Autumn

Just a few pics from autumn 2009:
Autumn fairy
Sasha is giving her big sister the "I'm watching you" sign and glare.
Cassie spent days slaving away, raking leaves

Pumpkin Pie

My little helper likes pumpkin pie.
A few weeks ago, my husband was given a BUNCH of small pie pumpkins by a local farmer. After baking and pureeing one pumpkin, I found that each pumpkin yields me about two pies each. That's a lot of pies. We have at least 10 pumpkins, and I've baked about 6 pies so far. Six down, fourteen to go. So we've been busy. I've been able to bake and store a few pumpkins worth of puree in the freezer, and it seems to bake okay after freezing.
Fortunately, we love the pies.

Kisses in her pocket

As I posted before, Sasha has this cute thing she does when she says goodbye to someone. She gives them an extra "kiss" for them to put in their pocket and take with them. Usually this is for my husband when he leaves for work in the morning.
Yesterday, she noticed the sweater she was wearing had pockets on it. I was in a silly mood, and gave her a kiss and told her to put in in her pocket. She gave me a quizzical look and asked me, "Now I can go to work?!?"
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Vanity

I know I still have to at least post about Sasha's third birthday and her party, which occurred almost a month ago. But I wanted to share this picture of the vanity table set that Sasha received for her birthday. Her grandma and dad built it for her and it's quite cute.
She also received many costumes and children's play make-up, so that she can play dress-up. Yesterday, we finally got the vanity set with storage bench moved into her room and she is able to play with it now. In the picture above, she is brushing her hair at her vanity table.

Winter?

Apparently they don't believe in autumn in Montana. One day a few weeks ago (and every day before it), it was sweltering 90+ degrees. Then overnight the chill set in, and we've been getting snow. I think we did get a day of autumn, so Sasha got to jump in the leaves:

Like I said, we barely had a day or two of "autumn". This is what we have now:

Sasha wants to play in the snow, but we don't quite have all that she needs to safely play in the cold and stay warm. She has her boots and jacket, but we still need to get her some mittens and snow pants. Once we get that, I think my little girl will live in the snow.
Here we are putting our child to work:



Okay, we let Sasha play outside for a few minutes. She insisted she wanted to shovel the way she saw her big sister do it when we demanded Cassie shovel our sidewalks.

Heart

This cute little exchange occurred between Sasha and her dad.
Sasha was examining the pockets of her father's jacket.
Sasha: Dad, what's in your pockets?
Dad: Nothing, they're empty
Sasha: Put something in them!
Dad: Okay, how about you put a kiss in my pocket for me? That way I'll always have a Sasha kiss with me.
Sasha puts a kiss in her dad's jacket pocket.

Then later, my husband told Sasha that he was happy he had her kiss in his pocket, because he had her kiss by his heart all day at work. She grabbed him by his collar, pulled him close, and gave him a kiss on his heart.

That time of year again

First day of school for Cassie. She started her Sophomore year today at her new school. I hope that she does well and makes a ton of new friends.
Fortunately, she joined the volleyball team, and they've already been practicing all last week, so Cassie got to meet a few girls there. She didn't make the varsity or junior varsity team, but she did make their "C" team, and she's happy with that for this year. So far she's having fun with it, and I'm glad for that.

Speaking of Cassie, the neighbors have a kid that's a month older than her. When he first met her a month ago, it appears he was smitten with her. He was her shadow, following her around everywhere. He broke up with his girlfriend (but lied and told Cassie that his girlfriend broke up with him) and asked Cassie out. Cassie wisely said no, and eventually found his constant attention smothering. She's been avoiding him, and he went back to his old girlfriend again. (This was the same kid that accidentally shot me with a bb gun the other day, lol).


And here's an amusing pic. Neighbor boy pulled up a lawn chair and stalked...er...I mean camped next to our fence in the hopes of seeing Cassie while she was avoiding him. This was our view outside our dining room for a week.
Thank goodness school has started again :)

Wtf?

