Coloring eggs on Good Friday

Ry was so excited for Sky to come down for Easter this year.  These cousins definitely don't get to see each other often enough. 
The girls did the first couple of eggs in the egg spinner, but if I am being honest, I love this toy way more than any of the kids do.  Just place an egg in with a little of the dye gel and push.  The eggs spins and then you get a camo like egg.  Cool, huh?!

In all reality though, coloring eggs is a little boring for a 3 year old.  Who wants to sit and watch an egg in a cup?  So these girls were up and down, and I think Ry would have been down from the counter even more, but I told her she had to stay at the table to eat her chips. 

Megs was an awesome helper, and they all enjoyed putting stickers on the eggs.....for about 2 minutes then it was more fun to put the stickers on their own bodies. 

So cute.  I would definitely pick them up if I saw them hiding in a bush!

April Fool's Dinner

Well after my last video post we are going to back up a few weeks and see if I can get caught up on some things. 
This year I made an actual April Fool's Dinner--Meatloaf frosted with pink mashed potatoes.  My kids might have actually thought I was cool for a second. 


Nate was definitely the most impressed.  He had been wanting to think of a good trick all day.




I didn't get a picture of Megs eating it, but her empty plate was a good sign.  As for Ry, she would have nothing to do with it.  Nope didn't even get her to try one bite of the "cake." 

I think I finally got this slide show to upload, although it has been a very frustrating process. I have another slide show that shows all the branding pictures I took this day, but it refuses to upload, so I give up!! It turns out the captions I made are too small to read, but at least the pictures are not bad. I have a couple of more posts that should have been posted before this, and hopefully I will get them posted tomorrow, so things don't get too out of order.
As a side note, today, (Sat. April 17) was such a beautiful day. I didn't take any pictures but I think my kids stayed outside and played all day. Preston and MarDawn went to Landon's baseball game so their younger kids were here. Jeanna was gone on a school thing and BJ was hating it with a toothache so all of their kids were here, too. It was awesome.
Nate, Jensen, and Jace spent a lot of the day shooting sling shots. No windows or small children were hurt, but there was a bird that didn't make it. I shot with Nate the other day and there is no doubt about it--the kid has good aim. Now I'm just not sure if that is a good thing or not. Megs had a funeral for the bird, and she came and got the camera, so maybe I will have pictures to post of that.
Macee was probably the highlight of my day. Ry hardly ever came in, but Macee would come in to tell me what was going on, and who was doing what, and often times to tell me who she was mad at. She came in and read books and played with different things while I worked on cleaning and what not. It is just so easy to tell that her and Ry are close to the same age and they are both little chatterboxes. IT WAS A GOOD DAY!!

Some good pics of my cowboy

Tagging calves on the winter range before we move them to someplace that hopefully has some more feed!!

What a shot on my part, and yes he does catch the calf at least that is how we all want to remember it.

I like rocks and baby cows

These are some more random pictures from the winter range.  I didn't write anything in the previous post, but it went like this....The morning started out very cold, but it turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day at the corral where we roasted hot dogs and the kids played.  The kids played all day long and when evening came we thought about breaking out the leftover hot dogs for dinner, but we did finally pack up and come home.  It was a great way to end spring break. 

Spring Break Saturday

Spring Break Friday 2

After bowling we headed off to lunch, but first the kids wanted a picture by the BIG BULL!!  Well that is everyone but Ry, she thought it was too cold to get out of the van again and she was soooo right.  It was so very cold outside.  I thought my hand might freeze to my camera.  It looks so beautiful, but as it has been said, "looks can be deceiving."  If I didn't get the point across--it was cold, dang cold.

After a quick lunch at Wendy's we headed to the rec center.   Megs and Brooklyn had a blast together, and quite frankly I didn't see them much.  They spent a lot of time in both the lazy river and the yellow tube slide.  Megs did slip on the wet cement and got quite the scrape and bruise--OUCH!!  No pictures though because it was too close to her bum for her to even consider letting me take a picture of it!!

