Halloween!

It is fall.  Or almost winter - high in the 20s later this week - BRRRR! 

Halloween is officially over.  We did some trick-or-treating at my work, at Daddy's work, at Nona and Papa's and finally to three houses around us.  I have already managed to give away most of the candy Jr. collected.  Tonight was crazy.  It makes me want to invent an antidote for sugar.  Jr. was literally vibrating. 

So, the other day, I realized that I haven't posted anything about Graham's milestones.  Well, we decided that his first word was Ed - it came a long time ago.  Second was Daddy.  He is now getting very good at animal noises and can say some names, finally, Momma, Nona, Nanny, Papa and Da (Selma and Jr.?).  He also declares Uh-Oh after he throws his food or drink on the floor.  He can blow kisses and give awesome high fives.  He is walking with very little crawling and only has two teeth left to get before the dreaded 2-year molars.  He loves to give hugs and look at pictures of animals.  He loves his books and spends hours in his room looking at his books.  He initiates wrestling with his brother and rarely cries when Jr. plays rough with him.  It makes me fear for our lives this winter.  Well, I have a plan - gut the garage and turn it into cold weather play land.  Bikes, basketball hoop, slide. . .

Jr. has also achieved some pretty amazing milestones, besides his amazing vocabulary and incredible syntax, he is also starting to recognize letters and numbers.  His drawings are fantastic and always come with great stories.  He frequently sits at the table and draws and cuts out paper to make "ART!"  He figured out how to play the computer by himself.  He can get the computer started, open the Internet and connect to PBSkids.org to play games.  He can almost unplug the regular mouse and plug in his own.  We are a little scared. 

Speaking of scared - beware of the scary photos below - Happy Halloween!

Triceratops!

Dragon!

Mission Impossible, give kids candy, ask them to sit still for photos.

Plumpquins

Scary Plumpquins.

Alien scary plumpquin.  So you know, a damn deer knocked Jr. and Daddy's pumpkins off the deck and ate the faces off.  Damn big buck.

Baby pumpkin.  Check his face for the shiner.  Poor little man had a broken nose.  He recovered just fine though.

The small green ones were from our garden.

The shiner.  So sad.

Cissie and Jr. at the corn maze.

Our corn maze guide.

Taking up the rear.

It was an amazing night.

Smile.

Corn sand box.  Graham was a huge fan.

No, she doesn't get tired of hanging out with us.  Hint, we keep feeding her.

Last coatless fall day.  Helping Papa rake leaves and throw rocks in the pond.

Helping with the leaves.

Photo credit - Bill Bahr.  Nicely done dude.

Use Your Words

Junior is talking like crazy. Below is a list of words he says. Now, they don't sound perfect, but we can understand him, so those count right?

Momma, Daddy, Selma, Dog, Ball, Bike, Airplane, Truck, Apple, Dip It, Neil, Fish, Outside, Spike, Elk, Duck, Done.

Oh there are so many more, but I can't think of them now.

He is also the king of high fives and fist bumps. He is also climbing EVERYTHING! Dangerously climbing everything!

He is also doing so much better with daycare. I can't say if it is going in later or if he is just getting used to being with Aimee all day.

Life is pretty sweet right now for little men.

Here are some cute photos of Jr. and Carter last week. I watched him while his parents ate some dinner baby free. Jr. and Carter are such great friends.

Sun River, Rocky Mountain Front

Ed Sr. is guest writing this blog...so bare with me. Anyhow, the weather forecast for the weekend was pretty crappy to say the least. It was supposed to be high in the low 60's with wind and rain. Due to the weather forecast, our plans changed from camping in the Tobacco Roots up to the Rocky Mountain Front on the Sun River. Even after shifting from south of Helena to north, Autumn and I tried to limit the camp out to one night because of the weather, but Kim and Neil were hearing none of it as we had planned this weekend a month ago. So the Pattersons arrive at our house almost 5 minutes early on Friday (a Christmas miracle), we packed their stuff into the camper, swapped a small cooler for a larger one to accommodate the beer, and off we went. It didn't really rain much until Sunday, and it seemed to rain hardest once we got the rain shelter down and started loading up.

Kim and Autumn said they had been to this area as youths, but neither remembered it well. I had been up on the Sun River for work and knew that I wanted to come back with a fishing pole and a little more time. It was a great weekend. The wind blew like crazy, the evenings were chilly, but the fishing was great and the scenery spactacular. Great company and great food and Jr. had a great time as always. He is a camping fool.

