Another Parade? You betcha

The Storybook Cavalcade was two weekends ago. This parade is exactly what the name implies...... all things storybooks. We met the gang at our parade meeting spot. These kids are so funny Kolby sees them everyday but they still all hug like long lost friends as soon as they see each other. (probably a good lesson for adults to learn)

This parade had "Parade celebrities" such as Tigger.

 

You don't see enough Star Wars peeps in Santa hats.

Its hard to tell from this picture but there was a band marching past, all the kids were marching in time with the band.

Another parade celebrity....Mr Incredible.

 As you well know story books are not made up of super hero's alone but also include princess's and various critters of a female sort. The mere sight of the above mentioned females sent a number of the boys in our group (Kolby included) running for cover. They did this EVERY single female that came by. I think I even caught a few tongues sticking out in this picture.

The Tarzan float was a big hit.

Towards the end were the Christmas floats, the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who waving from their sled.

Rudolph walked by and was immediately covered in kid hugs

Kolby happy as can be.

And at the end the Big guy his own self.... Santa!! Clearly this was the highlight for the kids.

A fun end of the season parade, with good friends and perfect weather for November.

 

Have you heard the saying "Until the cows come home......" Well they came, didn't stay but walked past. Our neighbor called to tell us the cows were coming. (I have no idea how he knows stuff, he just does) We all walked out to watch the cows walk past our house on their way to winter pasture. (north of us) Hey we live in the country thast good country fun.

Dew and the boys walked to our neighbors to help keep the cows from wandering onto their property.

How sweet are these cuties? I'm pretty sure they are looking at me because I'm telling them I promise not to eat them .

Our horses ran our pasture the entire time the cows waked past. Stuff like a hundred cows wandering past their field makes the horses CRAZY. Made for some pretty good pics for me though.  

Ha, cows at our stop sign. There has to be a joke in there somewhere.

 

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We were blessed to spend ours with wonderful family. A good time had by all. We have so much to be thankful for its easy to get caught up in life and forget that.

 

Farm Life

I realized it has been awhile since I posted farm pics. Its not like we are lacking in them, believe you me.

For those of you not living on a little farm did you even wonder how hay is delivered? Your in luck I'm here to show you. Everybody has their own way of doing things, for us we "like" to write a great big check once a year. So every year in August we have our hay delivered that will last us until the next year.

The hay truck arrives

backs up and dumps the hay against our hay stand. (ha I just made hay stand up I don't really know what those woods beams and boards are called)

While this is going on the boys have to stay in the fenced part of the yard, this is Kolby claiming he is still inside the yard.

While Luke climbs the trees...yes barefoot.

A short time later the truck is back with the second load, see how the tilty thing works? (I'm sure you all appreciate my official farm lingo :)

And second load done.

And do you think the hay gets to stay there looking pretty as you please? No it has to be moved to the barn to protect it from all things weather related. (p.s there is a cat on top exploring)

And speaking of cats I thought this was a cute pic of our barn cat tractor. (remember the cat that just showed up and was standing by our tractor when the boys saw it....)

Back to moving the hay one bale at a time........

Into the horse trailer to drive it around to the barn to unload and stack..... every stinking one of them.

Kolby was taking pictures, I swear I was helping even though every one he took of me has me standing there with my hands on my hips. I swear I helped see I'm even wearing gloves. I will admit that Dew did 85% of the work, those suckers are heavy I can't very well heft something up that weighs roughly the same as I do. Mostly I rolled, pushed and pulled to do my part.

And why all the work you ask......

For these beauties..

Our two horses spent the summer at dads since he has a green lush yummy pasture (because of the epic community well water war a few years ago we do not have a watered green pasture)

In addition to our two horses we have dads two visiting for awhile. 

This is twister when he sees me coming me runs from where ever he is to follow at my heals as I walk to the barn. I know he feels bad about throwing me and giving me my one and only broken bone a few years ago.  

Hay is also good for chickens to climb on to look around the yard.

One chicken...

Two chicken. Told you it was farm pics.

Hay is also good to use as target practice. Remember the Hay stand from above we left four hay bales there to use during archery practice. It would make more sense if I had a picture but I'm sure you can use your imagination.

Luke is getting really good with his bow.

I would say I am learning how to shoot a bow, but am far from being good.

Dewey is very good.

Kolby likes to watch from the fence :)

In case your wondering no its not a Hunger Games thing. Dewey met some people who competed in the Olympics years ago in archery and thought it would be a fun family activity we could all do together.

Texas trip and first snow

The weekend before last my sister and I flew to Texas to see our grandma. When I got back I realized this was the only picture I took the whole trip. At the Las Vegas airport we parked on level 4 in a corner. As Liz said there are only four of them (corners) we are bound to find the truck eventually. I still took a picture.

My grandma has Alzheimer's and or Dementia. Fortunately for her she is going down hill fast. I can only imagine how hard it is if you realize that you can't or don't remember things. Having just watched Winnie go through this with her dad I know it will not be easy.

