Sensory With Puffs

Liam has been showing interest in developing his fine motor skills during the last few days.

Drawing, picking fuzz off the carpet, and 

organizing the food on his plate are just a few of the things that have been of interest.

I thought organizing these puffs would be fun for him.  

Baby Fin was busy for about an hour.

SUCCESS!

We started by putting different sized puffs in a muffin tin.

Then, we ORGANIZED :)

"You were right Mommy, organizing is fun!"

Little hands doing important work.

"I'm getting really good at this."

Liam brought over these cups on his own and added them to our little game.

Workin' hard!

Father's Day

We spent Father's Day in Conrad with Clint's Family.

It was a good day.

Liam is a squirmy little fart :)

There are very few people he will snuggle up to for lengthy periods of time...

Grandpa Jim just happens to be one of the few.

Happy Father's Day, Clint!

I had no idea those were the elements that make up wine ;)

Happy Father's Day Gpa Jim!

Liam had to get in the picture too :)

Liam got Daddy matching ties for them both.

We were privileged to have dinner with Great Grandpa and Grandma Finlayson.

Liam and Great Aunt Mary

Cheese.

Jacobson Family Reunion

We spent Father's Day weekend on the road...

That's 2 for 2 Clint has had to drive on his special day.

(Last year he drove the UHAUL to The Enchanted Forest)

I'm declaring breakfast in bed next year.

Anyway, Saturday was a Jacobson Family Reunion.

Liam was the tiniest kid there, so he got a little LOTS of attention. 

Insert Mother's Biased Opinion now: 

I mean seriously, who wouldn't ooo and ahhhh over those dashing good looks.

First time meeting Great Grandpa and Grandma Jacobson

I think they kinda like him ;)

Learning how to play Speed with some pretty ladies.

Liam is a HUGE flirt already!

Look out girls!

There were TONS of stairs at this place.

Liam had to climb up them about a gazillion times before we could leave.

Notice the kid friendly railings...

Therefore, I climbed up the stairs a GAZILLION times as well!

We headed over to the Jacobson Cabin for dinner afterwards.

GGP-Charles, GP-Mark, U-Cameron, Daddy, and Baby Fin

Pretty Cool Place!  

Just sayin' "bye-bye."

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears! Oh My!

 Remember a couple of days ago when I said I hope that the rest of June is rather boring.

Well, that lasted for about a second day.  

Let's start with the normal stuff first....

On Wednesday, I woke up to a weird noise, so I ventured outside and saw THIS!

"Whoa, our neighbors are getting a house via transportation by the lake, "I thought to myself.

Now, don't laugh...Our neighbors do not have a house...

AND I've heard of people doing this crazy thing.  

Apparently,  it can sometimes be a better deal than building.

It's one thing to pick up a house and move it...

but how on EARTH can you sail it across a lake!?

Anyway, I'm getting off track...they didn't get a house...

That's a big MASSIVE raft that people use to build docks.

Who knew?!

Okay, maybe most people.

Not as cool, but still neat to watch.

And to clarify, yes, I did spy for a good little while, through my camera lens, like the creepy neighbor on Bewitched.

After spying on the neighbors, I started taking pictures of all some of the yard work we've done.

You're welcome Shan :)

Weed free veggie bins!

Yippee!!

Pretty flowers.

My favorite pot O'flowers.

Lindi on the lookout.

At this point, it started raining.

It has rained everyday for the past three weeks.

Where am I?

Washington?!

Pictures of the rest of our work later.

Moving on to more interesting things.

See over by the truck?

Yeah, that's a bear...Oh, My!

Let me start off by saying I was seconds MINUTES away from taking Baby Fin out to the orchard to catch some Vitamin D.

Is is vitamin D or K?  I'm embarrassed to say I'm not sure.  I think they go hand-in-hand...

And this is why I didn't go into teaching science...

With the 70* weather, I was finally going to put last months wolf scare behind me.

Yeah, you heard me correctly...I said WOLF people!

A wolf with paws the size of watermelons softballs!

