A Day in the Desert

Sam's parents are in town and since Sam and his brother were both off work on Monday, we decided to go to an ostrich farm. Oh my goodness. It was a ton of fun!

 

They gave you big cups of feed to give to different animals. There were donkeys, deer, ostriches, baby donkeys, ducks, prairie dogs and lorakeets. I need to get some more pictures from my MIL and SIL of all of the different things.

 

Ostriches are such strange animals. One of the ostriches took grandpa's hat. I couldn't stop laughing because they were so weird.

We got to go on a monster truck tour around the ranch. It was fun. It got a little wild at the end and poor Grant wasn't a fan. He was really tired and the thrashing about was making him pretty sad. At the end of the ride, we went Ostrich fishing. You clip orange slices on the end of a fishing pole and they pull them. So funny.

Later that afternoon, we went shooting in the desert. It was my first time ever shooting a gun and it was pretty fun.

I felt pretty cool shooting this shot gun but I'd say shooting the AK47 made me feel the coolest.

 

 

By the end of the day, we were exhausted and covered in dirt. It was a fun day in the desert.

Thankful

When we walked out to get in the car to take Abby to preschool this morning, the automatic lock wouldn't work. So, I opened the car door with the key. Crazy, I know. Pretty sure I haven't done that since 1995. (I actually have no idea when opening your car door with a button became the norm.) Then, when I went to put the key in the ignition, the car wouldn't start. Awesome. I really wanted Abby to be at school today. There was fall break last week and we missed a day the week before that when we were in California. We had made birthday treats for her to bring and her tuition was due. I ran inside, grabbed the double stroller and the Bjorn and loaded up the troops. I was grumpy all the way there. I was frazzled. I hate when things don't go as planned and I really hate being late. After dropping her off, about 20 minutes late, I started to relax a bit and think about my blessings instead of my problems.

Last night, for Family Home Evening, we started a thankful tree. We each wrote a few things we were thankful for and put them on our tree. Later in the evening, I was thinking about other things I was grateful for and one of my first thoughts was our car. As I was walking home, I remembered that thought and laughed to myself. You become really grateful for you car when you can't use it. So, I decided to be grateful that we've never had problems with our car in the four years we've had it. And then, the ball really started rolling. I'm grateful that we have the means to send Abby to preschool. I'm thankful to be blessed with my wonderful children when there are so many who aren't. I'm grateful for good health, that I could walk to preschool. I'm grateful for patient children who didn't whine when things weren't going according to plan I'm grateful...I'm grateful...I'm grateful.

One of my favorite quotes says, "Gratitude turns what we have into enough." When I choose to focus on all that I have, I realize how unbelievably blessed I am.

So today, I choose to be thankful!

Happy Halloween 2013

We decided we'd better carve pumpkins again, since daddy missed out on carving while we were in California. Clara's  Jack-o-Lantern face was a bit abstract.

 

I am kind of in love with the girl's costumes this year. They turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. Honestly, I couldn't find very good tutorials for either of the costumes so I was mostly winging it.

Abby chose to be Merida this year. She picked it for the bow and arrow, which I was able to find at the Dollar Tree--score!  I used this blog post, mostly just for ideas. I thought her instructions were kind of confusing. My magnum opus was that wig. It took quite a bit of time but it definitely made the look. I used this method, though I didn't used quite as much yarn and I didn't crochet my own hat.

Clara's Rapunzel costume came almost completely out of my brain because I couldn't find any I liked very much. However, this guided how I made her wig. Again, less yarn. She only weighs 25 pounds after all.

I'm not sure what she was doing in the picture but she looks so angelic.

It's hard to get a good smile out of her these days. Her cheese looks like she's in pain.

Sam made her this Pascal, which was super cute. She didn't want to wear it though.

Here they are with their spoils. They actually got more at the church party in about 20 minutes then they did in an hour plus on Halloween.

They had a blast trick-or-treating with their cousins!

Abby Turns 5

I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow, my firstborn child has turned five! We absolutely adore our Abby Drue. She is a sweetheart, always ready with cuddles and hugs. She is an amazing big sister and the best helper I could ever ask for. She is smart and funny and so fun to be around. We really scored big when she was sent to our family!

 

She is one of the best people to buy presents for because she is so excited about everything. Throughout the morning, she would say, can I open another present? She'd open one, play with it for a while and then get too excited and ask for another one. She wore that crown all day--the birthday princess.

 

 

 

We set up this balloon drop (Pinterest,  of course. Is there any creativity left in the world?) for her to have in the morning. Her reaction was so cute. They crawled under the streamers rather than walking through them.

She asked for donuts for breakfast. She choose a sprinkle one, of course.

 

My parents came to spend the day. They told her she could pick anywhere for lunch and she choose Filbertos, which is a 24-hour Mexican restaurant. They have these little drinks she likes and she couldn't get her mind off them. I guess she's a cheap date.

We went over to have dinner and go trick-or-treating with her cousins. We got Jack-o-Lantern pizzas from Papa Murphy's and Alisa decorated really cute.

Abby picked out some princess cupcakes I found on Pinterest. Unfortunately, there weren't any printables. I found pictures and cropped them to be the same size and then printed them on card stock. I asked Sam to cut them out, since my cutting still are kind of abysmal.

My frosting skills aren't the best, but I think they turned out pretty cute and they tasted delicious!

 

She had a wonderful day and it was so fun celebrating with her!