Tiggady Tiggady Tagged Yall

My 8th grade bff tagged me...and since I have nothing better to do, I GUESS I can be convinced to talk about myself for a tad. I mean, Ryland's climbing the Christmas tree and Cierra has removed all the pots and pans from my kitchen and is selling them to her babies...so why not take this free minute to blog?

8 Shows I watch:
1. Re-runs of One Tree Hill on Soap Net
2. Re-runs of The OC on Soap Net
3. The Hills
4. all the wonderful reality shows when they're in season, Amazing Race, Survivor, The Bachelor, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance...etc
5. Real Housewives (OC, Hotlanta and the like)
6. Rachel Ray...and I don't know why, she annoys the bajeesus out of me, but CC and I watch her talk show every morning
7. Everything and anything on Food Network...Giada, Ina and Paula are my homegirls
8. Without a Trace

8 Favorite Restaurants:
(None of which exist in Missoula)
1. Lupe Tortilla
2. Alicias Mexican
3. Red Fish (sushi)
4. Kaneyama (cheap sushi CAN be good sushi)
5. Toro (sushi)
6. TX fast food...chick-fil-a, what-a-burger, sonic
7. The late great, Tortuga...but only for cheese enchiladas and salsa
8. Cafe Express
9. ...I forgot Thai Spice
10...and I forgot Nit Noi (thai)
11...and I also forgot PF Changs

8 Things that Happened to Me Today
1. Ryland slept until almost 9:00
2. I made "Bistro Butter" to put on a steak when Kevin gets home on Thursday
3. I attempted to make my own pickles
4. I then realized I had no jars to put said homemade pickles in
5. I made sweet potato fries for lunch
6. I realized Ryland loves sweet potato fried
7. Upon deciding that she no longer loves sweet potato fries, I fed Cierra cucumbers for lunch
8. I got a Fed Ex from my Mommy full of packages for my kids...and then spent an hour moving them around so Ryland would stop un-wrapping them

8 Things I Look Forward to:
1. Hunter getting here on the 23rd...holy crap, I can't contain myself
2. Going sledding with my new Montana friend, Molly, and our kids
3. Having my other new Montana friend, Amber, come over tomorrow with her daughter (CC's new bff...Rylee)
4. making a snow man and having a snow ball fight with my boy
5. getting all three of my seeds dressed up in their Christmas finery for church on Christmas Eve...in the snow...happy sigh
6. going back to college
7. my next visit to Houston
8. fitting back into my Luckys

8 Things I Wish For:
1. To wake up 20 pounds lighter
2. Long glorious hair
3. Winning lottery numbers
4. Kevin to be happy
5. My kids to never feel regret and learn from every experience, good and bad
6. Confidence
7. Pearly whites
8. An airline that makes direct flights from Missoula to Houston for about $50 round trip.

8 People I Tag:
....um, if you read this...just do it :)

I can't think of a title

Merry 10 days until Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I had a long enough attention span to take, upload and post pictures on my blog, I sooooo would have joined in on Boo Mama's Christmas Tour de Blog...but I don't. And my measly attempt at Christmas-ing my Montanya home is not worth all the fuss.

BUT I do encourage both of you who read this to stay up all night (as I am) and check out all the fun trees and wreaths and mantles and love galore!

It's also worth mentioning that I don't feel the need to decorate as much this year because I am in the midst of my first ever "white Christmas"...and I must admit, there aren't enough gaudy glittery balls in all of Missoula to compete with the feeling that I get when I see a blanket of snow outside my window :)

A fly on the wall

Just when the (sometimes) controlled chaos that exists in my life everyday starts to become second nature, I get a little slap in the face to bring me back to reality.

I should have known this was coming too.

Last night I was telling (ok, maybe I was complaining to) Kevin that I had nothing to do today. I finished all the laundry. The house was clean. He didn't have any office work for me to do. What on EARTH was I going to do all day today?

Talk about a jinx!!!!!!

I wake up this morning with a splitting headache. One could blame it on the kahlua mochatinis I made last night, but I like to think it was the weather. This was also the kind of morning where CC's up at 6:45 ready and raring to go...the same kind of morning where Ryland wakes up screaming. Not the crying screaming, but her screechy "I'm trying to talk to you" screams. The screams that, two hours later, are still continuing. These are not the screams you can ignore. They do not fade into the background. They only become more piercing as the day progresses.

