Well, That Didn't Take Long

Here we are. It's Saturday morning. About five minutes after I woke up, I looked out the window and saw this...

That's right. Trees. No, it was snowing. SNOWING!! That's what the white dots reflecting the flash from the camera are. Snowflakes. Sigh. I think it has stopped...for now. Here's a slightly better picture of the snow. Play close attention to the grill...

Sigh. I just wanted to share that with you guys. Now I'm going to have a warm mug of tea and try to convince myself it was just a fluke and not the new norm.

It Is NOT Called Snow

It IS called "termination dust".

What is termination dust? It is "the first, light dusting of snow; on the very tips of the mountains. It's a warning. The first, big snow is just around the corner. This of course, triggers a huge shopping frenzy" (from some Alaska slang website I found). Why am I bringing this up now? Funny you should ask. Ask I was sitting here doing up yesterday's post, this happened right out my window:

Yep. Termination dust has hit the mountains right across the river from us, as if to say, "Oh, the first day of fall was this week? Hahahaha. We'll see about that." I guess it's time to start looking into snow tires and parking in the garage. Ahh...Alaska, what an adventure you are turning out to be.

Fall Fun

This past weekend, the weather was gorgeous, so we took advantage and had some fall fun. Basically, this means that on Saturday, Josh raked up some piles of leaves around the yard, and the boys played in them. Probably not the most exciting thing in the world, but they had such a good time with it all.

I think my favorite part was when Josh and I were on the deck chatting while he grilled up some grub, and we looked out to see Zeke trying his hardest to rake up one of the piles by himself. Upon seeing this, Josh headed down the stairs into the yard and said, "Do you need some help, buddy?" Zeke looked at Josh, and rather emphatically told him, "No," then ordered Josh back up the stairs. He said, "Zeke do. Zeke turn. Dad upstairs." And, well, Zeke "did".

On Sunday, the weather was still nice so Josh let the boys sweep the leaves off the deck while Mommy took a little nap. He's such a great dad, huh? But again, the boys had a blast, and this time a little bit of work was actually accomplished.

Of course, since then, it's been windy and rainy, so there are leaves all over again. Ah, well.

Now, before I go, I wanted to bring something to your attention, even though it's a bit past the fact. Saturday, believe it or not, was National Talk Like A Pirate Day. Avast ye matey! Someone should be walking the plank for not letting me know this sooner. Yarrgh! Anyhoo, in order to celebrate this day, I was going to get a clip of both boys doing their pirate impersonations (because, they do have them - everything that has a sound gets a sound/impersonation whenever it's mentioned, so we can't just say "cat", "dog", "cow", "pirate"; we have to say "cat - meow", "dog - woof woof", "cow - moooo", "pirate - yarrgh" - this is particularly funny when we have chicken for dinner). I was only able to get Deacon, and as you can hear in the background of this clip, Zeke did not want to be filmed doing his best "yarrgh!" You can also hear his new habit of calling everyone "son". Kind of funny. Deacon just calls everyone "Dee Dee", but he's working on it.

Okay, tangent. Sorry. SO, I was going to film the kids and post the videos here on September 19th. But with Zeke not playing along (although whenever the camera was not out he was more than happy to run around going "pirate. yarrgh." over and over again), and me hoping he would oblidge me until he was actually in bed, then me being too tired to get on the computer and blog, it took me until today to get it up and to inform you all of what, I'm assuming, most of you missed out on. Maybe next September 19th we will all be a little more informed and a lot more ready. Yarrgh!

We're Still Here

So, I feel like I should have a bunch of things to blog about since it's been over a week (gasp!) since I last blogged. But really, there just isn't a whole lot going on up here. Fall is here, and it's been fun seeing the trees on the mountains turn yellow. Which seems to be the only color they really turn here. But it's still pretty.

Snow has also started forming on some of the higher mountain tops around us. That's fun. I guess. Soon enough it'll be all over the ground too.

Otherwise, wer're just hanging out, doing our thing. I went to a prayer shawl knitting group that our church here has. It was very nice. There were four of us there last night, but it was neat getting to know some of the other ladies who go to the same church as us. It was also fun to get together with ladies and knit.

The boys are still wild and crazy guys. Some new favorite activities are walking around in my slippers and houseshoes...

Playing with the new "car ramp" Daddy put up for them, which usually winds up being Zeke lining up all the cars in front of the fireplace as Deacon hands them to him, then Zeke sends them all down the ramp all willy-nilly like, then Deacon "gets" to fetch the cars and give them back to Zeke...

And then there's still the love of reading. Here are both boys reading Dr. Seuss books. He's a favorite around here...

And that's really all from Walterland at the moment. Hope you enjoyed the update.

Why, Yes...

Why, yes, Zeke is still somewhat, let's say, "particular", about how he plays with some of his toys. For example, when he "makes puzzles", as he calls it, he empties the pieces to five puzzles into a big pile and then puts all five together at once...

(By the way, I knew I was done taking these pictures when Zeke looked up at me, pointed to the camera and said, "Go upstairs.")

Or, when he plays "train tracks" now, he will start by lining up his train. Then he'll take a piece of track and lay it down in front of the train. Next, he moves the train onto that piece of track. He then continues along, laying down a piece of track, then moving the train the end of that piece. Lay down track, inch train along. Lay down track, move train along. And so on until it's complete...

* * * * *

Why, yes, Deacon is still a messy eater...


At least he's happy about it. Make no mistake, this young man's emotions are very much ruled by his belly. The emptier the belly, the grumpier and mopier the Dee Dee. The fuller the belly, the happier and livelier the Dee Dee.

Here's one more shot from that last picture so you can better grasp the force that is Deacon...


That's it. Take it in. Take it alllllll in. Sweet boy.