Tuesday, November 22, 2011

A Favorite...

Just a picture. Few words. One Smiling Mama.
An assignment for you:
Take time out of your day today to think about a moment(recent or long ago) 
that makes you smile.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Getting Ready...

for our annual deer hunting trip to Duck Egg in Vernon County.
My husband and I hunt this public land during gun deer season. 
It is a beautiful forest area filled with wonderful wildlife.

Being that it's public land,
and the spot in which Zach hunts is at one of the furthest points,
we decided to bring in his climber so he wouldn't have to carry it all in on opening day.

It's about a mile in mostly on a trail until you get to a hill,
that should probably actually deemed a cliff because of it's grade.

This picture is taken on the top of this cliff.
Notice the girls are smiling...that may be because my youngest didn't walk up it at all.
And as for my little princess, she did walk up it, but that's just because she's one tough girl.
She did announce to me on the way down,
that this was ridiculous and that she wants to live in the city when she grows up...
which made me laugh and say,"If that would make you happy."

We did get the climber set up for big day

 and managed our descent back down.

My wonderful husband and my girls.

and of course, my protector, Frosty.

Hopefully, we are lucky enough to get some meat for the winter.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Before it melts

We hurried home after picking up my big man up from school,
to see if we could be faster than Mother Nature.

We managed to build two snowman as the snow was melting around us.
You can hardly see Frosty...he blends right in!

What was the funniest part of this whole experience
was arguing with my children about what to use for eyes and mouth.
You see, last year the kids built a snowman with dad
and what did he use for the eyes and the mouth?
Black Olives!!!
"Mom, your suppose to use olives!"  I Love It!
After failing to explain why I wasn't going to waste a whole can of olives on a snowman,
I sent them on a hunt for pine cones for the eyes.

And who can forget...you can't build a snowman and not feed him!

So they got busy and whipped up some snowball soup.
Enjoy snowmen, we did!


Timber!

Well, the electric company finally got out to our house to trim the trees.
It surprised me how quickly(about 1 hour) they managed to trim the eight trees we marked,
the got them all to manageable length for Zach to finish taking them down.

Although when all was finished,
I looked out at all the work I have ahead of me.

Good thing I have wonderful helpers.

My little princess assisted my oldest
until she scratched her knee and was demanding an ice pack to help her. 

At this point, my oldest was the only trooper helping mom. 
Both girls bailed on me about 15 minutes into our project. 
The weather alert for snow got me a little worried I wouldn't get it all done.

And they were right. We woke up this morning with snow on the ground.
It was a little depressing until seeing the smiles on the kids faces.
How is this not exciting?
The first snow of the year, so I caved in and we had a 1st snow celebration.
My eldest has been begging to decorate cookies that I made
so I thought I would let them each decorate and eat one cookie(after breakfast, of course)

The girls decided to get bundled up and headed outside
 to make snowball soup and snow angels. 

Work will always be there,
but my kids wanting to play with me in the snow may not. 
So I'm soaking up every minute today of my wonderful life.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

What a Treat

The kids were obviously excited about going trick-or-treating with cousins.

Pirates, cowgirls, and doggies, oh my!

We had to get moving...afraid of mutiny on the ship.
The pirate was getting restless as you can see.

Here's the first house...notice who was at the front of the line.

And who was happy to be part of it,
walking house to house all by herself this year...
did I mention talking all the way!

We all had a great time with family,

exerted lots of energy,

lined up, sorted, and counted

all the candy!
It was a great night.
Note: There's no pictures of my big girl sorting for a reason-
she was trying to eat all of her candy as she took it out...wrappers and all.