Beauty is...

Now that Rori is in school she had her first stab at reflections. The theme this year is Beauty is...

After talking with Rori about the different types of project she could do she decided she wanted to take a picture. I asked her what she wanted to take a picture of and she said, "the chickens."

To tell you the truth I think the chickens are cute, but definitely not the definition of beauty. So I asked Rori how that fit the theme and she said...:because its a new baby chicken and new life is beautiful."

So here you have her entry entitled "Beauty is New Life"

Although she did not do the color adjustment she told me what she wanted. I did not crop the picture or adjust the sharpness for the most part this image was strait out of the camera.

Well today we went to the reflection assembly and Rori's picture is going on to the district level. She won a her first trophy.

We Picked a Name‏

"Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?”

The brush continued to move.

“Like it? Well I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”

That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there—criticized the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:

“Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”

- Mark Twain The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

We had absolutely no problem picking out a name for either of the girls. It was so simple, we both immediately agreed on both Rori and Gracie – “boy” has this been a different experience.

We haven’t been able to agree on any of the names for one reason or another. Nate’s supreme test of any name is if it sounds good in the name game song… “banana-fanna-fo- facie….Gracie”. Everything from “I knew someone named that in high school”, “that name sounds too ‘hard’”, “I don’t want his nick-name to be…”, to “that’s a good old man’s name- but not a little boy name” has been presented to disqualify various monikers.

Well I think we have the name.

We talked about this one a few times- and off-handedly disqualified it each time. Nate told me the other day that he had always wanted a little boy named Sawyer- because of Tom Sawyer. Nate is a big Mark Twain fan. I like the name too- and so- simply as that we settled on it.

Sawyer- because we like it- and Nate likes Mark Twain (He says he still gets to call the baby Huckleberry – his other Twainian choice)

GranBarry- Because Nate’s great-grandpa was named “Nathan Granberry”, Nate’s dad is named “Barry” and Nate’s middle name is “Barry”

Pilcher- Because that’s just the way it works.

We are excited. It even works with the name game- it must be right…

“Sawyer, Sawyer bo-boyer, banana-fanna-fo-foyer……”

Hackers Stink....we are going private

Well I had my Identity stolen. Thank you if you are reading this post. So we are going private. Please send me your email address and I will invite you to or blog.

It's a.....

Well after never officially announcing I was pregnant, I thought I should at least announce that we have found out what we are having....

Any guesses? Gracie said it should be a baby girl so it can have all of her old clothing. Rori said it should be a boy, cause she already has a sister and needs a brother to play with. As far as Nate or I, we were thinking it is a girl cause we can not agree on a boy name. So here are the results...

Yep it's a boy!!! I guess for Gracie's sake he will wear a little bit a pink and Nate and I will begin fighting over the name.

mean old woman....

Yep that is the title I received tonight when I went to put Rori to bed at 8:00 pm. She informed me that I was a "mean old woman". I did not think that this day would come this soon, or that it would hurt so bad.

After I was done being mad, Rori and I talked about what had happened and she told me she just felt mad in her heart. I love Rori's ability to understand people and the way they feel along with how she feels. As she was apologizing she was crying, I asked her way she was crying she told me "i just feel sad about what I said".

I love you Rori even if I am a "mean old woman" at least I will always be YOUR mean old woman. Sleep well my little Roo.

my little lou

Lately Gracie has really been keeping me on my toes as she begins to discover her independence. I thought I knew a lot about parenting and child development but Gracie has taught me great humility.

After one of her potty accidents I took her to the tub to get cleaned off. As I was looking for some clean underwear (which is virtually impossible to find lately) she decided to take off and this is where I found her.

Yes this is the front yard and yes that is a pile of dirt. As I watched her fascination with the dirt I realized how fleeting these childhood moments are, I love her and her determination to figure out the world. Being a mother is the greatest job ever.

To Bee or not To BEE‏

When Nate was a teenager he would visit his great-grandmother Larue on her farm in south west Montana. His great-grandfather had passed away when he was around 10 or 11 years old. Each year as he visited his grandma (who he christened “Grandma-Far-Away” as a young child) they would have various projects to complete. More often than not, some of those projects would involve cleaning up or out some of his great grandfather’s belongings.



While cleaning out a storage room one summer Nate found his great-grandpa’s bee veil and smoker. Since that time he has been fascinated with the idea of keeping bees “just like grandpa did”.


So we bought a hive and a package of bees this year. It’s definitely a big change to not “freak” out when the bees land on you- but we have had an incredible time managing the hive to this point, as well as learning about the incredible lives of bees.

About five days after we placed the bees in the hive they swarmed and deserted the hive. No one is sure why- sometimes they just do that. We have a hard time keeping track of two little blond-headed girls- I guess 6,000 bees is even harder to keep tabs on.


Nate was pretty discouraged- but I wanted him to do it. I knew it was important to him. So I made some more connections and got help in catching another swarm. This time we have 30,000 bees.


We are in the process of getting it prepped to go into our own hive now.

We will keep you updated on our hive, our rogue bees, and try to stay away from anymore overly used and corny Shakespearean-referenced-blog-entry-titles.