Theology of a 4 year old

A Makai LeGrande production:

"Do you know how people were made?" asks Makai from the back seat of the car. He'll be five in a few months, but this is a topic rarely discussed at our house, so I'm curious what he'll say.

"No," I reply, "how were people made?"

"Dinosaurs made people," he says matter-of-factly.

"Really?" I respond.

"Yes," he continues, "the carnivores made people so they could eat us. But they all died before the people were born. But don't tell Chase," he says with a straight face. "He'll tell a lie and say that's not how people were made."

I assure him that I won't tell Chase, then I discover the story isn't over yet. That's usually the case with Makai. The story never ends when you think it's done. He's the master of false endings... many, many, many false endings in a single story.

Anyway, now he says, "Guess what?" and before I can respond he says, "I remember when I was in mom's belly. A dinosaur made me. It was really gross in there. It was like the inside of a dinosaur egg. I felt like a dinosaur in there. But then when I was born, I felt like a human like I was supposed to."

I've never heard that theory of the origins of humans before, although it's probably not the strangest theory out there.

It's dance dance time!!!

Walking!

Is this a baby taking her first steps or a drunk midget who forgot how to walk?

Almost Walking

Teija is almost 11 months and almost walking. And very excited about it...

Halloween

We almost didn't make it trick-or-treating. Makai couldn't wait to be batman, so he was wearing his old spiderman costume earlier in the day. But spiderman was having difficulties with his spidie powers and he lost his grip on some boulders, resulting in a split lip. He had to get 6 stitches in his lip. Makai was the toughest 4 year old around, though. He only fussed for a second when they gave him the shot, then he just layed there and got his stitches without complaining.

He got done just in time for trick-or-treating and he ran out of the ER yelling, "I get to go trick-or-treating now." He was batman and Chase was a ninja. He was Darth Maul at school a few days earlier, but he decided he didn't want to sit through getting his face painted again. And Teija was a little Angel

Princess Teija

Well little miss Teija is growing up fast. She has quite a personality. She has fun laughing and playing with her brothers.


But she can hold her own with those two maniacs, too. If they're bugging her, she's not afraid to yell at them. In fact she'll yell at anybody that's not being nice to her or cooperating with her demands. Taina and Charlie brought Tank over. He was barking in her face, but instead of getting scared, she just yelled back at him.
She's learning how to use those little cat fangs of hers, too. I was holding her and tickling her belly, which drives her nuts. She was flexing her stomach trying real hard to act like it didn't tickle. She casually leaned her head against my shoulder in the shy way that she does, then she chomped down on my shoulder. I say cat fangs because it felt exactly like a cat biting you. She doesn't take crap from anybody

She's quite mobile now, crawling around everywhere. She has this funny crawl she does where one foot is sticking out in front of her. Jess pointed out that she looks like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. The funny thing is, her cousin Elizabeth crawls exactly the same way.

Teija Crawling:

Teija and Elizabeth crawling:


She is also pulling herself up to stand against things and getting into everything she possibly can. Here's a video of little miss trouble maker. Makai left a twinky on the coffee table and Teija got a hold of it and ate the whole thing.

Twinky girl:

The Boys of Summer

We've been enjoying the warm summer weather, as you should. The boys have been having an especially good time. They're both playing baseball. Makai does t-ball and Chase does coach pitch. Makai is doing a lot better than last year. He runs the bases and actually stays on his base instead of running into the outfield or off to the playground. Of course I still have to stand with him when he's playing the field tol keep him interested in the game. Who knew t-ball would be so much work for me?!



Chase plays really well considering he's never really played before. He's quite a slugger. He knocks it into the outfield almost every time. And I get to play catcher when his team is batting so it's a lot of fun.



Jess and Teija make good cheerleaders. Teija is sitting up on her own now and loves being outside so she has lots of fun too.



Grandpa Cory and Grandma Teresa come to most of the games too. We even had Olivia and Ella out to a game this week, although Ella was a little more interested in the playground.

Chase has also started doing cub scouts. He got his bobcat award at his first den meeting. Way to go Chase!