Quick! Find something to put in her mouth so the screaming will cease...this shouldn't be hard, my baby is a bottomless pit. She eats all day long. (When she's not eating, she's moving...which is why she's skinny as a rail. She still does not sleep.) So when the screams get too intense you can usually sit her in her high chair with a bunch of mum-mums, gerber puffs and saltine crackers and she's good to go. Well not today! Today she prefers throwing all her snacks on the floor and laughing about it. But then she realizes that if the snacks are on the floor she can't eat them. So she screams...again. We repeat this over and over until I try bananas instead. Apparently it's more fun to smash the bananas into her hair than it is to EAT the bananas. Peas and carrots? They belong on the floor too. Mommy gives up. A jar of baby food? She spits it out. And then she smiles about it.

All the while, Cierra's in her room playing day care. Today she's the teacher of the baby room and her floor is COVERED in baby dolls that she's putting down for a nap. So on top of the screams from Ry I hear "Jason, get your mat" "Clara, Clara and Clara...wake up so you can go night night". Yes, wake up to go to bed. She's a tough teacher. And all of her girl babies are named Clara right now. Tomorrow they'll be something else, but today it's Clara. After nap time it's "cheerly girl prac-ace" and she's chanting...I mean SCREAMING..."give me that sing you need to rock wis...green green green green, goooooooooooold".

So there are now screams on top of screams...it's like I have surround sound. The screams are only broken up by the sound of my silent tears. I kid.

I give up on Ryland in her high chair about the same time that CC sends all her babies home for the day...and comes into the kitchen with my nemesis...Play Doh. The world's messiest toy. I turn my back on Ryland to give Cierra the standard "please don't make a mess and don't leave little pieces or your sister will eat them" and in that short time span, my baby has undecorated the bottom half of my Christmas tree.

So I run into the living room to get a wire star out of her mouth...just as CC spills her water all over the kitchen floor...and slips in the mess. So now they're both crying. And I walk away from the situation to fill up my coffee cup and bang my head against the fridge. Did I really say today was going to be boring? REALLY?

All this happened in the first two hours of our day.

Well now I can re-clean the house since it's covered in cracker crumbs and soggy play-doh. I can re-decorate the tree and just accept the fact that ornaments can't live on the bottom this year.

The girls are playing with plastic food quietly in their room. I'm taking some time to myself to type this. Perhaps we're on the up and up! hahahahahahahaha Sorry, I can't say that with a straight face...I know my kids too well. And rightly so, Cierra just asked me if she could play "no more monkeys jumping on the bed" with Ryland...gotta run!

What I did on my Thanksgiving vacation

**warning...photobucket hates me and cut off the sides of all the pictures, so I'm attempting to remedy and will have full pictures soon...b/c half of these don't make sense without the rest of the pic...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr**

Our flight landed in Houston at 9:30 their time...making it 10:30 our time, and we got to the airport in Missoula at 1:00 so Ryland and I were exhausted...Hunter, on the other hand, was GIDDY. He had me and my Mom up until 1:00am just being a goofy little chatterbox. He even got in Ryland's crib with her:

Since we were in Montana for Hunter's sixth birthday, we had a little re-celebration...and Hunter really wanted Ry to have a piece of his cake!:

Ryland's first Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!!

Ry with Mommy and her Godmother, Sophia:

After we ate, Ryland took a nap but woke up fussy...so Hunt crawled in her crib (again) to try to keep her company. That boy LOVES his baby sister:

After Trevor and I took our post turkey naps we took our favorite boy to our former Jr. High so he could play some football on a "real" field. He could even kick the ball through the "up-a-rights" so he was THRILLED. Trev and Hunter hopped over the fence just fine, but this chick right here wasn't exactly able to make it over said fence, so I took pictures from the other side!:

The day after Thanksgiving was my BFF Michelle's birthday. My kids adore her! Cierra calls her "my-shelf" so now we all lovingly refer to her simply as, "Shelf".

our friend, KP, playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band or something with Hunt:

We also ate plenty of Mexican food. Hunt's favorite is Casa Ole because he's a huge fan of the "chicken wheels":

Ryland's a huge fan of her Gerber puff's:

Mostly, we just enjoyed spending time together. Ryland and Hunter are so in love, and it warms a Mother's heart to see her babies so happy together!

