Winter Activities

We are in full winter mode now with all that comes with it and this time of year.  Morgan and Logan had their Christmas program a little before winter break and it was quite comical.

Logan is walking in right under the right basket hoop.  Morgan is buried in there some other place.  They were excited to see me there and it was really fun to see what they had been working so hard on.

Winter Wonder Land!

Digging forts

Logan and Lane really getting after it!

And as the temperature warmed it became perfect for making a snow man.  I was up shoveling the roof and looked down to see both Lane and Logan huffing and puffing behind big snow balls.  I came down to assist but they did a large part of the work.  They are really proud of their work!

Yes that is Logan skiing!  Our good friend Douglas (next to Logan with his thumbs up) asked me if I wanted to bring the kids up skiing.....really funny I thought.  He said his brother Philip would be coming in town and they could help so I recklessly took him up on it.  It wasn't all smiles and dry eyes but it did turn out well and at the end of the day they were supper excited to go again.  It is fun to see them go from "can't", "won't" to "guess what I just did"  I think they got to feel the reward of struggling through some really hard things to reap the excitement of having fun with it.

Morgan cruising!  I took Morgan in the morning and we had some serious bonding issues but she persevered and I'm really proud of her and how she stuck with it and learned a ton in her first day.  She skied all afternoon with Douglas and did great

Lane with Philip in the background to the right.  Philip was Lanes teacher.  He did great as well.

Love that smile!

Whats that......is that Santa??

Yup and Logan was in awe.  We got to get our picture with the Mr and Mrs. Clause.  Logan got some loot even.

It turned out to be a great first day skiing for them and we look forward to our next trip.

Friends

We had some special company come by for a visit this month and it is always a highlight to have them in town. 

Playing a little Mexican Train....Logan is really excited about having Delbert and Penny come by.  The rest of us feel the same as Logan we just don't have the same way to express our flair.

Little hot chocolate with cousins!!!  Great way to spend a snowy afternoon.

We also got to help in a little birthday celebration for our good friend Maizie.  Brad did a little birthday song on his accordion.   Brad just had back surgery so he figured it was a good time to pick up the accordion and learn a new instrument.

Year End Picture

It's that time of year again where we try and put together a photo for a holiday card.  This was something Jeannie loved to do.  Last Saturday we had a little window of time between visitors and traveling to try a few shots in the back pasture.  There was a good break in the weather with some good lighting conditions for pictures.  The kids did great and we got plenty to work from.  I'm just realizing that I deleted a bunch of the goofy ones but maybe I should have added them for some entertainment value.

Many people have mentioned they feel a loss for words in knowing what to say to us and I've been thinking about that because I am still at a loss for words.  Even in the last months Jeannie and I didn't know what to say often times, but just being close brought comfort.  I'm thankful that its not words that we remember her by, rather it is her spirit and heart and how she cared for each of us.  Its hard to really express what we feel as this year comes to a close but even though Jeannie is not in the picture now, she is very much in our hearts!  As she often said "just take it a day at a time"

The 3 amigos!

Thanksgiving

We made the trek across the Montana high-line again this year for Thanksgiving.  It was a good trip with very pleasant weather.  We broke up the  trip by staying with Randy's family in Kalispell and then traveling with them both coming and going. It is good to think of those things that we have to be thankful for and it is easy to be with those that are thankful.

These boys had a great time hunting rabbits on the farm.  I guess they follow closely behind their fathers.  I have a feeling it won't be too many years and we will be following behind them.

This was the first days bounty.

Lane was a proud retriever.  It turns out this was the biggest pheasant I have ever shot on the farm.  It's longest tail feather measured 26.25"  Maybe the hailed crops made for healthy birds.

The "crew" looking for the next pheasant.

Along with getting my biggest bird ever I managed to go 3-3 on pheasants this day, I think that was a first.  I usually try and scare a lot of birds before I get one.  (I didn't do as good on the partridge)

Some of the others did not have to work too hard to keep themselves entertained.  They always love to explore the farm.

We especially enjoyed our time together.  There was a lot of mixed emotions for me as I loved to bring Jeannie back to where I grew up.  It's a place I have great memories and a thankfulness for what was instilled in me during my growing up years.

Organizing

I'm thankful for some good examples in organizing from friends and family.  It seems like the days are done before they even start and it is hard to remember or keep track of what you should, need, and want to do and often I get the want and need mixed up.

We have had a chalk board up by our desk but it is just out of the way enough that I have found it hard to use.  When we were at our friends Josh and Andrea a while back she had a chalk board near her table that was nice and accessible.  So I went about moving ours and found some colored chalk in the drawer but I really do hate the old chalk and Morgan was watching me struggling with trying to make it work and getting more frustrated when she finally looked in bewilderment and said "why don't you just use markers"...."markers on a chalk board, Morgan you can't do that",,,,"Andrea does"....."Ohhhh"  Some quick research on Amazon and 2 days later we have "chalk markers"  Brilliant!!!  Now we have Menu, Weather, Tasks,....ect.

This is the school work zone.  Each one has a mailbox for stuff pertaining to their class and homework.  It has been good in trying to keep it all separated and in a standard location.

