Pictures of the puppies

The puppies eyes are just starting to open. They are almost two weeks old. Their names are Buck, Buttercup, Muffin, Sparkle, Cloudy and something (can't remember). We are enjoying them, all but cleaning up poop.

The happy and the sad

Ginger had her puppies on Sunday night. She had seven puppies, but the first was born dead. I think he drowned because it took too long for him to be born. I tried to resuscitate him but no luck. When the next puppy was born, I almost cried to see a squirming body. The next pup born took quite a while and I went to bed afterward as it was past 1 AM. Michaela informed us the next day that there were six puppies. They are very cute. Ginger is a great mother. The puppies are already little roley-polies. When I get my camera out of the cold van, I will take some pictures. . .
That was the mostly happy news. Nutmeg on the other hand lost both her kittens. They were still-born. Nutmeg had trouble birthing the first and I had to help her by pulling it out. This was after an undetermined amount of labor as I woke up to the kids saying she was giving birth. I went to watch how she was doing and realized too late that something was wrong. It was a sad day.
Nutter seems to have weathered the situation well, though.

Anybody want a cute little lab/malumute?? So cute. . . Check back for pics:)

Thanksgiving at Grandma's

We took a bold (or insane) step and decided to go to Washington State for the Thanksgiving holiday. We missed last year because the babies were so young and I was still nursing. So we packed up our bags and hit the road. We left on Friday right after school. We drove to Boise and spent the night in a motel. The kids went swimming before we left the next morning. We drove the next day until we made it to Bremerton at 8:30PM. It was a very loooong trip. The little boys had not built up a tolerance to numb rear-ends and tingling feet, so they cried from stir-craziness. It's OK when one is crying because I can hold one, but when both are crying and we are tired of the drive, it's bad news. We made it in one piece though, barely.
We stayed at Grandma's house and enjoyed seeing lots of family. We saw Annaliese and Addie. We so enjoyed watching her smile and coo. We saw Diane and Ryan momentarily before they left back to UT. We enjoyed the presence of Orson before he left to go back to WA State. We got to know Anthony a bit more and wanted to hire him as a replacement chef at the Nelsonranch. We soo enjoyed playing cards with Penny and soaking in her exuberance for life. We drove over to see Arielle, Dave and Grayson. Grayson is getting so big and has such a happy personality. It was great fun to hang out and be with the sis-in-laws.

We went to Illahee park and walked on the dock checking out the sea-life. There were people there crabbing.

It was a beautiful day. You could see Mt Rainer from the beach. We played on the big artillery guns and the playground.

We went to visit Paul's friend Sean Olmstead who owns a nursery in Silverdale.

They had a couple reindeer there and a building that was decorated beautifully inside with Christmas lights.

They turned on the snow machine when we were there. (It makes you sneeze though)
We also went out to Fort Wordon.

This was a military base in the early 1900's that protected the Puget Sound from invading ships.

A sign posted on the trails to the batteries said to watch out for aggressive coyotes and to keep an eye on your little ones.

Tessa wielded a stick after we read that sign. It is an amazing view of the ocean there. The kids taunted the waves, racing away as the water rolled up the beach.

We played racketball with Dave and Claire and tried our first sushi in the form of California rolls. Can't say I will do that again. . .
We went to Dave and Claire's house for Thanksgiving dinner and enjoyed the company of Claire's family and CJ, Kenneth, and Dominick. The food was incredible!!
We left to go home to UT on Friday.

We barely caught the ferry to Seattle and played a game of "Cover your Assets" our favorite card game. We then went over to the gingerbread house display that was soo not what we were expecting.

The line was too long and the display was too small. We stopped at the Curiousity shop for old times sake. Next we drove to see Grandpa Nelson's gravesite.

Paul hadn't been back to see it since his dad died. Then it was off to see Ken and Rosy. We stopped in for a quick visit. They fed us and entertained us graciously. We needed to put some more miles behind us so we left for Baker OR.
When we woke the next morning (let me just note how lovely it is to try and get 10 people to sleep at 12:30 AM) the kids went swimming again and then we went over to the house my dad lived in when he was first born. I wished that I had gone over to the cemetary to track down some ancestors. We then drove to Ogden and stopped to see Grandpa Andrews, Patti and Great-Grandma Johnson. We had delicious burritos and they loaded us down with some yummy food. It was wonderful to see my Grandmother. She is now 94! We finally made it home at 9:30 PM and we all raced in to see if Nutty had her kittens.
Nope, not yet.
If you are reading this still and are awake, I am amazed.

Little Moments passed-up

Arrgh! I am kicking myself. There was a little rascally twiners moment that I chose to miss documenting: I kept calling Alex to get dressed and there were no pattering of little feet. Then Danny went missing and it was quiet. Finally I quit cleaning to track them down. I heard little noises coming from the kitchen. (Alex and Danny are now able to reach up to the counter and pull things off.) Alex had happened to grab the sugar container and dumped about a cup full on the floor. The boys were happily taking care of the mess, one mouthful at a time. After I was almost done cleaning them up, I thought it would have been a good memory. I wished I had stopped and taken a moment to capture it on camera. I must be growing more tolerant, to think this way. When Isaac did this same thing (but really the size of a mini sugar dune), I was not a happy camper. Maybe, by the time I am a grandma, no matter what the grandkids do, it will be precious, right?

News Alert. . . Nutmeg is pregnant. This was planned. We wanted one last set of kitties. Due in two weeks or so. Anyone want a cute little Nutter kitty?
News Alert. . . Ginger is pregnant, too. Not Planned! Possible Lab/Malmute/Wolf mutts. Due in a month?

Halloween Fun

We had lots of fun this Halloween. We went to our Ward Fall Festival/Trunk-o-treat, enjoying the company, games and candy fest. On Thursday night, we carved pumpkins. I believe I scaped out 6 pumpkins, sigh.Friday we raced to the kids school parade and back home to prepare for the evening festivities.

Bryce carved some wolves howling
Michaela carved the spiderweb
Ronnie, Isaac and Danny's pumpkin
Danny and Alex pose while the kids go off to gather the loot

Trey's pumpkin commandeered by his mother when he didn't want to carve it himself. It's supposed to be a haunted house, but I carved it as fast as I could. . .

Alex putting up with his mum trapping him in the giant Rubix cube

Grotto Get-away

A couple weeks ago we took a quick trip to the Grotto up Payson canyon. This hike is about 25 minutes tops off the main road. I never knew such a cool place existed so near and I've lived here 15 years. We need to do more adventuring to find these neat places.

The hike was uphill toward the end of the trail and crossed a stream a few times. There were narrow wooden bridges that gave access to the other side. Ginger helped pull the stroller up the trail. We took the stroller over one and then ditched it as the trail got harder to maneuver.

The is a water fall that comes over the edge into a cavern. The water was icy. Night was falling quickly, so picture taking was limited.

We had a little picnic of peanut butter and raspberry-peach jam. We walked back to the van in the twilight. It was a fun little jaunt.

A few more noteworthy moments

When we went to the cabin this summer, I took this picture while the babies were taking a bath.

Another cute twin moment. The boys follow each other around, show concern if the other is crying by patting their back and mimic each other's noises.

Isaac turned seven a few weeks ago. He enjoyed the swords but they lasted about 10 mins.

We took a trip to Southridge Farms to pick out pumpkins. It was an amazingly beautiful and pleasant day. We took a hay ride to the patch, picked out pumpkins and bought some yummy apple juice and fudge.