Chicken vs. Goose Eggs

Tom's parents were visiting family in Grants Pass before coming to our house and they brought up some of his cousin's Goose eggs. So we did a comparison with some of our chicken eggs before scrambling them for breakfast ;)

More Snow Fun

Tom getting the driveway plowed the other day with his 2 helpers sitting close behind him.
It was snowing and blowing-very cold--so while we were outside shoveling and plowing...Clara stayed inside with Grandma and made her own snowman....which Grandma said Clara would keep eating the head off of ;)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Tom's parents came the day after Christmas and we had fun visiting them inbetween all the shoveling and plowing ....while they were here....we got quite a bit of snow....fun times all around!

Snow Time

We had cub scouts over to sled and Derrick and Clara were among a handful of other siblings that also got some sled time in. I know - I know she's not even 2..but she loves being outside having fun and she doesn't care who she rides with -even if it's her 4 year old brother :)

Our snowman came and spent most of the day with us...but he just couldn't handle the rest of the sloppy/rainy day-evening we had....so we are waiting for the snowman snow to return so he can visit again ;)

Kolby taking another run on his new Christmas sled/ski ride :)

Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone!!
(don't mind the camera date...it's still messed up ;)

Dad's yummy rolls

Carving the Christmas Turkey ;)

Christmas fun

Ready- Set- Go!!

Nana Sharon, Kassidy and Uncle Dan lined up for a sled run.

Clara caught eating goodies out of her stocking while sitting in Kassidy's new sleeping bag.

"We need a little Christmas" Clara had the snowmen singing to us :)

Christmas morning...a couch full....waiting...

Uncle Dan, Aunt Lindsey, Nana Sharon, and the kids....Grandpa and I also we are all waiting for sleepyhead Tom ;) -mind you --it is somewhere between 5:30& 6 am!!

Mom can we build a fort??

I answered the question with a SURE as I worked on posting things to the blog. I came into the living room and found this HUGE fort of blankets and all the kitchen chairs that has taken up the whole room...and they each have their own "room"....what fun...they now are all in their fort and watching a movie....AHH the life of a kid ;) I better get back to work as they are occupied ;)

Kid Sense

O.K. I haven't put any presents under the tree yet...but it is full under there....Here's why.. when the kids brought home their gifts from school last week they put them under the tree and then over the next few days decided that certain people didn't have any gifts yet under the tree and so they started wrapping up random toys from their rooms....they used a lot of tape, wrote out tags and pretty much used my bag of bows up.....so fun to watch them in this whole process work together and be so caring of eachother...very sweet ;)

First off ignore the dates on the pictures...it obviously needs to get changed!!

Got to love Christmas break and being able to dump out ALL the legos and create all day long !

They dumped it out in the boys' room and then they could shut the door and keep Clara out...that was their plan ;) It was great while Clara napped though - the other 3 spent the whole time in there building quietly....so great--for all of us --if you know what I mean ;)

Christmas Programs

Derrick at our Church Program - memory verse and poem of the WiseMen

Kolby (top picture) and Kassidy (bottom center of picture) in their program at school on Dec. 9th - They did a good job!

Snowy Sunrise

Saturday morning sunrise shining on the snowy Moscow Mountain. It was a beautiful, cold, sunny day!

Christmas Tree

"Before picture"
Every year we get together with some friends and go on a "Christmas tree hunt" There are 3 families and between us all there are 9 kids...so this was the first year in a long time that one of us ladies wasn't pregnant!! For the past couple years we trudged through the pouring rain...so it was fun this year to actually have snow to hike through and play in as we found "the one". It was pretty cold.. so when you'd try to shake some snow off to give the tree a look...most of it stayed frozen to the tree...so all the trees got good and shook up until we found "the one".

The tree had to thaw out for a day before we could decorate it...but it got done just before bedtime on Sunday....and after I'm not sure how many pictures...we finally "captured" everyone with our decorated treee ;)

"After pictures"

Either people had mouths open, deer-in-the-headlights eyes...or whatever these crazy faces the girls are making.

But all in all...it doesn't matter...we were having fun doing it and all the kids were happy...and the tree is now decorated -- and helps remind us of the real Light of the World- Jesus!!

Thanksgiving

We headed to Oregon to see Tom's parents for Thanksgiving and we even got to help celebrate his Grandma Crysta's birthday on Saturday....Kolby made the cake with help from grandma Debbie ;) Yum.

Chamberlin girls at Thanksgiving

Chamberlin boys at Thanksgiving

The end of our Belize adventure

Part of our daily ritual....put on bug spray before you start you day...and then put more on as the day goes on!!

What an unbelievable trip! We tried and do a bit of everything while we were down there....we had a lot of fun and only got sunburned a little the day we went snorkling ;)

Monkey River Boat Tour

After we went up the river and saw the monkeys...we went out in the lagoon area and tried to see the manatees that feed in there....but it was a cloudy, rainy day and we didn't see any...but Darwin, our guide picked up this jellyfish for us to see.

Howler monkey- we parked the boat an ran around the jungle following our guide down the "roads" he called them...they were just barely trails...he kept darting all around...and saying "don't worry we aren't lost...I'm just trying to find the fastest road to get to the monkeys" We heard them along the river as we approached, and heard them even louder in the jungle...They are loud...we were listening to 2 tribes that were hollering at eachother about who was in eachother's spot

At one point our guide told us just to stand there and he'd come back when he found the "road" to the monkey's ....so we stood around for what seemed like a long time...swatting the masses of mosquitos and spraying bug spray while we prayed he knew where to come back and get us :) We at one point waited by this Huge stand of green bamboo!!

the village of Monkey River...we got to eat lunch here on our way back -our guide's aunt was the one at the shop who made our lunch...very nice...more rice and beans and chicken too ;) He said that just last year this village got electricity-which makes it a lot quieter at night with no generators running.

Going through the mangroves...we went down one called starfish lane...and everywhere you looked you saw starfish

Our Snorkle Trip

We went out for about 3 1/2 hours. We were with another couple- they were from Colorado-Our guide took us to 2 different areas. The first stop he got out and went with us-showing us different corals and fish. The second stop was along the Barrier Reef and was obviously deeper and he just followed us for 45 min in the boat since he couldn't anchor. Amazing fish and coral!

Our guide said he liked Tom's "tan"...it is the classic farmer tan :)

Relaxing

More of the Hike

We saw TONS of these leaf cutter ants...amazing little guys...they are moving so much that they have paths cut out of the grass and they travel a long way with the leaves!!

The waterfall along the hike....we could of swam up under it..but I was the only one who wanted to so I decided not too.

Here's our guide Gabriel, he was showing us why these flowers are called "Hot Lips"....he's a funny guy :)

See the Hot Lips ;)

Wildlife Sanctuary Hike

They are around...just not during the day time

Our guide rolled up a leaf to make a whistle...and TA DA this guy came crawling out of a hole in the ground.....Crazy!!

They have night cameras around the trail -so they can catch pictures like this of the jaguars-since they come out at night...not during the day when all us tourist are hiking around ;)

a partial paw print ...can you see it???