Toby's 2!!!

Ah, our baby is TWO??!! How does this happen? My cuddle bug, my tiger, my baby has now left his baby years. We're so excited he's healthy and excited by life. We were also thrilled Grandma and Grandpa were able to share the special day with us. When the Frees left us for the rest of their trip, Toby sobbed the biggest tears he's ever shed for anyone.


Grandma Betty with her usual expression of a smile. Grandpa John brightly and dutifully archiving.

After a supper for Toby of pizza, he practiced blowing the napkin across the table so he could do well with the candles. And that he did. He blew out, maybe, four (there were six) the first time.



Ranne obviously enjoyed his dessert, though he ate only a couple bites, anticipating the gift opening.


Toby did not want to part with his new bulldozer to open the rest.

Some of our new color:


SWEET!

Soapy Sopapillas

Just a little 'hello' to you all. The days have been a bit uneventful to my delight, though today I did nothing at all--other than mother. Ranne has, thankfully, begun to regain some of his sillies that have been a bit muted for a while. Toby is just a little fire, bright and slightly destructive at all times.

We bought a new office chair that came enveloped in bubble wrap. Ranne had been playing with some of it and had taken a piece in the bathtub. I hung it over a large soap bottle to dry until the next morning when he spotted it and asked his Dad, "Will you get that off the Sopapilla please?"

We were reading a silly book about a boy who puts various bugs in his sister's sandwich. Ranne interrupted saying, "I ate a bug." "Really! When?", I asked. "Two. Two days ago. I picked it up and swiped all the dirt off and so he wasn't dirty. The bug said, 'It's okay, you can eat me.'"

Well, all that bug protein must be lasting him a few days because this is his general excitement with his meals:

He ate last night's soup for breakfast, as well as toast, cornbread, egg and juice. UG. What you see on his plate in this picture will be his morning meal tomorrow. Kid can not live on cereal alone.

Will you pity us here, or think we're desperate procrastinators? I'm just indecisive and cheap. Rather than purchase window coverings, we sit through dinner with the sun blazing it's last lights on our dinner table. It was so brilliant tonight, I grabbed up paper and taped it to the window where our heads were. It seemed a good idea until I saw these shadows and felt totally ridiculous. It was funny enough to share. You can't tell, I'm sure, but you can barely see my round belly shadow.

And lastly, a goodnight with a picture of my sweet Tobes. This has been his favored sleeping position, though usually he's on his belly with his legs out as far as they'll go. He is also in there with his treasured blankets that have become security. Thankfully, he's in bed now and is sleeping with his brother, anticipating a morning playing with cousin.

A Little Fresher

Wow. I am impressed. I just viewed "A blog of interest" listed on Blogger developed by a woman who runs a hospital in Boston. What motivation! This blog is NOT like that.

I said we'd give an update. Poor you all, I have NOT taken pictures of any interesting activities we've done. So, I just ran all over the house snapping a few of our house. Scott continues to move along on our remodel. His imagination and go-for-it spirit is admirable. It'll be great when it's all done.

In these first pictures, tell me what you see. I am most excited about this.


We (Scott with generous help of our church family), is building a laundry room at the end of our extra-long garage. It will be plumbed, electrocuted ( ;-) ), and sheet rock hung. This is just off the kitchen. He was very excited to use this tool in the remodel:



Here's the new plumbing that our friend helped install. We're so grateful to him. It's the second time he's been out and we'll probably need it once more, when taking out the old stuff. You can see the floor Scott has 2/3's in. The strange picture of wood that is unidentifiable is looking up at the ceiling/shelving of the room.
He was thoughtful to put in a door with a big window so I'd have natural light for laundry work.




Painting. You can see the clean wall against the nasty trim of our front door. The walls looked like the trim, maybe even worse. It's soooooooooooo nice to have them clean and painted, though I'm slow in getting it done (We have a hard time agreeing on colors, for one thing). Scott and I have worked together on it for the most part. It would take me two-times as long, or more. You can see the challenge of our coved ceilings when it comes to painting accent colors. I taped it at the crease.


