Happy 2nd Birthday Helena!

We were blessed to spend Helena's second birthday with family and friends tonight. Helena loves BOZ the Green Bear Next Door. They don't make whole lines of party supplies for this guy so I had to get a little bit creative with the cake.


She had been waiting for HOURS to open her presents. I even managed to keep Hannah away from them long enough for Helena to actually open them on her own.


It was fun to watch her open her presents because she was so happy and excited to see what was inside.

Getting ready to blow out her candle. After a few attempts and an adjustment in her strategy she got it done.

It isn't easy to be the older sister at the birthday party but Hannah did well. She managed to let Helena do everything on her own. They got pinwheels today and Hannah was so excited she stood out in high winds to watch them go. Everyone else watched from the house. :)

Daughters After My Own Heart

Hannah loving her Oregon State t-shirt while having a snack and reading a bull sale catalog.

Helena waking up from a nap with curly hair girl bed head.

Grateful

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to focus on making dinner when I have this to look at out my kitchen window. I couldn't be more thankful that I get to live here.


"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."
Psalm 19:1 (NIV)

From Their Perspective

It's fun to see how the personalities of each of the girls develops. Hannah still dresses herself in silly things sometimes but now Helena has gotten in on the action. This particular night she was sporting a pair of green and white gingham shorts and an orange corduroy skirt for a shirt. She wanted to wear the orange diaper cover too but I wasn't sure where to put it. Now in retrospect I guess she could have worn it as a hat.


The girls have their own nativity scene to play with. One evening I thought I would help Hannah set it up in a traditional way. We started out in that direction and then Hannah's free spirit took over. Baby Jesus needed a cattle truck in case he wanted to haul his animals around and I guess a hay truck to feed all of the animals present at His birth. Peterbilt, Mack Truck, and John Deere are definitely not brand names found in a traditional nativity but they work for this little farm girl.

Monterey

Early this month we were able to travel to Monterey, CA for the California Farm Bureau Annual Meeting. This country girl had to adjust to driving in heavy traffic, having the help of a bell man, and valet parking. You can laugh, it's OK. There's something to be said though for being able get something out of the pickup with out having to call someone to bring it to you. By the time our stay was over I was getting used to it, but our trip did give me the opportunity to be thankful for a long list of things I've grown accustom to living out here in the sticks.



My parents were able to meet us in Monterey for a little vacation of their own. We spent the better part of a day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Hannah and Helena are enjoying looking at sea horses and other sea creatures.



In one exhibit you could look up and see a whole school of "saltines" as Hannah called them, swimming around in a circle. They are sardines to the rest of us. She's always good for a laugh.



The jellyfish were my favorite exhibit.


We got to see penguins amongst several other animals.



Oh, look! Two penguin babies just hatching from their egg!



The girls enjoyed playing in the "coral reef." Hannah is dressed as clown fish "swimming" through the reef.


This was Hannah's favorite part of the aquarium. Can you tell? This was a three-sided glass room that a wave crashed over every so often. Helena wasn't too sure what to think of it.



Through a comedy of errors, misinformation and assumptions we ended up playing right next to the wharf after spending too much time looking for lighthouses. I guess we weren't meant to visit a lighthouse because the two closest to the bay were closed. We needed some time on the beach anyway and it was a beautiful day for it. We played on the beach while Memaw Mary and Papa Lee kayaked on the bay.


It looks like Helena for once is telling Hannah what to do, and Hannah doesn't look like she likes it. But I don't really know what was going on here, I just thought it was kind of funny.


Ben and I spent our 8th anniversary in Monterey and driving home. We were both so busy getting ready for the trip that we forgot to get each other a card. Here was my attempt at making up for my forgetfulness.


It was a great trip but boy were we glad to be home!

The Tree

It's been way too long since I made a blog post. My main excuse is that we have been really busy. Here's the beginning of an attempt to catch up.

Every year we go out and cut down a Christmas tree. We normally don't go anywhere for Thanksgiving and do it that Friday or Saturday. We were fortunate to get to spend time in Chico and Sacramento this year with Ben's family. We also don't normally leave town in December, which we did this year. I suggested I just buy a tree in town. Ben suggested we wouldn't have a tree if we had to buy it in town. So I conceded and we went out tree hunting on Sunday afternoon with a "it's now or never" attitude. We were due to leave town in a week and I was worried it would snow so much we wouldn't be able to get one.

Here's Hannah making a snow angel. She hasn't quite mastered the leg swing to make the skirt on the angel so I guess for now she'll be making boy angels with pants.

Helena and I after picking our tree. She didn't love our adventure into the woods. I think not long after we parked the pickup she and Hannah got rolled out of the sled into the snow. It was all downhill from there.

Hannah loves to have snowball fights. Here she's playing with Memaw Mary while Memaw lets her win.

There was a lot of snow this year at the lower elevations. We think some of the prettier trees are higher on the mountain but this year we had to settle for the best we could find. Hannah really got into decorating the tree this year.

Helena also tried to help decorate, but only after eating chocolate and markers.

Here's the tree in all of it's glory on Christmas morning. It leans a little but that just shows that it has been well loved by several little kids.

Hiking Petroglyph Bluff

We went hiking again yesterday before a storm blew in here. The girls' friend Maggie had been begging her mommy all summer to hike up this hill. They were kind enough to invite us along for the adventure. Here are the girls all bundled up for the hike. It wasn't that cold but it was kind of windy.

The girls and I all ready to go.



It is a fairly steep hike but is short. Hannah made sure we stopped for several breaks. We did finally make it to the top.

Hannah sitting on a rock "wall" overlooking the valley.

The girls and I.

They found this cool rock they could climb inside. Many of the rocks up there had very large holes in them.

Hannah coming out the top of the rock. She was willing to serve ice cream cones to any of us that wanted one. Maggie was the only one that took her up on the offer.

Helena crawling around underneath the rock.

We have really enjoyed our hiking this month. I look forward to doing some more short hikes on mild days this fall and winter.

Wildlife Refuge

The troops were getting restless around here. All work and no play was making this bunch of girls a little on the cranky side. I decided that we were going to do something different today. Anything! As plans settled into place for the day I decided a trip to the wildlife refuge was the thing to do.

The first thing we planned to do was hike the Sheepy Ridge Wildlife Trail. We didn't see much wildlife, or maybe it's that we scare away everything before we even get to see it. Here's Hannah at the trail head. This is the first trail she has ever completed without being pushed or packed. It was short but quite steep.


Proof that there was a Mama pack mule carrying Helena, water and snacks.

The arrow shows the stone "lookout" that is the trail's end. Its construction was completed in 1938 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as a place to observe the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

Here's another view.
We made it!

Here's the view from the lookout. The small wetland area in the foreground is the Discovery Marsh where we walked before heading home. The water in the background is Tule Lake.

Hannah wasn't much for spending time in the lookout. We were there for about two minutes and she was ready to come back down. We took a look through the visitor's center and then walked around Discovery Marsh. It seemed like there weren't very many different kinds of birds there today. I think we will have to make it back again soon. Hannah said she really liked it. So far she has colored in a new wildlife coloring book, drawn a picture of us looking at a Bald Eagle, and taken our new bird identification book with her during her quiet time.

This was a nice place to go that was close to home but Hannah still felt like we went somewhere. Every night she asks me if I'm planning to go town tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her. She wants to go town everyday and I would be perfectly fine without going for months!