video

i found this video last night and it brought back memories. the girls will be out here in less than two weeks for Christmas --i am so very excited to see them again. i hope you enjoy this as much as i do.

doughNUTS

here are the two newest krispy kreme employees: madeline & samson. :)

powder puff girl

i decided to clean out under the sink this evening --what got into me? i don't know. ;) i pulled everything out, including a canister of powder, and set it all on the floor right next to me as i wiped out the cupboard. moments later, i was finished and put everything back in. everything, that is, except for a canister of powder. not noticing that it was missing, i went off to get noel ready for bed. as i was changing him, i started to wonder what smelled so good... so powdery good. you think at this point i'd be putting two and two together but it's been a long day. i only realized that maddie was missing along with the powder once she came out of her room, blinking and sneezing. she emptied the whole lot all over herself and her room. on the brighter side, maddie & the entire house smells lovely. :)

.*.princesses in the making.*.

maddie was genuinely sad when we had to take the rollers out. . . she thought this was the look we were going for. thankfully, she was happy again once she realized that her curly hair turned her into a princess. :)

gooooood mornin'

the other morning, maddie snuck into noel's crib and didn't think i'd notice. they had fun playing together while i enjoyed some time to myself with a cup of coffee in the other room, playing along that i had no idea that she was in there. when i finally went in, she "hid" from me. see how sneaky she is? can you find her? if it wasn't for those bright red pajamas, i probably wouldn't have even seen her. ;)

by the way, that picture is a reminder for me to never cut noel's hair myself again. see how his bangs are at a 45 degree angle? haha. poor guy. he has no idea. . .

break in

when our realtor called last night at 6pm our time, i thought we must have an offer! why else would she call so late from the east coast? oh, okay, it was because someone broke into our house. here are some pics she emailed me of the damage.fun times. :) we're happy to hear (so far) that the damage is minimal. someone tore through the screen of the back porch, used our old push broom to break through the back door, and then whacked the corner of the wall in the living room and messed up the drywall. i say "so far" since we still have yet to hear from the Trent Woods police dept with the official damage report. i'll keep ya' posted! :)

when soap gets in your eye...

what does maddie want me to do when she gets soap in her eye? put a band-aid on it! when damian came home he thought something horrible had happened. it cracked me up. :) she wore this band-aid on her eye until bedtime. little weirdo.

he likes bananas!

halloween!

after maddie freaked out at my dad's work (they had cubicle trick-or-treating) we weren't too sure if we'd take her out halloween night. but since we already had the costumes. . . maddie was a mermaid and noel was a dinosaur. cute, eh? on our way out the door, maddie grabbed her fuzzy, neon green hat that nana got her at the dollar store and put it on. it confused people when they saw her. they just couldn't figure out what she was supposed to be. it was really funny. eventually, she gave her beloved hat to damian. it looks much cuter on her. :)

maddie got the hang of things pretty quick. candy motivates her.
here's noel the dinosaur. :)

maddie's baby pumpkin

remember the small pumpkin maddie picked out at the ranch? well, she loves her baby so much she made a bed for it. here's a couple pics i took of the mommy & baby:

now her baby is at nana's house ... they carved it together which actually surprised me since maddie was so attatched to it. should i be worried about her mothering instincts? ha ha.

moments with mad

tonight i was tucking maddie into bed for the second time, telling her that she needs to stay in bed and obey me. and that if she chose to get out of bed again, i'd come back to discipline her.

her response (opening her eyes really wide): "eye, eye captain."

day @ the farm

today we went to the "fall festival" at the ranch where damian works. after a week of rain (longer actually) the sun came out today for the fun.

maddie has been looking forward to this day for a few weeks now. she's been anxious to ride a horse. i didn't know if she'd get scared at the last minute but she didn't! she was over the moon. here she is on her horse (okay, a pony really --but to her it's a horse!):noel had fun watching her from the sidelines:

and he even got a turn in a saddle:

cousin keenin learned how to use a lasso...

