Family Photo

Grandma took this picture for us down by the water. Thanks g-Ma!

Mommy is SOOOOOOOO Sweet!

That is a direct quote from my Kaylee girl. Yesterday I poked my head in her room to say goodnight and that I loved her while Grandma L was reading her stories. After I left she says to Grandma - "Mommy is SOOOOO sweet!" When my mom told me later, my heart just melted.

Other times she'll come up to me, seemingly out of the blue, give me a big hug and say "I love you so much!" Be still my heart!

Hudson Loves...

his crib

playing with the shade on his window

blue lights on various electronics

to squirm and crawl away as soon as I take off his diaper

bath time

toilet paper rolls

the water in the toilet

rugs, especially the corners

remotes

the vcr

banging on the sliding glass door

dropping things from his high chair

dropping things from everywhere else

throwing toys and chasing after them

socks

rocks

anything edible

anything inedible that he can put into his mouth

wheels on toys and trikes

to bounce on my lap or in my arms

to check out the inside of my mouth

to blow raspberries on his big bouncy ball

anything on my plate

good night moon

copying sounds I make - like coughing

fish

Kaylee jumping and dancing

when I DON'T go farther than two feet away from him

to smile

to laugh

and to make me smile and laugh!

Dryer Lint

Okay, something is definitely wrong with me. I feel the need to post about dryer lint. I've been spending a lot of time preparing for at-home preschool for Kaylee so my mind is ever in the mode of crafts and experiments. I look at everything in my house in the light of "now what could we do make with that?"

So... dryer lint. Today is laundry day. I often wonder what I could do with dryer lint. I remembered that I had a recipe in my wonderful Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions for making Laundry Lint Clay. It got me wondering what else I could use it for. I suppose you could collect enough to make filling for a doll's pillow. You could leave it outside in the spring for birds to gather for their nests. I wonder if pet stores or animal shelters use it for any of their "nesting" creatures.

Maybe I could use laundry lint in place of cotton balls in making some kid art. Like glue the lint onto toilet paper tubing and make it into a sheep or something.

Got any other ideas for me??

Pray for Stellan

Stellan is back in the hospital with his heart issues. This little boy reminds me so much of my Hudson. My heart breaks for his parents! You can read up about them at www.mycharmingkids.net or get updates from Twitter: http://twitter.com/MckMama

Go Fly a Kite!

What do you do on a breezy, sunny, Sunday afternoon?

Fly a kite of course!

Look at Kaylee go - her first time flying a kite! I can't lie, I got a little misty seeing her so exuberant, not to mention so grown up!
My cuties!

We started out at Cornwall, but the trees blocked the wind too much.

So we went down to the marina instead. What a beautiful park! This is where everyone goes to fly their kites (and with good reason). There's usually a strong breeze coming off the water. Cool and clean... I just love the air out here!

The kite was good entertainment for Hudson.

It was good entertainment for this border collie as well. Jeff played with him for quite a while. I love how those dogs are so focused!

Random Cuteness

I downloaded a month's worth of accumulated photos from my camera today and I just can't decide which ones to include on my blog. So for Grandmas and Grandpas sake - here are ALL my favorites!

Hudson loves to open and close things: drawers, doors... anything that can pinch his fingers. He seems to have good depth perception and doesn't try to crawl out onto the deck when SOMEONE leaves the sliding door open (Kaylee!).

He likes to mimic my facial expressions and if somebody coughs, he copies it. It always takes me a while to figure out who is really coughing and who is faking. Now that Kaylee knows Hudson will copy her, I think most often they're both faking!

Hudson is still a sweetie pie, but has been more fussy and clingy lately. I think it's probrably teething. He's always sucking on his hands. He also loves food. He wants anything and everything we're having, and he's pretty good at asserting himself! He gets the biggest laughs when he takes the bowl and shoves his face into it.

G&G K were here for a week or so. The kids really took to them.

Kaylee cracks me up on a daily basis.

I recently had to go in and give her bangs a trim. I wanted to let them go naturally, but she'd never let me clip her hair. Or if she did, it wouldn't stay in long before she'd pull them out. I got tired of her looking down her nose at me because of the hair in her eyes.