(And yes, Hunter is wearing a football jersey of some sort in pretty much every picture. That's his obsession these days. )

BLOG OVERLOAD BLOG OVERLOAD

What is my deal? When it rains it pours in my blog world.

I really just loved Heather's Christmas tag post so I had to do it myself...and here we go!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Christmas or not, wrapping the gift is sometimes more exciting for me than the actual gift itself. I ADORE gift wrap and good ribbon. All of my packages will coordinate with my tree, they will coordinate with eachother, they will be relevant to the person who the gift is intended and they will be pretty...and when I say coordinate I don't mean "matchy matchy". Isn't that a little ridiculous? The worst part is, my Mom, Sophia and I had a conversation the other night about what sort of "themes" we'd be going with for our paper this year. They feel my pain. But I do love gift bags too, the good pretty ones :)

2. Real Tree or Artificial? I love a real tree. It's so extra Christmasy to me...but ever since I became an "adult" and my ex-husband and I got our first trees...a HUGE real tree for the living room and another HUGE real tree for his study (so it could be seen from the street)...and we spent the next six months finding needles everywhere and healing from scratches all over our arms from hanging lights, I've had pre-lit artificial trees and pine scented candles!

3. When do you put up the tree? within a few days of Thanksgiving and I just love the way it warms up the living room so I hate to take it down. The room feels so lonely without it. One year my Mom just left it up and we decorated it for Valentine's Day too. We were going to decorate it for Easter and every other holiday too put it got too dusty.

4. When do you take the tree down? See above, oh...and when I moved from my apartment into Kevin's house (in Feb of that year) I had to take down my Christmas tree in order to pack it up to move it. It wasn't because I was feeling the holiday spirit. I just HATE to un-decorate and take down a tree. It's like unpacking from a trip...dread.

5. Do you like eggnog? I've never tried it. Can't bring myself too. But then again, it was never a tradition in my house.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? The Barbie Dream House my Dad got me our first Christmas in Texas. I was probably too big for it but I hung on the the Barbie phase longer than most kids. In the spirit of self preservation, I'm not even going to tell you how old I was...but I can still remember that overwhelming feeling of happiness on Christmas morning. We have it in the attic of my parent's house and I can't wait until my girls are big enough for me to pass it down.

7. Hardest person to buy for? Any grown man. They have a tendency to buy themselves the things they hint at wanting before you have a chance to gift it to them...ie, while I was in Houston, Kevin bought himself the Netbook I was going to get him for Christmas.

8. Easiest person to buy for? My Mom, Sophia and the kids...pretty much anyone besides the grown men in my life.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? I do. An amazing hand carved Italian one from my Grandma that is so special to me I can't bear to put it out while I have small kids because if anything happened to it I'd die. I know that is so superficial, I mean it's just a THING and the memories it would bring my kids should matter more...but I'll let the kids gaze upon their greatness when they're old enough to not use them to play kitchen or something.

10. Mail or e-mail Christmas cards? Um, I love to receive them in the mail...especially since my friends have had kids and all...but I've have never once actually sent out Christmas cards before Christmas. One year I mailed them in March.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I don't even remember...

12. Favorite Christmas movie? "You're gonna shoot your eye out..."

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? when I was a workin woman it was after I got my Christmas bonus (which was the only way a single Mom could really afford to buy gifts) so it's always been pretty last minute.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I'm not tellin

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? I'm really not big on messing with tradition (ask my Mom, I grill her every Thanksgiving to make sure the menu will be EXACTLY the same as every year prior)...and my family does the big celebration Christmas Eve. After church we have a buffet on the kitchen table and we munch as we open gifts...Chick-Fil-A nugget tray, shrimp cocktail and cheddar biscuits from Red Lobster, veggies and Dill Dip, crescent rolls, colby jack cheese cubes, raspberry ginger-ale and wine as we got older...am I forgetting anything Sophia?

