The 5th Birthday!

Horses are a thing right now...
You probably can't tell, but the frosting is purple (of course) and the sprinkles are a bit...clumpy. But yummy, yummy cream cheese frosting!
Remy had a hard time keeping his hands out of the fun...

The fishing game, from Audrey and Adrian!

Halloween

Cinderella....
With her dad, the swiss army man.
With a simpering Peter Pan (or petow pan, if you're 2).

pumpkin patch visit

This is one of Siena's good buddies--she came and spent the night several weeks ago. We unfortunately chose the coldest day of the month to visit a pumpkin patch, but the kids had fun anyway. And we warmed up with yummy Flying Pie pizza afterward!

misc pics

Earlier this month, Siena got a terrible bug bite that swelled her eye shut. Here's the evidence.



Computer kids--probably playing Elmo on sesamestreetworkshop, or watching a tumblebook through the library!

more grandparent pics--a month later!!

Milestones....100th Blog posting, 40th, 3rd, and 5th BDay's

Wow. One hundred posts. considering I took a good part of the summer off posting this is pretty impressive. If I had to guess how many posts I had written I would probably guess half of that.
Speaking of hard to believe...............Yes there are less then 30 shopping days before my 40th birthday. It seems like just a couple years ago in Reno we had the 30 yr "Get Ugly Fajita" party. This time around we are thinking about a 40 yr "Fondue/rook tournament party" sans kids. Should be great fun. This next week we also have a 3rd and 5th birthday coming up with multiple parties between daycare, friends, family etc. With the birthdays on thenext celebration is Thanksgiving with multiple families coming and Xmas time we fly off to Switzerland for a couple weeks with celebration of Die Neue Jahre in Switzerland. Then it is back to the cold realities of winter and debt having spent more money then we should of with our weak dollars in Europe but with some good memories no doubt. Hopefully, with all the exciting happenings there will be lots of pictures and news to post .......or maybe not. It remains to be seen.

Goodbye Passat

Today, after 7 yrs and 66,000 miles, the Passat drove away not to return. We are back to a 2 car family. This is good in the respect that the driveway is free and frost will not have to be scraped off the window of the outside car and the $ means we can think about doing some small home projects or try to pay off the other car. Anyway, it was a nice car and one that I will miss but I imagine there will be other cars. I am not sure it was my favorite but pretty close.

Flying Cows??

You may have seen this story in the news:

Cow Falls Off Cliff, Crashes Onto Van on Highway

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

MANSON, Wash. — Charles and Linda Everson were driving back to their hotel when their minivan was struck by a falling object — a 600-pound cow.

The Eversons were unhurt but the cow, which had fallen off a cliff, had to be euthanized.

The year-old cow fell about 200 feet from the cliff and landed on the hood of the couple's minivan, causing heavy damage.

A Chelan County fire chief, Arnold Baker, said the couple missed being killed by a matter of inches in the accident Sunday on a highway near Manson.

The Eversons, visiting the area from their home in Westland, Mich., to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, were checked at Lake Chelan Community Hospital as a precaution.

Everson, 49, said he didn't see the cow falling and didn't know what happened until afterward.

He said he kept repeating: "I don't believe this. I don't believe this."

This is a bit of a crazy story and the even crazier part was that we know this couple from Michigan. We were sent the link form another friend in MI but saw it online and in the newspaper. We had no idea they were in our part of the country. It would have been fun to see them but I am not sure if they are coming through ID. This will certainly be a story for them to tell for years to come. Thank goodness they are ok.

Losing keys and our minds

Last week I am at work and get a call.
"Do you have the key? I can't find mine."
"Yes I do have the key" So I drive back home give the key and go back to work. The key is looked for and not found. Then the next day my key goes missing we are down 2 keys (actually 3 because one was lost a yr ago) and actually have zero keys with the car seats locked in side the car. So after much looking and cleaning still no keys and my favorite part is the craziness that your mind goes through trying to figure out where any of the 3 keys might be. It starts out pretty reasonable. You look where the keys are usually put, then you check your coats and pants and shirt pockets from piles of clothes you have recently have worn but then it degenerates in to thinking that somehow the keys could have found themselves hiding in a box I haven't touched in a year in the back of the closet (Well maybe the key fell out of a coat pocket and just happened to fall in a corner of this box...... Or maybe we sucked it up in the vacuum (as if we wouldn't hear it.) I can't tell all of the far fetched places I looked to find the missing keys. Of course I managed to find 1 key and yes it was exactly where I keep my key in my bag but found on the 3rd inspection of the bag when I turned it upside down and emptied the contents exclaiming how pointless this was to be doing this for the 3rd time that day. So we are still down 2 keys and you guessed it they are the ones with the remote that cost 200+ to replace. We will keep on looking in strange places and hoping one of them turns up.

BSU predictions

Update for those of you not in the know. BSU has won all of their WAC games and lost only one early season game in Seattle against U of W. They are ranked 19 and Hawaii is ranked 14. Boise has just two gimme games(Utah State 0-9, and Idaho 1-9) before the season finale in Honolulu. Hawaii plays a good Fresno State team at home and a decent UNR team in Reno. If Hawaii can win out then it comes down to the last game to see who wins the WAC and gets a potential good bowl game. CBSsportsline has their prediction below. The only difference is that BSU will be in the Sugar Bowl instead of Hawaii. So mark your calendar for Nov 23 at 9pm for the game against Hawaii. Now once BSU beats Hawaii I might not be so bold about my predictions for BSU beating a good Georgia team. Unfortunately, they won't be able to sneak up on a team again like they did with Oklahoma.

