Homecoming 2012

I love living where I live because Homecoming is a big deal. There is only one high school and they plan for the week for activities after school, sometimes for the whole community, and we get to have a parade! Since Amanda is in the band, I know where she will be during the parade. But I usually only get to see one or two of my other children in school because they aren't all sitting in the same places around the parade route. This year, I decided that I wasn't going to search out any of my children for the parade as I usually don't find them. I knew that because of the route the parade would take that 2 of them would actually be close to their school (which is a LONG ways from where I park). So I was just going this year. I actually lucked out and as I got to the parade route I hear a "MOM!". Of course any mom within hearing of that is going to turn. I turned and saw a familiar face waving at me....Wyatt! Way cool. So we camped out with Wyatt, which turned out to be a great thing as I still had Katherine and James to look out for....and when you have high schoolers throwing candy and 2 young children, that could be a dangerous combination.

Then I lucked out again. I knew from talking to Amanda that she would be marching on the same side of the street that I was on, so I wasn't worried about that. I was more worried that I wouldn't be fast enough on the camera to get pictures as they marched by. But, once again, they stopped right in front of where I was, and with my new camers I was able to get some really good pictures of her. (Did I mention how much I LOVE this new camera and my sweet husband for getting it for me for my birthday?) I am not sure why (I should just blame the hormones) but lately seeing my baby girl doing things like this makes me cry. I almost started crying as I see her marching away.....I am so proud of her.

I must say that this year's homecoming wasn't as hard as the years past. I am a transplant to this area and so growing up my heart was blue and gold all the way. I have noticed the last few years, especially as Amanda has gotten into high school, that my heart is slowing turning red and black. I will admit that I still have a big soft spot for my alma mater and the blue and gold.......but there is something about the Big Red that makes my heart melt now. So good luck in tonight's game and GO BIG RED!

Baskets

James is my busy body/helper. Sometimes I don't know if he is helping or just being busy. I have to watch him closer than I did my other kids as he finds things to do that maybe he really shouldn't do. He is my thinker. He sees a stool and doesn't just climb up and sit on it, he thinks to himself...."what can I do with this? Where can I take it and what can I get by using this?" From the time he started to walk, he started to crawl up onto things and get into stuff. Nothing in my kitchen is safe from this man if he has a stool. So what he did the other day doesn't surprise me. I just don't know how he got the job done.
So let me set the stage. I have a seperate laundry room in my house. And since I am the mean mom and make my kids fold their own laundry, I have a ton of baskets. Each of the 5 older children (for those that have forgotten it would be: Amanda, Wyatt, Bethany, Mariah and Jacob) have their own basket. As I am folding laundry, if I come across anything that is their I put it, unfolded, into their basket. As part of their chores they are to fold and put away their laundry. Now as fate would have it, on the day that this happened, we had just had a mass putting away of laundry and so everyones baskets were empty. The kids also have a basket in their rooms to put dirty laundry.  I also have 2 baskets that I put downstairs in the kitchen and bathrooms for the dirty stuff and 2 that I use for holding laundry until it is taken care of that stay in the laundry room.....so if you are keeping track that is 9 baskets.

So on Wednesday (the 19th) I was doing some work on the computer and James was playing in the laundry room with the baskets. I remember seeing him take the pink and purple ones (they usually do downstairs) out of the laundry room. I thought to myself, that he was just going to take those back downstairs. He really likes to have things in the place where he thinks they should be. The next thing I know we are getting ready to leave for somewhere (I don't even remember) and we needed his crocs.....see the previous post for the story about those. So up to his room we go to get them and when I walk in this is what I see:

He had taken every basket from my laundry room and even found an empty one somewhere else and taken them to his room. I am not sure what he was thinking, or what possessed him to do this, but he did. I was shocked and glad that it wasn't something more than just moving the baskets around. No harm, no foul right? I guess I am going to have to get better at watching what he does, as I didn't realize that he had all the baskets, I thought he only had the pink and purple ones.

