Thursday, November 13, 2014

The Weeks In Review

So, the last couple of weeks have been pretty low key. We enjoyed the last of the fall weather that ended on the 9th. I spent the 9th, mowing up the yard/leaves, tossing bags of leaves, the pumpkin leaf bags and the carved pumpkins, and just cleaning up the yard before the anticipated snow came. It was 60 degrees Sunday, Monday's high was around 20. Then the last few days have been below zero at night/in the morning and then in the teens. Is it bad that I am looking forward to the temp being in the upper 20s?!?
It also doesn't help that it rained a little Sunday night before it got cold and snowed and the streets turned to ice. They do not plow/grate in the city of Worland. They didn't even throw some dirt down until Tuesday. The roads were already a bumpy ice mess. Thank goodness we got new tires in September!

Anyways.....Back on the 8th, we took advantage of the nice weather and not having any plans so we got to go hunting. We thought Mike's deer season was over, but he found another area that was open until the 10th! Yeah! So we went out to try to fill his elk and/or his deer tag. We got out there at a decent hour, but it turns out quite a few other people were also taking advantage of the last of the good weather to find some animals too. We managed to find the elk herd, but so did another couple of trucks and Mike wasn't able to find the elk once they were spooked off. We couldn't find them for the next couple of hours either. So we decided to head over to the deer area that was open. It took us a lot longer to drive over there than we thought it would, but it worked out since it was Sidney's prime napping time as well.

We literally pulled up to the area and hadn't even crossed the private/public line when we saw a nice mule deer trot by. Mike didn't even want to chance not getting something and hopped right out of the car and headed off after it (on the public land). We both thought it was a doe at first glance.....Mike figured out it was a fork buck before he shot though. Thankfully the deer didn't take off when it saw us drive up and it just meandered its way around. And thankfully it didn't run far and we found it right on the edge of the public land. I would say we got lucky.

He has provided us with a lot of meat and we have already been enjoying some of the jerky Mike made. :) Yum. Our freezer was getting pretty empty, so we are thankful to have some meat now. Still hoping to get that elk though!

Here is a photo of Mike and the girls with his deer. They thought it was pretty neat, and were petting it in the field. Kylie helped Mike skin it and clean up the meat, but Sidney wanted nothing to do with it at home. Once it was hung up in the garage she was terrified of it. We are thinking she was ok with it in the field because that is where he belongs, but it was just out of place hanging in the garage. :)

 
 
The only other "exciting" thing that has happened lately, happened this past Tuesday night. I took Kylie to bowling and when we got home I was getting stuff out of the car when Kylie got out and went to shut her door. Next thing I know she is screaming the loudest I have ever heard and I find out she slammed her thumb in the door. :(
I had to open up her door and we ran into the house to get off all our winter clothes since it was soo cold. It didn't look too bad, so we put some ice on it while we ate supper. As we ate though, it just kept swelling and she wasn't very happy at all. It got bad enough that we decided we should take her in to get it checked. So Kylie had her first ER visit. :)
She got to ice it there some more and she got to get it x-rayed. Thankfully, they didn't find any breaks or fractures and we got to go home. I think the only reason it turned out ok was because she had her gloves on! By the next morning....she was using it just fine. :)
 
Here are a couple blurry pictures from the excitement.

We are good friends with the nurse's husband so that helped calm Kylie's fears she first had when we got there. :)



Sorry this post has been sooooo wordy. Here are some random photos taken the past couple of weeks or so. :)

A beautiful sunset

Playing out in the field while daddy is off looking for the elk herd

Scanning the horizon looking for daddy

helping dad grind the meat

Sidney laying on a pile of blocks hiding under the blankets.
-this is how we've been spending our freezing cold days-

And taking adorable naps. :)

Gonna spend the next couple of weeks just hanging out and getting stuff ready for Thanksgiving. My parents are coming out for a few days so that will be nice. And then we have a month alone until Mike's parents come out over New Years for a while.

I am thankful everyone is willing to come out to visit us!! Even though it is just kindergarten, we don't want to take the time to go home this winter like we normally do and have Kylie miss a bunch of school. She really loves school. Even though she tends to get hurt a lot.....she smacked her eye/cheek on another kid's head during gym today and she also got hit in the face with some snow today too....sigh. Poor kid.

