The day a frog ate the boy and a squirrel went crazy...

This past weekend this frog ate our boy...


That is pure terror in his face... I think...


But he was determined not to be kept down by the frog.
"Don't worry guys! I won't leave without you!" he cried.

He made it out... but let's not mention the ducks... it was a tragic. They put up a good fight.
"Hey, what's that?"

Why, it's a squirrel bravely digging for nuts mere feet away from our house.
(Everyone now..."Don't touch that squirrel's nuts. You'll make him crazy!")

We seem to be more afraid of the squirrel than he is of us. Or maybe I was the only one seeing visions of violent scratches and rabies shots.

But never fear, Chia the Wonder Dog is here.

Buffalo Bill and the Argo Mine

Later in the week we set out for part two of our vacation... hanging out at the cabin. It is a 3 hr. drive from Denver, so we made some stops along the way.

Take a deep breath... can you smell it? The fresh air, the pine scent... can you feel the cool breeze? Now, if you feel a little dizzy then stop breathing so deeply, after all... we are at a very high altitude and you may pass out with this thin air. But it's worth it, let me tell you! Oh, this is Buffalo Bill's view... well, you know... if he weren't buried.

These are buffalo, they were not at the grave, I just thought I would throw them in at this point. I needed the stronger zoom lens for my new camera to have gotten a better picture. The light brown spots are the babies.

The Argo Mine:

Katie is looking for gemstones (she is a smart girl)...

The boys are looking for gold...

Then everyone looked for gold...

This is the boy throwing a fit because he didn't get to look for gold...

So he went to jail...

...more to come. I know you just can't wait!!

I need a vacation now that I am back from vacation...

...I hate that.


Taking a 7 day vacation with an 11 month old is not really all that fun. I am not sure what I was thinking, or if I was even thinking at all. All that time of not being on his schedule, not sleeping well at night or for naps, riding in the car day in and day out... I have learned my lesson. But, despite all that, I was in my most favorite place in the world (that I know of so far)... COLORADO! So, now I can bore everyone with my vacation pictures.


We started off our trip visiting some of the husband's family and hanging out in the Denver area.


Hammond's Candy Factory Tour

One ginormous lollipop...

(Note that Katie has a lovely tan, while the Pasty White's are segregated to the other side of the lollipop. Oh to be young and fearless of cancer and wrinkles!)

The boy's favorite part of the tour... the bear that ate his finger.

It reminded me of the Dam Tour (as in Hoover Dam) from National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation... I don't know why... one has nothing to do with the other. But I kept referring to it as the "Dam Tour" which I am sure nobody else really understood, but it cracked me up and that is all that matters, right?

All the candy is made by hand, packaged by hand, and labeled by hand (that is a heck of a lot of hands). These ladies are making the ribbon candy. I am sure they just LOVE having their hind-quarters photographed all day long. Hmmm.... how annoying we must have been. Anyway, the lady in white is shaping the candy with a handy machine (cranked by hand) and the one in the orange is making the ribbon candy uniform in size. Can't you just feel the excitement in the air?

This is a hard candy press from the 1940's. As you may be able to tell, it made Christmas candy in it's day.

Here we are... being tourists.

So, that is all for today. But don't worry, there are lots more photos to bore you with. Stay tuned for tomorrow... Buffalo Bill's Grave and Argo Mine!

A Family Time Break...

I am taking a break for a bit to spend some time with my family. I will be back in a couple of weeks. Hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th!

Drinking out of a straw...(written by the boy)

The other day my mom and dad made me go with them to some places. I don't know where we were because I couldn't read, but the places had clothes and shoes and bright lights. I mostly ate my Cheerios and sat in my rolling-seat thing. Most of the day, mom kept trying to cram things on my feet while saying things like "Why don't they make baby shoes as wide as they are long?" and "I guess you will never have shoes for the rest of your life." These things she called shoes, I didn't like them. I spent most of the time pulling them off while she was trying to get them on. I guess I won, because I still don't have any on my feet.

And did I mention that it was a very hot day? Man, my face was red and mom yanked off all my clothes in the parking lot... right in front of everyone. I had to get into the car with nothing but my Pooh diaper. Anyway, we finally got back home after making a stop at some place where they bring food out to your car on little red trays. I didn't get anything, and mom and dad just got cups. Then when we got home I decided I wanted to try what was in those cups, it sure did look good. So mom gave me a drip from her straw. HOLY GUACAMOLE (whatever that means) that was the best thing I have tasted in a while! Maybe ever. It was like my milk... only way better. Dad let me drink out of his cup then, while mom got out that big black thing she always has stuck to her face. She thought I should add these so you could see my new amazing trick:

I think I need to work out some more. Anyway, they seem to think that I am a genius (whatever that is) because I can drink from a straw. I don't know what the big deal is, give me some of that special milk and I will drink from a straw any day. Gotta go, mom says it is time for bed... crap.

