Memorial

This weekend was my grandma Marnie's memorial service in Great Falls. It was super sad. Photos of my family here. If you see a photo you like, right click and save as on your computer or drop me a message and I will ship them off to a Walgreens for you.

I am super grateful to have had my grandma this long. I am also grateful that she got to meet both of my babies. While I feel sad for me losing my granny I feel even sadder for Ron who took such great care of my grandmother and my mom, aunt and uncles who just lost their mom.



I miss her. I think she would really love this photo.


and this one.


I was great to see my family. I wish I saw them all more often.


I am going to try to spend as much time with my grandparents as I can.



The boys are great. Jr. is wild like crazy and he likes to play "exterminator" or "catcher" with his new bug net. He rings the doorbell by yelling "ding dong ding dong" at the door, I ask him to come in and he gets rid of my pests. We have lots of pests - bunnies, earwigs, worms, ants, gophers, squirrels, scorpions, spiders, flies. . . He is really good.



Graham learned to dance last week. I will try to catch him on video. He might be our little rocker. Click on me - I am a video.


Farmer Coleman.


Here is my last email to my grandmother. I don't know if she got it or not. She was pretty sick at the time. It was just before she died. I hope she knew how much she meant to me. To all of us.

For Grandma. Thank you.
Hi Lisa, will you print this out and give it to grandma for me? Or read it to her. Either way.
Thank you for being my grandma. Thank you for all of the amazing times we have spent together. I remember everything. I feel so lucky to have known my grandparents so well and my only regret is that I didn't spend more time with each of you. I am proud that my two sons got to know their great grandmothers. I was so
fortunate to know my great grandmothers.
I have a wonderful lifetime of memories with you. If I can share some of my favorites.
I love seeing you sitting in a sunny window at your piano in the morning in your robe. I love the smell of your house in Everett. I love the way you made me feel so special when I would come to visit you on the summers and I loved your visits to us in Montana.
I always thought that you named your finches Ronald and Nancy because you actually liked Reagan but now I get it. Those finches were totally irritating. I loved Molly and felt so sad when she she passed away.
I was so intensely proud of my grandmother that co-owned a music store and hung out with rock stars. I loved that my grandmother took me to a Rolling Stones concert. I still remember every detail of that night. I loved sleeping with you even up until I was in college.
I love your little house in the woods in Coleville and your and Ron's gardens. I loved visiting you there. I remember when we came through on our way to the gorge and you knew the history of Westby and we teased my friend Justin about his mullet.
I remember you taking me to see the fields of tulips in NW Washington, I think that place is so beautiful my heart still goes there at times. I remember going on tour of the Olympic National Forest with you and my mom after I graduated high school. I can't wait to go back there some day with my family. I will tell them all about
mom falling on the beach logs and getting splinters all up and down her legs and ass and having to pull them out and put diaper ointment on her wounds while you read Jerry Seinfeld's book and laughed. Mom was so mad.
Thank you for letting Ian live with you. Thank you for taking care of him when we all had reached our limit with him.
I like the Mariners because of you. You and Grandpa Ed.
I remember Cream of Wheat. We never ate except when with you. I remember you and Grandpa together and how much you loved him and how much he loved you. I remember Grandpa Ed. How he smelled, his voice and how I thought he was the tallest man I ever knew. I still want to eat at Iver's some days.
I also want to thank Ron for taking care of my Granny. I like to think a out Ron puttering around the yard with Madeline's lesbian hat on. Oh and I remember him riding around with Molly on the back of the four wheeler.
He is so funny.
When I think about you, I always think about you washing dishes singing to yourself and staring out of the window. I never mind washing the dishes and I think it is because of you. Maybe I felt how calm it made you and now I feel that calmness. I will have that forever. Thank you.
One last memory I want to write to you and that is about the time we were in the Linwood mall and you drug toilet paper out of the back of your pants for the whole length of the mall. Mom was so embarrassed and you just laughed. I love that, you laughing.
I love you. I miss you. I think about you every day and I am praying for you which I don't really do very well.
Thank you for being my grandmother. Thank you for making my life better. I am a better person because I had you as my grandmother.
::Autumn::

Happy Mother's Day!

