but only nibbled at the chocolate. Its really fun to watch him actively participate in all of this. Such a fun age, I’m loving it!

the pumpkin, pre-carving

glowing penguin

trick-or-treater in action

checking out the loot

signature self portrait

bear tracks in the mud

owen and the snowman

Bonus

Here's a fun little video of Owen chasing after the chickens.

He says, "Chickens!!! I want to pet you!"

...and one more of Owen shooting a bow

Enjoy!

Birthdays and Camping and Diamonds, Oh My!

Sarah’s Thoughts: Last Sunday, I was talking to this little boy who was telling me how excited he was because his birthday was only 5 days away. He could hardly sleep. I can totally identify with that little guy because even at 33, I still get really excited about my birthday. I don’t usually have trouble sleeping, but I do have this urge to tell everyone that its my birthday. I like to get dressed up and then expect magic all day long. The reality is that its just another day. You still have to get up, make your bed, go to work, change poopy diapers, etc. Despite the potential for disappointment, I had a lovely birthday. Luke made waffles and coffee, my coworkers organized a birthday lunch and then my brother and Kristen came over for steak, wine and coconut cream pie. I think that for me, the magic lies in being remembered by the ones I love- that, and the fact that I looked fabulous. My oral surgeon boss told me that he liked everything about my outfit!

(Thank goodness I didn’t have to make my own breakfast or lunch because it took me 30 minutes to dry and straighten my hair! No wonder I never do anything with it!)

Low- Coming home after 1 1/2 days camping to a freezing cold house. The furnace went out... thank goodness for my own personal handy man!

High- Up until yesterday, my high would’ve been the fact that Owen went poopy on the potty for the very first time this week... but then my brother got engaged yesterday, so diamond trumps potty! We are SO excited!

Luke Update: This week, Owen was watching Luke shoot his bow in the backyard. He said, “Mama, where’s my bow? I want to do that!” I said, “Well, Owen, we better go tell your daddy.” When Owen repeated his request to his daddy, Luke looked at me and said, “Did you tell him to say that?” Needless to say, Luke was able to rustle up a bow and in no time, Owen was flinging arrows across the yard (with a little help). So proud! On Friday, Luke spent a good portion of the day fishing for coho salmon with his friend, Adam. The report was slim pickings... The other excitement was that our furnace stopped working, so Luke spent 3 hours on Saturday cleaning it. Its pretty incredible the amount of soot that builds up in a furnace! At nap time, our house was 50 degrees and I put Owen down under a mountain of fleece. Obviously, we were very happy when it was finally working again.

Owen Update: This weekend we visited our friends, the Andersons, who are care-taking at Echo Ranch this winter. For those of you that aren’t from Juneau, Echo Ranch is a bible camp that is a few miles past the end of the road. This time of year, the caretakers are the only folks holding down the fort, taking care of 26 horses, chickens and just making sure thing around camp are maintained. The Andersons have 2 kids (Gabby is 3 and Samson is 5) and Owen was in heaven. On our visit to the chicken coop, Owen ran in circles, chasing the chickens and yelling, “Chickens! I want to pet you!” Sadly, those smart, Alaskan chickens took shelter in the trees. Then we visited the horses and Owen did get to pet one. He pretended to drive a tractor, played with Samson’s excavator, cooked in Gabby’s “kitchen” and stayed up way past bedtime. Gotta love camp!

swinging with Gabby

birthday girl and her sweet boy

petting the pony

the mighty mendenhall

fishing in mendenhall lake for "sockeye fish"

fall leaves

Owen and the chickens

Shooting a bow for the first time