Shoes

Shoes seem to be something that I must not have gotten the good genes on. I own 5 types of shoes.....my tennis shoes, church shoes, sandels, a pair of loafer type shoes and my hunting boots. I know and have heard of women who say that they have a closet full of shoes and still don't have something to wear....Really?? For me shoes are necessary. I can't go outside without having shoes on or I hurt my feet. Although I do love to walk around on grass barefoot. I am not one of those people who can walk on any surface barefooted, if you know what I mean. James is a boy after my own heart. He also has very few shoes to choose from, but I will tell you he has his favorite pair. And when I say favorite, I mean he doesn't take these things off willingly. This little man sleeps with these shoes on.

We were given this pair of shoes by his Aunt Heather. She said take them and I thought well this will be fun because I could already tell that they wouldn't stay on his feet for very long....I mean think about it 2 years old and they aren't able to be tied so therefore they will come off. But James has surprised me in many ways. The first is that he can actually put these on himself. That is a bonus at this point, as I can't even bend down to put my own shoes on, how am I supposed to be able to help him? Then since he can put them on himself, for some reason he has grown really attached to them. He won't go anywhere without his crocs. He has to wear them to church and all over the house. I tried the other day to put his tennis shoes on.....he threw a fit because he wanted his crocs. I am mildly surprised that they are on the right feet in this picture as generally (since he puts them on himself) they are not. He has always had a thing for shoes....putting any pair on that he can get his hands on, but since these came into his life, that has all but stopped. I am not sure what I am going to do when he goes out of these, or they wear out......and I am probably not doing him any good by letting him wear them to bed, but he loves them and for right now I don't see how having his favorite pair of shoes with him could hurt.

Antelopes, again?

Yes, again. As I said before this year we drew 3 antelope tags. Gabe has already filled his, see the previous posts for that. Amanda and I both have tags and so we needed to do another hunting trip. The nice thing about the area we drew for antelope is that it is really close to home (about 30 minutes or so) and so we don't have to take days off or wait until the weekends to make a try and getting our tags filled. Saturday was spent helping family so we didn't have a chance to go, but we did plan for our next trip. We decided that Monday afternoon would be a great day for ME to go with Gabe and try my hand at getting one. Now I have to remind you that I am pregnant and I was not sure that I could do this. I knew that I had the skill in handling the gun (see last years posts on our hunting trips) and that I could do the trip itself......it was that at 33 weeks pregnant my belly is there (if you know what I mean). I wasn't sure if I would be able to, as Gabe says, put the sneak on them. If you have never been hunting, that usually entails crawling on your belly to crest a hill so they don't see you and run away before you have a chance at shooting. Then I wasn't sure if my stomach would be able to handle the smells that can occur while cleaning the animal for transport.
 We made arrangements for Amanda to watch the rest of the children while we were gone (have I ever told you that I am going to be REALLY sad when she goes to college as she is my built in babysitter). After school was out I was ready. I wanted it to be a one time thing, go out just this once and get it done.....not because I don't like to hunt, but because it is hard for me as the mother to make the arrangements needed to go hunting.

It was a nice cool afternoon and as we set out, I just kept praying that things would go right and that I could get this done. I wasn't out for the biggest buck/doe that I could find.....I just wanted to shoot the first thing that crossed my path that I could legally shoot. We saw a few prospects, but as this is the fourth or fifth day into the season, they are pretty skittish and nothing would stand still and/or present the right shot. So we kept moving around and finally got to the point where I was desperate. The sun was starting to go down and I still didn't have anything to show for it. We made one last try and guess what I GOT ONE!!!!

And yes, it is bigger than Gabe's!! I was so happy, but nicer than getting one, was the fact that I dropped him with one shot!