16. Lights on the tree? White with coordinating and complimentary ornaments...but as kids my Mom had a tree with all the collected and hand made ornaments complete with colored lights and I just loved it as a little girl. So hopefully I'll be able to do the same for my kids when they're old enough to notice.

17. Favorite Christmas song? remember how I'm into tradition? well my Mom played the same few Christmas records (yes, I said records) since as long as I can remember so those will always evoke that Christmas feeling in me...when we moved into the house they live in now, my Mom had the old school record player upstairs and we still put the records on and just jacked up the volume so we could hear it downstairs. We've since found all the records on CD!

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? My parents were the only ones of their families in Texas (my Mom's family lives in North Dakota and my Dad's in Arizona) so it's pretty much just been us at their house, with the exception of my grand parents coming down sometimes...so stay home I guess. Now that we all live so far apart it'll just be wherever we can get the most family together!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? nope

20. Donde esta 20 Heather?

21. Open presents Christmas Eve or morning? we open the gifts to and from each other on Eve and the Santa ones in the morning

22. Most annoying this about this time of year? *pulling out soap box* the growing trend to take the word Christmas out of Christmas...this year they lit the "Holiday trees" at the Uptown Tree Lighting. Um, they're called CHRISTMAS trees. They holiday is CHRISTMAS. If you don't like to say the word Christmas because it's somehow offensive to you, then don't celebrate the holiday. Don't accept the gifts. Don't take the bonus from your boss. Go to work on the 25th of December. No one has any issues with referring to the Jewish holiday as Hanukkah or the African American holiday as Kwanzaa...so why is it offensive to refer to the Christian holiday as Christmas? I'm just sayin...

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? A few years ago I was in this Moroccan kick with my apartment so I got these great ornaments that were dark purple, gold, bronze, dark red and burnt orange...it sounds funky but it totally works. promise. I've also seen great trees done in a dark aqua / blue and shades of green. Always love golds and whites. If I had un-ending decorating funds I'd have a tree in the girl's room that was flocked white with all glittery pink and silver ornaments and one in Hunt's room with pine cones and all things cowboy. A hand made ornament tree in the game room and the ginormous matchey ornament tree in the living room. A girl can dream. If I could afford it, every room would have plenty of adornment.

24. we're missing 24 too

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Well honestly, I've always always always wanted a Coach purse. I've been asking for Ray Ban aviators, a fun apron and a new watch for years. I'd love a good camera...like a Nikon or Cannon with the lenses and all. I want to get my teeth bleached. I'd adore some skinny...like a miracle pill or something. But really, the only thing I care about is spending Christmas with all three of my kids this year.

I know...I answer tag questions all rambley and it makes it kind of tedious to read my posts...but I'm a talker by nature.

My Big Girl

During the very short week I spent with my family in Houston, Cierra grew up...so for the sake of memory preservation, here are some current CC-isms. She has the best little kid mis-pronunciations:

*At night she sucks her "stung" (thumb)
*She often asks me to do her a "favorite" (favor)
*About forty times a day she asks me, "Mommy, are you happy to me?"
*I'm thinking that her pre-school taught her to "be a good listener" because she always says she's going to "be listen"...as in, "Don't worry, I be listen"

And the best one EVER...

*Last night she asked me if I wanted to see her "poop"...that would be her hoola hoop

I know there are so many more, but I'm drawing a blank!

Her hobby of choice these days is to walk around with the camera and take pictures of EVERYthing:

her sister




herself:


Nene:


her feet:


her bike:


her baby:


Lisa and Sheree:


Usually I go through the camera deleting all 95 pictures CC takes each day, but I thought I should keep a few and now she's standing next to me, about to come out of her skin she's so excited that I'm putting the pics she took on my "block".

Gotta love that girl :)

Catching up

I'm in one of my blog funks...I just can't seem to get motivated to post anything. I just now caught up on reading some of my favs but for the most part I've been a little anti-blogworld for a while now.

Anywho...I have been lucky enough to spend the last week in Houston with my family and the Hunt. Good Lord that boy turned into a KID! Plus he's six now!!!!!!!!!! I was going to post one of those long "Dear Hunter on your six year birthday" letters, but it makes a Mother sad not to spend his birthday with her baby, so I was a little weepy...plus his birthday occurred during my blog funk.