Special thanks to our three amazing moms. We seriously couldn't do it without you. Thank you and I hope you have a happy happy mother's day. XOXOXOXOX

Now down to business. Aunt Liesel, consider yourself warned. Look away from the computer now. This one is going to hurt your eyes a little bit.




She looked, didn't she?


My mom and I LAUGHED at this outfit. We called him little Guido.


If he is Guido than this is his big brother Bubba. Bubba will bounce your a$$ right out of here if you aren't lucky.


Who, BY THE WAY, gives a three year old a sword for his birthday? UNCLE BEAN! While it is much nicer than the cardboard setup we had made for him months ago and yes they are still in action. The new one is SOOO COOL though and as expected he gets into a lot of trouble with it. Mostly he wants to cut the sharp bones out of his mom with it. Just the sharp bones momma. ?Its okay momma." He says to me so sweetly. . .


Jr. is in a whole new phase of childhood. We have officially entered the "WHY" phase. Oh lord help me. . . And why can't I just ignore him? Why? Well, I will tell you, most of the WHYs come when I tell him to do something. Jr. put that down please! Why? WHY! Because you are spilling all over the floor! Things like that. I wish it was more like WHY is the sky blue? WHY do fish live under water? Oh no. It is just a phase like the others. Sassy boy phase.


(He told his dad that he was wearing those green pants with his orange shirt earlier in the day - and his dad BELIEVED him. Peas in a pod.)

So my favorite thing he says right now, and I am surpised at how much it comes up is LOM(B)ONSTER. Combo Lobster and Monster. That and he is still super curious about Kevin - you know where you go when you die. Kevin. Oh and Ballcano. He found the raft pump the other day and wanted to make his own Ballcano. I got into trouble from my mom today for repeating "Danging DVD" after he said it - but it was so funny!


Half stand-up commedian. Half drunk midget (yes I ripped off Tina Fey, but she is so funny and so right).

Graham is so busy. He can really get around without crawling and he is in everything. He loves to open and close doors and LOVES cords and electrical outlets. When I pick him up he gives me a huge tight little hug and I still get TONS of slobbery wet sweet kisses. Oh and boy howdy can that little bugger eat. No more baby food for him either, he wants cut up adult food. He sees his brother get a bannana, damn he better be getting one too. He still isn't napping at dayccare and the whole zombie baby thing still gets to me, but he is sleeping well at home for naps and at night. I just don't know what to do.


For mothers day, I am going to go to a movie all by myself with some wine. Cissie is going to babysit. Ed is gone for the weekend rafting. Yup. I am so looking forward to some dark alone time with a big tub of buttered popcorn and smuggled wine. It is not like I don't want to spend mothers day with my munchkins, but I just need a couple of hours, besides, Ed was gone most of last week, plus this weekend, I have had TONS of quality time with the boys. Now I need some quality time for me. Or to quote from Tina's awesome book again - how to carve out some "me" time. Volunteer to unload the dishwasher. Offer to go get diaper ointment and stand in your childs room quietly until your spouse comes to find you and curtly asks you what you are doing. Oh there was more, but those were my favorites.

As you can see. I am a pretty lucky mom.

Chico - sans photos

Last weekend we jetted off to spend a night at Chico. Goodness I love that place. Cissie went with us to help out and see a new part of Montana she has never seen before.

We took a little adventure into Gardiner and there was some fantastic wildlife sighting. We saw a ton of bison outside the park. Some right near the road - Cissie got some good photos. We saw two giant herds of elk. Huge herds more elk than I have ever seen before. We also saw a small herd of mountain goats. They were tremendous. Jr. was mildly interested but was distracted by Curious George. Ahhh George. Blessing and a curse.



We swam and ate and swam and drank (the grown-ups). It was really fun, but not enough sleep. Graham pulled the 5:15 AM wake-up call. I sat with him in the lobby and drank coffee with older folks and another mom with a baby who woke up way too early. Everyone kept asking me if my baby is always this happy. Yes, he is I would reply. Yes he is smily, happy and funny. He makes eye contact with strangers (no they can't hold him) he smiles and claps for them.

I saw us as a family going to Chico when the boys are older and then again maybe someday just the two of us. I have so many wonderful memories of that place, I can't wait to pile on more.



Yeah - I don't know why I can't get my photo taking in gear. Here are a smattering of other photos I took here and there. Check Picassa for a video of Graham almost crawling.