Happiness Is ~

Happiness is an early snowfall....for Dom, that is!

Happiness is ~ discovering butter lettuce in Costco's produce section ~

Happiness is one of your siblings giving you a pair of scissors when you have to spend an hour and a half in the bathroom working on potty training.
Did you know you can make toilet paper snowflakes???

Happiness is going on a spur-of-the-moment date with your husband and while on said date having him tell you that the song that is playing on the radio always reminds him of you.

Ahhhhh ~

Wait a minute, the song was "She's so Mean."
I was offended, but then he cleared it up...or at least I think he did.
Maybe I should be mad.
Oh well, the date was fun anyway!


Happiness is going horseback riding with your godmother and Mom saying YES when you call her and ask her if you can bring a kitten home.

Happiness is all creatures great and small ~
The Lord God made them ALL!

Operation Stitch Removal

Joshie's stitches were due to be removed but the trip to the doctor just wasn't appealing.  His wound looked pretty good as far as those things go, so we decided this was a DIY job. After asking my girls who wanted to practice playing nurse, Michaela decided she was up for the task.  It was kind of a mucky job as I had spilled Dermaskin over his stitches a couple days before and it wasn't completely worn off.
So I ended up finishing the project.  Joshie breathed a deep sigh of relief that his finger had healed as promised and no permanent damage had been done.

And so did Momma ~

Operation stitch removal ~

And right behind us, knowing I was occupied,

Operation cookie dough extraction ~

Snow

The last few days have brought snow which I was definitely not prepared for.  The kids, on the other hand, were.  Upon waking in the morning, Dom threw back his curtains, surveyed the white surroundings then emphatically stated, "Mom, you cannot dwive on the dwiveway.  You'll mess it up for me."

Lovely.

While I long for warm weather, they are all storming heaven for more snow and since children's prayers seem to be heard I doubt the weather will be warming back up.  It would probably help my case if my prayers were working with nature instead of against it, though!

Hunting Season ~ Katherine

I do enjoy hunting season despite not being out in the field.  The stories are so fun to listen to.  The excitement of the ones returning from time spent out in the God's creation with their father makes any inconvenience worthwhile.

This morning Katherine, Michaela, and Shan went out for a morning hunt after the season opener yesterday proved absolutely frustrating.  It was a perfect morning: calm, crisp, sunny.  Of course, I did not witness this, it's all hearsay.  I was sound asleep, snuggled into bed.

Katherine really wanted to shoot a buck, and do it by herself.  After almost turning around to head back to the truck, they spotted a whitetail.  Katherine dropped it with one shot and no assistance from Daddy-O.  Then the work began.  They had to drag it out over hill and vale due to a conflict with a neighboring landowner.  It all made for a more exciting, albeit tiring, time.

Grandpa tootled up into the woods to look for them, thinking he knew where they may meet the trail.  Sure enough, he found them.  I am not sure who was more excited to see him with his little truck, Shannon or Katherine!  We met them at Grandma's house and Katherine had a smile a mile wide.  Nickles was so excited for Katherine.  He just couldn't get enough of all the action.  Seeing all the brothers and sisters happy for a sibling is beautiful.

The Bear

I was going to say Shannon's bear, but that doesn't allow for the fact that Eric spotted it and he thinks it is kinda his bear.  We will just call it "The Bear."
I feel like the entire hunt was kinda anti-climactic, but the kiddos and Shan thought it was super-exciting so we'll pretend it was!  I must admit its' fur is quite pretty, it will make a beautiful rug for our fireplace.

Without further ado.....The Bear ~

Family Night

We met some friends at a local corn maze last night.  The maze was nothing too exciting, but the pumpkin slingshot and the straw bales were great fun! It was a beautiful night; I'm afraid  one of our last ones.

Afterward we went for a drive and picked up the meat from a bear Shannon bagged Thursday evening.  Eric spotted the bear below our house, so he was felt he had done half the hunting...or maybe slightly more!

It was a wonderful evening without school obligations or anything else to spend together as a family.  Often I look around, thinking how short our days are before kiddos begin leaving for college.  I need to treasure family time now even when the noise level is somewhere between a dull roar and utter chaos ~

Hayride ~

Shannon decided this culvert-slide was a perfectly grand idea for our house ~

Come a little closer Daddy...