Since he's been living with his Dad my boy's preferences have gone from cartoons to ESPN. On Sunday he told me that we had to hurry home from church because NFL Football was coming on at 11:00! And watching a game with him is nuts...he really understands everything that's going on and he gets so into it! When he's not watching ESPN he's in the backyard playing football or practicing his golf swing. All boy I tell ya!

Oh, and spending time back in Houston has me constantly comparing life here to life in Montana. Soooooo different yall.

Texas definitely wins in the food category. Just this morning I realized that I'm leaving in two days and I still have so much left to eat. So I followed up my pancake breakfast with some left over Chinese food. I'll probably squeeze a turkey sammy and some left over fajitas in between now and dinner. I'm going to attempt to gain back all 15 pounds I lost in Montana in the next two days. If the last week is any indication, I'll probably hit my goal.

The other day my Mom and I ate mexi for lunch and a single tear trickled down my cheek when the waiter brought out the queso.

I wish I was kidding.

Montana sooooooo wins for weather though. I forgot how HUMID it is here. And it's Thanksgiving...it shant be 80 degrees out! In Feb I may decide that Houston wins back the weather category as I'm trucking through the snow. I'll keep you posted...well as long as I'm not in another funk.

Texas wins in the socializing category. It's been soooooo awesome to see some friends while I've been here. I didn't get to see everyone, and that makes me a little sad...but after having zero social interaction for 2-1/2 months, it's been good for my soul to chat with old friends! Maybe I should meet some people in Montana. Novel idea.

I've also taken to calling Montana "MontanYA" while I've been home. Not real sure why.

Montana also takes the news category. I'm so tired of hearing about someone getting shot. Or the person who was walking down Hwy 6 the other night (why?) and was hit by not one, but TWO cars...neither of which stopped. Ugh. There are too many people here, it just breeds madness.

Speaking of madness. I've never been much of a fan of the Black Friday shopping, fighting with some crazy caffeine binged Mom in a track suit over a game for Hunter's Wii is not worth the $5 I'd save...and after hearing about the seasonal employee who was trampled to death at the Wal Mart in NY...and the men who got into a gun fight at a Toys R Us (as my pastor said on Sunday, who brings a gun to Toys R Us????????????) I've decided that I will NEVER feed into that hype ever again. I can promise you this. You will never see me in a store on Black Friday. Especially since the only places I would go still have sales going on as we speak.

That got my all hot and bothered. I better soothe my soul with some pumpkin pie. Then my Dad and I are off to do a little shopping!

I have so many great pictures I need to post too...and lots of other kid related updates. So maybe I'll really break this funk with two posts in one day!

Viva la mexican food!

Real Quick...

I got in to Houston late last night, and I'm happy to say I've already had donuts, kolaches and Chick-Fil-A...oh how I've missed you Texas!

I'm fat, happy and tired...and it's only the first day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also worth mentioning (as I run out the door to play football with my baby boy who turned into a KID overnight)...Ryland is in love with her big brother. He hung her moon :)

Indecisive-ed-ness

Recently, I've been accused of being overly indecisive. I'm not going to name names, but I happen to live with said accuser. At first I blew it off...ya, indecisive, whatever. I'm just easy going. I'm as laid back as they come. I can't get all hot and bothered over such trivial things like making decisions.

Indecisive? Me? I don't think so.

Then I started thinking...dangerous, I know. More like obsessing. What he might think is indecisive-ed-ness is actually a very through thought process being played out in front of him. Instead of being annoyed, he should feel lucky to be privy to the inner workings of such a complex mind.

This is how it went down:

When Texas played OU my initial reaction was to go for Texas. Montana girl needs to be loyal to the Lone Star State right? Well, mid game my inner Aggie kicked in and there was no turning back. The Maroon in my blood wouldn't allow me to root for the enemy any longer. So I decided to root for OU instead. If yall aren't familiar with the outcome, I ended up picking the losing team. Those Longhorns always look so smug. Saw 'em off.

