October

Happy Birthday to me!  I turned 26 this year!  I went to Utah over Conference weekend, while Gary took advantage of the opening day of hunting.  Then later, got to spend my "real" birthday at home with my boys, and go out to eat with some friends.  

 Ryann is practicing her big sister skills on Max.  She loved his "pokey" hair and would just sit there and touch it.

 Here is my Max at 6 months!  He is sleeping better.  I am relaxing my diet a little bit to see how he does.  Still no straight dairy products, but I think it could all be in my mind now.  He is such a happy guy.  He was starting to crawl, but then decided that rolling and pivoting was more effective.  He is pretty fast too, but I think he will start crawling soon.  Hunter runs circles around him, literally, so it is no surprise that he can pivot as fast as he does.

 A bedtime routine that the boys love.

 Beary scary!

 Hunter is really showing his colors.  He is hilarious half the time and a pure two year old for the other half.  He has just discovered that he can jump with both feet off the ground, a bunch of times in a row.  So, he just jumps around our house all the time.  He also loves to play hide and go seek when Gary gets home.  I think my favorite time was when he was convinced Gary was hiding under the kitchen floor.

 Monkey see. Monkey do?  I don't know.  I just know that this may be good for blackmail in the future.

 Max thinks it is funny when Hunter gets in trouble.  He will laugh his head off when Hunter is in the corner.  I don't know what to think of it - I mean it is funny to see one boy crying and the other laughing.  I wonder if antagonistic will describe their relationship later.

 Hunter can fix anything.  He just has to run and get his toolbox first.  Today, this dump truck needed a tune up.

 Max is getting into everything.  He has even started to snitch Hunter's crackers, when he can get his hands on them.  I guess I should feed him more!

 Yes, I did carry them around like this.  Why? Who knows.  It was fun....for them.

 Who doesn't love a good story?

 Hunter has started to love helping me in the kitchen.  Here we are making apple crisp for dessert!

For some reason the pumpkins in our garden were super hard.  Hunter and I tried to carve a few while Gary was at work, but I couldn't cut the dang things.  So, we had to wait for Gary to get home and he got out his skil saw and helped us out.

 Here is Dad saving the day by drilling out our pre-drawn pumpkin face.

 Batman!  

 Pictures weren't our forte on Halloween.....

 My little cow, Max.

 Hunter would talk about Halloween and who everyone was dressing up as.  He would say, "I'm Batman, Max is a cow, and you're a pig, Mom."  Thanks, Hunter.  No, I didn't dress up as a pig.

 Gary's freaky mask that really scared Hunter.  Until I had him pick the mask's nose and that seemed to convince him it was pretend.  

 He really made a haul! Good thing he is too little to eat it all by himself.

 So, this is how I found Hunter one day during his nap.  I had to open the closet door for the pictures.  I still don't understand what he was doing asleep in his closet OR why his trains were on top of him.

So Hunter and Gary were out moving cows to a different pasture.  Our cows are pretty docile.  One "baby" (500 pound) calf was curious about Hunter.  He was following Hunter and as Hunter was walking along a ditch.  Man was Hunter surprised to find this 500 pound calf right behind him when he turned around!  Don't worry. Gary was right there to save him. 

 He is a character.

 Max is already trying out the 4-wheeler....at least long enough for a picture.

 Max loves hats. LOVES HATS.  Good thing his Dad does too. 

Three boys on a three-wheeler = fun/heart-attack

So, our garden went crazy this year.  The shot on the right is what the third car garage looked like.  We did a major cleaning this month of the garage and bought a new shelf for our food.

If you look closely in this bottom picture on the top shelf with food on it, you can see where my October went.  Can I just say that I am SO glad to be done canning?!  The only reason that I stopped was because I ran out of jars, and that is after getting 8 dozen MORE than what I had last year.  That is a super heavy duty shelf that can hold 2,000 pounds on each level.  Our last shelves broke on us, so we had to upgrade.  What a thing to complain about though, right? Having too much food to can?  We were pretty blessed this year. 

Hunting - the real reason October exists. (According to Gary)

Here is the deer that Gary got in the South Hills near Nevada.

 Here is the elk that he got in the desert near Rupert.  