The maze was little sparse and the corn wasn't very high, 

but it was a glorious night just the same ~

Eric was cursing me for not allowing him to wear his newly acquired cowboy boots.

he certainly could have roped better with them on!

I've always wanted to see my husband swinging a rope ~

My little friend ~

Our friend doing back flips in the straw ~

Pull Kath, pull!

Daddy is so mean ~ he contends he was grabbing Michaela's belt to help her pull back ~

I say nay-nay!

The sun peeking out at us!

Premonitions

All Monday I had an ominous feeling.  I kept blaming it on the weather, rain clouds were blowing over our house and I was not in a good mood.  Mondays can be kind of downers anyway.  It always seems like there is an insurmountable amount of work to be accomplished. But the feeling didn't subside, even at the end of the school day.  Shannon mentioned that possibly I should go work out and cheer up a bit, but Kath still needed help with a book report and laundry needed to be folded.

While we were sitting at the counter, I heard Joshie screaming downstairs.  Since this is a common occurrence I thought nothing of it.  Then he ran into the kitchen holding his thumb yelling, "Mom, I cut my thumb in two pieces!"
Thinking he may be stretching the truth a bit I asked him if I could see it.
Then I wished I hadn't.  Thank heavens Shannon was home.  We raced to the hospital where his injury proved to be a lot better than I had initially thought.  He had sliced his thumb from the tip down to the joint, through the fingernail and everything but there was no bone damage.  Maybe a bit of brain damage, but no bone damage!
He had done all this while trying to make a set of arrows.   Good thing he did not complete that job.

The PA that stitched him up was completely understanding   Upon entering the exam room she asked, "Been doing a bit of whittling, huh?"  Turns out she had four brothers.

Now all the knives have been returned to safekeeping with their father.  Apparently, the boys are not old enough to be in possession of knives, even if they promise they will only use them with permission.  Ugh, it makes me cringe even thinking about it for a moment!  But, all's well that ends well, right?!?

And the ominous feeling...it had completely disappeared by the time we left the hospital.

Thumbs up ~ at least he still has a thumb!

A day at the oldest park in town ~ 

we played in this tank as children

Ahhhh, fall!

Hmmm, I wonder why the boys are sitting by themselves in the middle of the park?

Could they possibly be in trouble?

An injury didn't keep Joshie from clambering over all the equipment,

despite the claim that his thumb hurt too bad to do his chores.

Road Trip

Shannon and I purchased a new-to-us car that was located in Salt Lake City.  I asked my brother, Ben, if he would fly down and drive it back up with me.  He stated that he absolutely would not, but he would fly me down in his own plane.  Apparently he wanted to fly through a bigger airport and this would be good experience.  I say he is just plain generous!

He decided that Wednesday would be the best weather and off we flew.  It typically takes me a  few days to make any sort of decision, but this one was made so very quickly it left my head spinning and waves of guilt kept creeping up from leaving Shannon and the kids midweek.  I was also a bit nervous thinking of all the things that could go wrong.
I kept thinking of how Theresa would absolutely love this and how brave she always was, or reckless ~:o)  and I slipped on a jacket that had been hers and headed for the airport.  

And it felt good.  It felt good to be off doing something adventurous on my own.  It felt good to walk across the tarmac like this was some sort of important trip!  It felt good to cruise down the interstate with the sunroof open, hair wild and crazy, Sammy Hagar blaring through the speakers.  It felt good to stop at a drive-through to grab fries and a Frosty.  And it felt good to arrive home.  No matter how I enjoy a bit of solitude, home and the chaos that accompanies it, is good!

Ready for takeoff ~ Dom was going to go, but Ben had taken the back seat from the plane.

Into the sunrise ~

Flying into Blackfoot, ID for fuel..

I think Ben just needed to use the bathroom and used fuel for an excuse!

The Great Salt Lake ~ the day was perfectly calm.

The mountains were right at our wingtips,

or so it seemed.

Our landing strip in Provo ~

This is Shannon's old guiding area that we both love ~

the mountains are spectacular!

Home stretch ~