A day in the life of Tarena.....

Actually that should be more like morning/mid-afternoon in the life of Tarena. Today Keaton and Jackson came to play and honestly, I was a little intimdated. But ready to do it....but a little worried...I've faithfully kept up on Tarena's blog and I know Keaton can make a person cry. So..her dear husband Tim calls at 6:45 am or so (I'm already awake knowing they are coming around 7) and in the background I hear the boys arguing fiercely. (My little one is still fast asleep). I think I started to sweat...

They got here and in the first 5 min I think Keaton had touched everything in the living room and asked at least 2 questions about everything he touched. Mostly 'What is this?' 'What does this do?' So by the time we got to breakfast by 8:20 or so he had asked AT LEAST a thousand questions.

So we had a little conversation that went like this:
T: Ok Keaton, I have 100 questions for you. Do you think you can answer that many?
K: Why?
end of conversation....

No, but after that I think I got like four in...:O) Keaton did great, wasn't as difficult as I planned on him being (whew, I guess I have a pretty good imagination) and found out that Jackson is as much of a 'get-in-ta' as Lisa's Gracie is. For those who haven't been around toddlers for awhile, that's the phrase for those children who manage to get into everything you might think they'll get into, and then exceed your expectations. See, I never heard much about Jackson on Tarena's blog, so I assumed he was just a hang around, do whatever everyone else is doing kind of kid. Well, his thing (at least at our house) was opening closed doors and being where no one else was. So that equated to spending a lot of time playing in the toilet. Keaton did a good job trying to keep the bathroom door closed, but the problem is that Jackson can open closed doors...and then lock himself in the bathroom so that he could continue playing in the toilet uninterrupted!! Fortunately our doors are those easy-to-open-even-if-they're-locked kind, which made Jackson turn around and frown when Keaton and I intruded.

After the rainy morning the sun kinda peeked out so the boys headed outside to do yardwork. Apparently our yard brings this out in young boys...(like Tyson's pinecone pick-up from a few days ago) Keaton had fun raking leaves and Jackson ran around and climbed on Jada's A-frame ladder.

We had time to bake Apple Bread, which was fun to do as a team. There was flour all over the table and muddy shoe prints on the floor. While it was baking Jackson had time to sneak into the hall closet and then clean the bathroom with febreeze. It smelled great!! :O) I noticed after they left he had moved the knick-knacks off the toilet and there were muddy handprints all over the back and lid of the toilet, presumably because he was 'cleaning' them...

Oh! And the best phrase of the day from Keaton was this: 'Is there one I can do sitting down? I'm getting tired.' Of course I had him repeat the phrase!!! What lead up to that was he had earned game time on the Nintendo Wii, and the game selections we have require you to be standing up hitting a baseball, swinging a golf club or tennis racket, throwing (rolling) a bowling ball or boxing with two hands. There isn't an option to be sitting down and doing them, it's just not possible. So apparently he had tired himself out doing all of those things! He did a great job following directions so he was able to play a few times. Wow! I never thought I would hear those words!!

Well, I still have some muddy footprints to mop up, but my reward will be eating some yummy Apple Bread!! Tyson cried when they left, I think he enjoyed watching 'the Big Boys' and learning from them. He has a little tool bench to hammer on that he is doing better with after watching Keaton and Jackson play with it. He played with it all evening, even in between trick or treaters. (He loved answering the door and seeing all the different costumes!!)

Whew...see you again soon Beckham's!!! Oh, and Jada slept all afternoon....

Too bad there aren't any photos, but the camera broke permanently the other day...

If you pop over to Tarena's blog she tells about what's going on with her right now. (Which is why the kids were over) If you think to, pray for her, that God would heal her body so that she can get back on her feet with these kiddos!! We know that God can do more than we think is possible!!

Workin' Out

Taking Initiative

At what point do little boys learn about working hard and taking initiative? If asked this question a couple weeks ago I (Jason) would have guessed it would happen in the teenage years. And that it would be an uphill battle to teach a boy such skills. But I watched Tyson do the most amazing thing the other day that it has inspired me to come out of blog hibernation and share it with you.

So, it all started when Tyson and Jada convinced me to take them into the backyard to play. As we walked down the stairs into the grass, Jada began sniffing her favorite spots, Tyson wandered off babbling and singing, and I looked intently for the tennis ball to play fetch with Jada. I was lost in my own adventure of raking through leaves and avoiding Jada's "land mines" in search of the small, greenish Wilson brand tennis ball. At one moment I had looked up and caught a glimpse of Tyson walking with a pine cone in hand, still babbling as he went.

Finally, after a couple minutes I found my treasure and began coaxing Jada to come play with me. I looked around for Tyson to make sure he wasn't getting in to troubles. I found him walking towards the concrete slab, where our garbage, yard debris, and recycle receptacles sit. In his hands were a couple more pine cones. I found this odd, so I followed. He walked over to the concrete slab and put them on the ground next to the other pine cone I had seen him carrying earlier. He was making a pile to put in the yard debris container. Granted, he has seen me do this a couple of times. But, with no prompting at all, he had decided to do some "yard work". Of course I had to take advantage of the much needed help in the yard, so I joined him picking up cones for 5-10 more minutes. What a boy!

a day at the park!

Last Saturday we had our family pics taken down at a local park by a great photographer, Tarena Beckham. Tyson was a bit cranky as he had only slept a half an hour, sat in his carseat for 2 hrs while we ran errands all across town and was ready to eat dinner, though he was content to munch on crackers and cheese. She is still in the process of going through the 500 photos she took, but she is giving us a sneak peak on her website of one of our pictures....Thanks Tarena for a fun time and for all the work you're putting into these photos! I look forward to seeing the 'outtake' photos as well, which are probably more true to our family! Click here for the family photo...

p.s. She blogs a lot quicker than we do...so look for the Oct. 21st blog! :O)

We're picking pumpkins?

What do we do with those??

waving 'hi' to the camera

It seems everywhere we go there are these really cool 'sandboxes' made from dried corn kernels. We love them, as they don't get us covered in dirt!!! :O)

A Week of Adventure

At the end of September we made our way down to southern Oregon to celebrate with Jason's cousin Mic and his new bride Jen at their wedding. It was in the evening at a beautiful old hotel and it was really pretty!! We spent the night, then joined the family the next morning for breakfast/brunch. After our big breakfast together Jason and I took off for a weekend in Reno and Tyson went back to Eugene with Grandma/Grandpa and Aunt Nikki. Meanwhile, Jada had fun being a farm dog for a week!

Tyson had a fun time, even had time to work on a few first masterpieces!!

more pictures to come from our trip...:O)