M is for Mommy

Normally around the house M is for Mommy and Matthew but this weekend M was for Mommy and Daddy.  For Christmas I gave James a date a month and for January we were going to go XC skiing.  We even got signed up for free lessons and lined up a babysitter (a huge feat in our scatterbrained house!)  Sadly, mother nature forgot to give us snow and instead shared some 40+ degree days this week, converting any leftover powder to a glassy sheen.   Instead we traded out our April or May date and went and finally hiked the M. 

Though we love to take the kids hiking and ran into a few other youngsters on the trail, there was something nice about not lugging an extra 45 lbs. up the mountain and having a chance to chat without interruption of our 2 chatty kids.  Matthew meanwhile had a great time showing our babysitter the new house and going to the park with her.  Just ask him, he'll tell you all about it.

For the east coasters, there is an odd Western tradition to paint a large letter made of rocks on a large hill.  Thanks to wikipedia you can learn more about them than you ever wanted to here.   And according to geoglyphs.org Montana is not only a clear leader in number of geoglyphs, Bozeman's M is the largest (though Missoula has us beat for the most visited).   Here's what 250 feet of white rocks  looks like from the top:

The M's not really worth the hike itself in my opinion, but the view of Bozeman from there is pretty sweet.  Here's James and I's big heads blocking a shot of the view:

 And here's a panorama of the view:

And here's what the M looks like from below, with someone else's camera on a sunnier day.  Sadly there wasn't much more snow for our January hike than in this pic:

In house news, here's the first part of our tour as Catherine's room is *mostly* done.  I've been having a great time going through some of our things from storage and some of the things I packed up as we packed up Grandma Jennie's house.  Here's the view from the door.  We've converted the bassinet my dad made for me into a stuffed animal corral and broke the bunk beds into two beds so I had one for any long nights with Catherine:

And here's the changing table.  This vanity/dresser was part of a set that Grandma Jennie got for her 16th birthday and was in the downstairs room of her house as long as I can remember.  As I get my craft/geneaology stuff unpacked I can't wait to find the receipt.  At some point I found the 1935 receipt for the set from Montgomery Ward's. 

I'm also in love with the two quilts in the room which I found in grandma's closet.  I can't wait to get my quilt unpacked that Grandma Elsie made me when I was little and add it to the room.  This quilt has all the 50 states embroidered with their state flowers and is at least a King size.  It's hanging from the very top of the ceiling and pools at the bottom:

I'm hoping someone in the family can give me some insight on where it came from and who made it.  It's obvious a lot of time, love and work went into it.

Otherwise, Matthew's getting ready to help us out with home ownership and practicing his woodworking skillz with his new workbench from Mas and Pas:

And Catherine spends much of her day like this when she should be nursing or taking her bottle at daycare.  Much like her brother, she's too interested in the rest of the world to focus on sustenance and really, really likes to check out everything in this pose:

Unlike her brother at this age, she's still a peanut.  Here she is rocking one of his hand-me-downs (stains newly added from her exciting lunch and desire to always stick her hands under the bib!):

Catherine's in the middle.  The picture on the left is Matthew in the same outfit at 5.5 months (instead of Catherine's near 7 months) and the picture on the right is Matthew at almost 7 months.