time to buck up

recommitting. that's what i'm doing. i'm recommitting. i'm recommitting to the following:

* my wellness challenge. in about week four i had kind of a "screw-it" moment (sorry for the language, mother). and since that i have been , well, screwing it. that is to say not giving it my full effort. i find this a bit annoying because this type of thing used to be my thing. you know, making really highly aspired commitments for relatively short periods of time and sticking to them. yet, the past two such commitments i've made i've given up part way through. *sigh* i want to be better. so i will be.
buck up #1: wellness challenge.

* potty training. i know you're tired of hearing about it so i won't bore you with many details. just this one: the item in the toilet to aim at (in our case it is crunch berries) seems to have moved H. from not at all interested in the great porcelain throne to mildly interested in trying to sink  the red crunch berry, which is apparently quite difficult.
 buck up #2: train the boy in the art of pottying on/in the potty.

* enjoying my kids. this sounds dumb, unless you are the mother (or have been the mother ) of small children. see, it's a constant battle of trying to teach/entertain/love/discipline your children and keeping your own mind sharp, your house clean, your family fed with interesting and new and healthy foods, and making time for yourself. often in the midst of this battle the art of enjoying your children is lost, at least for me. i find myself thinking about when they are both in school and how much i'll be able to accomplish (don't judge me, please). the other day, however, i had an epiphany. with my children being the ages they are i am able to be a kid again. what do i mean? well, i get to play and go on field trips and look at things through small eyes again. i get to find the joy in making footprints on the pavement after stepping in water. i get to find excitement in seeing every blasted airplane and helicopter that flies by. i get to build and rebuild train tracks. i get to go to the zoo and the park and the pool and the aquarium (which is really lame, btw) and i get to find joy in all of this stuff, again. now that is a good thing, right? of course right.
 buck up #3 enjoy my kids where they are before they're in school or i'm taking them to 800 extra curricular activities.

i'd add more, but i think 3 buck-ups are enough to focus on for right now. until next time, i bid you, adieu.

Yellowstone 2010

This is how B. looked a good portion of the time. BUT with his mad glassing (looking through binoculars for wild life) skills we were able to see 19 bears. Including a mama grizzly with 4 (that's right 4) cubs.

How appropriate that the baby elk were at the playground.

Mama buffs and baby buffs.

Sorry for the fuzzy foto. I turned my camera to manual focus unknowingly and then, clearly, did not manually focus. The point of this fabulous pic is the hand mirror duct taped to the casing of the side mirror as a replacement. You can take em out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out o' them.

All in all we saw: bears, foxes, coyotes, antelope (and baby antelopes chasing each other--so blasted adorable), a ridiculous number of buffalo, elk, big horn sheep, mountain goats (the best was the mama goat and it's kid racing around on the cliffs--HOW do they do that?!?), bald eagle, snake, and pot guts. It was a fabulous time and couldn't have been done without my parents, who watched the children, Denise, who fed the chickens, and Crishelle who taught the primary class.

Kiss kiss to you all. --and to all a good night.

Thomas again and again and again

Since our visit to see the little train H.'s love of all things locomotive has been renewed. Monday and Tuesday he pulled out his train tracks, which I haven't seen in months, and built a variety of tracks for Stanley the silver and white engine. He did this all day both days (except for the moments spent in his beloved outdoors).

Oh, and here's a funny little conversation I overheard:

Lady at Costco:   Did you see Thomas? --she noticed his Thomas tatoo
Hayden:  Yes. And he was so happy to see me.
L at C:  He waaas? How exciting.
Hayden:  And I rode on Thomas. I rode in Clarabel (a Thomas passenger car)
L @ C:  mmmmm
Hayden: And I saw Topham Hatt.
L @ C:  You diid. That's very cool.
Hayden: And he was tall.
Lady @ C: oooh.

Cute kid.