 

I don't think Nate would have cared if none of his friends were there.  He was having a blast!!   He also loved the yellow tube slide, and I'm not sure when we were there last (probably late summer) but he is tall enough I can let him go in the lazy river without me.  Holy Moly he is getting so tall!!  He was all over the place and hard to keep track of, but it was awesome because he is a good enough swimmer and tall enough that I didn't feel like he always had to be in sight. 

This girl, on the other hand, was all over the place thinking she was a fish and I KNEW I had to keep track of her.  Rylan usually likes to swim, but she is usually done after about 1/2 hour and ready to be done, or content to just watch the kids.  THIS GIRL SWAM FOR  3 HOURS AND STILL DIDN'T WANT TO GET OUT!!!  She had so much fun and had no fear.  Everytime we got in the lazy river she would say let go.  And if I did and she went under and I pulled her back up she would just tell me to let go again.  She loved the blue slide, but loved going down the ducky slide with Macee, too.  I love the picture in the middle of this collage.  She would come up from this blue slide like a drowned rat everytime, but she loved it. 

 

It really was a ton of fun.  I'm excited to go back.  My mom decided she would go to Wal-mart while we swam.  She never dreamed that little Ry would let us stay there for over 3 hours.  I'm not saying that Ry always get what she wants......I'm just not saying.

Spring Break Friday

Friday of Spring break we went to Cortez.  We first went to the bowling alley and for the most part I think the kids loved it.  It did get a little long for Ry girl, but anything gets a little long for her that is not directly focused on her.  We went with MarDawn and Jeanna's family so everyone had a cousin or cousins close to their age.  These days my kids think everything is better with a friend!!

Megs is a pretty good bowler and I love some of the shots I got of her... and in case you didn't know (mom and dad) you can click on the collage and it makes it bigger so you can see all of the pictures better.  Megan bowls palm down instead of palm up.  I don't know how she does it, but it works for her.  Megs wanted me to get a picture of her score...but I want everyone to notice that her cousin Brittany won because that would be important to Brittany.  (Brittany was a little stressed and not having as much fun if she was losing--it was a crack up to watch.)  Megs and all of the older girls were good at helping Macee and Ry bowl.  Megs and Ry are so fun to watch when Megs is being the nice big sister, which I am happy to report she is being more and more often lately.

Here's my Nate boy.  He tried a couple of different techniques including two hands to get the ball down the alley.  He wasn't so great at being real low when he let go of the ball so sometimes it landed with quite the thud.  I know I'm prejudiced, but he is seriously the cutest boy I've ever known.

Ry, was Ry, in the fact that one minute she wasn't going to bowl at all, the next she loved it and the next she just wanted to know when we were going to be done.  She did like throwing the ball, but most of the time she didn't even watch to see how many pens it knocked over.  I am glad Macee was there to help keep her company.  I am also  glad my mom accompanied me on this trip.  My kids not only think that everything is better with a friend,  they also KNOW that everything is better with a grandma.

Ry's new haircut

The above picture is the before and the following are the after. Her hair is getting thicker but it still has a long ways to go before I think she will be able to wear it very long. It just gets too stringy looking for me--especially considering the fact that she very rarely lets me do anything with it.


Pretty dang cute and pretty dang good considering I did it myself.  Yes I do see some of the long strands, but she was DONE, so hopefully I can get the strays in the morning.

I like the black and white of these photos, but I have to admit the reason I did it is because she has a seriously red mustache going on and these camoflauge that just  a little bit.  :)

Goodlookin cowboy

Preston bought a new horse from his good friend Will, to sell this summer in our horse sale.  He wanted to buck when Preston first got on him for the first week, but now they are getting along great. 

Preston at his multi-tasking finest.  Not the best picture, but here he is on his new horse, Dish, holding Ry, talking on the phone while keeping the cows from leaving just yet.  Who said men can't multi-task?

He probably won't like that the whole post is about him, BUT I do. :)

Tough Girls

These girls were to not be outdone by the boys.  They were getting drug around by calves with the best of them. 

After so long though they went off for a little girl time by themselves.  We didn't see them for quite a while, but everyone came back happy and in one piece so I'm guessing it was a good ride.  

branding 3.17.10

Everyone in the family sat on a calf--well except for me and I'm ok with that.