Holy Cow

It has been a very long time.  I think about this blog a lot and then the time I have at night to put key stroke to screen vanishes into thin air. 

Garden gnomes.

Life around here in the summer is nutty.  I work long hours and we try to maximize fun in the off hours.  We love to get these two to smile and play nice together.  The four year old is so cool lately.  He loves his pre-school we bask in his intelligence.  He has some sweet buddies and is quickly becoming the king of the school.  The two year old has a couple of good buddies and is pretty jolly.  Add them together and let the fighting commence.  Sibling rivalry is alive and well in the Coleman house.  Just when Ed and I think we are going to go crazy, they play so nicely together, so quietly. 



Jr. and his dragon carrots.

Graham and the tomato harvest.



Graham's first day at Jr.'s pre-school.

September was marked by the passing of my grandmother, Jeri.  I was gone working on a fire near Bozeman when I got the call that her liver was failing.  They gave her 2 weeks to 2 months to live.  All of the family was assembling in Chinook to wish her well on her journey.  Jr. and I busted a move to get up there just in time to see her hours before she passed.  It was easily the most surreal and intense experience of my life.  Jr. was great, he rolled with all of the activity and fully understood the gravity of the situation.  I was so grateful to get to see her one more time and wish I could have talked to her while she was still lucid. 



I miss my grandmother so much.

I came home, picked up Ed and Graham and headed back to Chinook for her funeral.  Everyone was there, all of my cousins minus a couple and we had wonderful celebration of her life.  We decided to stay a few more days to hang out with my poor grandfather.  The boys had a blast.  We were a little bit nervous about rattle snakes nearby, but the boys got to do all of the fun things we got to do as kids.  They love it there and were sure pick me ups for my aunts and my dad and stepmom.  Even my grandfather described their sweet voices (?!?!?) as music to his ears.  Ed worked for my uncle Scott on the Ranch.  We attended a homecoming volleyball game and watched as the Chinook Sugarbeeters beat the Centerville Miners in a Friday night game of 8 man football.  It was so fun to watch my cousin Courtney and Gavin play sports.  We are excited to head back soon.




The boys at my grandmother's funeral.

Dancing outside of the funeral.

Ed and I after the funeral.

Baby on the 4-wheeler.

Big boys on the four-wheeler.

Papa Bill up on the prairie.

Jr. shooting at cans with a bb-gun.  Both he and Graham knocked the can over (with mom's help...)

Jr. with his shooting eye protection.

The boys and my cousin Gavin.

Ed driving the tractor.

Spiderman and Batman.

The boys with Grandpa.

We came home in time to celebrate Ed and my birthdays! Ed and I got to go to dinner for his birthday with some friends. Then my mom came to town this last weekend to watch the boys while we went to camp and hot spring in Norris. We were tickled pink to camp just the two of us - well, plus my cousins and Cissie - but still, no boys. Don't get me wrong, we missed them, but this was the first time EVER we have had a night to ourselves without either child since Jr. was born. We may have gone a little crazy... Happy Birthday to us!

Fall


Every year, Aunt Liesel and I try to get together to celebrate our birthdays.  I usually go to Missoula, that town is the BEST in the fall.  My dad used to take me there every homecoming for my birthday, it makes me love fall even more.  We had a blast.  Carousel, farmers market, epic nap, birthday party at Tower Pizza complete with moustaches and video games, park, lunch and REI.  Love you Aunt Liesel, thanks for a lovely birthday weekend.

You know what else makes me love fall, now that we have moved, I don't have to rake leaves from that &%*$! maple in our neighbors backyard.  Beautiful tree, three trucks of leaves to the dump.  I am not exaggerating.  We have some leaves here, but they will blow away, it is the pine needles that need to be raked, we will see if that happens.  It will be winter soon, I can feel it.  We still need some outside time.

We pulled the tomato plants and hung them upside down in the garage in an attempt to turn the green tomatoes to red.  Stinkin Graham sneaks out there every time he can and eats green tomatoes.  We still have 3 pumpkins in the garden (only one orange one), some carrots and onions.  We still dig back there when we have a few free moments.

