Leaving On a Jet Plane

Next Wednesday we are flying to Missouri for two whole weeks. We are going for Christmas, but also Brendan's brother and sister are getting married (not to eachother, even though they are from Missouri, JK). We are both very excited to hang out with family.

This is going to be our first plane experience with Cruz so I am of course a little nervous about the how things are going to go. I need some traveling tips. Such as, if you gate check your stroller, does it count as a carry on? If you check your car seat does it count as one of your bags? Can you carry baby food through security? Any other pieces of advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for ThanksGiving.

Do you think it is un-christmasy (i am sure that this is not a word) to not want to celebrate any Christmas activities until after thanksgiving? It almost makes me sick to hear a Christmas song pre-thanksgiving. And because of this I have recently been labeled the holiday grinch...... (more than just Christmas, I am not a big fan of carving pumpkins and this year I didn't dress up hence the label...) Did you know that one of the reasons Thanksgiving was moved to the last Thursday of November is so that the shopping season could be extended? I look forward to your comments....

We had a great Thanksgiving. Nice and long, we left on Tuesday after I finished a inspection and drove to Portland. Wednesday we watched Twilight, I have not read the books so it was ok and it very very very very slightly gave me the desire to read them. But it was fun to go out with the Bros and Sister-in-laws while Tatems parents watched all of the Grand kids, all 10 and no fights. It was fun to see how Cruz likes to have other little people around.


Thursday- was the normal Thanksgiving stuff, food, football and wii.

Friday- Tom and Monique were able to come spend a few hours with us. It would have been great to see them more. But anytime is always fun. We need to make our next trip to San Diego to visit next.

Saturday- was great. Tatem went and did the annual Sister-in-law and children Gingerbread houses. I went shooting!! it was great and I have the shoulder bruises to prove it. We shot targets, clay pigeons, apples, bells, trees, well just about any thing we could find to shoot, now I want a Gun.

Sunday was church and then back to real life.

Up and over

Time passes so quickly, Life in the Marchant house gets crazier every day!!! I thought I would post a quick video for everyone to see. Since so many of our friends are making post with their children doing baby tricks I thought we would jump on the bloging bandwagon and show ours as well. But....... Cruz does not do tricks on command. He is such a independent little guy and every time he starts and the camera is out he stops.

So I decided to post a video of him crawling to his favorite item in the house, my guitar. Usually he dances when ever he see's it, but of course he is not willing to share his sweet dance moves on the web.

Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween was so much fun this year! We drove down to Portland and went trick-or-treating with my brothers, a tradition they have been doing for years, but I have always been unable to go. It was a quick trip, drove down Friday afternoon and came back Saturday morning. Cruz was so cute in his little gator costume and I went as the Evil Queen from Snow White. Brendan of course did not dress up because he is a big fat party pooper!!!!

Aren't I scary? Cruz sure thinks so.

Cruz is thinking, "Uh guys, what's going on?"
My cute little gator or dragon or dinosaur, whatever you think he is.
Cruz with the cousins plus a few additional cousins from my sister-in-law's side.

Destination Blogging.

Do you ever feel like some of your adventures are just so you can have a fun blog post??? Well Tatem and I have discovered that we are destination blogger's. Our fall has been great, and it feels like we have had less rain this year than previous ones and hopefully it stays like that.

We have been so busy, a few weeks ago we had a great time at Lattin farm's, it is a local pumpkin/apple farm that has great apple cider. Cruz's favorite part was the weeds growing next to the pumpkins. I guess we have a easily entertained boy.








Cruz is growing so fast, and has discovered that he is not limited to crawling on the floor, he now pulls himself up on everything. No matter how high we put things he somehow finds away to get to them. We went to visit Tatem's brother in Bellingham yesterday to visit and see their new baby, now Cruz doesnt look so little any more.



Tatem is really excited for Halloween, I think it is just so she can steal all of Cruz's candy!!!! (She has been staying away from the sweets so it is a great excuse to indulge)

She ran her first 10k in Portland last weekend. She had a blast and was able to run it much faster than she expected. (Just barley over an hour) She ran it with her brother and Sister-in-law and now is looking for the next race to run in. Her goal is to run the Seattle 1/2 marathon next November.


I have been working hard getting helping to secure our future in our business, I spent last weekend enjoying a great Pillar To Post meeting, we also got the Scion wrapped, I think it looks great and hopefully will help with our marketing efforts. The real estate market has definitely been a fun ride, but hopefully after the election things will calm down. The media certainly loves to mess with us. They are so biased it gets me frustrated!!

Growing Up Baby!

Cruz is the big 8 months old now!! I can't believe it, where has the time gone? Everyday I tell him he is not allowed to grow up, but he just won't listen to me. This little guy has won me over and he has me (and his dad) tied around his little finger. These are just a few pics that I took in the back yard.


He is a busy little bee, army crawling every where we will let him go. It is so cute watching him crawl around and make airplane noises. He is starting to get up on all fours and rock back and fourth, but he quickly plops back down onto his stomach. A second tooth as made an arrival and luckily there wasn't hardly any fussing involved with this one. There will be pay back for his high pain tolerance though. This kid is not going to know when to stop, because nothing hurts him. We're going to have to keep a close eye on him the more mobile he gets. He has discovered dogs and loves them!! He occasionally gets to see "Nona" the chihuahua on Tuesday's and chases that that little puppy around the house. There is also a golden retriever across the street and once Cruz saw her he started cracking up. I could go on and on about how cute this little guy is, but I'm sure no else thinks he is as cute as I do, so I won't bore you.

And, Ann Marie I'm still trying to get a good video of him crawling. Every time I turn on the camera he stops and stares at it.

Eagle Crest.

We are back...... From another weekend adventure.

This Labor day weekend was great. Tatem, Cruz and I had a great weekend in Portland and Bend. We left Thursday afternoon and stayed the night at the Livingston hacienda, and then off to Bend friday afternoon. A few of our previous Bend trips have only been Tatem and I so we thought that it would be fun to invite more of the family to come. Well it ended up being a full house with all of the nieces and nephews except for one as well as Tatem's mom and brother. Somehow Tatem's other brothers and sister-in-laws had other things to do, but their children's schedules were wide open so... we got the great privilege of enjoying the little kids with out their parents (vacation conspiracy I think so!!) It actually wasn't to bad and they all love to go to Eagle Crest.



Cruz didn't have a very good weekend though, he has been trying to push a tooth for the past few weeks. It has finally made its appearance a few days ago and the good news is we now have a much happier baby. Hopefully the rest will come in much easier.

We went on a few Hikes while we were there it was great to get out and enjoy nature. We also discovered Smith Rock and now that we have seen it I really wish we had discovered it sooner. Smith Rock is a world famous climbing area. It is so crazy to see what some people will do for a rush. Along with the rock formations there are miles of trails to hike, So next time we go we will defiantly be spending more time there.