Thanksgiving and christmas tree farm

Wow, I'm so far behind in blogging. Guess that means I've been busy living life and haven't had time to write about it. This will be lthe first of a couple of blogs to appear over the next couple of days.
  Thanksgiving for us was pretty mellow. Alesha was not able to come home as a bad storm was moving into Salt Lake and canceling flights. So that made it really weird. Tressa (who is expecting again) is in that part where she is soooo sick. We ate and relaxed. Then at midnight Tressa and I went out to check out xmas sales. Was pretty much a bust. All the outlets have better prices on a normal day. Nothing worth staying up late for. We did find some good deals at wal-mart. though our first stop there was so crazy we just left and came back about 3am and still got everything we wanted with out having to wait in lines for over an hour. This pretty much wiped Tressa out for the rest of the weekend. Melia and Spencer went out around 3 or 4 am and I think had a good time. Erica and Nate went out in the morning.

Madison was not too excited about the train ride out to the trees.

  On Sat. The Miller family headed to a Tree farm in Lacey, out toward Yelm, that we had gone to for Halloween. I got to go with them as family photographer/ grandkid wrangler!

It was really fun. They were alittle disappointed. With all the activities going on at Halloween they had hoped for something similar. They still had the goats and gift shop, but not much else. We rode on a train like thing pulled by a tractor. ( horses would have been cooler) to take us out to a area where they could saw down a tree.

The Miller family Christmas tree.

Didn't seem to take them too long to find one they liked and could agree on. It had rained the night before and though most of the experience was lost on Parker and Madison.... they LOVED the MUD puddles!!! I think the photos say it al



Parker splashing in the mud!

Parker and Madison running through the puddles!! So cute!



Nate Laughing at Parker getting all muddy!

Erica and Madison being cute!



It's snowing! It's snowing! & trees are falling!

When the snow started to fall on Sunday, Doug was like a little kid. Hoping for a snow day. He did get a 2hr late start. and then after 2 hrs of school...an early release! So close to a full snow day.
   It snowed alot here in the Onalaska low lands ( and I'm sure lots more in the high lands) on Monday. We have close to 4 inches of the beautiful white stuff!!!

  It really shows off Doug's decorations!! They look sooo cool with all the snow!
  Now to the Trees. it started with two  much heavy wet snow on one of our trees out front. We heard at crack and thud. Yep, a huge branch had been brought now by some snow flakes ganging up on it.

 I had Ellie so Doug and Melia headed out in the cold to finish sawing the branch off and hauling it away.



When the wind started to really blow Doug and Melia ducked into the wood shed.
Didn't seem to bother Isabell too much. She wanted to eat the snow.



Isabell had been begging to go out side Papa finally braved the cold and wind and took her out.

Later as we were just settling into a Christmas movie and I had just put Isabell in the bath tub, out went the lights!!! Talking to Mark ( Melia's father in law) seems trees and branches were going down all over the place and taking power lines down with them. We were working on preparing for a long, cold and dark night. When after 2 hrs the lights flicked back on . As I write this wind is still blowing hard. We may still lose power again. But as for now we are warm and have light!

Light shopping with Peyton

Always being on the look-out for good lighting deals I hit the road on Saturday to see what I could find to put up around the place.  I had thought about going out on Friday night and taking Tressa with me but she wasn't feeling up to it and I was really more in the mood to stick around and work on painting some of the new decorations for the girls places and the super hero tree.  The rain Sat. morning convinced me I should look around a bit.
    This is where Peyton comes into the story.  He likes to go shopping and will stick with me pretty well and is a great traveling companion, plus he does like to ride in the pick-up, so off we went.  The first stop was K-Mart to check out their stuff in anticipation of their 50% off sale.  While there we looked at the Christmas decorations which Peyton just stared at for a while then a trip through the toys to see the Toy Story stuff.  Then it was my favorite part about taking Peyton, he knows where the good food/treats are at.  He selected an Icee so we got the biggest one they have to share it. 
     Next we headed to Fred Meyer as they had some lights on sale.  Peyton must be working on his left and right at school for he kept asking which direction we were going next.  Once we got inside of Fred Meyer I thought I would let him lead the way to burn off some of the Icee.  He kept calling out a left or right and then would turn that direction and head down another aisle.  It's hard to make much forward progress when you take a left or right at every aisle intersection.  Sadly I did not get any lights there for the sale wasn't a very good one.
     Being the super light shoppers that the two of us are we headed back to Chehalis and Home Depot. Peyton liked their display and counted the number of large Santas (blow up etc.) before we headed for the lumber section to smell the wood and pick up some to hang the welcome sign from.
     All in all the shopping was a bust except I got to spend a couple of hours hanging out with Peyton and was able to make it a complete day by getting to see all six of the grand kids.  Then it was back home to continue putting stuff up and painting.  The plan is to have it all done by Thanksgiving.  At least thats the plan.

making christmas

Doug had to clean up leaves before he could get decorations out and Peyton wanted to help.