Anyway back to fall.  It is getting cold, but we are trying to get out as much as possible even though it requires so much negotiation.  Jr. put your shoes on - repeat a million times.  Jr. find your coat - repeat one million times.  Graham, get back here, you need a coat - repeat one million times.  Jr. put your brother DOWN!  Selma - GET!

Missoula's Carousel. 
Aunt Liesel asked me if Jr. was okay to ride by himself and I said - oh yes, TOTALLY.  She gave me the weird eye.  Then I saw the carousel take off - it is about 3x as fast as the one here in Helena and takes off like a rocket. 
Woah.  Jr. was totally fine though.



Happy Moustache - I mean, Happy Birthday Aunt Liesel.

Psst.  Don't tell her her stash is upside down.

Ron Swanson Jr.
I BARELY got him to put it on and he BARELY let me take his photo.

Park photo.

BFFs

The boys love the carrots from the garden, I helped Graham pick this one and he at it, dirt and all.

"Look Momma, the perfect carrot!"  Repeat 100x.

That carrot went everywhere with him.  Up the play land, down the slide...

Carrot boys. 

Happy Birthday to us!

The end of September marks the glorious birthdays of the jokers otherwise known as mom and dad. We celebrated this year. Actually put the babies down and did something for ourselves. It was cool. We kept saying - wow, we love those boys so much, but we need to do more things for ourselves. For ourselves or for ourselves together. It is hard to not feel guilty about leaving them behind but I think we make better parents because of it. Now some photos.

Oooh my big boy can put his own socks on.

Monster drawing.

Nanny and Graham and Graham's favorite book.

Graham got a red sucker from the bank.  I took it away and threw it in the garbage.  HE WAS SO INCREDIBLY PISSED OFF FOREVER.

Back in the saddle.

Our rafting buddies - Brian and Angela.

Fatty rainbow hog that I caught.  I call him Steve.

Chick boat.

I know - cute - right?

Jokers.

Brian said I couldn't pull it off.  Group photo.

Nude ATV.  That is how we roll around here.

The big news around here, Graham decided on Saturday to spend more time walking than crawling.  24-7 head injury watch.  Love the baby - hate the head wounds.

What's Up?

Both Jr. and I came down with some sort of summer flu/cold so that has been pretty consuming on my mind, but there is so much other great things happening. . .

Ed leveled and cleared our rocky weedy nasty back yard and installed sod for Jr. to have a lovely play area. I sure hope it lives. We still have a few yards of sod to install, but the start is amazing. Our tiered yard is SO handy sometimes and SO kid friendly. . . not. That is why sodding the lowest level was so imperative. Jr. needs a safe place to toddle around and play without us worrying about him falling off of 3 and a half foot retaining wall or even the 2 foot retaining wall. Ed also built a step to the second level, we already have a set of stairs from the lowest level to the third level, but everyone always would step up to the second level in a particular spot, so Mr. Crafty built some awesome, but sort of unconventional steps. Jr. has already mastered climbing them. Time will tell if they are truly the brilliant idea I think they are now!

**Gross rocky/weedy area in lower level near deck. NOT kid friendly.**
**Soft, beautiful, gentle sod.**
**The STEP!**

Ed also built me three very cool planter boxes over top of what used to be a weedy rocky nightmare. I planted raspberries on the end and in the boxes I planted tomatoes, basil, lavender, mint and rosemary. If nothing else it smells spectacular. In one box I just planted flowers, yellow, orange and red flowers. For the first time since we have bought this house, our yard is actually looking VERY NICE. It is amazing what you can do with a yard when you spend most of your evenings at home, and many weekends.

***See the shaggy potentilla bushes and the massive weedy/rocky area behind us. Ick.
***See the beautiful new planter boxes and the fragrant herb/tomato/flower garden with pavers between them.