Finally two cute closing shots of our day-to-day. Toby is helping me vaccuum. He sits on my work like this almost every time. Next: Ranne taking a bath. We bought the goggles for him, thinking it would make camp showers less traumatic and more fun. It didn't help, but he plays with them now.

The Impossible?

It's been too long, obviously. I signed on to find Blogger has rearranged my dashboard. Hm. Sorry.

This is just a quick funny I wanted to get down before bedding down: I was priming our front door frame and Ranne, at 3 1/2, comes up behind me, casually asking me to buy him a gun. You'd think he was 16, trying to be as smooth and calm as possible to get what he wanted. I said, "A gun! What are you planning on doing with a gun?" "Shoot deer." Well, I suppose that's a reasonable idea, if it's for food and all that. So, I responded, "Really, there aren't any deer around here Sweetie." "Mom, nothing is impossible with God. The angel said that to Mary." "When?", I asked, wanting to hear more. "Well," he said frankly, "we'll have to go find a bible and look it up."

No one likes a post with no pics. I intend to make this short and write again soon with visual additions. Go with God. Goodnight.

BTW: Baby #3 is cooking. Lord willing all is healthy and will continue to be. Prayers would be welcomed, as always.

Just Golden

Before leaving for Colorado, we were blessed with an evening with Lynette before her move to Lubbock. It is a wonderful opportunity for her, but she'll be missed. Scott dropped me off, letting me help her pack while the boys and he went for a hike. When he picked me up, he brought the kids into her backyard, which has an amazing climbing tree with a little ladder that leads into the branches. Ranne had climbed up and found himself stuck. Lynette went over to help him, so he, of course, proceeded to chatter away happily to her. He had just learned that morning to climb up a slide with bare feet so was excitedly telling her that. He said, then, totally out of the blue, "And then I went down the slide and Barack Obama didn't like it." WHAT?

Golden Colorado. Hm. Most of the four days consisted of waiting around for Scott to finish lectures and classes, roaming the School of Mines campus. The boys were tired from traveling the several weeks before, so the experience was really quite rough. But, I still think it was better than being in Albuquerque.

It took about 8.5 hours to get there. The first evening we picnicked before the lecture began and the boys and I roamed the campus for about two hours. It wore them out! It's a beautiful place though. The boys chased rabbits that night, we got lost, ate a cookie after we found our way back to the chapel where the seminar was held, smelled roses and played in the landscaping.... That pretty much defines the days we were there.

A wonderful family hosted us. The boys slept very well in the quarters we were given, thankfully.

I was able to sit through one lecture on the last night while a sweet woman, Rachel, watched the boys. That was such a nice break!!!!! Earlier that day, Ranne, who had been overseeing a yellow jacket nest since we arrived, was finally stung on the back of his neck. That was drama/trauma. He did totally fine with it. There was barely any evidence.

Friday we met with my cousins at the Aquarium in Denver and took the sleepy, grumpy boys. The company was WONDERFUL and the aquarium was so neat. I would recommend it! Alda and Rhianna are always fun and encouraging.

FUNNNNNY story. You all will think I'm terribly mean to relate it as amusing. In the aquarium there was an exhibit where you walk in a dark room with only a few spotlights highlighting a dessert wash. Well, Ranne was NOT obeying anything I said that morning and kept going ahead of me instead of waiting. He headed into that dark room and I hear a loud rush of water. Poking my head in the door, I see that it is set up to display flash floods. There is Plexiglas not obvious until a huge amount of water comes rushing down the wash and in a roaring, foaming mess, hits the glass next to the observers. Right as I peek in to find Ranne, he comes running out, screaming, and pushing people out of the way immediately in front of me. He was in such a panic, he missed me completely. I grabbed him as best as I could while holding a fussy Toby, told him to stop fussing, which he did, and heard him exclaim, "What WAS that!?" I would have liked to watch the display again, but as I took both boys back through to move on, they began to panic. Ah well....

On Saturday I took the boys downtown while their dad was busy teaching and learning. We walked a LONG ways along the creek to the local farmers market, watched a puppet show, bought a juice, rode a horse carriage, walked back, played in the river, and then trekked back for lunch with dad.

