Catch up

 One trip to California, Thanksgiving, two birthdays, a visit to Santa, decorating the Christmas tree........so much to post and so little time to do it!  It's been a few weeks since I last posted anything, and a lot has gone on.  Here's as brief as I could get in a single blog post.

First we headed down to California for a whole week.  Weston got to help on the dairy, and Flo was really happy to get to hang out there all week too.  I especially like the picture of Weston bringing Danny a breeding glove, while dragging it through the muck the entire way. 

Grandma and Grandpa were also visiting from Montana, so the boys got to spend lots of time at their California house.

We got to spend some time with the Machado Family, and our god daughter Lucy.  Newt got a hold of my camera and I have a zillion pictures of people standing in front of their fish tank....had to post at least one of them.

Then came Thanksgiving.  We spent most of the day with the Weststeyn side of the family.  This year it was held at Jay and Linda's new home, which was perfect for all the kiddos.  Weston had a ball hanging out with his cousin Evie.  It was a little drizzly all day and by the end of the night they were all covered in mud.  

This year Tyge's birthday fell on Thanksgiving day.  We had an official birthday party the following evening, complete with Pizza Plus pizza (we can't find great pizza like that in Oregon).  Tyge and Kash had a ball playing with his new gift, a ride-on CAT truck.  The end of the night concluded with three little boys all in one bath tub. 

 

 On the way down and on the way back home we split the drive into two days so I could look at some properties I am appraising near the CA/OR border.  Weston wasn't too crazy about staying in a hotel tat first night, kept telling me he wanted "my bed" or "I go to Avo's house".  On the way back home he settled in pretty quickly.  Nothing says road trip like feeding two kids fast food on the floor and sleeping in a dresser drawer.       

 Finally back home, that next week we went to visit Santa Claus in downtown Brownsville, part of their "Home for the Holiday's" celebration which is targeted at getting people to shop locally.  Weston walked in, saw Santa and headed to the corner of the room where he saw his friend Evelyn playing with some toys.  Tyge was interested though, and after a few minutes he crawled right up on Santa's lap.  After a while Weston decided he could go too, and took my hand to walk over.  I put him on Santa's lap and he proceeded to tell him that we wanted a train.  I put Tyge back up there for a picture of them together, but at that point he had had enough.  Later that evening Weston helped with the finishing touches on our tree.


Weston's Birthday.  The day after our Santa adventure we celebrated Weston's birthday, having a few of our close friends over to eat Sopas (Portuguese beef and cabbage with bread) and lego cake.  Weston thought the day was great, loved his presents and has been playing with his Thomas the Train lego set ever since.  Although he still says that Santa is bringing him more trains. 

Lastly, a few more pictures of the boys and the Christmas tree....in matching Christmas jammies from Aunt Tami. 

Let's hope I don't wait as long as I did last time to do my next post.....it's too much work to sort through so many pictures at once!!!

Seating arrangements

The other night Weston was trying to figure out how to talk Daddy into letting him sit in the recliner.  Unfortunately after a long day of work, Daddy wouldn't budge, so Wes had to come up with his own version.

Tyge too has been looking for a good place to rest his tush, and I don't think the toy bin was doing much for him. 

Grandma to the rescue!  Two large boxes showed up at the door today.  Birthday presents that came early, but in my opinion they came just in time....perfect solution to our "lack of kid friendly seating" problem. 

Glad I stopped on the way home today to rent some movies too, because life can't get much better than this for these two kids.  Fish sticks and mac & cheese for dinner, warm bath, fuzzy jammies, comfy chairs and Cars 2 on the TV!

Can't think of a good title for this post....

....just some random pics of the boys.

"What mess?"

"another picture mom?"

"Oreo, what Oreo?"

Ride'em Cowboy!

Ready for bed....got my sousha, water and cow pillow.

Yummy Olives!

Loving the new bunk beds....so much he couldn't wait for me to put sheets on the top bunk.

Halloween

Ok, so it's been 12 days, I guess I better post some Halloween pictures and tell you about the night.  It started out with some pre-trick or treating pizza.  

And then we were off....one of our first stops was to see our friend Monica.  Then we did looped around the block.  About 3/4 of the way into it Weston was tired out and wanted to go home.  Probably because for the first half of the night he ran to each door. 

 And the winner is......

 .....Giraffe costume!  I really thought he was going to be a turtle until I realized that you couldn't put him in his car seat or stroller with a big shell on his back.

And did you figure out what Weston's costume was?  He was a fly fisherman...here he is with his pole that he refused to touch until the next morning (when he then didn't want to put down).  He also refused pictures all night, so that's why other than a couple action shots, I have nothing but pictures of his hands trying to cover the lens.

Halloween Preview

After an entire week of having sick kids, I've never been so happy to see solid poop in their diapers. Yes, I said it, solid poop!  Hard enough having one sick kiddo, but two at the same time, plus a sick husband!!!  Four days of little sleep, cleaning up vomit, loads and loads of laundry....lets just say I'm exhausted!  One afternoon when I was changing the sheets on one of the beds I threw the comforter on the floor, and for a few moments I got a glimpse of normalcy.  Both boys had a ball rolling around on it, playing peek a boo, etc.  Who knew it would be that entertaining?  But it only last a few minutes, because soon what little energy they had was zapped and they were both needed a rest.