That brings me to an interesting place, trying for the life of me to remember what in the hell I did with my time before my little turkey was born. I can tell you this, I certainly didn't spend two consecutive weekends in Helena during the summer. Nor did I find it darn near impossible to go to the movies with my friends. I am sure it will come as NO SURPRISE to all of you that post baby priorities change in a major way. I didn't want it to be this way, but as it turns out, it isn't so bad. I love my husband, I love my child and I love my Selma and now I get all of that every day. I feel like we are finally hitting our stride as a family, like we all have kind of figured out how all of this works and we are comfortable with our new place.

Well, I can't speak for Selma. Since Ed Jr. and Miles' death she is kind of a shell of her former self. Until you take her for a walk. HELLO! She is a wild cat on the prowl. I try to love her and be with her whenever I can, but she is kind of invisible these days. She either isn't around or just laying 4 feet away from me, instead of her usual 0 inches from me. Right now as I type I feel like I should be petting/playing with her, but Jr. is napping, Ed is biking and I need to capitalize on my free time. Okay, pet Selma with foot while type. Got it. Speaking of our beautiful gardens and Selma, she took it upon herself to dig into my lilly garden and make herself a nice cool bed. DAMN IT! I was just marveling on how my transplanted lilies were thriving in a dark dank hole between two bushes on the north side of the house and here comes SELMA. I guess that settles some debate Ed and I had about which dog was always digging in the flower gardens, although I still blame some of those on Miles. He would come in with dirt on his paws and nose. Labs!?!?!

One last tidbit and then I need to start cleaning our house - MIL and FIL are coming, so it isn't just a pick up our crap clean, it is a white glove at the Ritz clean, well, okay, more like a wipe everything down once and hope for the best clean because I have a shedding chocolate lab and baby.

Last night we left Jr. at his grandparents and went to a wedding for 5 HOURS! It was an incredible wedding between our new friends Erik and Sarah. I drank way too much beer and visited and visited with whatever stranger or friend happened by. I didn't have to chase a busy baby or worry about him breaking anything. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! I did miss him, and text his Uncle Ian about 400 times to make sure he was okay, but it felt amazing to be able to enjoy myself without worrying about him. He did great, it was his Streganona's birthday party and she had ALL of her family there, Jr. was surrounded by happy family. Plus his cousin Faith was there to play with him. Last night I put him to sleep at his grandparents house and when we went to move him to come home he didn't even wake up at all AND slept in his crib until 5:00 AM. At 5 Ed went and got him and then he slept until about 7:30 with us. AHhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Then it was my sleep in day, so I got to snooze until almost 9:30!

He must have partied pretty hard to be so tired. I know that I sure did!

Little Mr. America

Junior loved hanging out with Liesel's family at Seeley Lake for the fourth of July. He ABSOLUTELY ADORED Liesel's nephews Cullen and Benan.


Benan asked Ed if Jr. had a brother. When Ed said no, Benan said "that is so sad." Benan also taught Jr. to golf and kick a soccer ball. My favorite Benan story was when I first met him he told me that he has had several head injuries and a couple of foot injuries, he tells me, "Yeah, I have a pretty tough life." I bet he does.

Words cannot describe how wonderful and welcoming Liesel's family was to us. I think it helped that Jr. was our family's ambassador. Everyone LOVED him. At first they didn't believe us when we told them that he was busy. Here he is trying his best to play with an axe, a knife, some matches and a beer.

Anyway, Junior played and played and PLAYED all weekend. He was so tired he slept for 13 hours Sunday night. And yes, we did keep him up to watch the fireworks over Seeley. Well, he was with us, but asleep in his Ergo.

He swam at Lake Placid. It involved a lot of crying. Jody and I made him walk to the car only to discover later that he had rocks in his sandals. Poor baby.

He LOVED the 4th of July Parade, but then who doesn't? It is a BIG parade in a small town. Benan scored Jr. an American flag. As with everything else, he used it for evil. He used it to stab Liesel's dad. The kids at the parade scored more candy than Halloween.

On the way home we checked out Lincoln and stopped for a little daddy/baby photo op near the upper reaches of the Blackfoot.

And as a bonus the petting zoo came to us.