2007-08 Bowl Predictions
Date	Bowl	Location	Prediction
Jan. 7	BCS Title	New Orleans, La.	Ohio State vs. LSU
Jan. 3	Orange	Miami, Fla.	Virginia Tech vs. Missouri
Jan. 2	Fiesta	Glendale, Ariz.	Oklahoma vs. Arizona State
Jan. 1	Rose	Pasadena, Calif.	Oregon vs. West Virginia
Jan. 1	Sugar	New Orleans, La.	Georgia vs. Hawaii

GO BSU

Pottytalk and Volleyball

Now with the weather turning a bit crisper it is time to start the blog back up. There are a few noteworthy things to report. The most exciting is our Big little guy is now officially potty trained. It has been about 3 weeks now and he is still quite enthusiastic and we get lots of smiles from others when he races back from the bathroom at stores, restaurants, after meeting, etc exclaiming at the top of his lungs, "Mommy/Daddy I went potty in the potty."
One of the favorite taboo subjects which they are not to talk about at daycare is "pottytalk". For those not in the know "Pottytalk" refers to the use of pottywords (peepee and poopoo). They very much enjoy slipping up and then trying to tell on the other person if it wasn't them.






Then the other excitement is our weekly volleyball games. We are playing on a coed Volleyball team made up of assorted friends and it has been great fun for adults and kids alike. We play one time a week. It is best of 3 or 45 mins which ever happens first. So far we have not lost and have always won in 2 games. I think we are getting better each week. It has been good exercise and fun to see our friends more often then we normally would. There are 4 levels of play and we are in the 2nd from the bottom but likely will move up one level next year. So we bought a ball, kneepads and actually talk strategy and practice hitting balls and working on vertical jump. If you want to follow our schedule and progress you can check these sites. We are the "Friendly Digs". Standings and schedule. We have a few fans that come to cheer us on.

Grandparent visit in early October...

...and this is the only picture I can find to record the visit!! Waffles on Grampa's lap--not bad.

Perhaps more, soon?

company fun

Pics from Auntie Deborah Poppins' trip: presents, a trip up Camels' Back (with a thunderstorm lurking above and the remnants of a park fair below), and a trip on the Boise Train. So much fun that we can't hardly believe how lucky we were; Deborah and I even snuck out for a morning of shopping in downtown Boise! The kids loved every minute and so did we.

First day of preschool...

They're getting big, of course. Buddy wouldn't keep his eyes open for anything. Girly is holding "Tarissa Parissa," her favorite kitty. We have no idea where the name came from, of course.

Both are loving being back in school and say goodbye with just a wave--it's fun to see!

catching up--a few pics for the fam

Some pictures from the past month or so...

...Lining up their 'babies' on the couch (a favorite past time, this lining up activity. Takes lots of time and energy!)

An early am Tin-Tin reading session by two superkids...

The Swiss arrives!

Kids' Room

The bedroom pics are in the house renovation blog, which isn't listed here yet,
Extrem4 House Projects:
http://extrem4-houseprojects.blogspot.com/

August kid fun

Yes--that's ketchup, mustard, and pasta sandwiches. Yum!

So this is what happens when I'm at school in the summer and Extrem is with the kids....

...and yes, the nickel came out

...nothing like a little suspense for a few months!

So: Con's added me to the family blog. Remy passed the nickel 3.5 days later--some fun poop-digging, that.

May/June: cousin time, much fun was had with lots of time with K/A and kids. We're still talking about it! This is a Lakeport pic:

June/July: I traveled a little, Con worked a *ton*--so I took the kids and we did our first solo car trip all the way to mom and dad's place. We were there over the 4th and had a ball--a day at the Oregon coast (where it was actually warm enough to go in the water. In a swimsuit. Amazing!), a small-town 4th parade, dinner with Hamiltoes, and an afternoon of...kid-free shopping. Ahhh....

I brought mom back with us and she was here for 10 days or so. In that time I had a 2-day trip, so it was great she was here. Unfortunately it was the hottest part of the summer and she melted! :( The kids loved the extended gramma/grampa, and then gramma, time.

Con started the porch project then. It's almost done now--just needs a few finishing touches--and we like it. It's a nice outdoor space--nicer than our indoor spaces :) I wish I had another month and I'd paint the whole house inside--ah well.

August: we went boating with Spam and Banana and co., which was tons of fun. This last weekend we cleaned and cleaned on Saturday and then had Vogts over for swimming and dinner. That afternoon, Remy *finally* ventured off the second step (we've been going every day for the whole summer. Good night.) He went from clutching the step to asking me to "throw him to the sky!"....so that was major progress! Yesterday afternoon at Karl and Sonja's, after union mtg., Siena decided to ride a bike on her own. Another big breakthrough! Wow!

More coming...

(by Heidi)

Hey it has only been 2 months since the last post...

Ok 2 months and 1 day but who is counting. Many things have happened over the summer and I will try to do the readers digest version mostly by photo if I can get it together. We have a week before ourextended company returns from Switzerland to start school at BSU. We have been working on the house and have nearly got our porch project done and have a new project to start on the front porch. The kids are learing to swim slowly but surely. We took a trip to SLC to see cousins and go to IKEA. There have been blogable experiences but blogging has not been a priority for some reason. I will try to better in the future. I w do will probably start a new blog to chronicle the house updating and link it here.

No change........yet

Well, the other night I was getting our little 2.5 yr old ready for bed. He decided it would be interesting to swallow a nickel. I heard him make a funny gulping noise and what had been a nickel in his hand became a nickel in his belly. So far no nickels have reappeared but no problems either. We called and the recommendation was to watch and wait if there were no obvious problems. So we watch and wait. What fun to search for hidden treasures.