Why? Because I am your Aunt and I think it is funny!!

(and your mom might have told me to... I'm not saying she did, just that it is possible it may have come up in a conversation at some point)

Especially for my sweet, precious, adorable Fovi... I mean younger L.

(You gotta love the hair)

And it would just be rude if I left out D... so here you go sweet, adorable, precious Sewer Booty... uh, I mean D.

VBS week...need I say more?

So this week is VBS... and never again will I do 4th grade crafts, no matter how much someone begs and pleads and signs me up to do it even though I haven't said yes to it myself. And I say this, not because I hate doing the crafts (I heart crafts), or because the children are bad (they are wonderful) but it stresses me out too much. Every night I have been preparing, fretting, re-preparing, fretting, etc. Anyway, we are having a great time... and I am glad to be there.

Then this weekend is the BIG birthday for the husband! I won't say how old he will be for those who don't already know. I am sure he would complain about me broadcasting that out to the world! So we will be BUSY!!

But the boy has two teeth nubbins! Finally!!! He "bites" everything, especially the backs of my legs while I am standing in the kitchen (which seems to be all the time). And he pretty much drips non stop. But I have been mourning the the thought of losing that gummy grin! It is just too adorable. And soon I will never see it again... unless of course he doesn't take care of his teeth and they rot out, but still that just isn't the same.

So, in celebration of the toothless... I present to you THE TOOTHLESS GRIN:

The Haps...

So I have been working on Caden's bathroom. It is slow going with all the other stuff that is going on in my life at the moment. But I will get it finished some day soon. My mom came last week and we worked on these...

Are those the not the cutest things? This is his shower curtain...

More on that later.

I am also in the process of organizing my new scrapbooking desk!! Yea!! Please note two things about the following pictures...

1)I am in the process of organizing.

2) This is the game room of our house and has yet to be updated. Actually, other than the master bath, it is the only room we really need to update. So, please note that the dark and dingy walls do not excite me in the least! But they will just have to do for now, we have big plans for this room's future.

This is the Expedit desk from Ikea... I love Ikea. I still have lots more painting, sewing and organizing to try to get done as soon as possible. The good news is that I have a wonderful helper... in fact he is helping me type right now! Gotta love having to backspace every other letter and start again. Sigh.

Speaking of the boy... he is trying his hand at feeding himself.

Oh, it's a fun stage. Looking at the aftermath makes me break out in a sweat every time. It is just so fun to clean it all up... three times a day... every.single.day.

The Pasty White Family Swims

For our Memorial Day celebrations this year, we bought the boy a pool. Now for those of you who know us well, you know that one of the reasons that we moved was to get rid of our pain-in-the-you-know pool. So we have down sized big time. After shopping for, purchasing, inflating, and filling...we sat in the ice cold water...in the rain...and splashed around. We are such a pale white family that we all pretty much blended in to the white bottom of the pool, it was like camo for pasty people.

I have been busy, busy, busy... thus the lack of posts. I will update soon because there have been big happenings in the Adventures household. Well, not that big... don't get too excited! But still there are some things worth mentioning. Right now I am needing to finish up at least half of the bazillion projects I have going on, but I hope to get my life organized here pretty soon... ha... I almost said that with a straight face!

My Mother's Day Prediction...

On my first real Mother's Day (not that being pregnant didn't make me a mother, too), I sat in our dining room-turned play room and happily played with my little boy. We laughed, he drooled, we bounced balls, I created towers and he destroyed them, and we made a wild ruckus. Then THIS happened...


I could NOT believe what I had just seen, so I went and got the camera and coaxed him to do it again. And sure enough... he did it again! The first time he walked the length of the long window, crossed to the second window then dropped down to get to a toy.

My prediction... he will be full blown walking by ten months. Oh Lord, what will I do then? There will be no stopping him and never again will I ever get anything accomplished! Sigh.

Cheerios...they're not for everyone...

I always wanted a personal assistant...

Before I became a stay-at-home-mom I had HUGE plans for what my days would be like. I have a three page "to-do" list of closets to clean out, rooms to paint, things to organize, furniture to refinish... etc. Yeah right.

The good thing about being a mom is that I have my own personal assistant. He is every place I go, watching every thing I do... whether I want his help or not.

He plans the meals for the week...

He helps me search for misplaced items...

He helps me wash windows...

He helps me baby-proof... (does this defeat the purpose?)

So, the list keeps growing and nothing ever seems to get done. But I really like my new assistant.

Here we go...

This morning when I went to get my sweet little boy out of his bed...

...he was standing up.

Crap.