I got shot in my arm by a neighbor kid with a BB gun today. Ouch! The part that scares me though, is that if I was not on our swings with Sasha at the time, the BB would have hit her in her head instead of my arm. Fortunately, it was just my arm, and it was just a bb gun.
The story goes like this.
Sasha and I went outside to play. We were content to sit on lawn chairs, but I kept hearing a strange sound coming from our playset. It sounded like someone was either throwing rocks at it, or it sounded like it was raining an occasional rock onto the playset. I couldn't quite catch what was going on, as the intervals between when it happened was over 5 minutes between each time. There didn't seem to be anyone around, so I walked over to the playset to investigate after about the fourth or fifth time.
Sasha is my little shadow. She followed me to the playset, and since we were at the playset, she wanted to play. I couldn't find anything wrong with the playset, no explanation for the strange sounds, and dismissed it as maybe my imagination.
Sasha demanded I sit on the swings and swing with her. I enjoy swinging with her, so I complied. I sat in the blue swing closest to the slide, and she sat in the red swing next to me.
We were having fun, playing and swinging. We stopped swinging and we were just sitting still in the swings. The swings are comfortable to sit on, and I enjoy just sitting on the swings while reading. I read a book for a little while.
Then suddenly, BAM. My left arm hurt like heck. I looked at my arm and there was a red mark where I got shot by something. I wasn't quite sure what. I screamed and realized that the noises I heard earlier were probably bb gun shots from the neighbor kid (a friend of Cassie's, honestly a good kid), and that he shot me. I yelled loudly to my husband in our house, "Ow! They shot me!". But Jon couldn't hear me since the house was closed up so I ran up to the window of the room he was in and yelled for him. Then I panicked because Sasha was still at the swingset, so I had to run back to get her the heck out of there.
Jon, fortunately, didn't hear the "They shot me part", or he probably would have come out armed. He took Sasha, still unaware of what happened. I wasn't exactly stopping to explain. I was livid.
I marched myself out the yard and to the neighbor kids two houses down. The neighbor kid was laying on a mat, in a prone supported position, with his bb gun. I yelled at him, "Hey! You shot me!"
He looked at me horrified. I showed him my arm. He seemed really surprised and confused. I looked at his setup. He was laying down, bb gun pointed toward our yard. Between him and the yard, there was a target, some trash cans and boxes (he lined them up to catch the bb pellets), and then some bushes obscuring our playset. Well I guess he thought his trash cans and boxes would catch the bb pellets after he shot them. Unfortunately, it wasn't working. Either his aim was off, or something was wrong with his system. He really did think that his trash cans and wooden boxes would prevent the bb's from going beyond his target practice.
I felt better knowing that at least he didn't intentionally shoot me. My arm hurt, but it was just a bb, not a real gun. It'll heal.
The part that scares me, however, is Sasha. If I was not in that swing, my wound was at her head level. I was DIRECTLY between her and the incoming bb round. If I was NOT sitting at that exact spot. If I had said, "No sweetie, I don't want to swing today. You can swing by yourself like a big girl", she would have been shot in her head/eye level with the bb pellet. And that would have done a lot more damage to her than to my arm.
That's the part that pissed my husband off. He was very upset and went over to the neighbor's kids house. He talked to the kid's mom and told her she needs to take away his bb gun. She said she would take care of it immediately, then the neighbor kid came by our house a few minutes later to apologize again (presumably under his mother's orders).
I know the kid was sorry. He truly was. For that, I feel bad that he probably got in trouble. I still can't seem to calm my husband down but he's very protective of Sasha.

Catering in the middle of nowhere

My mother-in-law owns a restauraunt, and she frequently does catering as well. Sometimes she has to go to some odd locations. In this particular case, she was catering for a dog show for a bunch of sheep-herding dogs, and it was held on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere. She invited us to come out for an hour or two to take a look at the scenery. So when I saw that covered wagon sitting out there, I just had to take a pic.
The grass was quite tall, but Sasha didn't mind. She and Cassie searched the grasses for all sorts of strange bugs.

Cassie posed with some grass :P

Mud

After a good quick rainfall, we stepped outside to do some yardwork. Sasha couldn't resist the puddles. Oh she got so dirty and it took a bit of restraint on my part to grab the camera instead of snatching her out of the mud.




This puddle was in our front driveway. The high school is across the street.

Curses!

When we speak, we have to be careful what we say. Sasha hears and remembers everything, and she'll repeat it all eventually.

A week ago, Cassie was teasing her little sister. Sasha was getting frustrated and angry. She glared at Cassie and exclaimed, "Cassie! You're pissing me off". She then spent the next few minutes scowling and repeating, "I'm pissed off".

A few days ago, Sasha was following me around the house as usual. I went up to the master bedroom for something, and along the way, Sasha found her favorite pair of pink flip-flop shoes. "Holy Crap! There's my flip-flops!", she exclaimed loudly.

"Holy crap" is one of her favorite phrases. We never know when it'll come out of her. I can't help but laugh when she says it, even though I know it's so wrong. She sees the reaction she gets out of people and it makes her do it even more.

She's said a few other bad phrases, but they're usually immediately after someone else says them. At that point, we can scold the original potty mouth.

Moving update

We have successfully moved to our new house. I was without internet until it got hooked up today, so now I have a lot of catching up to do.
I will start with pics of the new place. All pics expand when clicked.