The refrigerator is a dumping ground for tasks that I've created for the kids.  When I need a task done I ask for a volunteer and then they take the magnetic "ticket" upon completion of the task and stick it to their whiteboards in their rooms.  At the end of the week I collect the tickets and pay them for their tasks.  This gives them a little incentive and some spending money they can do with what they wish.  The shopping part has been the only painful part of this process....."you want to buy that! with your money"

Bedrooms are another area that seems like can get out of hand really really fast.  Morgans especially.  So I did some research on beds and came up with a new plan for her room.  This is working nicely so far. Her room is on the smaller side so she didn't have much area with her bed on the floor.  This gets her bed in the air with a dresser and a desk underneath.  She has her own cork board on the back side of the dresser and a peg board with baskets and other storage goodies on the back wall. She is over the top pleased to have her own area to do her art work.

More fall activites

Its time I catch up on a few of the last of fall activities since the season is changing. Snow is sneaking down low on the mountains and could be here any day now. 

Halloween went by with a bit of a whimper from us this year.  We closed out the month with 12 inches of rain and Halloween night was no exception. I sort of used it as a good excuse not to do any trick or treating.  We had fun carving pumpkins and doing a shopping run instead.

They are all getting more independent with the carving bit but the scooping out of the "brains" still seems to fall on my hands.

Two happy pumpkins and a bat.

Once the weather did clear I got busy with leaf duty.  I zipped around with the leaf catcher and the boys made good use of the leaf pile.  This year we kept it away from the swing set and avoided the broken bones.

Once November hit we managed to string together a bit of nice weather. The kids had a Friday off so we spent some of Friday and Saturday on the lake catching "money" fish.

Lane and Logan were pleased to bring in several "money" fish.

Seems like I ended up with the non-money fish.  We did catch several bull trout but they need to be returned.  Still it is fun bringing in these nice chunky trout.

A few of us got together one weekend to shoot a sporting clay's range.  This was my first time at one of these ranges.  It is "golf with a shotgun".  There were 17 stations and each person shot 6 times at each station.  It was a ton of fun and we all decided it is on our list of things to do again.  Here I am trying my luck at the flying targets.

Another shot of the crew with Brad shooting.  Brad did bring along a single shot 410 that Lane shot a couple times and managed to down one of the targets.

Maizie, Morgan, and Logan meanwhile were having fun at the park.  Here they are collecting acorns.....why not? 

Logan going to the top of the Eiffel tower!!

And with all the activity one must get clean.....The kids keep bugging me about getting to use the air bath and I'm always a little hesitant because of the work I have to do after the bath but I caved in and just tried to plug my ears as to what was going on in there. It started innocent enough making bubble beards but I think there was a good half inch of water outside the tub on the floor when I finally decided they had enough fun.  I think they must have been doing "cannon balls" in the bath.

Fall odds and ends

The weather has turned wet this fall with somewhere around 9 inches of rain and counting for the month of October.  We've gotten a little outdoor activities in but not too much.

Morgan and Maizie enjoyed some indoor activities....painting some ceramics.

Morgan hard at work on her "fish"  She spent the night with Char and Maizie and had a "girls" weekend.

Making cookies...I think more toppings went in their mouths than on the cookies...just a guess.  They seem to be discussing something important.  Most likely which topping tastes the best.

Then Brad came up and we harassed some fish.  It was a choppy wet day but still got a few fish in the boat and had a good time.

If you notice Lane is bracing himself pretty good here.  You can't really tell from this view but once you got sideways in the waves things got a little choppy.  Lane turned a bit green for a while but got his sea stomach back and managed to keep things in.

Morgan has been enjoying her Paint by Numbers she got for her birthday.

This buck showed up on my "game cam" earlier this year and I hadn't seen him much but the other morning we were getting ready for work and school and Lane started shouting "deer"... "buck"

So I fit in a quick hunt in between making lunches, packing backpacks, and herding kids.  Its nice not to have to travel far to do this.  I managed to get it cleaned and hung up and even got the kids to school before the bell rang.  Should be another tasty fruit fed deer.  They roam around the valley neighborhoods filling up on everyone's fruit trees I think.

Quick Trip to Bend

The kids had this past Friday off from school due to a teacher service day so we decided to hit the road and go visit our friends in Bend.

One of the 1st orders of business was to suck hornets out of a tree with a vacuum.  This is more entertaining than you may think.  The vacuum was a Dyson so we could see as the hornets piled up inside the vacuum.  We also found it to be much more effective to beat on the tree with a baseball bat while we put the vacuum over the entrance to the nest.  Logan was very pleased to get in on this "important" project.  What was even better is nobody got stung!

Then we headed down to the river to try a little fishing.  Lane wanted to try out his fly-fishing skills he has been working on in the grass with his plastic fish.

Success!  This ones not plastic. A nice chunky rainbow trout.  His first trout on a fly rod.

Meanwhile back at the house their were others that were enjoying playing and making truffles. Morgan made a new friend, Lilly, and they had a great time together.

Yup these truffles are delicious!