Thursday, November 3, 2011

It's a Pumpkin Bat!

 I can hardly believe it, but we did a craft I have pinned on my Pinterest board (I know, can you believe something from Pinterest got put into action instead of just drooling over it online?  I am surprised as well!)  I figured it was something we could accomplish without trashing my dining room and without the kids losing interest.
 The kids actually did really good painting.  They covered almost all the pumpkin without help and only got paint on a chair, but it wiped up really good.
 Such deep concentration for such a little man:)  Isabel was walking around, making sure everyone was getting theirs painted to her standards, I guess that is the oldest child syndrome:)
 I thought they turned out pretty darn cute.  I will definitely do these again.  Wish they would last, but I don't want to store these and have them rot in my garage!
 While we were painting, we needed an activity for Hunter, so I busted out a piece of elk jerky for him to gnaw on.
 He was totally diggin it and having the time of his life sucking on it and chewing it.
 Yeah, he was really gettin after it here.  He couldn't chew any pieces off, but loved it nonetheless.  Maybe I am onto something:  new baby teething toy??

Muzzleloader Elk Hunt

 Isabel had to miss a few days of preschool so we could go down to Ephraim for David's elk hunt.  He has been putting in for this tag for around 14 years or so, so he was pretty excited to finally draw out. 
 David and his dad were planning to backpack into an area to hunt, so Grandpa wanted to test out the capacity for his pack.  Looks like it holds quite a bit!
 He was excited to go, but pretty sad he wasn't part of the hunting part. All in due time little man, your time will come!
 They had great weather for the hunt, and I am so happy he made it out alive:)  They had so much fun!  They hunted up there for a few days, and then came back down the mountain to get more food/water/shower/wash clothes, and then headed back up to another part of the mountain with his brother and brother-in-law to do some more hunting.

 There are lots of other pictures of them actually hunting, but they are on Jack's camera, and I haven't gotten them yet.  I can't do the story justice, but David shot a really nice 5x5 bull elk.  It was a really fun hunt and his brother Sam was able to get lots of it on video which was really nice!  When we heard he got the bull, all the girls and the kids loaded up in the RAZR's and Jezebel and headed up the mountain to meet them.  We had a little picnic while we waited for them to pack the elk out.  He shot it in the bottom of a pretty steep range, so they had quite the adventure getting it out.  Word is that Randon had the heaviest pack and still made it out first, dropped that meat, then went back for more to take some weight off of the other guys's packs.  All that with his bad knees, I would wager to say that Randon rocked it!!!
 Grandma is always great to have lots of yummy snacks for the kids, and they had lots of fun exploring in the beautiful Fall weather
 Here are David's parents with the rack on top of the RAZR.  They got good pictures before David had to skin and quarter it, but I don't have those yet either. 
 Here is my great hunter!  I am so glad he had so much fun.  I was lucky enough to have Camille help me can a bunch of pears while he was hunting.  I love Fall time for all the fun things we get to do!
 Good thing he doesn't know how to start this thing, or he would be miles away by now, he loves riding them so much!
 Hunter had a little cold and wasn't feeling too hot, but Uncle Randon was able to get lots of giggles out of this dude.
 Isabel, Brigham and their cousin buddies were exploring all over the place and took turns "rescuing" each other.  It is so cute to see them play together and its even better when they get to play without killing each other, because that is something that happens rather regularly:)
 The next day, we went back up the mountain to listen to General Conference at their base camp.  The kids had fun dancing to music in between sessions and we got a good laugh out of people trying to catch Aspen leaves as they were falling out of the trees.
 David is pretty content up in the mountains and the kids wear themselves out from playing so hard.

 Still finding a way to roughhouse in the outdoors;)

It was a super fun week and a reminder to me of how lucky we are to be able to have such a beautiful mountain to play on.  Thanks for the fun memories G & G Bailey!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Enjoying the last days of Summer

 David was down in Ephraim before his elk hunt, so the kids and I headed to Sugarhouse park to feed the ducks and geese, and barely got out of there alive.  They were not afraid of people and we had to get after them a bit to keep them from attacking the kids:)
 The kids had so much fun throwing bread to them and kept calling all of them ducks.  The weather was so perfect, and it was a wonderful day to let the kids burn off some serious energy.

 When we would start throwing bread, birds from all over the water would swarm us, I got a little claustrophobic (just a little!)
 Hunter enjoyed the scenes from his little stroller.  I am sure he wanted to be out of there and on the grass, but there was so much, err, bird "waste", that he had to stay securely in there.
 Many popsicles were consumed by these rascals this summer.  It has been so fun to live by family, I know we will be a little lost when we move next summer.  These cousins (and their cute friend that lives by us) have had a ball playing around outside, I am getting a little bit of cabin fever just thinking about winter time indoors!
Maybe I should post this picture on my fridge to give me hope during those cold winter days when we are stuck inside.

Here is Hunters first love/hate experience with popsicles.  Enjoy!





First Day of Preschool - September 9th

 I know I posted pictures of Isabel's first day of dance, but I wanted to get her preschool ones on here.  She was so excited for preschool to start, I don't think she ever thought the summer would come to an end.  She has done great and is still enjoying it.  Her class size is pretty small, and I am kinda glad for that so she can get a little bit more one on one attention. 
 She wishes she could bring home the treat bucket and sharing bag everyday and has had fun getting to know the other girls in her class.
Keep learning little one!  Never give up and keep your desire to do your best and you will go far! 

24th of July camping trip

 Man, am I really this far behind in my blog posts???  I am still waiting to have a moment to breath with 3 kids and finding that it may never happen:)  So I will post what I can from the past few months and hope to show you that we are in fact, alive and well!
 David's family has a tradition to go camping up Ephraim canyon every summer during the 24th of July and it is soooo much fun!
 We do lots of fishing, 4-wheeling and exploring.  We get covered in dirt, and are reminded how everything tastes better when you are on the mountain.  I didn't get any pictures of it, but Brigham fell headfirst into the lake when we went on a 4-wheeler trip down to the Beaver Dams.  He spent much of the time there in a diaper while his clothes and shoes sat out to dry in the sun:) 
 The kids absolutely love being up there, camping.  They love wandering around and exploring.  They would live on the 4-wheelers if they could. 
 Brigham hamming it up for the camera!

 Yep.  They are mine.  Aren't you jealous?
 Yep.  He's mine too.  Super jealous now, huh?  Something about this picture sends me into uncontrollable laughter.  Such a funny little kid!
 It is so beautiful up there, we enjoy being up there as much as we can.
 Pure joy!
 Yes, her bangs drive me crazy too!  I have been trying to grow them out for months, and I swear, they have stopped growing and will forever be in her face!
 As you can tell, we are in safe hands with our driver up there!
There was still so many snow banks all over the place.  This doesn't look so big, but each chunk was as big as a moving truck.  There were slides like this in several places.  The snow was so pretty, it almost looked blue.
We love this place so much and can't wait to go camping again soon!