High School Football Game

I still am not sure why we went to the highschool football game Friday night, but we did. It was fun and Ben had been wanting to go. Apparently all of Havre joins in on these festive nights, plus it was homecoming. The Blue Ponies (yes that is the mascot, don't ask) won the game so that made it all the better.
However, the highlight for me was what you see in the pictures. Since Beau has been very little he would not go near a costumed person, even his favorite looney tunes characters at Six Flags this summer were shunned by him. He cowered walking near them. Halloween has always been interesting because if an adult was dressed up Beau would avoid that house, especially when they were donning full masks. But for some reason Friday, the Blue Pony did not phase Beau at all, he begged to have his picture taken with the silly creature. I of course flabbergasted by the whole turn of events chased the Blue Pony down and captured the moment. The kids had a good time and others commented on how much they enjoyed watching my kids during the game. To me that sounds like they were a distraction, but I wouldn't say the game was all that exciting. Although the last picture of Anna here makes it look like she was very entranced by the game. She wasn't. I just caught some funny pictures of her.
I am still in awe of the way my kids change and grow when I least expect it.

Treats from The Parade

Saturday was the Festival Days Parade here. We went to the two hour long ordeal and knew we were going to get lots of candy, yeah for that. What I didn't know was we'd come home with something else. One of the groups were giving away kittens, and Ben just couldn't pass it up, so now we have a kitten. The kids are in love, his name is Oreo. He will move outside with the other cat eventually but for now he lives in the mud room until he can fend for himself against the other hoodlums that live outside.
I thought it was a perfect replacement for the lost rabbit that Anna has been asking to replace for months, same colors and everything. I thought wrong. Yesterday at the library she checked out a book on rabbits, as well as one on whales and chipmunks before I steered her back to the fiction section.

The Swingset

Ben and I (but mostly Ben) spent this weekend and last building the kids a swingset outback. They love it. The monkey bars aren't finished yet but will be by the end of the week. Enjoy the images of them enjoying their swingset.
Anna had a virus this weekend and although she was much better today she was only allowed out for a very limited time to enjoy her swingset. She spent all last weekend out with Ben helping in any way possible and it was very hard for her not to be able to help this weekend, but she is happy it is finished and will spend a lot of time on it this week.

Happy Birthday Luke

Luke is 4 today. Our little monkey boy is growing into a mancub. Just the other day he asked me what a mancub was. Ben has called him that for the past two years or so, and finally he now understands what it means. Luke has been a ray of sunshine inbetween his bouts of thunder and lightning. He can throw the best of tantrums or have the best happiest personality and it all can change in a matter of minutes just like the weather in Montana.
He is eagerly awaiting the beginning of preschool next week. He has a best friend or buddy, he calls him either whose name is Connor. He plots ways to get Connor to come over. He is friendly to everyone and almost always leaves the playground, library or other social event informing that his new friend so and so (he always has a name even though it isn't always the right one) is very nice and wants to come over and play sometime. His attachment to me is becoming slightly less, the velcro effect may be starting to wear off. This will be tested next week. He is very hard to buy presents for because he is happy with anything, his most common toys are his hands, they can have something in them or be empty and he will entertain himself. It makes church hard sometimes because even though they aren't allowed to bring toys he can be just as loud with his hands. My hair has always been something he plays with too, but that is finally becoming less with my encouragement because I hate it.
Beau was not so interested as a toddler, but now he is teaching Luke in all ways Lego and Bionicles. He watches over his brother as long as he isn't ruining any of his stuff. Beau was the first one to sing Luke happy birthday this morning, and he is starting to not mind sharing his bedroom. Not a lot of difference between Beau here in this picture and Luke now, Luke's eyes are a little different and his cheeks are thinner, and he wears that Bob the Builder shirt.
Anna, loved holding him here and still loves being a big sister to him now. They play house and Barbies, and whatever else she deems the imagination theme of the day. He listens to her, and she is the first to help him when I am unavailable. I realized yesterday how convenient it was to have her around because I had to stop what I was doing a lot more often yesterday than I have this summer. Isn't she so cute here and isn't Luke so scrawny, wow to just go back there for a day and sqeeze those babes all over again. I just have to get some extra big kid hugs today.

Now here is the raving lunatic that he has become. Running helter skelter from one thing to the next, indepent, imaginitve, loving, fun, crazy, sweet and sometimes cuddly.


This is Luke Spider-Man dress shirt that I work hard to hide so he can only wear it one Sunday a month. Luke is all about Super heroes, power rangers, and transformers. They are all interchangeable to him and he is content with whatever you put in front of him.



This video captures Luke's imagination and the next one captures his boyness. I don't know what the leaves ever did to him but he was sure to make them pay.

We love this little mancub and look forward to watching him grow into a man.

First Day of School

They were up early and ready to go. No arguing, no lectures, just got there stuff done and got out the door. Wish everyday could go so smoothly. Luke isn't in any of the pictures because of all mornings to sleep in he chose today. He was still ready to go on time but not in time for pictuers. We'll get his on his first day of school next Wednesday. Ben took Beau to school, so I have yet to see his classroom or talk to his teacher. I took Anna and she did great hung her bag in her locker hugged me goodbye and headed to the playground never looking back. It is strange to have them at two different schools but they are handling it well. Looking forward to another great year. 1st and 2nd graders, wow how time flies.







As we were pulling out I couldn't resist the photo op so I stopped the van, made Anna jump out and crouch down in the flowers in her butterfly shirt. She has a butterfly backpack too, but it was a spur of the moment thing. At first she was worried there might be snakes but I assured her and we snapped a couple before jumping in the van and heading off to school, and I am so glad we did. I will be framing one of these.

Just Beau

Beau is going into 2nd grade. He doesn't like to stand still long enough for a picture, but some times I make him. This summer he has managed to teach Luke and Anna all about bionicles, and that is what they did all summer long. He is ready for soccer to start this week, and he's somewhat excited about his new coach, his mom. He fished and camped and thoroughly enjoyed every day of his summer vacation. He read more chapter books than I did, and I can't even list them all because I lost track somewhere around the beginning of August. He goes to bed great but sometimes we forget to make sure his lights are out and he stays up reading way too late. He loved vacationing in Michigan, and thinks he will someday move to Chicago. He loves the water, but swim lessons proved to be a little boring as he did his own thing instead of paying attention, and I'm not sure he learned anything. His room number this year is 101 and there are dalmations on the door, he has all of this written in his brain as he prepares to journey to a new school. Anna and Beau will be at different locations this year which will be interesting. They almost always sought eachother out at recess just long enough to say hi and they stuck together on the bus and when I dropped them off. I think they will miss one another a little bit, but they will both survive. At the end of first grade Beau wrote a letter for an incoming first grader into Mrs. Bakke's class. It said, "Dear First-grader, Last year we had salamanders, meal worms, butterflys, sun flowers, and we learned about sea life. You will really like ten star partys." I know because Mrs. Bakke sent it to Anna in her welcome letter. I remember Beau getting one last year and I thought it was so thoughtful for Mrs. Bakke to do that for Anna. Something I will save. I guess we need to work on dropping the y and adding ies though.
He is a lot of work, we have to keep him in line all the time, but he is also a lot of fun. He makes us all laugh, he asks tons of questions (Lots of times I don't know the answers) and we look stuff up on the internet together all the time because he loves to learn. I am really looking forward to this year, he will grow so much and with soccer and hockey on the agenda we are starting to round out the edges of him.