A Lovely Fall Evening

Yesterday I promised Ben we'd go for a hike.  It was one of those "For the love of God child, stop whining and I will do whatever the hell you want" moments.  I promised him a hike up a mountain.

 

Fortunately, two year olds don't know the difference between mountains and hills.  So we walked up the slight incline in the woods behind our house.  Ben was thrilled.

Since it is now technically hunting season, and I happen to like my child alive, we made him wear a "magic" hat during our walk.  I'm fairly confident no one actually hunts on the road behind my house, and we were making enough noise to scare off every living creature in a five mile radius, but just to be safe, Ben got to wear his dad's orange hunting hat.

 

It's a tad large.

 

So we left for our "hike" with Dad and dog in tow.  Don got dressed up in all his hiking gear.

 

 

That's right.  Slippers and pajamas.  It was a pretty intense "hike."  After a few minutes of walking through the woods we discovered we were being followed by some local wildlife.

 

 

Yup, that's our cat Scout.  Now that she's an outdoor cat she decided she'd join us on our walk.  Which was pretty hilarious and cute because she followed Ben around.  Unfortunately, she felt the need to complain the whole time.  Seriously Scout, it was barely a hill, not sure why you needed to complain.

 

How does a cat complain you might be wondering?  Well, it sounds like this:

 

"MROOOOOOWWWWWWW  MERRRRRROOOOOWWWWWWWW  ROWOOOOOOW  MROOOOOOOWWWWWW"

 

The whole damn time we walked!

 

 

Following the leader!

 

 

Someone was getting tired of his hat!

 

The leaves are starting to get pretty!

 

 

And because she wasn't getting in enough of the pictures...here's Scout crashing the picture of Don and Max

 

 

We had a really nice walk, despite the serenade from the cat, and I think we'll try it again next week when maybe a few more leaves have changed colors.  I think we'll probably invest in a bit more orange too, you can't be too safe when it comes to hunting season.  And we'll probably leave the cat in the house.  She really was annoying.

 

 

 

 









Where Has the Time Gone??

Yesssss!  I found a minute to blog!  I think I have roughly three minutes before Ben wakes up from his nap, and I'm giving myself a well deserved break from reading for my computer class (the book actually explains how to click the mouse, and has separate "lessons" on the complexities of "double clicking" and "right-mouse click").

Things have been kind of nutty around here lately!  Lots of changes at both jobs have had me picking up extra hours each week and have left me pretty tired.  Oh, and did I mention SCHOOL started?  So on top of being worn out from work I'm trying to squeeze studying in to every spare second of time.  And when you have two year old, "spare time" is relatively unheard of.

I'm expecting some more job related changes to come soon.  I haven't exactly decided what those changes will be, but hopefully whatever I decide to do will be the best situation for all of us.  Trying to figure out that situation has left me a little stressed though.  Why must everything change all at once?!?

Fortunately I have a pretty amazing husband who has been picking up a lot of my slack, including taking several work-from-home days so that I could pick up these extra shifts.  I'm so glad he's around to keep everyone fed and clean when I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

I also have a pretty amazing two year old who has very successfully, and quickly might I add, potty trained himself!  It was almost over night and he has had very few accidents since we decided to go (almost) diaper free.  We are still struggling a little with using the potty EVERY time at daycare, but hopefully as he gets more comfortable that will all fall into place as well.  Yay for Ben!  Big boys pee on the potty, just ask him, he'll tell you!

The big boys are busy right now too!  Jake has moved to Orono with some friends to get a little taste of the "real world."  With a little luck he'll figure things out quickly, get himself enrolled in school, and move seamlessly into adulthood.  But, there's always a bed here for him should things get off to a rough start.

Marcus started his final year of high school.  WE MADE IT!!!!  I love Marcus dearly, but it has been a long road getting that kid through school!  He's got a really great attitude about things this year and is taking a night class at YCCC in Criminal Law that I hope he finds interesting.  If he can stay focused he's going to have a really great senior year!

It's funny, now that I'm struggling to find spare seconds to blog, I find that I have had all sorts of things to share!  When I had all the time in the world, not a thing would pop into my head.  Oh well, I suppose that's life.

I can hear Ben waking up, thankfully he gave me a nice fifteen minutes or so to write uninterrupted!  We're heading out to explore a little river in Limington now, because we've been severely lacking in Mom and Ben time.  Hopefully he'll have fun splashing around!