...while maddie searched for goodies in the hay with pappy.

there was a pumpkin patch where the kids got to pick out one to take home. noel got a big one (nana's holding it up for him)...

and maddie chose the smallest one. she calls it her "baby."

we all had fun exploring the farm and all the activities.

well, all of us except dame.

he's working all day doing parking patrol. but it was fun for him since he got to wear a spiffy vest and use an orange flag to direct cars.

anyway, that's what we did today! here's the grand finale... the group photo!

time to catch up! ... with a poo story!

well, it's friday night and here i am... catching up on the ol' blog. but hey, someone's got to do it, eh?

we've done some fun things this past month ... a trip to the zoo, walks around town, spending time at nana's (aka dame's mom) ... and now that i've run out of space on my camera's memory card i'm doing some fall cleaning and posting a bunch of pics for you all to see. :)

but before i go on, i wanted to share my day with the kids this past wednesday...

i got off work and headed over to my mom's to pick up the kiddos, spent an hour with her and then headed out to go home. but on my way home i wanted to stop by the gas station to fill up and also the grocery store to grab a couple things...

i got to the gas station and, after waiting a while to get to the pump, realized that i didn't remember my pin number for my debit card. SO... i went home, got the kids out of the car, got my pin number, loaded the kids back up, and then headed to the store.

well, we got to the store and started shopping. noel was in the kid seat and maddie was in the basket. half way through my list, after tossing a roll of paper towels in the basket at mad, she pointed out that there was poo on the paper towel wrapping. yeah, poo.

so after some investigating, i found out that there was poo on the paper towels, her right hand, and the side of the cart. it looked like someone stepped in poo and wiped their shoe on the side of the cart. maddie must have touched it and wiped it on the paper towels. so i told her not to touch a thing while i quickly headed up to customer service and the bathroom.

after carefully inspecting the other items in my cart and moving them to a "clean cart," i flagged an employee and let them know about the poo. they apologized and i told them that it was no big deal --not their fault at all. i was just going to wash maddie's hands really well in the bathroom and continue my shopping. well, after getting her hands poo free, mad turned to head out of the bathroom and it was then that i saw the poo smeared all over her pants, back, and shirt. ends up, she was the one responsible for the poo. i took her by the hand, with noel on my hip, and marched right out of the store to go home and clean her up...

...but first, on the way home, i stopped at the gas station again to fill up my

tank that was beyond empty. this time i knew my pin but my card was still denied. i think this was when i started to get frustrated. i headed home, cleaned maddie, and then went back to the store.

my "clean cart" was exactly where i left it and i finished my shopping --yay! and on my way home (again) i stopped by a different gas station where my card was approved... double yay!

i finally got home three hours after leaving my mom's with a full tank of gas and less than $20 worth of groceries...

...poo free groceries & kids. ;)

...hey Mikey, I think he likes it!

Noel got his first taste-a-roo of ice cream last weekend. He loved it!

Oh yeah, that's good stuff.

Fort Vancouver

Here we are at Fort Vancouver. We didn't actually make it down to the fort. Instead, we walked along Officer's Row. Dame got to push the stroller... with Mad's help.
The George C. Marshall House

The Ulysses S. Grant House. Maddie sees a couple cannons...

Cannon balls!!

.*. our children in the sky .*.

On the Columbia River

Last week the weather was beautiful so we took a walk down on the Columbia River. Here's Dame with Mad putting their feet in...

It was freezing cold!!
Noel was as happy as a clam being pushed in the stroller. :0)

LOTS of pics from the Oregon Zoo

Maddie is very excited to be on her way to the zoo...

...and Noel heading to the zoo for the first time.

Zebras!

Maddie feeding the birds.

Elephants!

Being cheesy on the animal statues--



Maddie loved the monkeys, too.
And, finally, a pig with tusks...