new friends

I decided to brave the 1 degree weather (and max's rear wheel drive car) with the boys today for a trip to the indoor play area at the mall. we stopped by the pet store first and looked at the cute little boston terrier puppies, too bad I didnt wear my big coat or one of those little guys would have stowed away! Asher was squeeling with delight as the puppy licked his tasty fingers. bright loved snuggling it but DID NOT want it licking or trying to lick him! then on to the play area. I saw that the oly other family in the play area was a family that we frequently sit by in church and see at Awana during the week, but have never acually "met". needless to say we met and talked for abut an hour about our families and a mutual hatred of the current weather situation in GF. bitter cold, snow, ice terrible driving and bundling up kids just for short errand trips. She's from puerto rico and misses it, but really likes the military life though they are not currently active duty(both she and husband are former active duty air force). she invited me to lunch, and though i knew it was dangerously close ashers nap time and a meltdown was imminent, i agreed. she was so kind and giggled at all my attempts to be funny, so polite of her. her name is joyce. she has twin 3 year old girls and a 5 year old girl. the kids all got along well and her and i talked as if we'd known eachother for a long time. it really feels great when that happens, like God placed her in the mall just for me. It has been an ongoing prayer of mine, with each move, that I find fun godly women to be friends with. sometimes it takes some time but I really feel like I have a good group now.

woodland creatures

today bright and I were talking about animals. which ones were our favorites of the ocean, land, desert, river, etc. then he said "foxes are my favorite of woodland creatures. they're so orange" adoarble. something he said that was not so adoarable: last week he came to me, "mama, Asher sucks." first I was wondering where he got this word, knowing it was probably me or max I faked shock & responded with "what?!?why? and dont use that word again please!" "well he just sucks because he had a big poop, mama. can you fix it?"
why do most little boy stories revolve aroud dirt or poop??

we're still alive!

SO! we are still alive and well. Washington has thrown all it had up it's sleeve at us(feet of snow, ice, torrential rain, Floods) and we are still here and loving it. NOT looking forward to the day we say our goodbyes to our lovely northwest, but it will soon come. We love family, friends and familiarity and have been overcome with it since we arrived. There's nothing like driving down the road that you grew up on and feeling like you know every curve and dip and speed limit. being able to see everyone I want when I want to, is a luxury more people should be able to enjoy and take advantage of. I can't wait to share all my memories of my trip with my Grand Forks friends, and see my sweet husband whom I miss so much. It seems that with each deployment I get used to it more, and more independant, yet I miss him more each time. Anyway, we still have some time left here in WA, and we will max out each moment! more posts to come when I am bored back in ND! :)

update

Well I have been busy with 2 boys lately! Asher beginning to crawl and wanting to be on the floor more, he's just doing the army style crawl now, not perfect form but still good. He seems kinda mad about it. while he likes the mobility I think he still wants to be held while being mobile too. such a mama's boy! Very much like bright in the way that he wants me near him when he's playing on the floor. if I step away even to grab a toy out of his reach he complains! he's also getting more aware of the world around him, he LOVES other babies, kids and animals. When we go to the pet store in the mall he freaks over all the puppies and kittens. pretty cute. he's also sporting 2 new teeth (bottom front)
Bright is in no shortage of cuteness either, of course. I took bright to the base halloween party thing, and got some cutie pie pics. Daddy was serving popcorn dressed as a purple unicorn.
I am finally getting over a pretty bad sick flu thing, we all got it and now we are getting over it in time for our trip HOME!!!! i can hardly stand it, I am so excited.
here's a tooth pic (HA HA HA HA)

my pumpkins

what a fun week we've had! The pic above is just so sweet to me! they both love the bath and asher especially since it usually involves a ton of drama surrounding the hair washing of his brother. For the most part i wash them first then just watch them play. asher hold some sort of toy and bangs it on the side of his bucket thing, or he'll sit down in it and cozy up in the warm water. bright pretends he's swimming or his naval fleet is sinking. not a ton of splashing is involved, thankfully.

we went to the pumpkin patch and brought home some pumpkins to carve up. Bright doesn't really know what halloween is, he thinks a pumpkin with a carved face is a "halloween". we aren't really in a hurry to explain it, after all, he doesn't really eat candy, and why start with all the hype and entitlement issues, right? I managed to snap a few good pics of my sweetie pies carving up some squash. As always I will send a snapfish album so you can see it in full. Bright was VERY excited to carve asking me every 5 mins or so if it was time to carve. but when it came time, he didn't want to have any involvement in the scraping of the insides, he wanted full creative control without the dirty work. Here's my cuties carving and asher chewing on a piece:


here's the final product Left to right (Brighton, max, asher, me):

be careful little eyes

You have to listen really close to what bright is singing in this vid. it's of course, cute, and pretty typical of what bright does while playing. Before I grabbed the camera he was singing the same song over and over for about 5 mins while he dug a "road" in the dirt for his cars. If you listen careful you can tell what the song is, at the end he says some of the words incase you're confused.

TRAINS!

Today we took a little family outing to the Northern Lights Model Train Society. It is a group of several grandaddy types from around the area who like to collect and run model trains. we drove to East Grand Forks, MN (10 mins from our house) and found the address. it was in a weird little building with no visable access, broken and what looks like a new addition being added. all that to say asher and I had to climb all over the construction to get in, and it looked like there wasn't anything in this little portable building. inside was what bright would consider heaven:


Here he is making sure everyone is doing it right:

The happiest boy in town!


P.S. I'll send out a snapfish soon with all of these and more! be on the lookout!