It turns out he's quite a marksman too. We found that out when Grandpa Cory and his friend Vince took us shooting during a recent trip to Sun Valley.

Grande Adventures in Montana (by Travis)

The Cast: Starting with me (Travis- blue tank top) going clockwise: me, my mom, Teija (my baby), my sister Vanessa, her husband Bryan, my brother-in-law Charlie, his wife Taina (my sister), my son Chase, my brother-in-law Dicky, his wife Charisse (my sister), my son Makai, my dad

Big Sky Biking:

Chase, Makai, Teija and I left Jess at home for some R&R and took off to Montana for a few days. After driving through a monsoon and a patch of thick fog the size of the San Francisco Bay, we arrived at mom and dad's house in Big Sky at 2 a.m. By 11 we were on our way up to ride the ski lifts and bike down the mountain.



Taina, Charlie, Vanessa and Bryan rented bikes with full face helmets and body armor, so they rode off like maniacs and ditched the rest of us.



Teija wanted to go slow in her little caboose and Charisse agreed to pull her even though it was obvious that she wanted to join the wild crowd. I had Makai tagging along behind me again and we took an easy ride down with Charisse, Teija, Dicky, Chase, mom and dad. Teija slept most of the way, so you can tell we were really tearing it up.




By the time we got to the bottom there was only enough time for one quick run, so dad and I ditched everyone and went on a faster ride down a narrow trail. I was trying to kill him, but somehow he managed to survive. That was a lot of fun, but the day wasn't over yet.

Rafting the Gallatin:

We decided we hadn't abused our bodies enough on the mountain, so we wanted to see if we could abuse our bodies even more on the Gallatin River. We succeeded. We dropped off the kids and met mom and dad's friend Grant to go rafting. Grant used to be a rafting guide so we thought we would be ok.






We floated down 11 miles of river, battling rapids ranging from class I to class III (where class VI is the highest, meaning the river is unnavigable). Several lunatics (Charisse, Taina and Charlie) went through some rapids while “riding the bull”. That means they put their feet over the front of the boat and just held on to the rope.





It looked like a pretty wild ride. But mom thought she would show them up by jumping out of the boat right in the middle of the rapids. Of course there is a rumor going around that Grant pushed her out. She was sitting right by Grant after all. She floated through almost a mile of rapids before Dicky and Bryan were finally able to pull her in the boat. Here's some of the spots that mom floated through sans raft. In the first pic you can see her trailing behind the boat.






When she got back in the boat she was purple and half drowned (or maybe ¾). It was pretty scary, but in the end she only had a few bruises. I took some video of one of the spots she floated through.


After 11 miles mom had had enough and she got out and hitch hiked back to the car. The rest of us had one more mile to go. The “Mad Mile”. It's a solid mile of non-stop rapids; some class II's a lot of class III's and even a treacherous stretch of class IV rapids as you come around House Rock, which is a giant boulder in the middle of the river.

Now that sounded wild, but not wild enough for us, so we decided to go past House Rock sideways. That was definitely much more exciting for most of us, but apparently not enough for Bryan. He decided to jump out of the boat just as we passed House Rock. Then again, he was sitting right by Grant. Hmmmm... I took some video the next day of a few boats going by House Rock. They didn't go sideways though. (pansies!)

We somehow fought through the Mad Mile. We even managed to pull Bryan back in the boat along the way, even though he was yelling at us to leave him in the river ;-)

Thanks for steering us through Grant, but next time keep your hands to yourself! At the end we were soaked, beaten and exhausted, but the day wasn't over yet.

Liquid Nitrogen

After rafting, we went back to mom and dad's for a barbeque. Their friend Greg was there with his wife. He is a Physics professor at MSU. He brought a tank of liquid nitrogen with him!

He also had some homemade ice cream mix in a 5 gallon bucket. He had Charlie slowly pour liquid nitrogen into the bucket while he stirred it.


After only about 10 or 15 minutes (instead of the usual hour to hour and a half) we had homemade ice cream. It was delicious too.



Afterward, Greg had a bunch of liquid nitrogen left over. He certainly couldn't let it go to waste, so he amazed us with some experiments. It was a good way to finally end the day.