Time to Celebrate

I love having a great excuse to go out with friends! It was my best friend Heidi's birthday (the one in the black vest) and we had a hoot. We went to dinner (yay! no dishes) and then we went to one of the girls' house to see all the fun painting she's been doing in her new house and then off to my house we went to help Heidi tie 2 quilts she's making for her daughters. We had lots of fun laughs and chit chat together. Can't wait until next time!

My First Elk

So I would've never predicted that I would get an elk....ever. Jon put in me in for a draw and low and behold I drew. 2 years ago I drew and had a hard time wanting to shoot an animal. (I'm an animal lover of course.) This year Jon and I were out there finding the elk and the experience was amazing. The elk were bugling around us a lot! It was neat to hear. We even heard a wolf howl...scary! But then we saw this elk and I was nervous but I knew that it would provide us meat and that that was a good thing. So I got up the nerve to shoot (with the help of a lot of prayer) and I shot! Then I prayed so hard that it would die quickly because that is my worst fear that the animal will suffer. It died within in a minute so I was relieved. I had really mixed emotions right off about it. I was sad that I had killed something, but proud at the same time that I did it and that we have great meat now. (Jon got an elk last week but unfortunately we're not sure if it's good, it smells really bad.) I'm so grateful that Jon is talented with hunting and that it provides us with food over the year.

Josh's 2nd Birthday Cake

Josh lucked out this year and got to have 2 birthday cakes. One at his party with his friends and the second was with family. Originally Grandpa Rolf and Grandma Helen were going to come but they weren't able to come visit. Josh is a strawberry fanatic so I thought this cake was fitting.


He blew the candles out so fast I missed it! Ha!

Poor me

At Joshua's birthday party the kids got runnin' around pretty crazy and poor little Andrew was the result. He hit his face on our deck and this is what happened. Honestly this picture doesn't do it justice. His poor little lip swelled up immensely! But really he was a trooper about it and iced it over the next couple days.



Andrew's first solution to helping his lip was to take a wad of toilet paper and tape it to his face. It worked for a little while. :)

Only one away from double digits!

This year for Joshua we had a friends party here at our house and they had a ball, it was wild and crazy with all those boys but it was fun! (A couple parents said I was brave!)

For his cake I couldn't help but think how he loves to play video games and it's always good vs evil so for his cake it's blue vs red. It worked out so perfectly that when I was working on the cake Josh said it was like good vs evil and I hadn't even told him why I did it that way. Sometimes our kids are like open books.We were able to borrow Gretchen's (Jon's sister) bonzai slide and we moved the tramp close to it and the kids had a blast. The grass turned into one gigantic puddle!
It was easier to just have everyone stay outside but the slight breeze kept blowing the candles out. Oops!
Joshua accidentally saw his gift from us before his birthday, but I had to wrap it anyway of course...but 3 times to make it more fun!! This was the last layer.
I love how all the kids are in awe when it's time to open presents. They all huddled around Josh.
By the looks of it, it was a good birthday!

I tackled it!

This last Saturday I ran a half marathon and I can't believe I did it. I started my training back in May and have steadily increased my distance over the summer. And lo and behold I found I could do it. (With a few aches and pains along the way.) It was a little too warm for me on race day so my speed really wasn't there but I feel great in saying I accomplished this goal!
Here we are after finishing the big run! I'm standing next to Jon's sister Gretchen and 2 of her friends.

A new beginning

The first day of school for Joshua (3rd grade) and Caleb (6th grade) was August 23rd. And boy were they excited. They got up and were ready to go without a word from me! Poor Andrew was so sad he couldn't go with them but his first day was the next day.
Now the first day of school for Andrew (kindergarten) was August 24th and he was extatic. At first he didn't wan to ride the bus but his brothers convinced him it would be fun so he changed his mind. What great big brothers to help him out!
Making the long walk down to the bus stop at the end of our street.

I met up with Andrew right before school started to get a couple traditional pictures.
He even made a friend, Krue Hales, from his class right off the bat.
And his great teacher, Mrs. McKee, who was so welcoming! (I just can't get enough of Andrew's cute smile!)

Isn't the first day of school the best?!!