Kiki

Alan and I have never had much of a desire to have a pet, but the boys slowly wore us down.  He has been a huge animal lover since he was tiny.  Spencer has been asking for a dog for awhile now, but I couldn't quite make that commitment, at least not while we live in this tiny house. So, when a friend in town posted that she had kittens for sale, I started thinking that a kitty might be the perfect Christmas present for these boys.  I have fond memories of the pets my family had when I was a kid and liked the idea of a sort-of playmate for Mason and a bit more responsibility for Spencer.  Alan has never cared for cats and I had to work to convince him, but he eventually agreed.  :)

We decided that because of all of the vet and other expenses and kitten requires, that this kitty needed to be considered part of their Christmas even though we got her on Oct 15.  About a week before we picked her up, I purchased some supplies and wrapped them in Christmas wrapping to surprise Spencer.  (Mason had already been to see the kitties and was my confidant!)

 Excited to open presents:

"We're getting a cat." (No excitement in his voice)  Spencer was a little disappointed at first that we were getting a cat instead of a dog, but he likes Kiki now.

Spencer got the important job of naming her.  He used our old baby name books and came up with "Kiki."  It was perfect because that's already what it sounded like Mason was saying when he tried to say, "kitty."  Plus, it fits her crazy, little personality.

I felt so bad for Kiki the first day we brought her home.  She was less than two-months old (born Aug 20) and so small and cute.  She was terrified that first day and hid under a bookshelf for several hours.  It was sad to think how lonely she must be missing her mom and siblings.  Luckily, kittens adjust quickly and she was much more confident the next day.

We couldn't believe how much energy she had when attacking this ball on an elastic string.  Little did we know just how much energy she really had!

Because she was lonely, we thought it would be a good idea to have her sleep with Spencer that first night.  She curled up in his bed and went right to sleep.  I heard Spencer crying a couple of hours later though, and found him sitting in bed with scratched up legs.  Kiki had gone under his covers and attacked him.  He was slightly traumatized and Kiki has been banned from all bedrooms at night ever since.

Once Kiki warmed up to us, she would go crazy dashing around the house, jumping onto forbidden furniture, and play attacking us whenever possible.  Spastic is a good word to describe her.  It was taken a lot of squirt bottle sprays, light bops on the head, and time outs in the garage to calm her down a little.  She is still quite wild and we have issues with play biting, but will now be sweet and curl up in our laps occasionally.

"Robot!"

Even though Alan doesn't love her and getting pretty annoyed with her sometimes, he will occasionally let her sit in his lap.  :)

Mason has LOVED Kiki from the very beginning.  She is his best, little friend while Spencer is at school.  The main reason we wanted a kitten instead of a grown cat was because we wanted it to be friendly and good with kids.  Kiki is definitely that.  She plays rough, but lets Mason haul her around and give her kisses on the nose whenever he wants to.  She has never once tried to scratch or bite him because she didn't like what he was doing.

Vet visits have been surprisingly expensive.  Kiki is so wild that I can't clip her nails at home very often and have had to pay the vet to do that along with all of her immunizations.  :(  The vet recommended a "calming" cat food for her that contained tryptophan.  We tried it, but all it did was make her sleep more.  She was as crazy as ever when she was awake.

Here are a few funny things about Kiki:
-Her current favorite place to sleep is inside the box spring under Alan's and my mattress.  I don't know if there was a hole already in the bottom fabric or if she ripped one, but I find her in there frequently.  She also likes to curl up in this tiny basket on a shelf in our dining room and on the baby swing that's folded up under Mason's crib. 
-She likes to lay by the heat vents as much as Mason, Spencer, and I do.  Her favorite one is right below my kitchen sink so I'm always trying not to step on her when I'm doing dishes. 
-She LOVES to chase and wrestle pom poms, Spencer's stuffed moose, and the elves with jingle bells my Mom made for Christmas years ago.
-This isn't funny, but Kiki has been awesome with her little box.  There was only one accident the first day.
-She drinks leftover shower water out of our bathtub all the time and is fascinated by the water when Mason has a bath.  She feel in once and was not happy about it.

All in all, Kiki can be exasperating and is some work, but most of us love her and I think she was the perfect early Christmas present!

The Beginning of October

We watched the Sunday sessions of General Conference at Darwin and Debbie's house like usual.  Debbie was in Utah visiting Alicia so it wasn't quite the same, but the boys always love to go to "Grandma's house."  Conference was as inspiring as always and we ended the weekend with a turkey dinner at our house.

I caught Spencer with his glasses on!  He takes them to school, wears them when he can't read the board, and immediately takes them off again.  At home, he only wears them if he can't see the scores on a football game.  :)

I got to go on a field trip to Camp Tilikum in Newberg with Spencer!  Alan was working so Debbie agreed to watch Mason for the bulk of the day.  Thank you!  It was a rainy, muddy day at the camp, but we had a great time canoeing, seeing farm animals, going on a nature scavenger hunt, watching the other kids go on a big swing (I couldn't convince Spencer to try it.  He claims he's afraid of heights.), learning about what school was like 100 years ago in a one-room school house, and playing field games.  I'm glad that Spencer still thinks it's cool to have his mom go on field trips!