Same thing happened with the World Series. Prior to mating with a football player I was always a die hard baseball fan. I love love LOVE the Houston Astros, but the last two years have been spent knee deep in the pig skin...so I didn't even know who was vying for a spot in the World Series until we watched Tampa Bay win their series. Since we were along for their ride, and I didn't have any real ties to the Phillies, I decided I was going for the Rays. That was until I remembered my all time number one crush, Brad Lidge, was now pitching for Philadelphia. So I switched. And I think I took four years off Kevin's life.

As crazy as it makes him, he's come to expect that my standard answer to "what do you want to eat?" will always be, "I don't care...whatever", but now my alleged indecisive-ed-ness is interfering with his beloved, I'm flip-flopping teams during sporting events. How dare I? THE AUDACITY! And these aren't any ol sporting events! We're talking about the Red River Shoot Out and The World Series here!

I've tried explaining to him that I just have to go with my gut on these things. Sometimes I have to watch a little to decide who I'm going to pledge my undying loyalty to (for the next few hours at least).

Plus, I'm a girl. I pick teams because I think their city is preferable to the opponents city. Or because I like their uniform better. Maybe they have a better mascot. I mean who wants to spend hours yelling things like "let's go Nittany Lions!" I don't care how good Penn State is (or was, before the lost to Iowa)...you can't root for a team who's mascot is a made up animal! Right?

**Sidenote, UFC fights are an entirely different story...you always pick the better looking fighter. I almost didn't mention this because it's such common knowledge, but I thought I'd be fair and include it.**

Let me give you an example: Right now we're watching Monday Night Football, this is an easy decision for me...My reasons for choosing the Arizona Cardinals are three fold. One, McCain is from Arizona and I feel bad about the outcome of the election, so it's the least I can do. Two, I grew up in Tempe. Three, Pat Tillman, (a player who enlisted after 9-11 and was killed in combat) enough said.

But what if the Cardinals start beating San Fransisco really bad and they get all cocky? What if they start yelling ugly things like, "what's a 49er anyways?" "Yall don't even have a real mascot" "who's going to dress up like a gold miner?" What if their cheerleaders start actin a fool and picking fights amongst themselves? Am I expected to remain loyal amidst all this ridiculousness? Of course not. Does that make me indecisive? NO.

The definition of indecisive is, "one who can not make a decision" (I just made up that definition...I'm not gonna lie).

I CAN make a decision.

I just DECIDED to change my mind!

pulling up

I hear Ryland crying in her crib...she's obviously up from her nap, but I wasn't expecting to see this:

The sixth of the sixth

I'm doing Heather's tag....so above is the sixth picture from the sixth album in my picture files.

This is Claudius, my Dad's guide dog, playing tug with my Dad and Hunt. If you can tell by the look on Hunter's face, this is an all time favorite activity at my parent's house. For starters, it's one of the few occasions that The Claudster gets to act like a real dog and not a guide dog. His "ring" is one of the few toys Claud can have so we all really enjoy it...not gonna lie either, Claudius wins everytime. He's 85 lbs of pure muscle.

Ok, this is a hard post...there is so much I want to share about my Dad and Claudius and guide dogs in general. I'm going to have a hard time of organizing my thoughts so bare with me.

One day I'll explain how my Dad became blind, but for now I'll just say that it was THE most life altering change in my family's life...moreso than Hunter being born or anything you could even think of. It's been about 2-1/2 years now but for someone to go from full sight to no sight in a matter of days is more than most can comprehend. So last February when my Dad went to California for "dog camp" (as we like to call it...) and came home a month later with Claudius it was the greatest gift we could have hoped for. Claudius gives my Dad some freedom to do things on his own and not be dependant on us.

Since Claud is "working" most of the time, he doesn't get to do normal dog things...like play fetch or chase squirls. He doesn't get normal dog treats...but my Dad and the kids make him "dog-sicles" which is a piece of his regular dry food frozen into the center of an ice cube. Lord have mercy does Claud ever love those...if you open the freezer at my parent's house he assumes it's to get him a treat, so you better have one ready. We can't stand to disappoint The Claudster.

