Clyde's Latest

This mouse made it into the house. Bridget let Clyde in when she saw him at the sliding glass door. She didn't see that he had something in his mouth...that was still ALIVE!

He comes in and he drops it out of his mouth. It runs away. He races after it, playing with it. We try to shut the doors into the kitchen down so that it is somewhat contained. Eventually Clyde grabs it with his mouth again after batting it around several times. I quickly grab him and toss the both of them out. Clyde
again came to the back door. I didn't let him back in, but I did take this picture.



The mouse was still alive. After the picture he went back to playing with it.

He is the mighty hunter.

Jack Quits

A week ago Grandma came up with an idea to teach them about tithing. She gave them jobs that would pay 10 cents each time so that they could pay tithing. Jack was to vacuum under the table and Ryan was to do some dishes.

Things went well last week. They both got paid after doing their jobs. Today though, Grandma asked Jack if he wanted to vacuum. He said in a very carefree way, "No, I quit my job."

"You what?"

"I quit my job." The way he said it was not in an angry manner. It was just so manner of fact. Grandma thought that he had been coached to say it by someone else, but it was just something he came up with on the spot.

We were all very amused by this. Eventually he agreed to do this job, but then afterwards, he said he was still quitting that he would do windows instead. But just for one year and then he would do vacuuming again.

Jack is an endless source of stories.


Other News

The weather was great here for a good 3 days or so and then it turned rainy and cold again. Oregon weather is a tease. Still I rode to work in the downpour and I was fairly miserable. I was lucky enough to ride home during the only one hour window without rain yesterday and enjoyed it much more.

Bridget continues to workout at her new fitness club. She belongs to 24 Fitness. I have not joined because I am not convinced that I would get much use out of it. I am much more of an outside guy. I would much rather ride in the rain than sit on a trainer indoors. I don't mind running on a trainer for some reason, but I don't mind running when it is cold and wet either.

Anyway, they have a daycare there at the club and the boys seem to like it for the most part, even Colin. She runs, weightlifts, and takes part in a random assortment of classes there. She continues to lose weight little by little, which is something that she has been doing much better than I. She is doing her first Half Marathon this May and then she is planning on doing a triathlon the same weekend I am doing my 70.3 triathlon. Hers is local, mine is in Idaho. She should be finished with hers in about 90 minutes, I will hopefully be done with mine in about 6 hours. I am jealous.

Colin still has acid reflux. He sleeps in 2 hour intervals before he wakes up because of discomfort. He is our worst sleeper of the three boys by far. If it weren't for that, he would be an easy baby. He is pretty easy going and he has a very happy disposition. Things are fine here, and that is all the time for updates that I have for now.

Colin's 6 Month Stats

17.2 lbs

27.5 inches long

...not too shabby.

Wet PJ's

I debated about whether to put this on the blog. I don't really want this to be a blog full of embarrassing things for our boys in later years. But in the end, I have decided to put this up because this story doesn't so much belittle Ryan. After all, he was basically one step away from sleep walking when the events occurred.

Let me start with the end first. Ryan was asleep and woke up and went to the bathroom. This is a common thing. He basically does this in his sleep. If you ask him about it later, he often won't remember even going to the bathroom. After he finished, he went back to his room and then started crying. This was very odd. He turned on the light and was crying because his pajamas were all wet on the sleeve. I went in there and helped him change. I thought that maybe he got them wet washing his hands, but he said that this was not the reason. I asked if he had pee'd his pants, but everything else was dry. I checked his PJ's closer and noticed that the feet were somewhat wet, too. I checked other things, looking for maybe a spilt water bottle or something since often the boys have a water bottle near the bed for when they are thirsty during the night. Nothing. No water anywhere that I could find. But with Ryan in new PJ's I let it go and he was quickly back to sleep.

Around an hour or more later Bridget and I were getting ready to go to bed. While we were in there I had to the blow my nose again. I went to sit on the toilet with the lid down because there was a nice box of soft Kleenex there on the back of it. I had a serious head cold going on at the time and I had been going to the bathroom every couple of hours to blow my nose with the Kleenex while sitting there, every time with the lid down.

This time I noticed that there was water all over the toilet lid. "What the..." Did the boys get water all of the place when they took a bath? No, they didn't have a bath. Wait...I put the toilet lid down a couple of hours earlier when I last blew my nose, and Ryan was in here in between the last time that I blew my nose and now....oh, gross!

Ryan had come into the bathroom turned on the light and shut the door just like usual and then sat on the toilet like usual. However, usually the lid is not down. This time with the lid unexpectedly down there was no hole for him to pee into. Instead, he sat there and whizzed straight onto the lid, down onto the floor (the floor and rug were soaked) and he had not even realized it. His PJ's, which were the one-piece-footed kind, were on the floor and had gotten whizzed on as well. He then put on his whizzed-on PJ's, washed his hands and did not even realise that he had gotten wet until he started climbing back into his bunk bed.

Both Bridget and I laughed out loud about this one. Crazy stuff. Good times, good times. We didn't even mind cleaning up the pee, we were so amused.

First Pizza

Colin doesn't have teeth so he ends up just sucking all of the sauce off the pizza once the cheese was removed. He could not get enough.

Bummy Cream

Non-greasy, lubricant eliminates painful chafing and rubbing immediately by lubricating your skin
Provides the comfortable barrier you need on extended rides and soothes and softens previously irritated skin
Can also be used as a conditioner for synthetic or leather chamois
Easily washes out with soap and water

Funny that this product doesn't have the following use in the product's description: Soothes a rear end after big poop. That is what Jack uses it for. After a particular big poop Jack often wants "bummy cream" put on so that his bum won't hurt. This happens at least once per week. He bends over and Bridget or I squeeze out some Chamois Butt'r on a tissue and wipe his rear end down. We have to be careful not to use too much or he feels too slimy which is unacceptable.

