Recent randoms...

Here are some of the things we've been up to..

Aspen, Cody (their cousin) and Kaylee I guess got annoying or something at family dinner at my parents so the older kids decided to bury them. They really were stuck for good.

We've been pulling rye at the farm.. oh the good ol days of rye pulling!! I remember them well. Except back in the day it was a lot easier without having to tote 4 little kids around!

Here's the kids loaded in the back of the truck headed to the wheat field.

Kaylee trying to pull out a big rye.

Aspen found some

There was one part in the field that is really tall that Aspen could get lost in.

Briggs enjoyed himself too.

The wheat was so a good size for Caden- it would smack him in the face so my dad is awesome and let him go bale the hay with him. Caden I'm sure was in heaven riding in a tractor with Grandpa.





This was on Mothers day we went into Daves moms to do some yard work and Briggs liked helping me weed her flower beds. I just love this picture and had to post it.

We had my Grandma Smith's 80th Birthday back in May so we had a big family dinner at the hunting club and then we all went and shot clay pigeons. Here is some of my family lined up to play a game of annie. We all love to shoot - there is quite the crowd of shooters when you get us all together.

This is Caden trying to pop popcorn while I'm busy and feeding Briggs- He is such an independent little thing! the only problem here is he used honey instead of oil. It made for a sticky mess. I am just glad he didn't plug it in or it would have been a lot worse!

And it waisted a lot of my honey!!

We came home late on night and the kids fell asleep in the car so we woke them up and told them to head up to bed. We came inside to see they only made it as far as the stairs!

We had a super fun rain storm here last week so all the kids just couldn't resist playing in it! the older kids went and played in the mud.

Briggs loves to help me out weeding the garden. He crawled right out of his pants somewhere in the garden.

MMMMMmmmmm.... A whole strainer full of home grown strawberries. They are so delicious!! Our strawberries have actually done really good this year- the best they have ever done by far! We blame it on the bee hive and the bees doing their job.

Lately the girls have been loving to sleep together. Aspen is the most snuggliest thing ever!

Very best of friends.

Well, I think that's all for now. I have the 4th of July and our camping trip to Vernon coming soon, but I am almost caught up..... YEA!!

Branding uncle Kole's cows

A little while back my sister Krista and her hubby Kole let us tag along to brand their longhorn cows. We had a good time. I decided I need a big willow tree in my backyard. The kids climbed and played the whole time in these trees! It was a great babysitter!

My niece Kandice was even nice enough to let me take a turn with her horse to rope and stretch a few.

This is what Caden did..

And my awesome mom helped with Briggs while I was roping. All the kids were happy and real troopers!! It was a fun day. Much to my surprise and I'm sure to my families disappointment I didn't even fall off!!- they would have loved a good laugh! :) (Its been a while since I've roped off a horse!.. like 10 yrs!!)

Is this normal?

Kaylee keeps and cherishes EVERYTHING she gets or makes. Then the only safe place where I wont throw it away or where her siblings wont get it is to store it up on her bed. Where she is up on the top bunk, I rarely ever look up there. I knew she had a lot of stuff up there and Dave and I would often laugh about it. Then one day she started sleeping upside down in her bed. I asked her why and she said she ran out of room the other way! So I drug a chair to climb up on to inspect her bunk bed and WOW!!! Her bed was full. She had everything from books to stuffed animals, coloring stuff, lots of blankets, a homemade bow and arrows, then little baggies full of lots of different little treasures. Unbelievable!

She literally couldn't stretch her legs out all the way or roll over.

Needless to say that Saturday we had a serious de-junking of her bed and dresser. It took several hours to finish. I even had to resort to distracting her so she wouldn't look and I could help dispose of some of the items. She is such a sweetheart. When we were all done she sprawled out on her bed and said"look, I have room" with a big smile. This isn't always a bad thing- she takes such good care of everything she gets and never loses anything. Actually she has to remind me of where things are all the time.

She is just like her dad!!!

Kaylee's last day of 1st grade

Wow, 1st grade flew by! It seems just a few weeks ago we were getting ready to send her to kindergarten! She loved 1st grade and has learned so much! She is getting to be a super good reader and she loves it. She reads stories to us at bedtime then usually stays up late reading to her stuffed animals or to Aspen. She loved her teacher Mrs Shanks. She especially loved eating lunch at school. I did miss having her home-she is such a great helper and fun to be around, but I'm glad she loves school and is doing so well in it!

Here she is headed down to the bus for the last time as a first grader with fl0wers for her teacher. (It was Friday so she had to wear her hat!)

To celebrate that school was over and summer was here all she wanted to do was go for a motorcycle ride. And by ride I mean over to the little track with jumps. :)

Caden was happy to play in the weeds.

I've racked my brains trying to figure out where she gets the need to jump things, but I just cant figure it out!!!

Briggs is just preparing him for in a few years...

Aspen of course loving to ride her motorcycle too.

One last jump..

This day while out riding we had our worst accident to date on the motorcycles. Dave and I were switching kids and motorcycles, (It was my turn on the motorcycle and him with the kids) when we heard a big scream and look over just in time to see Kaylee plow into Aspen. I guess Kaylee was getting ready to go off the jump-fast and didn't see anybody in the way. In the mean time Aspen rode on the track and stopped because she had an itch. So Kaylee came haulin over the jump at full speed and then landed it only to see Aspen right in the middle of her track with no time to do anything about it. So they collided really hard. We went running over there totally expecting a run to the ER for some broken bones or stitches, but this proves how tough little kids are. They had a few scratches and bruises but rode their bikes home and were ready for some more. Well Kaylee couldn't ride hers home because the force of the collision pop ed her front tire... yea, they hit hard. We were so glad they didn't get hurt worse. We sure love our kidos!!

We Love you Kaylee and great job in the 1st grade!!!

Kaylee's Dance Festival

A little sloe, I know, but here's some pictures of Kaylee's dance festival the last week of school. She actually really got into her dance and did a great job.

Here's the kids lined up ready to watch

Kind of a long shot, but Kaylee's class all lined up sitting down


Kaylee dancing

I grabbed this close shot as she was heading back to class.

After the dance festival they had field day. We stayed and had some lunch and watched for a bit.

Kaylee and her best bud Arlee eating lunch

Playing a game with Keira, another great friend.

Awe.. the fun day of field day. I used to love field day.