Happy Halloween!

Our Father

I cannot believe I forgot this!!!!

In my organization of the last 6 weeks of what we have been up to post...I cannot believe I forgot this part! Todd Sether turned 35 on 9/10/11 (or somewhere around there) and had a party. Not just any party, but a dress up party. A "Come dressed as your Favorite Couple" dress up party.
Here is the Birthday Boy. Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski. Todd has not shaved his goatee off in 15 years! A good costume party will bring out the best in all of us! Ria, actually died her hair from blond to brown and cut bangs! I may have met a couple as psyched up about costume parties as us. (Please note how strategically placed the citronella candle wax ended up on Monica). I deducted points from them, since Bill forgot his cigar! Up until the day of the party we were going as Dorothy and the Scarecrow. They are after all great costumes. And even if they weren't really a couple, we were planning on arguing that they surely hooked up in the forest at least once! But oh, nooo. Bear had to change his mind. He wanted to be Jack Sparrow. And I could be Elizabeth Swan. He figured we could just use the pirate costumes from Halloween 2005. But he sent me to Kmart for wigs. Well, I found 2 wigs, one for each of us and they were perfect! I found an awesome pirate wig for him complete with a few dreads and a do-rag. And a long brown wig for myself. We didn't know everyone that attended the party and most of them thought that that was my real hair! Boy were they shocked when we changed into normal clothes and I revealed 2 inch blond!
It's a good thing, we changed our mind because Dorothy showed up. Ria's Aunt came in full costume and had her little dog too. The best part is that she came through Customs and was stopped! They crated poor Toto and she had to go in to be questioned dressed like Dorothy!
Here we are! The dashing Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swan!
Bear was unrecognizable to a few people we know! We totally freaked out my nephew Derek, who was over watching the boys. He watched us get ready for the event and about died when I told Bear to come to the bathroom so I could apply his eye makeup! He was all on board with eyeliner and mascara. I even gave him a little scruff with the mascara wand! That little wand can do wonders to eyes, eyebrows and your face! The best part was when we got out of our costumes and put on normal street clothes. Bear rubbed off the goatee and not the rest. So for the rest of the night he was wearing a red polo and jeans complete with eyeliner and mascara! A friend kept saying, "I'm having a hard time talking to you like this man!". I was secretly loving it in the corner. For any of you out there-remember how much I love Prince?! It is all about the guy-liner! Mmmmmm.

What we've been doin'

Where the heck have we been?! Well, we've been busy and blogging has been the last thing I seemed to have time for. Instead of feeling like I need to make a special post for each of these every day life moments, I am taking the easy way out and blogging about them all. Then I'll feel all caught up and can go back and expand on them later (if I get time!).
Canning! My husband is a canning slave. We have literally been canning some kind of fruit or vegetable, sometimes more than one item, every single night after work. Usually when the kids are in bed. Which means great quality time with my husband in the kitchen, but also, tons of work. I won't be sorry though. I'll take the "after" picture of my shelves when we are completely done canning. AND when he finally decides to mount more shelves. We are totally out of room in the basement to put the filled jars. So we have jars on the counter, on the basement floor, in the back bedrooms. EVERYWHERE!
Here is a look at the corn we produced. The kids then had sack races around the yard and used them as bags to jump on the trampoline with too! It was A LOT of work to shuck, de-cob and then pressure cook. But fresh Loman corn in the dead of winter cannot be replicated any other way!
Papa Milo turned 66 and we celebrated out at his cabin. We had been talking about my shooting skills. I seemed to have lost them a bit over the years. I was a dead eye when I was younger. Milo was patient with me and taught me all I know about shooting and hunting. Now with my husband, I can barely see the dang bird in the woods, let alone shoot one! So Milo dug out the .22 with a scope and let the boys shoot at some pop cans. They are still too little to steady the gun themselves. And the trigger is super hard to pull. So we'll wait a few years for them. But I was the first to shoot the gun and did hit the pop can off the target! I missed the second time though. We do manage to get to church on most Sundays. The kids love to play in the trees after church. It's something they have come to "earn" when they are really good at church.
One of our weekends at the shack we got to see our Ruby! She's getting big and she's MOVING! She is now standing on her own. She crawls. Fast! You forget how quickly they change. Her cousins love to interact with her and she is always ready to smile for them!Most of the time I am sitting on the wheeler with the kids. This is what we see. Bear searching for the bird one of us saw (usually not me) and preparing to shoot it! It's so fun watching the boys react to the food dad has brought in for us!We have gone searching for dinosaur eggs too! AKA puffball mushrooms. The boys still really believed they were dinosaur eggs. Parker was the one to figure out it was just a mushroom. The debate is still out for Emmitt I think.
Our little hunter. He tends to treat the dead birds with affection. Not sure why? We will find him carrying around the bird, cradled in his arms! It's bizarre. But then he is totally fine with it being cleaned up and eaten.

One weekend Bear was out working on trails and the boys and I toted Papa Don back and forth between trucks and tractors. He was moving tractors from one location to another and kept leaving behind the vehicle he drove there! So the boys took many different tractor rides with Papa. While I was the cabbie for the day. Papa stuck them each up on a hay bale and let them slide down in their carhaarts. FUN!
The rides down the road and through the fields were even more fun! Papa let both boys steer the tractor. Parker found his favorite spot looking out the back window at the road below.
Papa does most of the cooking with daddy. Sometimes I bring a dish for all of us. But I am usually off the hook. And I rarely do dishes or pick up. It's nice to let them do the work as I sit back and watch. Papa makes the best pancakes for breakfast. On this day it was Frosty the Snowman and Pluto the dog. The boys talked about each part they ate one by one.2 Fridays ago, the Bilbens welcomed #3. Jens Daniel came into the world at 8:32 am. I happened to be working that day and took my break to visit the new family. He's tiny (8#3oz) and adorable. This little guy may be the one who finally resembles his momma a bit. The other two are all Derek!
Right after Jens came, I headed down to Lisa. I watched her 3 year old twins while she worked the night shift and slept during the day. I took Emmitt with me, while Bear and Parker went to the shack. Gwen and Griffin are both adjusting to their new school better. I can see improvements in both of the kids. And funny little things they do, that we don't want to forget too soon. I made sure to snap some pics of them while they were in their natural environment and it was a blast!Emmitt had a great time with his new best friends! From a pumpkin patch to tubby time with extra kids. Lisa and I did get to visit and hang out, but we will definitely be planning a non-working trip down to her!

Our next weekend back we had 2 birthday parties to attend. Jessalynne turned 4 and Jillian turned 6. I only brought my camera to Jessalynne's party. They had a pee-on-ta (pinata) as Emmitt would say. Parker saw kids from his class. Raija has been a teacher-helper in both of the boys' rooms. It's crazy that they live down the road and we are actually related (Bear and Raija are 2nd cousins) and we don't get together. Ever! Life has been busy for us, but I've taken more time to enjoy it (and capture it) than feeling like I need to sit down weekly and write about it. But I never want to forget the things we do. We do make time for fun things. Not too many things, even though looking back at this post can be exhausting...but we make memories together as a family.