Puzzlin Paiz

Paisley's room has this weird little corner.  There is a normal closet it's a regular shaped room and then it has this small corner that's like a small closet without any closet features but a light.  I guess it would work good for a desk area but since she's a two year old girl, she didn't really need a desk.  I spent the first week unpacking and changing it around, a book nook with pillows, all of her dolly's and their accessories, random crap, and then I finally gave up and just put the puzzle table in there and figured I'd keep thinking and eventually get inspiration.  

Well inspiration has never come but instead Paisley has become obsessed with doing puzzles in her puzzle place.  Fort the most part she is Hunt's shadow and can be constantly found following Huntley in all of her adventures but occasionally she just likes some peace and quiet and goes and hangs out in her puzzle place by herself.  It's adorable.  

And yes her puzzle time also sometimes ends up with her coming out a little stinky.  Which makes me wonder if I stuck a potty in there it could be the key to finally getting her potty trained.  A potty puzzle place, yeah that just sounds gross but if it works it would be worth it!

Squirrel

Our library is small.  Really small.  But I'm not complaining because we actually have one. And it has a pretty awesome selection of DVD's which is nice since the closest Redbox is an hour away and sometimes we get sick of netflix.  

The other day Pais picked out "Up" and as we were watching it and got to the part with Dug and his constantly getting side tracked and yelling "squirrel" I couldn't help but laugh.  That is my life all day long.  Only it's not with a dog and it's not squirrel's but Huntley and Antelope.  After two months we haven't made it through one meal with out trying to have a normal conversation and her yelling "antelope" mid-sentence and running off to take a picture.  I though it would get old after a week or two but it hasn't and I have hundreds of pictures like the ones below on my phone to prove it. 

They are all blurry and most of them you can't even see anything and I just can't force myself to sit and spend what seems like will take forever deleting them all.  I guess I shouldn't complain because I wanted to move to a place where my kids saw "wild" things on a daily basis and not just when we went into the woods.  Plus when I get to watch quality daddy daughter time revolving around checking out the antelope it makes my heart happy.

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 Chris was home last week, hooray!  We're still experiencing winter around here and we got stuck inside dealing with temps in the 30's, boo!

We pretty much only went on two adventures.  Exploring the river as it comes out of the lake and killing a few trees.

 The wildflowers were GORGEOUS.  I can't get over what a beautiful place the world is. 

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Penny

A couple weeks ago I was sitting around one night and enjoying the view and kind of feeling guilty that I had all this space for a horse and lots of lush green grass for a horse to eat but didn't even own a horse and it was all just going to waste.  So I figured I'd put an ad on craigslist and see if anyone wanted to rent our pastures.  Within a few hours I got a call (I think I must have put it on for way too cheap) but now we have a view with horses and Hunt has a new best friend.  Meet Penny.

We really did get pretty luck though and have made great friends with the couple that are renting the land.  They are fine with us using the horses and since all of their grandkids live across the country and my kids grandparents live far away it's been awesome.  Every night I look forward to my free hour while the girls go out and help Scott water the horses, give them treats, and go for a little ride.  

 The most surprising part to me has been how brave the girls are.  Once the ducks and chickens grew past the size of being able to fit in your hand the girls immediately got scared of them and freak out when the ducks come with in a hundred feet of them.  I figured they be pretty timid around the horses but they had no fear at all.  I think if I let her Hunt would spend the entire day petting, walking, and talking with Penny.  She is in love.  When she's not outside she's drawing pictures and writing Penny over and over again.

 Chris has been begging me for horses ever since we put an offer in on the house and I've always responded with "someday" while really thinking "never." but now I'm changing my mind and hopefully someday soon we can get our very own horses.  But for now having someone pay me and entertain my kids is definitely the way to go.

Fathers Day 2014

 My Daddy's name is: Dod ( I spelled this correctly but Huntley was watching and said I spelled it wrong.  I guess a typed lowercase "a" doesn't look like how she writes a, and o looks better.)

How tall is he: super tall

How much does he weigh: 41 pounds

What color is his hair:brown

What color are his eyes: black

His favorite show is My Big Big Friend

He likes to paint antlers.

His favorite food is corn.

His favorite drink is diet coke.

For fun he likes to play hide and seek.

I love it when my daddy tickles me.

My favorite thing about my dad is that he plays with me lots.

Love, Huntley
(age 5)

My Daddy's name is: I don't know

How tall is he: big

How much does he weigh: 5, 6, 7, 8, nineeeeeee

What color is his hair: black

What color are his eyes: green

His favorite show is dragon land.

He likes to play games.

His favorite food is chicken nuggets.

His favorite drink is sprite.

For fun he likes to tickle me.

I love it when my daddy holds me.