Anyways....I'm sure you are tired of reading about our life now. I promise next time will be more pictures instead of words. Hope you guys are having a good week!!

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Trick or Treat!

Trick or treating produced a lot of candy. And I sadly have eaten almost none of it. Which could also be good though. I had a tooth pulled Thursday and the dentist had a hard time with it, so my jaw is still pretty sore.

We took the girls downtown to trick or treat since the businesses usually all hand out stuff. There were very few places that did this year, so it was kinda dull. We went and stopped at a few particular people's houses and then came back to our neighborhood.

We made a loop by our house and learned that a lot of people set a bucket of candy out and just expect kids to help themselves. We also learned that we should have done that, because by the time we got home we ended up only getting about 15 kids. :(

It was 70 for a high on Halloween! We really expected more kids to be out all night due to the nice weather. Oh well. Hopefully Mike will take most of the candy to work and I won't have to worry about eating it! :)

Even though Kylie had been a lady bug before, and Sidney was one last year, she still wanted to be a lady bug for Halloween. So she was. Kylie also requested that Sidney be a bee. We thought it world be cute and Sidney had no idea what I was really asking her about, so we went with it and had a little bug theme this year.

Sidney was afraid at the first place and wouldn't let go of my leg, but soon realized that it is fun and you get candy. At each house the girls knocked at, they knocked so quietly, but Sidney would also yell out "Knock knock!", so I think that helped people know they were there. :)


All dressed for school
 
Eating our traditional 
homemade pizza for supper

Our little buggies
 
Completely stuck to my leg after the first place, not wanting to trick or treat
:)

It's ok though, as long as daddy holds her hand. :)

Mike with his two lovely bugs
 
Out trick or treating



Exhausted little bee back home.


Pumpkin Carving

Here are some photos from our pumpkin carving/decorating activities.....
Have video from this and the pumpkin patch that I will hopefully get uploaded this week and also posted for your viewing pleasure. :)

She loved pushing the parts into place!

And she loved that we picked up a sticker set for the pumpkins!

Trying out the new drill powered gut remover.

Loved her pumpkin!

And so did she!

Scooping out guts! - She did not enjoy it.

She didn't really enjoy it either though...

Sidney did get excited if she got a seed or two on her scooper though!

But she quickly lost interest and just wanted to watch Casper with
her pumpkin by her side.... :)

tracing on her pattern

Concentrating very hard to cut it out.....and not cut herself or dad!

Pulling out her eye piece

Working on my pumpkin

Three of the four carved pumpkins....it goes:
Kylie - Jess - Mike
 
Front Step Layout:
 


 
 
 
 
 AND - a random photo of Kylie's and my colorfully painted spider webs in an effort to spruce up our Halloween decorations.......idea completely stolen off Pintrest.

Pumpkin Patch

Two weekends ago we had made plans to go to the local pumpkin patch. Sadly, our Saturday plan was cancelled when Mike got called to a fire on Friday. :(
He was able to get home mid-day Sunday so we made a late trip out there Sunday evening. It was horribly windy, but the girls still had a blast.
We hit up the corn maze, but didn't even attempt the whole thing. We got out of it pretty quick. This year the place also added a hay-bale maze, a corn pit and a hay-bale slide.

Here area bunch of pictures from our fun!

Leading the way!

Enjoying a ride!

Proof that mom was there too!

Running through

Kylie's turn to ride

Checking the map. How do we get out!!?

"No pictures mom!"

Corn Pit

Kylie was making a corn angel

So Sidney had to too


She loved that corn pit!
 
The big slide. You had to "mountain climb" up the hay
bales in the back, pulling yourself up with a rope.
 

And Kylie loved the slide!


Some of our chicken friends who were hanging out by the corn pit

Headed off to get pick out our pumpkins

Sidney working hard to pull the wagon

The field was pretty picked over by the time of the month we got out to the patch

cuties!

She loved picking out pumpkins

working hard to bring our loot back to checkout

Unsure of her sister's driving skills. :)


The wonderful sky we were treated to that night.