 Notice how wide the antlers are?  That is pretty unusual and Gary thinks they are pretty cool.

 The truck got a little dirty.

 Here is a good shot of that wide antler.  Gary also went on a trip up to Salmon with "the men" in his family.  He got another deer there too.  Hunting is one good stress reliever - for Gary at least.  I'm just glad he didn't come home with a bear.  While Gary is at work if Hunter asks where he is, I tell him "at work".  Hunter then says, "No Mom, Daddy's hunting."

 On a sad note...  we lost Roxy.  I don't know what happened to her, but she is gone.  We looked and looked for her and called all around, checked papers, asked neighbors.  Nothing.  She had a collar with our number on it, so I think that something bad happened or else we would have gotten a call.  She drove us crazy, but we still loved her.  Hunter still asks me where she is.  He would call out the window as we drove around, " Roxy! Roxy!  French fries!"  Me- " We are calling Roxy." Hunter - "Oh. Okay. Roxy!  Mom, I need french fries."
We saw a truck with a black dog in it, and he was convinced it was her and that we needed to go get her.  It breaks my heart.  She would have been 4 years old a few days ago.

Grasshopper Poo

 Hunter is slowly slowly starting to be potty trained.  He is enjoying the rewards like the one in the picture above.  The very first time he used the potty he got to ride in Daddy's pickup and get ice cream.  Talk about the coolest treat  E.V.E.R.  He isn't quite ready because it mostly depends on how he feels that day and if the presents in the prize box are what he wants....  It's a start anyways!

 We went to Jackson Hole with some friends from Utah State.  It is the start of an annual "Friendunion".  We even got shirts that say "Friendunion" on them - that's how cool we are!  I didn't take a group shot with everyone under the arches, but if you blog stalk my friends on the side-bar, you should be able to see the one that they took.

 A cool moose we saw.

 Here are all of the babies.  Three were born within 3 weeks of each other and the only girl was born a few months later.  Boys rule! From left to right - Krew, Finn, Madi, and Max.

 This is a picture on the last day.  The trip was filled with fun, but Hunter was ready for the trek home (as you can tell!).  Gary even went white water rafting!  I am a wimp and didn't want to go.  I'll take their word for it that it was fun. This is really going to be a fun tradition with our friends every year.

 Here are a few pictures on our drive home.  It looks like clouds, but it was really smoke from a distant fire.

 Here are my boys!

 Hunter thinks he is the coolest ever.  He likes to ask, "What does that truck do Mommy?" or "Tractor on my side!".  Lately he likes to get in shouting wars while saying, " I love you more MORE M-O-R-E!" Pretty funny.  He will say it to Max sweetly though, " I love you more more more Max."
He told Gary and I in the car the other day, "I like cow poo and grasshopper poo and lots of poo." To be fair, we were going to Rupert and a few days earlier we had witnessed a grasshopper poop.  I also am having a hard time getting him to NOT touch every spider he sees.  What a boy.

 Here we are at the Perrin Bridge Festival.  Every year base jumpers jump from the bridge - pretty cool to watch.  It was a little windy, so we didn't really see many while we were there.

 The activities were pretty cool though!  This is one of those paper spinners that you squeeze paint onto and it makes a pretty cool picture.  Yellow and green were the first colors Hunter HAD to put on his paper. Go figure.

 It is starting to get a little bit chilly in the mornings when we go for our runs.  Here is Max all bundled up.  Gary has been covering for the night team leaders, so we try to go for our run and visit the park in the mornings to help the house stay a *little* bit quieter for Gary to sleep!

 Finally a good picture!  This is Hunter at 2 years 6 months and Max at 5 months.  It's fun to see their friendship grow.  Can you see the resemblance?

 I ran the Rim2Rim this year!  It starts at the bottom of the canyon, you run up, over the bridge, and back down the canyon.  7.5 miles.  I completed it in 1 hr 10 min! 7th in my age group.  It was a lot of fun.  I was part of "Team Beef".  You wear their shirt and they reimburse you for the race.  Go Team Beef!

Here is Max at 5 months.  He is still so happy, but can't seem to sleep worth a darn.  Someday....