Happy Halloween!

Halloween 2010!

A witch, a teddy bear topped off with Ketchup & Mustard. Does it get any happier than that? Maybe with Blake thrown in there as a hot dog, but he wasn't going for it. Maybe we can change his mind next year.

It's hard to imagine a time when our children aren't going to be excited about Halloween. Does this ever happen? Kiley was so excited she could barely contain herself, and this is the first year that Sis actually understands what Halloween is. I could see her putting it all together in that tiny brain; "I dress up, say trick or treat and someone gives me candy? Heck YEAH!"

I am wondering how long it is going to take until they crash from the sugar high(s)... and how am I ever going to manage their sugar intake tomorrow? Should I even try? A plight parents all across America are pondering right now....

It's a Daisy

Kiley is the one with the mask on, see her? In the middle?

Our big girl is now an official Daisy Girl Scout.

What ask you does it mean to be a Daisy Girl Scout? Well let me tell you. She must live by the Girl Scout Law... which includes helping others. She must also learn songs, create (as in crafts), eat snacks and play nicely with her friends. Girl Scouts is a wonderful opportunity for her to interact with her peers in a kindly manner--which I love and encourage.

We have our first Girl Scout gathering this Saturday, which is Juliet Lowe's birthday. If you don't know who Juliet Lowe is, she is the founder of Girl Scouts- you learn something new every day. I bet you didn't know that when Juliet was a young girl her name was Daisy? Hence the youngest group of Girl Scouts being "Daisies."

Kalin is loving Girl Scouts too, but more because she gets to go to the "big school" than anything else. She is not loving, however, having to wake up from her nap in a timely manner so we can go and do our C0-Leader duties at the big school. She is in fact, quite the cranky pants. But I know how she feels, I don't like waking up from naps either. Such is life.

2-2-2 Cute!

What is it about a 2 year-old that makes them so endearing?

Just look at these two year olds.... What makes them so cute?

Could it be the sucker? The hair? The fit she threw when I took the sucker away?

Camryn Taylor at 2, she's 11 now

Is it the smile? The lack of hair? The fit she threw when I took the lippa away, the lippa she loved but ate?

Kiley Jeanette at 2, she's 6 now

The cute shoes they have to wear, even though they are too small? The shirts they won't give up, even when Auntie Babe asks, "Does she have more than one butterfly shirt or does she wear this one all the time?"

Miss Kalin... she's 2 RIGHT NOW

Maybe its what they say?

Like "See you later Crocodile!" when you are leaving instead of "See you later Alligator!"?

Or

"Mom did you fall into a booby track?" aka "Booby Trap"

Or

"Uncle Schnax" for Uncle Max

Or maybe it is just because they belong to us. They just can't help but be cute.

Crazy hair....

So this morning Sis melted my heart, the little stinker. She grabbed my face with both of her hands and said, "Mom you are be u ti ful." Just as sincere as could be. Then she said, "But your hair is craaazy Mom." I don't care about the last part, it was.

So I posted this little comment on Facebook, and almost immediately after I did my Aunt Bossy called me. She was watching Kalin for the three days I was out of town this week. Come to find out Kalin said almost the exact thing to her on Friday! She was wondering where Kalin could have thought up telling us we were beautiful? Was Jon coaching her to tell her Mom she was beautiful? What goes through that little mind? We never can tell what is going to come out of that mouth! The bottom line was I didn't care I just going to go with it!

I don't have a picture of my crazy hair this morning, but I have a picture of Sis's crazy hair! So here's one for the records Sis, you beautiful talking little girl!

Horns!

Kalin has been wanting me to fix her "horns" lately. This has something to do with her being 2...

I jump at the chance to fix her hair. Horns or not. End of story.

Welcome to the Family

If you haven't heard we have acquired another teenager. The word is out- The Clouses take teenagers. We're on our third, people think we are crazy. Little do they know that when our girls are teenagers these boys are going to be our eyes and ears, keeping our teenage girls in LINE!

This teenager was actually referred to us from another teenager, who happens to be his older brother, who also happened to have lived with us for a few years.

His name is Blake.

As you can see he has made himself quite comfortable in the last few weeks. He prefers a different piece of furniture when compared to his brother. Matthew preferred to crash out on the chair, but you know who am I to judge? Whatever floats your boat. I can never figure out boys.

He has fit in quite nicely at the Clouse House. Jon has spent quite a lot of time with him- driving lessons, hunting, yard work, Algebra II homework, etc. He is quiet, and likes his computer time- quite the opposite of his older brother.

Matthew- loud, lots of friends ALL the time, in and out of the house, didn't eat much while he was at home, etc.

Blake- very quiet, some friends sometimes, at home, eats like a typical teenage boy (which is a LOT).


We think we are going to keep him. He fits right in.

Note to Blake: if you fall asleep in the living room and Shannon is around, she will take pictures, lot's of pictures. She will post them on the blog.

Almost.... but not quite

Winter has been knocking at our door here in SW Alaska. Not too loud yet, but she's getting more and more persistent.

We've had a few really cold nights and woken up to some serious frost (enough so that I had to scrape off the car, gasp!). Last night it got down to 21 degrees, and it has warmed up to about 36.

It even tried to snow for a few days. My crazy kids sure had fun making prints in the "snow".... I think they might be ready for winter. At least someone in our house is!

Low Bush Cranberries

We went and found some low bush cranberries on the tundra a few days ago, right before the first snow storm of the year hit Dillingham.

Kiley kicked up a fuss about wearing warm clothes, and I had to practically hold Sis down to even get clothes on her- so it was like herding cats to get both of the girls dressed appropriately, the dogs in the truck and down the road on time.

It was worth the hassle, it was a day you really look forward to out on the tundra- sunshine, wind and no bugs! We were pleasantly surprised with a nice afternoon looking for berries.

We met my friend Nicole and her two boys Logan and Lane and we must have picked for over an hour-we definitely could have picked for a lot longer than that!
I've always been told that low bush cranberries are at their best after the first frost, and we had definitely had at least one that left ice in our puddles. So I figured the berries were at their best- and I must say they were juicy and so gorgeous! What pretty berries, whish is a little weird to say unless you really like them, but these berries were such a very pretty dark red that I couldn't pick enough.

I ended up picking about a quart, not a lot, but enough for me to make a batch of muffins that the kids loved. Kiley helped some and Kalin helped too... but she was more intererested in finding blueberries and then "just trying" the berries in my bucket. Nicole got the rest of what we picked for a special liqueur she was planning on making... maybe she'll share.

Holy Po-na-noes!

I mean potatoes, but you know what I mean.

We picked our potatoes last week, right before our garden was covered in snow. It was a family affair- at least for a little while. Although it was about 11:00 in the morning there was no sun on the garden yet and it was freez-ing! Kiley lasted for about 10 minutes until she had to go and warm up, Kalin was a trooper and picked til the end. She was excited as I was to "dig for treasure" aka the potatoes.

We planted 10 lbs of red seed potatoes and got 25 lbs. I was impressed at the average size of these guys!
We planted 10 lbs of Yukon Gold potatoes and picked 50 lbs out of our garden. Their average size was what I would call spectacular- if you can really call the size of a potato "spectacular." The majority of what we dug up was as big as, if not bigger, than what we would buy here in town.

It was a great harvest. We are excited to have our own home grown potatoes for the winter!