Kaylee surprised me the other day with drawing faces for the first time. I think that's some sort of developmental stage. She also recognizes letters in some of her scribbles. The other day she showed me a "C" she had drawn. I don't think she intended to, but it was neat that she saw it afterward.

If Kaylee "asks" for something and we say no to her, she'll either say "I say yes!" or "Mommy, you be naughty!" Like I said, she cracks me up every day.

It's nice to be able to spend a lot of time outside these days.

Love them g-diapers!See ya later...

That's all the random cuteness I have for today.

Our Trip to Yellowstone - Day 5

Our second day in Yellowstone park was greeted with sunny blue skies. The temperature started out cool but then grew to a sweltering, nearly 70 degrees! For me, that's warm enough. I'm a cold weather girl!

Here's the Madison river with some elk and bison in the background.

This day we drove up to Mammoth, with a couple stops on the way, and then back down again with a stop at Norris. It was lucky that we did the loop around Canyon the day before because the snowfall was enough to close the road the next day.

A little stop at a spring whose name I don't recall brought us face to face with some buffalo. The kids stayed in the car this time. Hudson was napping and Kaylee was way into her Blues Clues. Also, I didn't want my kids so near these big guys with nothing between them and us!

See? This is the boardwalk. Nothing to stop them if they get upset at you.

I did not edit the picture below. I snapped this picture real quick and got back to the car. I didn't like the way he was lookin at me!

Gibbon Falls:

Roaring Mountain:

In Mammoth:

It was very cold and windy here. In about a half hour it starts to get really warm. The weather there is CRAZY!

At Norris:

This is Emerald Spring... so beautiful.

Steamboat Geyser

I love this sign too.Look really closely at the picture. See the man on the left running for his life? I don't expect too many people look closely enough to notice it. I thought it was hilarious!

Steamboat Geyser erupts infrequently, but it's a lot bigger than Old Faithful. Wouldn't it be neat to be there when it erupted? I'm guessing that picture above may have been taken on the date below:

Kaylee was wiped out by the time we got to Norris. As soon as we put her in the stroller she curled up on her side (with George of course) and went to sleep.

When I see the picture below I can smell the sulfur.

It was hard to get a picture of those guys. One second it'd be clear and the next moment we'd be enveloped by steam. I used to gag at that smell, but now I LOVE IT! It reminds me of my favorite getaway that has relaxing geothermal heated pools. There was a crisp wind blowing here at Norris. One moment it'd be cold and the next moment it'd be all warm and sulfury. That mineral mist is so good for your skin!

One of my biggest questions that I still have to research is how in the world did they lay down all the infrastructure throughout the park? How many people were injured or killed in this land with such a thin crust everywhere? Looking out over this valley of geysers and hotsprings I have to wonder - who had to go out and lay down this boardwalk? How did they figure out the best and safest way to go? Anyone know?? It'd be interesting to read up on that.

On the way back "home" I spotted two of these guys along the roadside. After much confusion and debate we have concluded that they are not wolves, but coyotes. I happened to catch a special on PBS about Yellowstone the other night. They showed the coyotes and then the wolves and that cleared it up really easily for me.

Basically after this we went back and used the pool facilities again. We packed up in the morning and took a wrong turn in Ennis, MT. We passed through an authentic old west town called Virginia City and went a very back way into Butte. It probrably put an extra hour on our time, but it was a neat drive. I really like the rocks around Butte and we got to see them up close and personal!

Back in Coeur d'Alene we stayed one more night at our timeshare and then drove home the next day. Hudson woke us up early that morning and we just decided to get up and get it over with. We got home around 1 pm safe and sound, thankful to have all the rest of that day to relax before life started up again the next day.

Pool Time in West Yellowstone

I thought I would share a few cute pictures of our kids enjoying the kid pool at the condo.

It's nice that it has a fenced in area with only one gate. There's a much larger pool for older kids and adults as well as two hot tubs.

I snapped a few pictures of the common room - just because I liked it so much.

I wish I had time to sit by the fire and read a book. Maybe next time.