Happy Easter!!!

Redemtion...Holiday style

Happy New Year From the Edge's
Look...a Family photo!!! We are off to a good start!
(OK, so this was Christmas eve, but since we didn't send out Christmas cards, this will have to do.)

We were lucky enough to get a nice little blizzard this week that has helped to keep our kids occupied.
This girl loves the snow but refuses to wear gloves...burr.
The boy showing off his skills on his new pogo stick. He was pretty disappointed on Christmas morning when his mom could pogo better than him. He is now working on showing me up.
Also not pictured, the boy decided to try out his new super awesome sleeping bag by sleeping in our freezing cold sun-room on a night when the temps dipped into the single digits...thanks grandma. He said he stayed warm!
Poppy wearing her new Rapunzel hair and dress...oh, the indulgent grandma, what would she do without you??? You certainly have the knack for knowing exactly what she would love. I do however win points for getting her a bead/creative box that has been getting pretty good play time too. Pretty sure that Rapunzel didn't have that in her tower!
Hazel didn't even have to ask to know that the barn and animals were hers. From the minuet she walked int o the room she had them in her hands.
The girls were pretty content with their pre-opened gifts prior to breakfast. We generally don't let them open gifts until after breakfast. This way they get to play with whatever is out on the floor and the other gifts come after.
Poppy was happy being Mary for our Christmas Eve nativity.Our good friends Helen and Justin came over for Christmas eve. We made our annual gingerbread trains. I was delighted by the fact that Oscar and Poppy are now old enough to handle the frosting themselves. They are really getting independent!
Christmas Eve I told Rick that I wanted him to take the kids out while I cleaned up the house and got it ready for Christmas. He then told me they were going hiking and I decided to forgo my plan...no way are they going without me! The bonus was that I got a awesome Family photo out of it. BTW I consider any photo that has my entire family in it-with them all facing forward a success. This may just go on our mantle.

(Oscar wore his cycling hat as a winter hat. Funny thing is, it doesn't cover your ears. I lent him mine half way through.)

Oscar did the extra two mile section with me. I always love it when I can hang with the o-man. He always has such great ideas and thoughts that come about when we are one-on-one.

Well, there you go, my first post of 2011. I am hoping to redeem my blogging self with the new year. I would love to catch up on the ups and downs for 2010, but then I get overwhelmed and don't know where to begin. So, lets just say I'll re-commit to do better this year than last. It shouldn't be too hard to do. Happy New year Blog world!

Missing the Mountains...and my boys

Back in the day...Oscar on daddy's back

Oscar's First Hike, a few weeks old

Another one of his first hike, see how protective I was...can certainly tell that he was my first baby. The others would have been placed in the bjorn, and we would be on our way.

This is a picture of Ricky backpacking when he was about Oscar's age(from the side profile it looks like it could just be Oscar), wearing the same pack that Oscar is wearing on this trip...thanks grandma and grandpa! (Bet you didn't know back then that your grand kid would wear it.)

This picture may be about what he looks like today...well at least earlier today when they were actually hiking, and not right now when they are probrably snuggled into their tent sleeping (which is most likely what they are doing, that is unless, they are telling silly jokes and making farting noises)...

Here's another "oldie but goody" of Ricky and Big Rick. What good look'in guys!

Yesterday my boys left on an expedition to the wild wilderness of the Willowas.
As I sit here at 9:30pm at night, with my two girls in bed asleep (one of which is sleeping in MY bed, as a special treat), I can't help but really miss the mountains. I want to smell the crisp fall air, feel some rocks beneath my feet, a pack on my back loaded with all sorts of trail friendly foods, sit on a summit and stare off into the world beyond...I want to be hanging with my boys doing one of the things I love most, spending time outside.
I'm not saying that I haven't had a fun weekend with just us girls, on the contrary, we have been having lots of fun. We went to the fair last night and I successfully wore them out and they both crashed in their beds by 7:45pm. We have played at the farmer's market, cleaned the church, went swimming, had ice cream (including a gummy worm topping), I even rented Poppy a "Barbie musketeers" movie, and even painfully watched 75% of it with her (now that is love). We really have had some great time just being together, sans the boys.
All that said...I still am missing those mountains.
I therefore have a job for all of you out in blog world who are near some of those pretty, monstrous piles of rock and rubble. Do me a favor and take a hike. Be in nature and let me glean a bit of that exposure off of you.
In a couple of moths I'll get my fix. In the meantime, I'll settle for some freshly harvested wheat fields and some pictures that Mark Feltis is going to have to take, becasue our "Olympus Tough" camera wasn't' as tough as it was supposed to be, and suddenly quit working without any real abuse...more on that topic later... but I'll hopefully get a re-cap and my boys back tomorrow.
Oh, and I'm missing my boys too. Things seem weird and not so balanced without them. Too much Estrogen in the house right now. But then again, Grandpa Edge is used to that.

Budding Politician

Spiking your kids food for fun...

Hazel did her own tampering here...dip your bagel in the nice clean river water so that it softens up to the perfect consistency. (I should note I worried about giardia for the next week.)

If I'm not tampering with their food, sometimes I skip the whole make a "bagel and cream cheese" step, and just give them cream cheese on a knife.

(Poppy feeding herself)
Crapes are another food I find opportunity to stash all sorts of goodness into.

I'm not sure if I actually spiked his cereal, but that is the face I see when they actually figure out I have tampered with their food.

Oscar's spiked sucker that grandma sent 4 years ago...there's a cricket inside.