Tressa working on a decoration for her house.

This past weekend all the gang showed up to give Doug a good start on the outdoor decorations and to do some painting on their own decorations.

As everyone was outside working Peyton declared that "Papa was Making Christmas!" It was really cute. The weather held up better than we had thought and they got alot done.



Moving the train to front Yard. had to roll/push it up alley etc.



  Nate worked on the roof of the train. Everyone else help get all the figures out and some lights up.
Poor Tressa was really have a time with her shoulder joints so she was the job foreman, telling everyone what to do.

Tressa in her foreman job

Jesse sporting the ever popular shorts and rubber boots look.

Ellie (2-months old) did her part by taking a 4 hrs nap

 I was the baby wrangler and cook. We had bacon, chicken and ham sandwiches for lunch and pulled pork and baked potatoes for dinner. Tried to keep it simple as 6 kids-(1-3yrs, 2-2yrs, 2-1yrs and a 2 month baby ) is pretty crazy.  Luckily all but Peyton took naps at various times. I even managed to whip up a batch of chocolate chews. It really was fun to spend the day with the grandkids! And since weather was nice we spent some of it outside.

Isabell & Madison had lots of fun on Tramp!



Brady- "AKA the FLASH!" Kept me on my toes whenever we let him outside.





Parker's mom must have thought a blizzard was blowing in. He did have fun.

Had to watch Brady by the pond. He just kept trying to walk right in it. No matter how many times I told him no or pulled him away. and "In charge Isabell "kept Peyton and Madison busy. One time they were playing in train and Madison wanted to come up and play too. She was having trouble climbing up and Isabell climbed down and grabbed her hand and tried to pull her up. was so fun to watch.

  Erica and Madison stay till 9:30pm to get some painting done.

Madison wanted to help paint too!

Erica working on a snowman for her house.

  Now Doug will work when he can to get more lights up. I have a few more things to do inside and then on to the 2 major things -trees and village.

Train updates

It all sounded so simple in my mind.  I'll build a train the grandkids can play on and make it a Christmas decoration also.  The structure seemed simple in my head, 4 walls a couple of windows the kids could look out.  Throw in a couple of benches to sit on an- presto chango- it's a train.  Oh, maybe add a couple of Disney characters to it just for fun.  Well 51 of those Disney characters and about 120 hours of work later I'm starting to get close to being done with the first of the 4 cars I was planning for the train. 
It doesn't look like I will get to the engine this Christmas season but hopefully in the Spring.

  Alesha was up for a few days and helped to get some of the work done ,and put the completed wall on.  It was after we got that on I noticed I had been a little distracted the day I built the bench support system for they were on the wrong side of the train.  The grandkids were out the day. I was working on the benches and they were playing on the train except, for Brady who wandered over to the pond and went and sat down in it.  I was trying to stay out of the their way in playing and put the benches in the wrong place.  Oh well ,now we have shelves.

The next parts of the train will probably have fewer figures on them for I have learned my lesson.  Sort of, for now I 'm thinking of a village of small structures the kids could play in.

Ellie Lynn Hunt - update

  

Ellie 2 weeks old

Ellie Lynn was 4 weeks old on Sat. She has grown so much.

Ellie  3.5 weeks old

She is really aware of people and where you are.She'll turn her head to where ever you are. Melia said she did a real smile for her.

 Isabell is just adorable with her sister.

She loves to lay by her and snuggle. She always asks if Ellie is awake.If she is, Isabell gets really excited. I had them both upstairs the other day and Isabell covered them both up with her blanket and they just looked at each other. It was soooo cute!!!

Below are a few more pic's of her. she looks alittle like Isabell, but has her own look too!















Grandpa time with Brady and Isabell

I got to enjoy some time with my little bud Brady.  He was very helpful all day long with the various activities that we had going. 

First we started the day with some pancakes because I know the boys love to have pancakes.

Next we went to work on the play/Christmas train.  Brady was putting the pressure on me to get some more done on it so he could play with it

.

In between helping with the painting Brady thought to explore the kitchen to see if all was in its proper place.  We had been dancing to some good classical music earlier in the day with his favorite being "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" by John Denver. he figured it was time to do a little sweeping so he kindly provided an opportunity.

Around noon of Saturday Isabell came to hang out for a few days.  She was quite excited about the Disney figures for the train and said so " I'm so excited", sounds real cool coming from a two year old.

Monday night she was ready to help me paint.  She did some on the board,

 then used me as the paint to do some play painting.
 All was real cute and good until the fly came around and Isabell started jabbing at it while holding a paint brush and on one jab put the wooden end in my eye.  I think I will be able to keep the eyeball and the sight but it was a close call.

Melia got in a fair amount of painting while she was here and Tressa added some on Tuesday. My goal is to have the first car done by the end of Sept. and then build the Engine in Oct. ready to have them both out there for Nov.  Will have to see if I can get it done or not.