Little guide dog trivia for yall...there is only one guide dog of a particular name at a time, so there's only one trained dog named Claudius...on the off chance my Dad and him are out and cross paths with another guide dog, we'd hate for there to be any confusion. In my mind, when Claudius retires, his name will go back into the eligable dog name databse (which may or may not be a real thing...it's just how I understand it). And by "retire" I mean, retire from work as a guide dog, not retire in the final sense of the word.

Isn't Claudius the best dog name EVER though? It's so Spartan. You can't beat Spartan in my house. It's the ultimate compliment you can bestow upon a person.

From the day she was born, Claudius has had a slight aversion to Ryland. We think he's jealous. He LOVES Hunter and Cierra, he'll always be my Dad's dog first (he's been trained to be loyal to my Dad first and foremost...it's like the guide dog creed or something, I don't know) but Hunt is a very close second in Claud's world. As she does with all dogs, Cierra has a tendancy to "over-love" Claudius, but he's a trooper. Anyways, he'll love on the big kids, cuddle with them, let them use him as a pillow...whatever they want, but Ryland...he literally turns his nose up at her. When my Dad holds her, The Claudster full on pouts. I think he was ok with our family as it was when he met us...but then this new baby comes along and steals all his attention, and he's not havin it!

I need to dig up some more pics of Claud so yall can see how beautiful this dog is...he's the most gorgeous things there ever was.

I apologize for the non-flow-ed-ness of this blog but my baby girl has a cold and is refusing to nap and my big girl has asked me if we can go trick or treating every ten minutes...so my usual blog time has been compromised today!

So yall go do it now too...find the sixth picture in the sixth file in your pictures and blog about it! And do it now, before the sugar coma that comes along with this evening's activities sets in :)

My Baseball Boy

I love this picture

She Moves!!!!!!

Today, on her six month birthday...we finally have forward movement! Just as I thought it would happen too, Cierra had something Ryland wanted so she crawled after her to get it. Of course the only shots I got were before and after the big event.

Guess what I found?

The Camera Cord!!!!!!!!!!!!

So here are some of the pictures mising from previous posts!

These first few are from one of our Sunday drives...this is the kind of stuff we literally stumble upon. I always want to "drive up a mountain" so Kevin finds random roads and this is what we see:

Daddy and his girls...I can't believe they're all looking at the camera!

CC LOVES to wash the dishes, she asks me to do it every day...and what kind of Mother would I be if I didn't let her explore her domestic intrests...haha

The best purchase EVER...Ry loves this thing:

REALLY trying to crawl:

My beautiful birthday presents (Trev & Sophia sent me some awesome presents too and I loved the paper but I didn't get a picture...bad Erin) from my parents and Hunt, tulips from CeCe and a card from Sabrina.

The infamous chocolate cake...this was RIGHT after I took it out of the oven. I think I was pulling it out with one hand and taking my first bites with the other. I'm not even kidding.

Trying really hard to get a picture of the snow on my birthday

I look kind of crazy in this picture...maybe it's because I'm 28 now. We were trying to get the snow again.

Our drive last weekend...Kevin pulled off the side of the road so Cierra and I could feel if the water was cold or not. It was. But can yall believe that this is what's off the side of the road here? I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it is. On this particular drive I was asking Kevin why more people don't live in Montana...it's breathtaking. You can read my post from yesterday to find out the reason why I think more people don't live here. haha

Ok, this is the best...so we're heading down the road and there's a sign that says "Garnet Ghost Town" and there's an arrow pointing to this small road...so what else do you do when you happen upon a ghost town? Well you check it out of course!!!!!!!! It was 11 miles up a winding mountain road so it took about 30 min to get to it. This house was on the way up...there was a historical marker thing explaining that this used to be a mining area (Garnet Mountain) and they built a small cabin in this area for the fire watcher to sit for look out and check for forest fires. They've since made a newer cabin and it's used as a refuge for snowmobilers who run into bad weather. The cabin has fire wood, matches and a wood burning stove. So I guess if you like to ride snow mobiles in the woods I'd suggest you do it in relative proximity to this cabin...just in case.

The most amazing view in the history of views. They called this a "scenic point"...understatement of the century.

Cierra checking out the ghost town.

This is on the drive back down the mountain...amazing.