Tonight as I was preparing my two older children's bedtime snack of oatmeal, I decided I must make a post about how frequently I spike my children's food with all sorts of interesting things. Sometimes I do it entirely to see if they notice.
Take tonight for example: Oscar has repeated multiple times that he does not like whole milk or what her refers to as "Hazel milk". Even when we were entirely out of skim milk he said he would eat his breakfast without milk, so that he wouldn't have to use her milk. Therefore tonight I did what any other good mother would do, I used whole milk in his oats just to see if he would notice, even though we had skim in the refrigerator too. Did he notice? No.
Case in point# 2: Poppy has been getting up in the night for the past week. I decided that she must be mineral deficient or something...therefore I cut open one of my calcium pills and added it to her breakfast oats (I seem to see a pattern with oats, do you? You may want to consider skipping oats if you ever come to my house) did she notice? No.
Sometimes I do it is for nutritional value, or maybe to see if they will actually eat a different food that I know they say they hate, but maybe this time they will like it. The part that is the funniest is when I do it completely to humor myself, and they kids never even know it. Man I crack myself up. Maybe this is what parenting is all about...manipulating my littles.
Maybe it is my way of mixing things up a little. Either way I'm probably going to keep it up. Just to see.

Ocean Trip 2010

Once again we found ourselves at the Oregon coast doing what we love best, playing.
This year we had the special treat of having Auntie Nat tag along.
She was a big help and it was great having her around.
Here is one of the few family photos we were able to take. Funny how the children and spouse always have about the same crazy faces in EVERY one of them.
Hazel really enjoyed her new found freedom of being able to walk and explore the ocean for the first time.
We rented a Kayak and canoe on our second day. We stayed on Devil's Lake in Lincoln city. It was the best of both worlds...fresh water and salty.
Poppy was really excited about the little crabs. They may be one of the best parts of coming to the ocean. They are not to big to be threatening and very cute.

Broken camera...

I would like to blame our newly destroyed camera for my lack of posting, but I"m afraid I have simply just been lazy. Otherwise known as a writers block. Not that I haven't had tons to write about...In fact just today we had our bees swarm into our neighbors tree, about 60 feet in the air. Ricky climbed about 50ft up before having to abort the rescue mission. These are the days I am very much missing the camera!! Much has been going on, even if I have been on a little hiatus. Hopefully I can rectify my slump. Here are a few updates that surrounded Oscar's 8th birthday in may.

Grandma and grandpa came to visit..

Grandpa turned 20...I think that is how many candles were on the cake.

O'man got baptized. It was a very special day for all of us. He really is one great boy.

Oscar is officially a scout!! He couldn't be more excited. I was lucky enough to hang out at day camp with him in the very rainy 40 degree weather. Yeah, it was fun.

For his birthday Cake he ordered a lemon custard, chocolate pudding, chocolate whip cream pie. It was surprisingly tasty.

Overall things are well. We are enjoying the summer (with the lack of real summer temperatures) but otherwise happy to have the kids home from school for the summer and busy playing.
life is good!

My boy!

This is my 8year old boy, who by the way, will be baptized tomorrow.

I'm feeling quite sentimental and proud to be a mother. Not because he is getting baptized, but because he is such an amazing kid. I must have done something really great in our life before this one, to be lucky enough to be the mother of three great kids.
Truly when I sit back and consider this life, and all that I have been given, I am humbled by my Heavenly fathers plan and for the happiness I have received.
This is a special day for him and I hope he will cherish it always.

Brother Feltis

Our life on the Palouse would be poorly documented if we were to not include Mark Feltis ( A.K.A. our kids ward uncle). In all of his world travels he never fails to drop a postcard in the mail, making sure our kids get a good education about the deep and sometimes overlooked facts of the world outside of the Palouse. A little bit ago Oscar had his annual "bring someone special to breakfast" for our school. We thought mark fit the part perfectly...Oscar was pretty excited when he knew that Brother Feltis (that is how he is labeled at our house) had agreed to come along. It was great fun and the kids were sure to show Mark their best manners as they battled over the chocolate muffin. Thanks Brother Feltis for taking time for our kids! You are great!

January updates

Popster ready for pajama day at school...I'm not sure if she likes pink???

Hazel getting some lovin'

Family photo...Edge style. At least we have documentation that we all existed at the same time.

Ahhhh....the BINKI BLANKET!!!! This girl won't live long enough without it for it to be washed. She, just like her big brother, are in love with their blankies.

The holiday re-cap

Hazel made sure that all of the ornaments stayed on the tree...
The making of the ginormous candy train...do you see any train under there?
Poppy hiking in her newly acquired dress (made by grandma Edge) she wore it for four days straight!
The annual Christmas day 5k (we missed it last year due to the pinata accident). Hazel won the youngest participant award...Oscar ran the whole thing! I belive this is his first semi-official 5k. It was fun.
Aunt Rosie and her new boots!
O man working with his new Dremel tool...right up this boys alley. I laugh every time I see him in his safety glasses. He has now begun to wear a face mask too. He dosen't like the styrofoam going up his nose.
Poppy and the beutiful dress. The heaband was made by Aunt Emily.
This my friends was my gift from Rick and the kids...a dinner bell. I think this will be a present talked about for many years!

I'm sad to see the holidays go but grateful for the routines that the new year brings. Last year was really good to us. I'm looking forward to another. I think this was a landmark year for me as a mom. I am learning new ways of prioritizing our life and am finding comfort in simplicity. I'm learning that (as a neighbor recently told me) when raising kids "the days are long, but the years are short." I like being a mom. I really love it. I'm grateful that Rick works so hard so that I can be home with the kids. Because more than ever, I'm realizing that once they hit school years, things start moving much too quickly! Life is good!!!