Take a Hike

What do the Mattsons do when they find they have a Saturday with nothing planned? Take a hike. Saturday the 23rd we packed a lunch, loaded all the kids and Diesel (our dog) into the Suburban and drove to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We found a picnic spot with a "moderate" 2.6 mile hike and decided to give it a go. Jared was very excited to crawl across this log, but we encouraged him to walk instead. He was very nervous, but quite proud when he made it all the way across without falling.

Part of the hike took us through a wildflower meadow. Clarissa really liked the butterflies. She almost touched one.

The end of the hike brought us to this original cabin from the 1700's and a great view into the valley below. The kids couldn't believe that a whole family could live in a house this small.

Umm...Charlie's Angels? What is it about a tall rock and little girls that it brings out attitude? All in all, we had a wonderful day together as a family enjoying nature.

Some pics to celebrate the Summer of '08

Chris got himself a hunting bow. It's a Hoyt. He plans to get a deer this Fall. Until then he's been enjoying practicing in the backyard.

This is our pet spider. He was in the same spot at the same time of year last year, we'll have to see how many years he returns. Jen enjoys trying to get a good picture of small creatures every now and then.

Amber's curls...ahhh.

This pumpkin plant just popped up from our compost one day. It is growing on our back porch. Krystal enjoys looking out the window each day to see how it's grown.

Clarissa's flowers. Clarissa planted and watered these flowers and has really enjoyed watching them grow into a beautiful plant.

My BFF (by Amber)

This is my BFF (Best Friend Forever). Her name is Alyson, but I like to call her Ala-Al. Our friendship began when I was a newborn sporting all her hand-me-down clothes. (She's got style!) Our moms like to spend a lot of time together, so naturally, we do too. We have helped each other learn how to sit, crawl, drool, walk, talk, scream, etc. You've probably never seen two babies who actually "play" together at such a young age. We go around the house together causing all kinds of havic for our moms to clean up later. I know we look innocent at the moment, but we are really contemplating how quickly we can hide all the magnetic letters from the refrigerator all over the kitchen, under cabinets and appliances.

Here we are in coordinating outfits practicing for "twin day" in Junior High, munching on a sophisticated snack of animal crackers straight from the 10 lb. plastic tub. Later, we decided to decorate the kitchen with raining cat food.

While our moms were cleaning up the cat food, we headed outdoors and down the hill together for some fun on the play set. Our moms can't tell if we are helping each other on the slide or trying to push each other off, it's really a fine line sometimes.

Aly invited me to her birthday party. She is two now. I won't be two for another four and a half months, but that has never slowed me down. I can get just as much frosting in my hair as a true two year old!

In this picture I'm sharing my Daddy with Aly and I'm happy about it (something I would never do with my sisters and be happy about). Yeah, we're that close. Love you Ala-Al.

Gearing up for School

It all started with me venting to my friend that I just didn't have enough room in the school room for all our books and supplies (eventhough one whole wall is lined with bookshelves). Knowing me and how much I love to find ways to incorporate organization with bright colors, she suggested that I have Chris make a bookshelf with a shelf for each person and paint the shelf the appropriate color. I LOVED the idea and immediately planted the idea in Chris' subconcious. A couple weekends later we moved this very sturdy, brightly painted bookshelf (designed and built by Chris) into it's new home. The whole family helped paint, each person painting their shelf. Jen's is purple, Jared's is blue, Clarissa's is pink, Krystal's in green, and Amber's is orange. It just so happened that the same weekend we were working on the bookshelf, Virginia had tax free days on school supplies. Well, Wal-mart saw me coming from a mile away. Not only did they have notebooks, binders, erasers, pencils, etc. in each of the kid's colors, they also had calculators, pencil sharpeners, flexible rulers, and even protractors in these colors. So, yes, even Amber now has her own orange protractor because to quote myself (while trying to justify my purchases to my hard-working money bank) "In ten years when Amber needs a protractor, they won't have an orange one." Still sounds like pretty good reasoning to me. Plus, look how bright and cheery the room is once everything's put in it's place.

The best part of it all -

Kids: "Mom, can we use our new crayons and markers to color?"

Mom: "No, those are special school crayons and markers, you'll have to wait until we start school (pointing to date on calendar marked in bold red)."

Kids: "I can't wait until school starts!"

Mom, to self: "Ha,ha,ha, my evil plan is working."

We'll see how long the excitement lasts, but until them, I'm enjoying the new paint smell!

Sweet Summer Moments

The kids are rescuing wild daisies from the hillside by our driveway before Chris weedeats. This was one of those moments that makes me love being a Mom.

Jared loves to build things, he has spent a lot of his free time this summer making many creative things (my favorite so far is his version of the Guttenburg printing press made out of legos, which I don't have a pic of). This is one of his roller coaster creations.

Daisies aren't the only thing needing to be rescued from the weedeater. Our neighbor found a nest of bunnies while weedeating and Chris brought them home to show the kids. We returned them to their nest after the yardwork was done and continued to check on them for a few days. The only way that we could get Clarissa to leave them alone was to let her keep one for a day. Eventually, they all went out into the world to find their fortune (a sad day for Clarissa).

I took this picture of Amber on the fourth of July before going to the pancake breakfast. Not to worry, she was only this cute for about five minutes. After which she pulled out her pig tails and spent the rest of the day looking like she had bedhead.

Staying busy

Here are some pics of the food from our garden and the canning that I've done this summer.

Look at it now! It's been referred to as my "baby," my "mistress," (wait, shouldn't that be boyfriend?), my "hobby," whatever you want to call it, the kids know that if they can't find Mom in the house to try the garden. Better yet, look in the garden first, then the house.

Our Garden

Remember the garden in the Spring?