You want a piece of this??

The boys favorite pasttime. The pictures tell it all.

MOPS Retreat

I got to spend a weekend in Frisco with the steering team for Night MOPS. We had fall/winter weather with snow on the surrounding peaks, quite a contrast from the long string of 90 degree days in July. We got to go for a quick hike, sit in the hot tub and build friendships with the other ladies in our group while planning for the coming year.

Happy Birthday, Tyler!

My sweet baby boy turned 2! It seems like yesterday that I brought him home just a few hours after birth. He's the clown of the family. He loves to make faces, especially at Daddy, to get us laughing. His decibel range goes from 0 to 10 when he's trying to get our attention. Favorite phrases are "truck, Mommy, truck, truck" and "water down there" wherever we go. His exuberance is infectious and that sweet little voice that says "ok, Mommy" and the accompanying soft kiss on the cheek melts my heart.

Evergreen Lake

As promised we went for a field trip to Evergreen to play in the water at the lake. The boys had a blast. There's a new nature center in the old leanto under the berm and the boys had lots of fun playing with the animal skins and checking out the birds eggs.

Busy with Normal

I feel like we've been very busy just doing "normal" stuff.

All the normal stuff:
- trips to the library
- visits to the park
- meal planning
- grocery shopping
- lots of laundry
- coloring
- watching Olympics
- mowing the lawn
- visiting neighbors
- work
- MOPS stuff
- playing in the sandbox
- making messes (how do they get so good at that?!)

But I think Matthew is very bored with the "normal" stuff. I find he is much more cooperative and kind when we GO do stuff. Today was a rough day. The kind where I found myself taking LOTS of very deep breaths and setting the timer way too many times for timeout. Hopefully tomorrow goes OK even though it is more "normal" stuff. Wednesday we will GO do something fun.

Matthewisms

Matthew and I were having a conversation about actions and consequences in the car the other day. I asked him what he thought should be the consequence should he not do what Mommy asked. His answer..."that's a tricky one. I'll have to think about that". My boy is growing up!!!

American Rights

I found this quote when I was doing some internet research.

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the

same as to be right in doing it."

- A Short History of England, Ch.10

So many things in our American world are built around rights. The right to say what we want, be what we want, have what we want, go where we want. Yet, I think in all our clamoring to obtain or defend our "rights" we have lost sight of the point in the above quote. There is an inherant privilege in all these rights that were gained on the backs and lives of many men and women in our history. The aspect of the rightness or wrongness of our actions seems less guarded or important than our right to do them. Something to think about.