Side note: I think I'm going to start telling people I live in The Enchanted Forrest when asked where I live.

Anyway, that's when out neighbor calls to tell me to be on the look out for bears.  

As I was speaking with her, out he came.

I hung up the phone, and ran for the camera.

He was about 50' from the front door.

I was too chicken smart to go out on the front porch, 

so snapped a few pictures behind the screen door.

Lindi was going bonkers behind me.

Behind Lindi, was Liam laughing at all the commotion.

I thought with all the noise the bear was going to scamper off.

NOPE!  He came straight towards us!

40'!

Then, he stopped for a casual sniff of the garden hose.

20'

5-10' from my front step!

He looked right at us, gave the garbage can a pat, and headed to the neighbor's.

Then, he finally ran into The Enchanted Forrest.

Now that my friends, was the Baby Brown.  Brown Mama has been lurking about as well.

Along with a Black Mama Bear and Baby Black!

I haven't seen the other three, but according to the neighbors, they're close.  

I guess, if we want Vitamin D, it's to the park for us.  

Our front yard is off limits for a while.

Baby Brown has been right next to the house on and off all day long.

First a wolf...now this...

Sheesh...

Animals didn't seem so dangerous in Snow White.

Maybe this isn't the enchanted forrest...

this is Montana!

Thank you Bette for telling us to stay indoors!

Randomness of June

In the past month, we have had some memorable moments.

Liam is still not refusing to walk.

We chalk it up to rebellion his cautious nature :)

Liam jibber-jabbers ALL DAY LONG.

It is so cute I can hardly stand it!

A few of his new works are:

Car=Ca

Ball=Boe

Hot=Haaaat

Shoe=Sue

Diaper

Up=Aaahp

Done=Dah

Truck=Tuck

Cheese=Sees

Owl=Aaauoo

Liam will pretty much try to repeat anything you say.  EEK!

I'm catching myself saying not-so-bad-words that I don't necessarily want my almost 18-month-old repeating...crap, dang-it, etc...time to clean up my "potty mouth."

(and yours too please :)

Signs:

More, please, thank you, Done, Milk

Clint's college roommate, Mike,  and his family, Krystal and Cece came to visit for a night!

We had an intruder tell me it was time to take down Clint's birthday banner

(a month AFTER his birthday).

The intruder was a flying squirrel... literally...

I know the picture is horribly blurry...look in the very right air slat of the fireplace...

We chased that little bugger from 12 am to 3:30 am...and we WON...

Sort of...

It's a long, and comical story, but I don't have time to write it all out at the moment.

We're just happy everything is clean, 

we didn't catch rabies, 

and he hasn't come back...

Liam decided to wear one of my stencils while I was painting mugs for the Arts Festival.

I may or may not have helped him put it on :)

Liam was attended his first birthday party AND had his first pool experience.

It was exhausting...

...And REALLY fun!

We packed up all of Liam's 12-18 month clothes...

We have a few 18 monthers left and are moving into 24 mo/2T stuff!  

Moving to a "T" size was quite traumatic for this mama.

Should I be embarrassed that I cried when I realized I was putting "Ts" in the dresser?

Liam's favorite toys are: magnets, cars, and balls.

Favorite magnet at the moment is a little plastic picture frame with a baby picture of his Auntie Shannalee...

Whew, that was ALOT of stuff for only being June 12th.  

I hope the rest of the month is relatively boring.

WAIT, I almost forgot!  

We are going to Europe for three weeks in July...bought the tickets yesterday.

Clint will be working while Liam and I play with the nice German folk :)

Okay, I think those were the high points of June thus far...

Graduation

Clint's little brother, Alex, graduated from high school a few weeks ago!

Time really flies!

Some of us reacted rather dramaticly when the time came...

"Come again?"

"What?!?  Uncle Fin is done with high school?!"

"My, my, I can't believe it?"

"Haha, Gramps!  Give 'em the keys and say, 'welp' see ya later!'

Just kidding."

"Check out our sweet shirts!"