Between Liz and my schedules our trip was the only available time for us to go. We had hoped to make it in time to have "one last visit". We were to late, she didn't know us. To her we were nice young women that were there to visit her. There was no mention of our kids her great grand children or our husbands, nothing personal about us at all.

To say this was hard is an understatement.

 Liz and I were able to go see the assisted living center we are trying to get her into. I was so happy to see that its a very nice place. I'm so thankful that assisted living centers have vastly improved since I was a child.  Grandma was initially her normal grumpy self and complained about everything. Me "look grandma its like a cruise they have activities planned all day everyday" Grandma "what do I need activities for I don't want to do any of those things" me "well just like on a cruise you don't have to, but you have the choice". But right before we left she softened a little and started talking like it would be a good idea to move there. So hopefully we helped.

Being a happy clappy traveler (I swear I'm like a dog that gets to go for a ride hanging its head out the window) I still enjoyed and made the best of the trip. The weather was warm and perfect. We had fun visiting with family. My brother who is going to college a few hours away from Houston came home for the weekend to spend time with us. We had some great family meals together. (even if the Cajun restaurant guy looked at me like I had two heads when I said I was a vegetarian and would not like to have any fish on my salad) We spent a few hours shopping at the mall, where my other brother is a manager at the Nike store. Living in a small town means mall shopping is a big deal for me :)

It was fun spending time with liz. Things like at the airport where everything cost $21. Two waters and two magazines for the plane $21. Evey thing we did came to $21 or close to. We decided the airport is an alternate universe that goes by its own currency. We laughed about being sardines on a plane and had plenty of time to talk. Which does'nt happen all that often with our busy lives.

I know this journey only gets harder from here, but I'm thankful for the weekend we had.

On a happier note....

Kolby reaching for the moon

Love these pics!

I woke up Saturday morning to Luke yelling "MOM it snowed last night" into my ear. He bounced on the bed to wake Dew up and then ran back to his room to wake Kolby up. I barely had time to get breakfast into them before they were dressed and out the door to play.

There is something magical about the first snow of the year, just look at the smiles it brings.

They were so bummed that by the time we went into town to run errands and then come home the snow had melted. We had to reassure them that more will be coming.... we promise.

Happy Halloween

These photos did not load in the right order... so I'll be jumping around a little timeline wise.

Last weekend one of Luke's friends stayed with us while his parents took a mini vacation. Our Saturday schedule was.

10 am Main street sheep parade

11am Kolbys school Halloween carnival

3pm Birthday party Kolby and I went to

6pm Neighbors Halloween party

Stacked and packed people, it should be noted I barely made it out alive.

This year Luke wanted to be a Ninja and Kolby picked Darth Vader. It sounds easier then what the actual process was this took a long long time and much looking through catalogs before deciding on these two.

The neighbor Halloween party was costumes mandatory. This was fine and good for the boys who I might add looked cute as can be, is it supposed to be spooky?

An old leather jacket and bandanna turned Dew into a biker dude. He is flashing his mean biker face in this pic which I think goes well with the tray of cupcakes he is holding :)

At some point in the past I wore this black vampire dress, I dug it out and ta-da a vampire. Kolby flat refused to let me wear the vampire teeth, he said they freaked him out. He was not to pleased with the "Paint" on my face. Which was red lipstick I found in the bottom of my makeup drawer. He asked that I take it off as some as we got home. That should tell you how often I wear lipstick.

Last night, actual Halloween we went trick or treating to the 4 houses that are within walking distance to us. Luke got sick at school and had been home in bed all day. About 5 minutes before we left he claimed he was perfectly fine and would not miss trick or treating. Poor guy was a little slow and ran in the house to lay down as soon as we got back home.

The four neighbors we went to all expect the boys every year. Luke and Kolby are the only trick or treaters in the neighborhood. They get spoiled and their picture taken a lot.

Back to Saturday and the sheep parade. The last few years we have met up with Luke and Kolbys friends from preschool. Its so fun for all of them, and super cute for the parents to watch. Kolby put his hand on his heart for every flag that went by.

Cowboys standing on horses...yes sir

How stinking cute are these little faces?

At one point during the parade we look down and all the boys were huddled around someones little toy. (ok it was something Luke had smuggled in his pocket) It made me laugh to these little boys all intently watching a toy while a parade is right behind them.

And the highlight of the parade.....sheep down Main street.

The boys all just stood there staring, it was so quiet. I'm not really sure how you get sheep to run down a road without them scattering but they do it every year. And every year we go and watch.

Right after the parade we went to Kolbys Halloween carnival. We have been blessed with a beautiful mild fall, the day was perfect. I couldn't resist a pic of the sack race.

Monday was Luke's Halloween parade at school and his school carnival that night.

I think its safe to say we enjoyed every single bit of Halloween fun we could find and then some.