Photography by Tommy

Eric handed Tommy his phone again and Tommy started taking pictures. After weeding out several hundred pictures these were his best ones. Most of them were of his finger, the wall or the same stuffed animal 20 times.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/3CxF6qu7bdvBvP3m8

My Family History 2

Last year at this time I told you my family story of my Grandma Puz and how she came to this country. This year I wanted to share with you the story of my Hjorten family and how they came to America from Kristiansund, Norway. My Great Grandfather John Hjorten and his wife Inga came to America in 1906 at the age of 20 and 21. They headed to Astoria, OR where brothers and cousins had headed before them and more came after. I am not sure the names of the people in this picture, but these are the Hjorten’s that as a family headed to America looking for the American Dream. Here is a picture of my Great Grandmother Inga, My Grandfather John and my Great Uncle Larry Hjorten in the 1920s where they ended up settling in Hoquim, WA. Go discovery your family story. #myfamilystory

Snuggle Bugs

Aren't they cute when they are asleep. If only I captured all that it took to get these precious two boys into bed you would know why they are so tired :)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CVdmyiiJ4lReBxfD2

Puppet Show

The boys decided to get out the puppets today and put on a puppet show. They had a fun time. Not really sure they knew how to make up a good story but oh well.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/7JzBAJZilaV7oUS82

Crazy Hair Day

Tommy's school was having a Crazy Hair Day. So I spiked his hair up and then put some color in it. Jake wanted to join in on the fun so I did his hair too. It was also a late start day so got this picture as we were dropping Jake off to school. When I dropped Tommy off at school there were a lot of cool hair styles.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Mh6xsAI338kB6cux2

100 Club

Tommy got off the bus yesterday super excited. He made it into the 100 Club! Since the beginning of the school year he has been working on counting to 100. We wrote out a number chart on our chalk board at home that so he can see the pattern of how the numbers work which made it a lot easier to understand the concept. He has understood the concept for a couple months and practicing, but it has mostly been a matter of concentrating on what number he was on long enough to make it to 100. Every time we were stuck waiting somewhere, in the car, or he was bored I told him to try counting to 100. Even Jake is working on it now. He was so proud of himself yesterday that he had this big accomplishment.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/SidYvrKtxd8P0Ft23

Sunday Dad Day

Eric has been working tons of overtime lately. Other then seeing Daddy about 15 minutes before bedtime, Sunday has been their only time with Daddy lately. They are outside having some guy time right now.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/BNjD5tGIl7hD6ql02

Checking Out the New Toys

The boys had had fun checking out all their new toys over the last several weeks. We brought them out a little bit at a time so they would actually see them all. Yes it took a couple weeks. Don't worry, most of them were from Granny's Attic. Tommy had a great time with his new race track. He especially loves the crash track because he loves crashing cars. Jake finally spent some time looking at his new workbook from Santa. He decided it was kind of cool. At least he wasn't crying.We also put together the trampoline that Tommy won at the Harvest Festival in October. It is pretty cool as it can be for two jumpers instead of one like the old one we had. And it also folds up for storage. So we took the old one person jumper and a bunch of other toys and such that were no longer being used back to Granny's Attic for the next kid.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tu72p3tVeiV2M86v2

New Scanner

Still working on the huge family history preservation project I started. I decided to get a new scanner. The more recent stuff that I had was turning out fine, not really different from the photos. But some of the older stuff I was having challenges with. Weird negative sizes, newspapers that looked too pixelated. And pictures that were old enough to fade were not looking that great after being scanned. So I decided to get a new scanner that I did some research on. It is supposed to be one of the best photo scanners and only $200. And I think it was totally worth it, especially when I used some of the photo restoration features it has. The color restoration on this old faded photo was the most amazing thing I came across so far. I was totally shocked when I saw it. A long lost photo of Grandpa John A. Hjorten that people thought was junk because you could barely tell who was in the picture.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/0tbuZuOMCRLCkGZ92

Color Fire

We spent the day outside in the woods. I pulled out a lot of black berry bushes that were way up in the trees. And the boys got to do their favorite thing. Put sticks in the fire. We also had another Christmas present we hadn't used yet. Special packs you throw in your fire to make them colored. The boys thought it was really cool. We camped outside all day. I even brought dinner out there while we watched the fire. Jake wasn't super cool with that as he kept complaining that he couldn't see his food. Tom didn't seem to mind though. He just shoveled it in like always :) We looked at some stars and even heard some sort of an owl while we were out there.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/XEIcykM9yOitBbRu2