Easter

The pics are a little blurry but oh well.

Austin and James on Easter with their Easter shirts. Austin picked them out. Stating "pink is my favorite color" :)
I had Austin take a pic of me and Cam since I'm not ever in pictures anymore. He cut our heads off in the first one. This one isn't bad for a 4 year old ametur photog.

In over our heads

Well, we bought our house last summer and have had great plans for the back yard, so we have been working on it. First of all we took out a bunch of poorly placed cemet curbing tha was in the back. The next problem was the shed. It was built on the side of the house and blocked the wide gate (RV parking) that led to the rest of the yard. Plus the location of the garden ate up like 1/3 of the grassy area. So the plan was to just move the shed over to a different part of the yard, more out of the way. Then we want to move the garden to the "rv parking" and extend the grass in to the old garden area. No problem. Right. Fast forward to March. After much cosultation and brainstorming, the only way to move the shed is with large equipment.

Here is Cam and Bryce trying to get the shed up high enough to secure some 4x4s under the shed b/c it was not built with a very stable floor.

I had the hardest job---don't let it tip over!! (ok, ther may have been a support beam that I cropped out of the pic)
Next, with Cam driving the huge forklift, the shed is airborne. Oops--that is awfully close to the awning. Better stop and consult some more. "Can we get it around the porch without tearing off the cover??" Then Cam got back in the drivers seat and had my dad and Bryce coaching him on what to do (never mind that occasionally their directions were completely contradictory.)






Oh, whew. They made it around to the back. "uh, guys, why is the door facing the fence???"

Oh, well. So we got it moved. No real damage done. I do have a few large grooves in my yard from that huge maching but the shed is moved. Now it's time to paint it. :)

Austin is 4

Happy Birthday!

Austin is 4 now. This is a picture of his train cake. Just one of those great ideas until you sit down to actually make it and then you start wondering what you got yourself into. But it turned out.

Austin got this train from his friend Joseph. He was really excited because it is a Geotrax train and it has lights and makes train sounds. (If you don't know what geotrax is, it is the big train/street set. It has tons of different sets that add on to each other and lots of different trains and vehicles that go with it.)

It turns out that this ended up being a train birthday. Not on purpose either. A train cake. A geotrax set from Marnie and Pops, geotrax from Joseph and geotrax from mom and dad and papa and mimi.

He was getting really excited by this point. Hence the body slamming his present. This is the geotrax grand central station and it is a huge set. and the train has a remote control. Lets just say, he is still playing with it--constantly since yesterday. I'm sure the batteries will give up soon.


Marnie surprised us and decided to come visit for Austin's birthday. That was very fun. He was lucky enough to have mimi and papa and marnie here for his birthday. And uncle Bryce, Aunt Kathleen, calvin, kaitlyn, and josie.

It took a long time to get him calmed down for bed. At about 9:15pm. He was still hoppping everywhere. Even to bed. Very exciting birthday.

The boys and Marnie!

James is loving the camera right now. Anytime we get it out. He will stand in front of it and say "cheese" and keep inching forward until you take a picture. So, we have deleted a lot of seriously close face shots of him.

Have a seat

James decided that this spot in the refrigerator made a great seat. I guess that keeps you close to the food!

Murphy's Law (an addendum)

So, based on the classic Murphy's Law (Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.) I have postulated my own Murphy's Law for Mom's who want to sleep in.
Let me first tell you what is normal at my house. I usually get up about 5:35am to go work out before Cam has to head off to work. So on occasion, I elect to skip the workout in the name of sleeping in. Like today, my birthday, I decided that I should be allowed to sleep in a little. So I turned off my alarm when it went off and settled in for a nice sleep. Then at 5:40am Austin comes into my room---so we tell him it is too early and take him back to bed. I doze off, but a cow outside (we live next to a pasture) is seriously mooing! Then Austin is back in our room at 6:20am. I take him back to his bed and tell him to sleep longer. I get cozy in bed again, and MOOO, MOOO. The cow is going. At about 6:40, Cam gets up and gets in the shower. Austin comes back into my room "can I get in Dad's side of the bed?". Fine. So then I have wiggly Austin next to me, talking, etc. It's over. I give up. I should have just gone to the gym. At least I would have something to show for waking up so early. But now, I didn't exercise and I didn't get to sleep in . Thanks to the cow and the 3 year old. I'll have to remember this the next time I want to skip my early morning workout. It's just not worth it!
So my addendum to Murphy's law is the day you decide to sleep in, everything that can happen, will happen to keep you (a mom) from getting that extra sleep.

Can I have the beater?

James' first introduction to licking the beater. The menu was brownie batter today. The boys each had one. And as you can see, very much enjoyed it. It is just one of the finer things in life-brownie batter, cookie dough, cake batter. Yum!

New Blog!

I decided to set up a new blog for myself. This is primarily because I want to spare all the normal readers of this blog from the nerdiness that I desire to poop all over the internet. (A prime example, I had to struggle very hard to not write "teh internets" in the last sentence, those of you who know me well will understand why)
At any rate, my new blog's address is http://stewartsoda.blogspot.com and if you're interested in computers, programming, electronics, and yes, even Star Trek (occasionally), I would like to personally invite you to visit anytime.

That is all, you may return to your regualr daily activities now.
-Cam

Some really cute boys!

James and Austin all dressed up for church--they are just way cute!
James and Austin playing one of their favorite games--trains. One person is the engine and the other is the caboose. Then they stretch the heck out of my sewing measuring tape--but it's fun. Oh, and you have to run around saying "chugga, chugga, choo choo!"
We have gotten quite a lot of snow this year and Austin loves playing in it. It just cracked me up to seem him trying very hard to ride his tricycle in the 4 inches of snow. Didn't work so well, but he was having fun.
James was just being cute!

Life of a King!

For Christmas, Papa (my dad) made they boys a bunk bed. It is awesome and Austin loves it. When James gets older, he will get to use it too. But for now, Austin gets to choose, which of the two beds to sleep on. Life of a king!

I gotta get me one of those

I'm sitting and looking at pictures because I'm not sleepy. I came across this one and remembered how much fun it was. Riding a bike is pretty much as close to total freedom as I have felt in a long time.

I need a kickstart, and to hear the announcer in my head say "He's on fire!"

-Edit, 19Feb08:

So, in the interest of not sounding like a caged animal (which I am not) I have edited the above post to sound less lame.