A pretty bridge downtown that leads to walks along the river. The beautiful view of Coors from that same bridge.

This slide led from the street level, to the path next to the river. Ranne went down, ending on his head, surprised by the twists. It was not his favorite experience. He later saw a man go down it quite well and said, "That is a man slide." The little boy with the water gun was great fun when he wasn't shooting Ranne in the face, repeatedly. Toby did not budge from sitting on the edge of the path.

The boys' first carriage ride. Ranne liked it, Toby had a death grip on my shirt the whole time.

Sunday we met with the Lakewood Church of Christ in Littleton, which was encouraging. The boys did awesome in their classes, receiving compliment upon compliment about their participation and agreeability (new word). A couple different people who sat near us during services were also very excited with how well adjusted and happy they were, as well as well behaved. VERY ENCOURAGING, even though I knew it did not go THAT well.

This last week was spent in totally unproductive ways with no teaching. The kids played with their toys around the clock, got dirty outside, and I have been sleeping at every opportunity. The house is a mess and will, I'm sure, someday find order again.

Have a blessed night....

Toby's pirate hat. Our torrential rain lately.

Just Campy

Hello! The Frees are finally home, though we leave again next Wednesday? for a few days to Golden, Colorado. Yeah. That should be really nice. It looks to be a pretty place.

Last week was camp. I think the boys are recovering. Here's Ranne and me over breakfast. Again, on this trip, we ate too much.
Can you already hear Ranne saying, "Ah, Mom..." when you see this photo?


Scott's afternoon time for study prep.


Here is Curtis Burnett, our camp director for High School session.


Some of our favorite people, the McCalls, who come over from AZ to teach.


Donna O'Rear? here, Tony Lewis' sister. Her hubby is wearing the blue jacket in the picture above.


One of the kids' activities is pictured below. They had to get the song book without touching the ground between the tape in front of the crowd and the book. After that is a picture of Ranne conversing with Zach Lane (he was a counselor, comes to the CSC some), son of Walter Lane, son of some Lanes the Frees have known.


Precious boys hanging around outside the mess hall as Dad does his studies.


Here are some of our camp staff. The woman in the green apron was in charge of canteen with another lady. They were both sited at Kangaroo Court for loosing their canteen cheer. Very funny. This is after that charge, so she's hamming it up with the campers who are getting their food.


Crazy story about the Wednesday during camp week. The evening worship time happened with the boys, but we took them off to bed before the 'festivities' of Kangaroo Court began. The KCourt is just a time for campers and staff to bring up charges against one another in a silly way. The weather that night was getting quite stormy feeling. There had been serious thunderstorms daily, so it wasn't a surprise. We tucked the boys into bed in a cabin that was furthest from all the activity. It was on the top of a hill at the end of a road that ran alongside the staff cabins. As you look down from the door, you can see the pavilion way down the hill. Scott told Ranne, "Don't worry about the thunder. Just think about how strong God is when you hear it." I told him, "It's going to get rowdy in the pavilion. Everyone's just being silly, so don't let the noise worry you." We left them to their sleep after a little while and went back down. After 20-minutes or so of Court and loud thunder, I looked across the pavilion to see Ranne watching the event in his t-shirt and shorts--no shoes. It had just started raining and was cold, but there he was totally absorbed in what he was watching. He hadn't even come to look for us. Scott took him back to the cabin.

The next morning, we looked at his feet and they were all scratched up. As I walked him to the bathroom he said, "Mama, where were you? Did you hear me calling you last night? I was going down and the thunder scared me and I called for you but you didn't come." UG. That made me feel so sad and terrible! I guess it was too dark to see the cabin after he left so he was frightened; all he could do was go toward the light. The pavilion was at the bottom of that hill, all aglow, so he just kept walking down. Poor little man! Terrible, bad Mama. He seemed thrilled by it.

Last day: Scott and I took the boys to the creek to play.


Can you see Toby's excitement? This is his usual reaction to new things. I thought he'd be kamikaze kid, but that's apparently not the case.



THE END.