After two hectic weekends of running around (or bring out-of-town) we promised the boys we would do some things together as a family this weekend. So Saturday morning we were off to OMSI, which the boys have been begging for since our membership expired the end of December. Carson has suddenly grown too big to spend the whole time in the PreK room (sad!), but Nolan could stay in there for hours with no sign of boredom. Dinner at Red Robin on the way home (complete with a Daddy/Son arm-wrestling tournament) and the day was done. Sunday was church, followed by an impromptu picnic in the middle of the railroad tracks, before heading over to Poppy & Nonna's house for the SuperBowl. Lovin' the family time right now:)

 

It was almost 60 degrees today! Makes your mind just start coming up with excuses to go outside! Scott picked the boys up at school and they were begging to "play on the tracks" before they even got home. Rumor has it they spent nearly two hours building a dam, throwing rocks and walking the steel. As a grand finale, the train even came by while they were there, offering an up-close look at all the cars and engine. Afternoons like this are what childhood memories are made of!

 

Not really sure what we've been doing for the past five years, but whatever it was, it didn't involve getting library cards for the boys. We always checked out books on our cards without a thought! But when we moved out of town, adults outside the city limits are only allowed one check-out at a time. Kids, however, get 20-something! (As long as they are from the children's section.) So the boys were super-excited when we told them they were getting library cards tonight! Carson picked out a book about the Titanic (a subject that has FASCINATED him since we read Magic Tree House's "Tonight on the Titanic". Nolan (Mr. "DON'T TAKE MY PICTURE!!!") went with "Froggy's Best Babysitter". Not sure if they were more excited about the books, or having little cards to put in their wallets :)

Mommy ran away to the beach this weekend with 60 other ladies from our church, so the boys had a Daddy weekend at home. While we visited the cheese factory and walked on the beach, they jumped on the trampoline, chased the chickens and watched Carson's new favorite movies: Spy Kids. Rumor has it that bedtime involved their play tent and some camping, right in the middle of Carson's room. Gotta' love those Daddy weekends!

Whew! Last week was a blur... mostly because of a weird, lingering stomach flu that made it's way through our house, but I will resist any thoughts about blogging those details. Mostly the story of the past week has been RAIN! This is Oregon, so we're really no stranger to rain. And when we start actually noticing the rain, it's bad. Carson's school was cancelled early Thursday and all day Friday because many of the streets in Sheridan were flooding and many of the back roads we normally take to-and-from McMinnville were closed because of high water. This posting on a local site had some of the best pictures. It let up for a while over the weekend, but today the heavy rains returned. The forecast for tomorrow? Rain.

 

 

We received our yearly snowfall last night, waking up to about 2-3" and the sound of Nolan declaring that, "It's Christmas again!"
Once we were bundled up we trekked to the garden to let the chickens out and Nolan discovered that cold chickens apparently can't run very fast. He managed to catch most of them, except for the little one that can fly. It perched itself on top of the greenhouse frame and our darling angel just shook the heck out of the frame until mommy finally made him stop... Eventually it becomes apparent that it could fly over the fence, and I didn't really want to spend the morning trying to catch a hen. Next stop was the snow hill where we did a few runs before the boys declared they were cold and headed inside for a major movie marathon. Good, lazy snow day!

 

 

Nolan's birthday falls during summer months, so they celebrate "half-birthdays" for summer kiddos instead. (He, of course, does not know the difference and now believes he should get a booster seat and be able to turn his bed over - thanks equal-opportunity society that we live in...)
Anywho, so we "celebrated Nolan" in his class today, with fruit snacks, baby oranges (his favorite food in the world) and a visit from Mommy.

 

I found a webpage yesterday about eyebombing and Carson thought it was absolutely hysterical.
So.... Golfball + Sharpie + Playdough and we spent the evening, well, eyebombing the house!

 

       

     
 

Many of our happy times outside of the farm seem to happen in Pacific City, so we headed there after church today to celebrate the new year.
Pictures of kite flying, fun in the sand and super-cold wave jumping at sunset are posted here.

  

So our big goal for the lambs this year is that they live.
Well, more specifically that they live long enough for us to butcher them.
It's a tough life when you're a farm lamb.
Anyway, with that (and the calendar) in mind (lambs came in January last year) one of our projects for the holiday break is to try and create a smaller area with a higher fence. Hopefully one coyotes can't jump. So Scott and Poppy spent a wet afternoon outside today, siting out an area, digging holes and setting posts. Couple more days of work and we should be ready for Lambs: Round 2.