Autumn even powered up and overcame her concerns about being in hard core griz country. We cleaned up well every night and even stored the beer/pop cooler in the camper at one point while we all went fishing. I had no fear since Selma and Maggie were there to protect us. Well, there might have also been a 357 and a can of bear spray.

We all caught fish, except for Selma and Maggie, who did their best to ruin the fishing for one and all. The Pattersons had better numbers on the fly rods, but we were happy throwing spinners when the wind was blowing.

Jr. did something wrong, so he was forced to wear a Denver Broncos hat and look sad. I'm not sure what he did, but clearly it was bad considering the punishment.

Kim and Neil searching for the monster trout.


Not a bad view from the campsite. The photo below is what we were looking at the other way.

What can I say. I was out for a stroll with Selma, and clearly in my happy place. Cheers, and wish you all could have been there with us.

**It is me. I couldn't let Ed have all of the glory. There are more fantastic photos here. Please look at them, print them out and live in their beauty, they cost us $40. I accidentally deleted them from my camera without copying them all to the computer - YIKES - so I had to download software that magically recovered them from our camera. Was it worth it? Yes. The lesson alone was worth it.

CORN!

Junior enjoyed some tasty corn for dinner.

Tomorrow he will enjoy sleeping in with his mom, breakfast with his mom and his morning nap in his crib. I switched my work hours to 11 - 5 so that he can spend mornings with me. He wasn't doing too well at daycare from 8-4. Hopefully 11-4 will be easier on the little man. I know it will be easier on his mama.

This change was just as he was starting to get a little better at daycare, BUT today Aimee took them on the Gates of the Mountains boat tour and Friday they went to Exploration Works, so he was out and about for the day and maybe bonding more to Aimee.

Pioneers

Pioneer Mountains are south of Butte, north of Dillon. Ed and I have always had a special place in our hearts for the Big Hole River and now we have fallen in love with the mountains in the heart of the Big Hole valley.

Junior loves to camp.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the weekend.Beautiful wildflower, it is probably my new favorite flower ever.

In Coolidge Ghost Town. Jr. was anti ghosts.

He also didn't like rock climbing at the ghost town, but he liked hugging his mommy!

Meadow with a view of the Pioneer Mountains.

Trying to keep the milk cold. Cheers to Beers.

Junior posing in front of the lupine.

The most handsome men ON THE PLANET.

Cute photo of Junior, less than desirable photo of me.
Isn't this one of the quintessential photos of a dad and his baby? It is going in my office.
Junior running along behind us.
Wino baby.

And Junior entertains himself with an axe.

It Is Time To Laugh!

Please enjoy this video of Jr. getting tickled at camp this weekend.

Hike

This morning, Junior, Selma and I took a nice little hike in the Mt. Ascention area to celebrate our last few days of part time work AKA mornings with mom. Starting next week I work from 8-3. So we will have afternoons, but no more lazy mornings where I sit and drink coffee while watching him eat his breakfast and both of us enjoy a little PBS Kids.

Anyway to the hike, it has been my intention since he was born to pack that kid all over the awesome trails on the outskirts of Helena, and I am ashamed to say, today's trip was only the second time on Mt. Ascention. I was all prepared to walk up there and be so depressed about the closing of another chapter in our lives, but I wasn't.

At first I could barely put one foot in front of the other, man that initial climb was tough. Junior plus the pack weighed at least 800 pounds and man am I out of shape. By the time I got over the huffing and puffing, my mind was wondering back to all of the great times I have had on Mt. Ascention. I thought a lot about Miles.

When I first started dating Ed, I would take Miles and we would go exploring the south hills. We would go further and further on the trails learning new routes and getting bolder until the days where Miles, Selma and I owned Mt. Ascention. There was one spring/summer/fall that we were up there at least 3 -4 times in a week. I was in pretty good shape and they were happy. Miles loved our hikes. He was mostly naughty when we would run into other dogs, but never got into any fights and always eventually came back. I remember playing hide and go seek with Selma and Miles to teach them not to wander too far away from me. I miss him terribly some days.

I also remembered seeing my friend Peg huffing and puffing on her bike up the trails only a few short weeks after she had given birth to her son Dylan. It didn't strike me at the time what an accomplishment that was, but now, I am floored by her ability.

I also thought about hiking with my many friends up in those hills and how great you feel after you are done, especially when you stop at the Blackfoot on the way home.

It wasn't until we hit the car and were on our way home that I remembered to be depressed about having to go to work in the mornings.