Anyway...we have odd children.

Updates

Here again are some one liners regarding us.

Jack really really likes his soccer class.

Ryan still has not played with all of the toys he got from his birthday party.

Bridget even took back some of the stuff Ryan got from the birthday party to exchange it for clothes.

Colin has been sick the last couple of days.

This means that Bridget suffers the most since the little dude doesn't sleep well.

I am going mountain biking for the first time is 7 months, but with a cyclocross bike instead of a mountain bike.

We had a Valentine's Day family dinner tonight, complete with candles and everything.

The boys ate their food fast because they were told they couldn't blow out the candles until they were done.

We saw a movie at the theater that really deserved to go straight to the ABC Family channel, Confessions of a Shopaholic--Uhgh.

I am currently eating a bowl of Honey Graham Oh's cereal.

I finally signed up for the Ironman 70.3 in Boise that takes place this June.

I don't really want to do it though.

I have noticed that Ryan notices pretty girls.

Jack still likes everything to do with Lightning McQueen--seriously, e v e r y t h i n g.

Bridget joined 24 hour fitness and loves all the classes she can do there.

Jack occasionally likes to take a swing at his brother, usually nailing him in the face.

We signed Ryan up for Tee Ball this Spring.

I am sleepy.

Goodnight.

Reading

We have a bedtime routine here. It usually goes down like this:

Get pajamas on.
Brush teeth and go to the bathroom.
Read Scriptures.
Say Prayers.
Read a book of Ryan's choosing and one of Jack's choosing.

Tonight we were ahead of schedule. So I told the boys that if they climbed into bed I would read them another book. I wasn't sure what I was going to read them, but there are certain books that I quite like to read to them. For some reason I like the books that allow me to make goofy voices or that allow me to act out characters.

For instance, probably my all-time favorite book that I have read to them is this book.

Old Granny and the Bean Thief, by Cynthia DeFelice.

I love that book because I get to make a voice like what I imagine some old granny in the wild west would have made. I like it also because the boys really like the story. They laugh and makes me smile. Plus, any book that has a talking cow pie in it is bound to be awesome.

But tonight we didn't have that book in the house from the library, so I searched for something else that we hadn't read. Since shortly after Ryan's birth we have had this book:


I think I tried to read this to Ryan a couple of years ago, but he had little interest in it. Tonight they were pretty into it. I read the first chapter to them. Or at least I did in between lots of questions regarding the story, what character was talking, and asking to see the pictures. The illustrations are pretty cool. Here is one from near the beginning of the book. I am sure I am committing a copyright violation here, but oh well. I do it in an effort to recommend this book so hopefully no one minds too much.























Hopefully we can continue to read it together. I really enjoy it. Reading together is a great thing for our family. It is part of our family habits and traditions at this point. It is a special time in our family, before they get older and don't care, or they can read to themselves as easily as we can read to them.

Ryan's Pump It Up Birthday Party

Ryan got to have his birthday party at a place called Pump It Up. They have a great set up for kid-type parties there. You start off in one room filled with inflatable play structures and then after a period of time move to a second room with different inflatable play structures. Then finally we moved to a third room with tables and a Birthday Chair from which Ryan got to open presents.

There were over 20 kids there today. Crazy. The cost is the same whether there are 5 kids or 25 kids, so Ryan invited everyone he likes from both school and church. We were there for a total of 2 hours and I think all of the kids had loads of fun. There were minimal injuries and very little blood spilled.

Here are some pictures:

This is only about half or so of the kids that were there.























A happy dude,

Zoe and Jack sliding down.


Supposedly, the rule was only two down the slide at a time. In the picture are Ryan with Amelia holding on to him, Tyler on the left with Zoe close behind, I think a boy named Nolan is at the bottom, and Gregory, Zack and two others are up top.

Zack on the bottom left, Gregory in the center and Ryan and Amelia on the right.

Ryan and Amelia at the end of their slide.

Zoe and Jack on the cars, and in the orange shirt is Robert from the ward...and lot of others on the way up the slide.

One of Ryan's best friends is Reed, who is the boy just finishing the slide on the left side. Ryan is just starting to go back up the slide again.

Most of the kids who attended are below. On the bottom pad starting from the left are Jack, cousin Sabrina, Ryan, Gregory, Brinton, Ava, Cole, Max, Peng, and Andrew. Sitting on the upper pad, starting from the left are Amelia, Nolan, Zoe, Sawyer, Brady, Evan, Reed (the last three laying on each other), Tyler (in the blue shirt), Robert (orange shirt), Zack, and Braden. And yes I do know the names of my all kids' friends, I am that kind of parent.

Ryan is 6!

(Tomorrow, Feb. 4th)


























Geesh, time flies! But then, in some ways it seems like Ryan has been with us for a very long time. Ryan is a great son and just about the best big brother we could have wished for. He definitely isn't perfect, which is good because that would be boring and probably creepy as well. Ryan is doing so well in school. He really takes pride in his school work and has really spent a great deal of time learning to read. He seems to be very driven when it comes to school related things. He is doing great socially too. He has friends that call to invite him over and also likes to have his friends over. And one of his favorite things to do is to play soccer.




At church Ryan is a pretty good kid. He pays attention and has learned many important things that should help him to stay on the straight and narrow. He is just such a great kid.


Here is a little movie Ryan made a couple of months ago for Clyde,...just so you know...