 Today is Friday and Halloween is just three days away.  I'm sewing part of Weston's costume and was trying to convince him to put it on to size it.  But he wanted no part of it.  In an effort to convince him costumes were fun, I tried one out on Tyge since I'm still debating what he should be....turtle (costume handed down from his cousin Reese) or Giraffe (costume handed down from his brother).  I have to say, he does make a pretty cute turtle. 

We also made and decorated cookies....because what better thing for a sick kid to do than eat cookies?  Weston cut all of them out for me, including "footballs for Daddy" and "Dinosaur's for Jay".  The dinosaurs for Jay threw me off a little....but then I remembered that we were over there last week and he must have saw Jay's dinosaur Halloween costume hanging in the living room.  I was able to frost most of the cookies while he napped, but he got up just in time to help me finish them.   

Yesterday the boys received Halloween cards from Aunt Tracy, Uncle David and cousin Matthew....Weston's with cut out glasses.  Only got him to put them on for a quick picture because he thinks they are better suited for Flo (poor dog). 

Hopefully in a few days we will convince Weston to finally put his costume on (I'll admit that we will likely bribe him with candy) and I'll have lots more pictures to share.

Cows, Cows and More Cows

One of our favorite parts of each day is helping checking cows. Moving, feeding, vaccinating or just checking on them...Weston will tell you all about it.  Tyge is getting in on the action now too.  He was pretty content watching them run through the chute the other day.  But soon he started walking down the fence line to check out the ones we already turned back out.

Both kiddos really enjoy riding the four wheeler out to the feeder by the pond.  Weston will yell "here cows", and thinks it's pretty great when they try and eat out of the trailer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weston tells us all the time that he "gotta go check Jacob's cows".  Usually that's followed by "and see Madison and Stephie", he thinks since we are there he needs to play with the girls too.  Right now we own a bull with a neighbor, and one of our momma cows is out in that pasture as well.  Even in a group of black cows Weston can pick the bull out of the herd "that one is Bif".  The rest are all "Jacob's cows", regardless of who's cows are actually out there.  If they are at Jacob's house, they are his and don't try and tell him any different...apparently my 3 year old knows it all!

Follow up to last week's Wordless Wednesday...

Not just spoons anymore!

Wordless Wednesday

Bees

 That great new swing set I just told you about, well the bees like it too.  Weston got stung his first time playing on it.  This time it was a honey bee.  Danny got the stinger out, but unfortunately it was really close to his eye.  Shortly after we had breakfast....you can see some slight redness.  And no, Weston didn't eat that entire plate of bacon (but close to it!). 

Twenty-four hours later....

 We know from previous experience that he swells up like crazy, and there isn't much we can do about it but wait it out.  Luckily he isn't allergic, and it doesn't seem to bother him. 

Garage sales

Like any normal person, I just can't pass up a bargain and from time to time I've stopped at a garage sale or two to see what I can find.  A few weeks back I purchased twenty canning jars for just $2 (and they already have been used for spaghetti sauce).  Danny finds often finds tools he can use for work, and I'm always on the lookout for random old stuff (milk cans/bottles, old brands, etc.).  I even got a steel on a Preifert cattle chute once!  This last weekend I was headed to the grocery store and saw some signs for a "reduction sale".  Since the property was out in the country (those are the best ones), I couldn't help but stop.  This time I found something for the kids and for only $20 bucks I couldn't pass up this gently used swing set! 

I bought it with little hesitation and Danny headed back to the sale with me the next day to pick it up.  He wasn't even finished putting it back together before Weston was climbing all over it (still in his jammies too).

We moved Tyge's swing off the patio so he can enjoy the new swing set too.  And he thinks he's figured out the slide already. 

Lone Pine Farms

I guess I can say it's a Fall tradition....last Saturday we headed out to Lone Pine Farms for our third annual visit.  We were in Eugene for a calf sale, and since it was a sunny Saturday afternoon I thought it would be a great day for a visit to the pumpkin patch.  And so did everyone else!!!  We actually pulled in, saw all the cars and started heading for the parking lot exit thinking to ourselves "no way, not today".  Then a spot opened up right in front and I thought it must be a sign that it was meant to be.  So I made an executive decision (Danny wasn't so sure about it) that since we were already there, we would brave the crowd.   

We started off the visit by checking out the goats, who weren't that interested in us.  Likely because they had already had their fill of 25 cent food from a thousand other kids that day. 









Next we headed to the corn maze.  Weston thought it was pretty cool but we were a little worn out at the half way mark and so we skipped the option to continue. 

Then there was the tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch.  Cousin Alexx came down to visit us from school for the weekend, so she was able to keep Tyge entertained.

 

 

Overall not a bad afternoon...even with all the other families out there that day!