Mason thinks his "crazy hair" after his bath is hilarious.

Soaking up as much sunshine as possible while we could.  Spencer spends most of his time outside kicking a rubber ball into our roof and watching it bounce back down.

Soccer 2016

Spencer finished up his 4th soccer season last Saturday.  It was a good season for him even though it has been a very rainy fall and a lot of his practices and one game were cancelled because the fields were just too wet to use.  Starting in 3rd grade, recreational soccer begins with two practices where all of the coaches watch and evaluate the players.  Then the coaches get together and divide up the kids to try to make the teams as even as possible.  That means that we couldn't request any friends this year, but Spencer knew a few kids on the team and liked his coach, Coach Evans.  Their team name was The Avengers.

I didn't take many pictures this season for several reasons: 1) Alan was usually working on Saturdays so I got to chase Mason by myself during most of the games.  There wasn't much time for taking pictues! ;)  2) Most of the games were rainy.  And 3), my camera lens just doesn't do a good job with sports shots at a distance.  These are all I have from over 3 months of soccer!

Jamboree day means lots of waiting around for Mason and I while Spencer takes pictures with his team.  Luckily, it wasn't scorching hot like last year and a nice lady gave Mason a small donut because it was the day before his birthday!

His own chair and a banana kept Mason seated for the first 3 minutes of each game!

This was his first season with an official jersey instead of just a tee shirt.  $$!

Oregonians don't use umbrellas all that much.  We usually just put on our hoods or a hat and deal with it.  This game was a super soaker though and we were all very wet despite our umbrellas by the end.

Warm-up drills:

Coach Eric held an end-of-season party at Safari Sams in-lieu of a final practice.  The boys got to run around on the jungle gym for an hour and then have pizza.  Spencer got the "team player" award.  Being a friend to everyone, a good listener, and a hard worker are some of his talents.

Spencer is NOT an aggressive player at all.  He is a natural defender and consequently, doesn't score many goals.  Just like last season, he scored his only goal in the final game.  I wish I had it on video because it was an awesome shot from almost mid-field!  He was proud of himself and we went out for ice cream to celebrate that evening.

 
The Avengers only won two of their nine games, but Spencer didn't seem to mind much.  I love that he doesn't care so much about winning as he does about having a good time and doing his best.  That's exactly what rec soccer should be about and I'm so grateful Spencer has had good coaches who have instilled that attitude in their players.

Fun Run 2016

The Edy Ridge Fun Run is one of Spencer's favorite school events of the year.  And, this year was even better than normal because Alan convinced the school to hire Uberthons to time the races!  Each kid had a bib number with a chip so there was no more having to stop every lap to have a tally mark written on a bracelet (or on their shirt if it the bracelet was too wet to write on!).  It was SO much better and I think the kids thought it was cool to have race numbers and an official start line.  It was a little drizzly that morning so I left my good camera at home.  These fuzzy iphone pictures are all I have.

Spencer's goal was to get 12 laps in 25 minutes and he did it!  He worked hard and ran the entire time!

The official timing tent.  

Go Spencer!

Mason LOVED the wolf mascot that was dancing around the finish line.  He was absolutely thrilled when he got to give it a high five and a hug! 

Tired and proud finisher!  Thanks to all of the grandparents and aunts and uncles who pledged money to support Spencer!  I believe the school made almost $50,000 off this race!  That number is almost unbelievable to me, but it's true.  The money will go towards field trips, classroom ipads, playground equipment, etc. 

Random September

Here are some of the random things that filled our September:

Getting as much playtime with Spencer as possible before he started back at school:

Alan was awesome and spent part of Labor Day installing a "roof" over our back patio.  It's so nice that it stays semi-dry in the rain now!

Mason and I started going to story time at the library once school started again.  Mason LOVES this elephant puppet the library has.  He always wants to give it a hug when we go.  He doesn't love story time yet.  We're working on it.  :)

We tried to soak up as much sunshine as possible!

This is Mason's "lawnmower."

We went on a few bike rides around town.  This one was to Stella Olsen Park to see the ducks.

Clogging started back up when school did too.  We usually go every Tuesday morning.  M. is Mason's good buddy there.  They found some lost-and-found scriptures on a table after class one day and were reading their scriptures together!

Practicing his fish face!

Trying on my shower cap:

You can't be a toddler without drawing on the wall!  Mason created this pretty picture the day before he turned two.  At least it was pencil!

My first attempt at a grain-free cake was closer to the thickness of a cookie than a cake. :(

Darwin and Debbie let us take a bunch of apples off their hands.  We picked for FHE one evening.

Spencer was an awesome canning helper this year!  He helped almost every time I did a batch of anything.  He was good at filling bottles.  Sometimes we took turns reading to each other while we canned.  He's finally getting into some books that I actually enjoy as well and we've had a good time sharing them with each other.

 Mason's birthday was great, but we also get to celebrate his "gotcha day" in September.  We brought him home from the hospital on September 13th.  Actually, we brought him to Alicia's house in Lehi and she had Papa Murphy's pizza and her awesome homemade salsa waiting for us.  That food tasted SO good after a very long and emotional day, so we eat it again every September 13th.