Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Wibaux Vacation: Part II

Ryker was pretty pumped about his Wibaux bucks that he won at appreciation day.  Almost as excited as he was when Ty bingo'd at the Rainbow and gave him his winning "ticket."  Ty went up to get his gift certificate and Ryker ran up after him so Ty gave it to him and Ryker yelled "I got a ticket!"  Little did he know, that ticket was worth a Rainbow appetizer. 

So we spent the rest of our vacation trying to spend his Wibaux Bucks but the stores were never open.  He really wanted one of these little houses for his Grandma Katha and a wooden bear for Grandpa Geoff and Grandma Mary.  We also tried to get into the pewter shop numerous times (8 to be exact) to get Kya a Christmas tree ornament.

If I had won Wibaux Bucks, this is where you would have found me!

After we finally gave up the dream of ever getting into the bear or pewter store, we spent his money at the grocery store and the gas station.  Not too exciting, but at least he finally got to use them. 

When it is below 0 outside, sometimes you have to ride in your Grandma's basement.

Ryker's sweet wrapping job he did on Grandma Patti's present.  He was pretty proud of it.

Carefully placing it under the tree.

Little Bubba and Little Bubbette!  Sorry Little Bubbette, I should have pulled your waistband down a bit.  It's a good thing you are cute on your own, because you will never get any help from me.  Just be glad I was able to get you dressed each morning :)

Cars lined up....check, trains lined up....check.

Ryker insisted Kya play "animals" with him, so she was the tiger.

Donkey checking Hippo's ears for birds like the doctor does.

Kya is not amused Ryker.  She's probably mad that she has to wear those hand me down pj's with the neck all stretched out from your giant melon!

"Get off me, I'm trying to eat."

Keeping busy inside because it was too cold to play outside as much as he would have liked.  He would go to the school gym at noon with his Grandma to walk/run around for an hour. 

Hanging more ornaments he made.


Had fun with this bag for a while then retired it to Ryker's nicely decorated tree.

Ryker and Friends baked clay ornaments: Abby, Ryker, Kya, Colton, and Alexis.

We ususally open gifts on Christmas day, but Cam couldn't wait for Ryker to open his present so he got to open one on Christmas Eve.  It was for the best because he got so much stuff the next day that it was nice that he got to play with this one the day before.

Cam was smart enough to know to provide the batteries and that he was going to be in charge of setting it up.

He did learn, however, that it takes 3 times as long to do it with a 2 year olds help!

Ready to roll!

A little less laughing and a little more jogging there Pat!  After he finished the big assembly, Cam showed her how to use all the gadgets.  Now she just needs an mp3 player to plug into it to blast some tunes!  Thanks Nikki for picking it up for us, Bret and Ty for hauling it into Ty's house in the middle of the night for a safe hiding place until Christmas, and Bubba for apparently single handedly hauling it into Mom's house.  I still don't see how that is possible....those things are heavy!

Guess who ate Santa's cookies?  This picture reminds me of a classic fair cookie story.  That's one for Cam to tell though.  Ask him if he can make a decent peanut butter cookie sometime you want a laugh.  He get's pretty wriled up.

Why is packaging soooo difficult?





They just keep coming!





Note that the only people you see opening presents are Mom and Ryker.  It used to be just Mom.  I called home last year and asked what they did Christmas morning and Kara and Ty replied "sat around and watched Mom open presents from her friends."  We believe Christmas is for kids and we're all old enough to buy our own stuff so we don't exchange gifts, except with my Mom.  Plus who wants to stress out about finding something good for grown adults and who wants to get a bunch of junk you don't want or will never use.  Some people call us scrooges, but it works for us.  We always go in on a sweet gift for my Mom though....she is easy....a lot less picky and more appreciative than her offspring!  We love getting together and that's what Christmas is to us now that we are all adults.  The days of my Grandma showing up Christmas morning with 6 garbage bags full of presents are long gone and can never be topped anyway.  It was fun to have some kids around this year though to keep Mom company opening the gifts from her friends.

First shot out of his new nerf gun....priceless.

We had been in Montana since before Thanksgiving.  Poor Ryker got all these awesome toys at Christmas and then had to pack them all up the next day to leave.  He kept asking me on the ride home....Did you bring my cement truck?  Yes, Ryker.  Where is it?  In the back.  Did you bring my train?  Yes.  Where is it?  In the back.  Did you bring the remote?  Did you bring the truck with the little cars.........yada yada yada....He asked me about every single present he got.

Yahtzee!



Sunday, January 23, 2011

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Friday, January 7, 2011

Dave's the Man!

Dave has been doing an amazing job on our house and Ryker loves him because he's a man's man and Dave always has tools and it working on something when Ryker sees him.  Ryker sometimes talks about the house we're building like it belongs to Dave, meaning he'll actually call it Dave's house.  I'm sure it seems that way to him since Dave's always out there working on it.  I like to ask him when Dave's going to move in just to hear his funny responses.  We may have to designate a room for Dave and have him stay over on the weekends!  Anyway, not only has been kicking butt on our house and holding our hands in regards to any general building questions we have, the other day he hooked Ryker up with this sweet new tool bench.  We had no idea, just went out there to find it all set up for Ryker with his tools on it.  Now you know it took Dave about two and a half minutes to build this thing out of scraps (It would have taken Seth a half hour.  Refer to earlier birdhouse post, haha, just kidding Seth), but the thought behind going the extra mile to make a little boy's day....absolutely priceless!  Thank you Dave for being such a nice guy.  We're lucky that Ryker chooses hard working men like you to mimic!




Saturday, January 1, 2011

More Vacation


Nothing keeps him off his bike.  He rode every chance he got, even if it was in my Mom's basement.  We got some pretty funny looks when we would ride it downtown.









Diggin' snow

We made a snowman at the park but I didn't have my camera so I had to use my phone.  The picture is horrible.  Chacon kept stealing the snowman's stick arm and Ryker was disappointed that we didn't have a carrot for his nose.  He was really into carrots because we would throw them into the snow tunnels the rabbits dug under the sheds and check to be sure they ate them the next day.  We fed them every time we played in the yard and on Christmas he threw them in the hole and said, "Merry Christmas bunny rabbit."