This picture (no, not just for the scenery) shows the truck from the kill site. It was about 200 yards away. I purposely didn't zoom at all on the camera so you can get a better idea of how far away he was. The truck is in the center of this picture.....see if you can find it.

I was thrilled and so happy that I was done. I was able to help Gabe clean him up and didn't have the problems that I thought that I might. I can't believe that I did this at 33 weeks pregnant! Sure it isn't a marathon or something like that, but it was big for me and I am proud to say that I did it!

Forest Fires

Normally not a subject that I like to talk about, but when there are so many going on around you, it tends to change your views.....especially the sunsets and sunrises. The other night the sun was overshadowed by so much smoke that it made for one amazing sunset....and of course since the new camera is so handy, I snapped some pictures. These past few days have reminded me (not nearly to the extreme) of the 1988 fires in Yellowstone National Park. I remember those fires and how the ashes were falling on my hometown that summer. How the sun, and even the moon, would always look blood red. It was not a fun summer.

Again, just because of the way that our house is situated on our lot, our sunsets are always behind our "chrome forest".....but to me that makes them even more beautiful.

This one almost looks like something from a science fiction movie. It just looks so surreal and I can almost picture the swirling of the smoke etc.

Playing at the park

 Last Saturday I had a rare treat in that I only had 4 of my 7 children home with me. Amanda went to the University Of Wyoming football game that day with the band as it was their "Band Day". Gabe took Wyatt and Bethany to help his grandmother with a new roof. So I had Mariah, Jacob, Katherine and James and what did we do? We shirked our chores and went to the park for a while. While we were there I took a few pictures as the smiles on their faces were priceless. Of course it helped a ton that we basically had the park to ourselves for the first 45 minutes.

Antelope Hunting 2012

This year Gabe decided that he wanted to try something different....and now I think that he is hooked. He bought himself a bow a year or so ago and has been having fun just practicing with it. Last year his friend took his antelope with a bow, so I think this year he decided he was going to have a go at it too.  How did he do?

Gabe is awesome! He took this little lady down with one arrow and was so proud of himself. He actually didn't want anyone to really know about it, only because he went out the morning of Mariah's birthday/baptism day. He wanted that to be her day, not his in the glory of taking his first animal with a bow. He is going to try and get an elk tomorrow by bow with a good friend of ours. I really wish him luck....more because elk season starts in Nov and that is when our baby is due. If he can get one tomorrow, then I don't have to worry that he will miss our baby's birth.

Now this post marks the first in our series of hunting exploits but most of them this year will feature Gabe and Amanda. As I am pregnant I have chosen only to hunt antelope this year and nothing else. Antelope season for me (as I don't bow hunt) doesn't start until later this month. Deer and elk season would be impossible for me to do as they are too close to my due date for comfort.

Birthday and Baptism

Man, how these things sneak up on you sometimes. I was telling Gabe around the first part of August that Mariah's birthday was coming up (Sept 1) and that she was going to be 8. For her this is a special birthday as it means that she is able to be baptized. I suggested to Gabe that maybe we should start planning for that as it was coming up fast.....he said, don't worry we have plenty of time. Her birthday actually fell on a Saturday this year, perfect for holding a baptism and also perfect for her to be able to remember the day she was baptized as it would be her actual 8th birthday. The Sunday evening before her birthday, Gabe and I realized that we needed to get on the ball if we were going to get this done on Saturday as there are many people to call, an interview with our bishop for Mariah, the arrangments to make sure the church is open.......(you get the idea). Thankfully things just seems to fall into place and work out that the building was free, we got the interview taken care of, but I think that I fell short in calling those who should/could have come to the service. But regardless we were able to have Mariah baptized on her birthday and what better gift could she have gotten? We are so proud of her to have chosen this option and the things that it leads her to know and how she seems to have grown so much. After the baptism we had a BBQ for those that wanted to come share it with us. We had a lot of fun and many thanks to those who helped with the food.

I can't believe that she is 8 already! She is an amazing little girl.