My favorite thing about my dad is that he tickles me.

Love, Paisley
(age 2)

Life on the Prairie

 It's not all fun and games living life in Montana.

 We spend mornings working in the garden.

Afternoons walking the dogs.

And evenings giving the horses a treat.

It's a rough life but somebody has got to do it.

Swimsuit Season

Yesterday the girls wanted to break out the new pool we bought when we went to town.  I told them it was only 57 degrees and that it was a little too cold to go swimming but after much persuasion I finally just filled it up and figured they would learn the hard way it wasn't quite warm enough for swimming.  

They actually surprised me and lasted a good half hour before declaring one towel wasn't enough because they were freezing.  Even then I couldn't convince them to come inside and get warm clothes on. They spent the majority of the day running around in their swimsuits.

 Pais did get a little cold and ran inside for awhile to warm up.  She came back out wearing her snow boots which must just make you feel warm all over.

After a few hours I finally convinced them to go inside for a bath and to put real clothes on.  Later that night we had to go back out so I could water the garden.  I was busy giving my raspberry starts their daily pep talk to survive when I turned around and found the girls back in the pool, clothes and all.

I guess that's what I get for not emptying it when we were done!

All Grown Up

After two years of a pack'n'play, a few months in a recliner, and then sharing with her sister, this little girl finally has her own bed!  She looks so tiny in such a big bed but oh so cute.  Now if we could just convince her to use the potty and give up her binky we'd have it made!

Park Time

 We went to the park three times this week!  I seriously need to get better at doing more exciting things but I'm too dang cheap to drive places besides the post office and the park that's near by. The girls haven't got sick of it yet either so for now it works!

Springtime

It's springtime!  Yes it's June and only springtime which is going to take some getting used to.  I'm sure by the end of next winter I'll probably be wondering why we didn't move to Mexico or someplace really warm but for now I'll just enjoy a really long springtime since we already experienced it in Utah.  I guess if it makes lilac season extra long then it's an easy thing to handle.  Everyone has lilac bushes around here and right now the smell is so strong everywhere you go.  I love it!

And since it's still springtime we still get to deal with crazy weather.  Warm in the morning and then stuck inside for a crazy thunderstorm in the afternoon.  Montana is going to make me a better mom.  We have to be inside a lot more than we'd like so to keep my kids from spending their days watching tv I better rekindle my relationship with Pinterest.

Adventures with Daddy

 Chris was home last week and when he is around is when exciting things happen.  He always wants to be out exploring and seeing everything he can about our new home.  Our first adventure was to go hiking around the Wall Creek Refuge in search of antlers.  Opening day of shed season there was over 50 trucks lined up to go pick up horns there so we weren't surprised when we didn't find anything.  We did see some actual elk though and the girls found feathers so it ended up as a successful adventure.

 Another adventure was exploring a place called North Meadow Creek.  The girls had fun picking wildflowers and Chris and I had fun cutting firewood.  Although I've got the short end of the straw on this deal.  He plays with a chainsaw and I load wood into the truck.  I just keep telling myself after we finish getting all of the firewood we need for the winter I'll have awesome muscles.

 Last but not least we took Chris down to show him the monster fish in the kid pond.  We spent an hour constantly catching fish and they were teeny tiny little things.  I think Pais felt like she got the short end of the straw when it came to fishing.

Ma and Pa Come to Montana

Over  Memorial Day Weekend my parents came to visit and we had a blast.  We went up to Virgina City for the summer kickoff parade.  It was about ten minutes long and consisted of nothing but horses, wagons, and a few brothel girls.  All of them were throwing candy, obviously not the horses, and when they reached the end of the three block parade route, they turned around and did it again.  Best parade ever and the girls got a ton of candy.

My favorite part of their visit was going shed hunting with my dad.  My mom and the girls slept in while the two of us found some pretty sad little excuses for antlers but were able to enjoy a quiet Montana morning in the spring time, the flowers were amazing.

The girls were in charge of one day of activities and they wanted to go to "town."  There is a restaurant on main street that has a bunch of grocery store toys out front and the girls love to play on them. 

We also had fun playing at the park.  The girls love climbing all over the tires.  While we were doing that their was a very enthusiastic guy from LA who was fishing with his kids in the fishing pond.  His kids had gotten bored and since you have to be under 12 to fish in the pond he was offering his fishing expertise to other kids and Hunt took him up on his offer. 

Within seconds of tossing out her line she had a bite and caught a huge monster of a fish.  She was scared to death once she got it to shore and refused to get close to it.  I'll pose any day with a giant mutant fish.

Chick, Chick, Chickies

 The first of many of our new "friends."

 Between the dogs and cold weather we've had a few funerals over the past few weeks but for the most part our chicks and ducks have provided hours of entertainment.