Cassie's room
My mother-in-law used to be an interior decorator. Here's what she did with Cassie's room. Cassie's room is the only finished room in the house so far.


Living room
Living room and you can see the entrance to Cassie's bedroom off to the left.
We lost our entertainment center in the move and got rid of our tv, so uh, we have nothing to put in here yet except the sofa, chair, and tables.


Guest Room
We had four bedrooms and only need three so this is just a guest room in case we get visitors. For now, just a twin bed and some spare furniture.
This room is actually green.


Sasha's Room
Curtains are temporary and will be replaced soon.
Sasha's bed, armoire and her toy box/bookcase in her new bedroom


Master Bedroom
Master bedroom. We repainted it because it used to be yellow. So we painted tan and we're going to decorate with navy blue.
The french doors on the left side are the entrance to the master bedroom office. the middle door is to the master bathroom. And the white doors to the right are to the closet.


Den/Computer Room
Downstairs den. We will line the wall with our computer desks. Then Sasha will have a play area off to the right side.
There is a wood burning stove in the foreground of this first picture.
I hate the wallpaper. It has ducks and cattails. I will get rid of it someday. I don't mind the blue paint at the bottom.

A view of the den/computer room that shows Sasha's play area. This room is HUGE.
Dining Room and Kitchen
This is our new dining room. We have not finished painting. The house previously had seriously ugly wallpaper and we are getting rid of that. So ignore the walls for now as they are unfinished.
Kitchen View 1- from the dining area looking towards the kitchen
Kitchen view 2- The white door goes to the laundry room.
Kitchen view 3. You can see two stairwells here. The stairs on the left go UP to the master bedroom, and the stairs on the right go DOWN to the den/computer room.


Backyard
Sasha enjoys her new yard. It's actually bigger than it looks as the yard extends to the right quite a ways in front of and beyond the garage. Here she played with her pool on a hot summer day, but that playset behind her is a lot of fun too.

Moving Day

Deja vu, hey?
Today is moving day. We're moving to our new home. It's supposed to be a very hot afternoon so I hope we get the worst of the moving done before we get scorched.

Moving again

I know I've been slacking since we moved. We've officially been in Montana for a month now. I didn't take any pics of the house we moved in to, but it appears we will be moving again very soon. Maybe next week?
I love our apartment, but we got an amazing offer that we just couldn't refuse. Sasha has been here a while already and has made a ton of friends with the locals. One particular fan of hers is a regular at the deli (my mother in law's restauraunt), and is the president of a bank chain. Well he has a house in town here, one of several he owns. He likes to control the people he lives next to so he bought the neighboring houses and rents those out to people he likes. One day he asked my mother in law what we were paying in rent for the place we are living at now. She told him and he offered us the 4BR 2BA 2 Car garage house next door to him for an extra $25 a month. He said Sasha needs a yard and a playset to play on. (We have NO yard currently as we are above a store).
The people that live in the house currently bought a house of their own, and they had 2 children. They put a huge playset in the back yard. It's like one of those dream playset, and retails for over $2k at costco. The yard is fenced.
The house itself is amazingly nice. It has more room than I know what to do with and the kitchen is a dream. There's even a jacuzzi in the master bedroom's bathroom.
So yeah, I guess we're moving. The current residents just moved to their new home this week and the place we live at now was only a month-to-month lease so we are now free to move. The current landlord understands.

Camping trip in Wyoming

We went on a camping trip for the 4th of July weekend. 4 days in the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. We were invited by my husband's mom. So the trip consisted of my mother in law, her her husband Les, his daughter Jocelyn, her husband Levi (they are expecting a daughter in November). And of course me, my husband, Cassie, and Sasha. Oh and their dogs Doc, Jet, and Jack.
My husband's parents have a really awesome camper, plus they took along a tent and their horse trailer.
The drive was very scenic. Here are a few pics from the drive (click to enlarge any of them).
Check out the pic I took of this mountain pass we took in Wyoming, and we were only half way up. Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, Wyoming:

Suicidal Chipmunk on the edge of a sheer drop-off overlooking a very curved and steep road. Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, Wyoming :
And on to the camping. Here's our campsite one morning. It rained almost every day and oscillated between hot and cold temperatures. It was rainy this particular morning and Levi is cooking our breakfast on the grill.
Sasha didn't care about the rain. As you can see she had her swimming pool and she spent several hours in that when it got hot.
Some views from our campsite. This is the river view from our campsite. Pretty.
And the view from our campsite of the opposite direction. My husband Jon went hiking and climbed to the summit of the hill pictured here. (This is an HDR photograph, my very first!)
We went hiking and this is one of the HDR pictures I put together of a view along our hiking path.