October 17, 2008 I've no idea who started this trend or why (the mysterious minds of boys. . . ), but soon they all had to have it.






























10-23-08 This is Marcus after our October pack meeting where his den performed a skit of "Caps for Sale" and Marcus got to be one of the monkeys. I've always known Marcus had some good monkey genes in him.

I took the two little boys to a pumpkin "patch" (mostly just bins of pumkins you could buy) and jr. sized corn maze at a garden center in Orem. I don't think Mitchell fully appreciated the maze, but he loved seeing their farm animals, and especially playing on the inflatables they had at the end (read: "at the point when I really wanted to be done and go home.")

And he's left his mark.

































Caught in the EXPENSIVE act.

or "Fun with the Webcam."

Blogger and I are not getting along. It seems I'm the one person on the planet who hasn't figured out how to format text with pictures. And frankly, I'm not interested in spending any more time to figure out how to make it work. So, if you have any simple suggestions for me, I welcome them. In the meantime, enjoy my blog game of figuring out what text goes with what picture!

We had been planning to go out of town with the Christensens over UEA, but our plans kind of fell-through, so we joined half the state at Lagoon for a day. Me being semi-agoraphobic, I was reticent about the decision, but it ended up being a really fun day.

I've been doing some organizing and came across a pad of paper where I'd recorded some of the funny things Sheridan said and did in the Spring and Summer of 2000. He was between 2 1/2 and 3 at the time. I decided to go ahead and type them up and get them on my hard drive. Then, I thought I'd share them with you. I really love how grown up Sheridan has become, but it just melts my heart to see (and "hear") him at this tender age.

5-3 Alden (4 ½): “My Expedition is a Ford.”
Sheridan: “My Expedition is a 5.”

At this age, Sheridan started saying “Yeah, sure!” for “yes.”

6-25 I found Sheridan using wooden puzzle pieces to pound at the walls. He explained that he was trying to dig for dinosaur bones.

6-25 We were doing the State puzzle when he picked up Nebraska.
Me: “Who lives there?”
Sh: “Grampa Harding. It's called Tim-buk-too.”

6-26 Overheard: “Sheridan Guy to the rescue!”

6-29 Trying to get Sheridan to bed, we asked him, “Do you know what time it is?” He looked at his wrist and said “65 million years ago.”

7-1 We celebrated my birthday late. Guy pulled out gift bags to wrap presents and Sheridan confiscated one, put a photograph he found on my desk into it. Guy and I hadn't realized what he'd done and started to clean up what appeared to be an empty bag, but Sheridan took it, opened it up and said, “Oh, look! It's a picture!” His first gift to me.

I meant to include this as part of the birthday posts, but I got on such a roll that I forgot.

Mitchell says a lot these days, though much of it is in Mitchell Language. Of the words I understand, his favorites are "happy," "yea," "ta da!" (with his hands in the air) and "again" (only pronounced a-GAIN--it's so proper sounding). Unfortunately, Mitchell has found the ubiquitous "MINE!" to be quite useful. He's stringing more and more words together. He's getting more specific with requests; "more, cereal, bowl, spoon," or "hand, up, come!". When he doesn't want something, he says "diaper, no, no diaper," or "nap, no, nap, nap". . . you get the idea. Some days it's adorable, other days, not so much.

He loves to sing, especially "E I E I O." The other day, he decided to spice it up a bit and made it "E I E I T." Speaking of singing, I found him the other night standing under a spider web we have hanging in our entry, singing "Spider, up, up stairs. Spider, up, up, stairs." When I came to admire his talent, he pushed me out of the room then went right back to his spot and continued his song.

Mitchell has just recently gotten into television and LOVES the interactive shows (ie Dora, Diego, Blue's Clues) when he can shout at the TV. He's even right some of the time.

He calls Marcus and Caleb names that don't sound faintly like the originals, but he calls Sheridan a cross between Buddy and Brother and it's quite endearing.

Mitchell is not nearly the napper he used to be, often skipping naps altogether, and on other days, staying down for only an hour or so. Only two short months ago, I could plan on a 3-hour-nap every day.

He loves to run, and doesn't appreciate strollers, packs or shopping carts as much as I wish he did.

He's really excited about letters and writing them on the magna doodle is one of the few things (along with snacks) that will placate Mitchell during Sacrament Meeting. For a long time he called "B" "bubble" and "C" "cookie" but everyday he gets a few more down. Whenever we're out, he gets very excited about signs and naming as many letters as he can.

Little Boy is still a skinny bean, but he's eating much better, has lots of energy and is generally a really happy kid. I don't know that I'd go so far as to call him "easy-going" (he has way too many opinions of his own for that to be completely true), but he's a really fun boy to have around and makes us all laugh every day.

Or, "When Caleb Decorates."

October 10, 2008 After swimming in the hotel pool and making some lunch, we took advantage of the fact that it wasn't snowing yet (much) and headed into Grand Teton National Park. We began our hike at the Rockefeller Nature Preserve Visitor Center, and then headed to Phelp's Lake. Not long after we found the fun waterfall below, Caleb was only interested in being carried, and Mitchell was only interested in walking. So we decided that Guy would go back to the visitor's center with them, and I'd go on with Sheridan and Marcus to finish the hike. It ended up being about a 3 mile hike, and I pushed the boys pretty quick so that Guy and the little ones wouldn't have to wait too long. We really went fast (even jogging at times), but it was a beautiful hike, and the boys were really great sports. The last picture is one that I took of the three of us standing on the edge of a ravine--but you can't really tell that.

If you zoom in on this one, you can see the snowflakes that were falling on us. Also, in real life, we had a much better view of the misty Tetons.

October 9-12, 2008 Guy's work treated us to a family getaway at Teton Mountain Lodge, just South of Grand Teton National Park. We had a two-bedroom suite and the boys couldn't stop gushing about what a great place it was.

This first picture shows the living room area. We had a balcony, but the weather was such that we didn't really take advantage of it. There was a Murphy bed in this room where Sheridan and Mitchell slept. We discovered on our last day that the couch also made out into a bed, so we could have fit two more people!


This shows the kitchen and loft areas.

October 9, 2008 We got away later than we'd wanted to for our vacation at Teton Village, WY, but we still decided to do this hike I'd discovered online. In Afton, WY, we got off the highway and headed East up a side canyon to hike to (we hoped) Periodic Springs, also called Intermittent Springs. According to what I read online (and we all know we can all trust whatever we read online), there are only two other springs like this (springs that naturally turn off and on--one place called them cold-water geysers)--one in Nepal and the other in the Alps. The hike was rather cold, we didn't get to our hotel until about 8 pm, but Periodic Springs ended up being a really great detour for us.