Chapter 366

Forget the "10 Delicious Recipes" part of the picture above. This was the only graphic I could find for National Bundt Pan Day. That should tell you something right there. Apparently it's not up there with Thanksgiving or Halloween.

 I'll start off with a rare sighting on one of the Cook family. Pictures of them are scarce as hen's teeth, (whatever that means) so we need to enjoy them when we get them! Here Sally enjoys playing with her stuffy. It looks like she'd like someone else to play with her but I can almost guarantee she's too busy reading on a rainy morning.

Tuesday we had an Election Night party. Erik and Darla came over and we had nachos and wine...and like most Americans, a big surprise! While I was cleaning a cabinet out at work, I found this huge flag so I brought it home for the evening and lit it from behind for a little election night ambiance. I clearly have no idea why we have a 4' x 6' flag tucked away in the supply cabinet in an auto shop but I'll put it back so it can quietly live there for another 25 years.

This is how Bear spent his election night. I guess Bear knew something we didn't and he clearly was getting ready for the shit to hit the election fan. 

And from the Walker front, since their retaining wall is presenting difficulties for them, Chris and Roo decided to get their fence up  and get the yard Beargan-proofed (Bear and Reagan proofed). Those two high-energy mammals need to be contained to give their mammal-watchers a break.

And on that home improvement topic, Bob finished the hardwood floor in the living room. Since our workshop was out on the front porch, I'm pretty sure there were some neighbors that weren't happy about the chop saw chop sawing at 9:30 at night...outside. On the plus side for us, it was a beautiful warm evening and we could leave the door open while we worked.

Then end result makes Reagan's playroom look twice as large as it did before. I'm so glad to get rid of that pink carpet that was installed 23 years ago. I must say, it had seen a lot of living during those years.

Ok, ok. I know I've shown you this picture series before but it still makes me laugh to open up his kitty sack to find him glaring at me from within.

 I've done it so many times today Nitro's given up glaring at me. I guess he's figured out that his furry little kitty middle finger isn't working on me so he's going to try ignoring me instead.

 Both of the boy's (son-in-laws) dads are into birds. Chris' dad Dave got me interested in what the different birds were when they came to Washington to visit several years ago. Then a couple of years ago we went to Arizona to visit Ryan's parents. Ryan's dad Dave (no, I didn't confuse their names and, yes, they are the same.) had quite a bird-feeding routine each morning that we thought was going a bit overboard, however we loved all the birds he attracted with his feeding and started to feed birds when we got home.  Usually Bob does the bird/squirrel feeding, but as I prepared the food to take outside, I realized we were now crazy bird people as well. We have fine ground sunflower seeds for the birds, black sunflower seeds for the squirrels, peanut butter for the peanut butter logs, and suet for the chickadees and woodpeckers.

Since it was kind of sunny today, we grabbed another cache. It was right in front of the fire station in Auburn. "Here Spot" is the most obvious cache we've "found" so far, and I got excited when I saw how large the cache box.  I was excited because some fires stations that sponsor a cache (Scott?) put fire station goodies such as stickers, pens, etc., in the cache box for the cache finder. In Tangent, there is a cache right on Birdfoot Drive where you turn to go to Scott's fire station and another right down the road at Tangent City Park. I think Tangent Rural Fire District needs their own cache right out front.

Other than replacing our carpet, this wasn't a very exciting week. Next weekend my parents will be here to visit Reagan so there should be a lot of action to document. 

Have a good week everyone!

Grocery stores have been giving cookies to little shoppers for decades. My girls always wanted to go straight to the bakery department to get their cookies. As we headed back to the bakery, I dropped "this and that" into the shopping cart. Their evil retail sales plan worked. Now the trend is to give free fruit instead of sugary snacks. Here Reagan is enjoying her Trader Joe's banana. Carissa would have enjoyed this but Kyanne would not have been happy about a piece of fruit. She was not a fruit eater back in the day.

Chris and Reagan build a "boat" out of egg cartons.

Dressed for bedtime tooth brushing. Her teeth must be shiny white if she needs sunglasses to look at 'em!

Cousin Payton in her pirate dress-up costume her grama got her when they went clearance shopping after Halloween. She looks good with a parrot. Not everyone can pull that look off.

 Reagan likes to get up really EARLY. Kyanne was an early riser too and so my solution was to get an old clock and paint the hands with bright paint then cover the part of the clock for the hours she needed to stay in bed with paper. The second Kyanne saw the hand peek out from under the paper cover, she shot out of bed and came to get us. Now there are so many cool gadgets to help parents teach kids to stay in bed, and hopefully, let them (and their parents) sleep in a little bit longer.  Reagan's cool little "OK to Wake" owl is a night light, plays music, and best of all, turns green when it's ok to get up. I love it!

Happy Saturday morning. Hiding in a corner with her blankie is the way to start the day off right.