Love the Routine!

I intended to post each month but every few months is better than nothing I suppose.  I have enough pictures to pretty much fill this whole update. 

Mikelle is posing, but what I love is that Chance is in the back-
ground reading Hay and Forage and "mooing"

New sunglasses that have
since disappeared, naturally

Chance is using my new Pampered Chef BBQ
Pizza Pan as a race car track, makes sense.

This is just funny, Chance is wearing Mikelle's coat and
sparkly shoes, Danny loves that.

Just playing together.  They are good friends

 We have enjoyed some really nice summer weather.  We had a really hot week at the beginning of July and I think we tried to hibernate that week.  100 degrees is just not functional weather for me.  I still don't know how I ever survived tracting in 120 in Arizona.  Mikelle's pool from last year got some holes in it so we picked up another one this summer.  It has been really nice letting the kids play in it.  They go out everyday usually a couple times a day.  Chance is big enough that I don't have to be sitting out side watching him every second.  They really love it.  I am being a good mom and lathering them in sunblock each day.  They both have cute little sun tan lines and no sunburn yet this summer! 

I am just trying to get through the summer without going crazy.  I hope to get a lot of canning done this year.  We'll see though.  I try to vary the activities for the kids. We go to the park, walk down by powder river and try to enjoy all the summer festivities.  Last weekend was the Miner's Jubilee in Baker City with a parade and fair in the park among other things.  Kelly and I have taken our kids to for the last three years now.  This year Danny's sister Ivy was in town so she came too.  It was a fun day.  Those kids were wild, except for little baby Marjorie, precious girl.

Hanging out at the icecream parlor, Kilynn, David
Jonathan, Mikelle and Chance

Danny is doing a lot of gold panning and getting antsy for the cold weather so he can start trapping and hunting again. He has a hobby for every season. Right now is haying season on the ranch and Danny spends a lot of time in the tractor. He farmed up the acreage here at our place and Chance loved it. He would go out with Danny for hours at a time and wouldn't complain. Mikelle doesn't last more than a half hour in the tractor, she gets bored. Chance has his two favorite things in the world, Daddy and a big tractor. We had a friend give us some toy tractors and I picked up a big one on sale one day. Chance takes them everywhere, even to bed, he tucks them in and tells them "night night". Such a boy, a daddy's boy. We love it.

Chance's second home.

Just cruising with Daddy

Danny and I are going to be Ma and Pa on the Youth Pioneer Trek in August.  It is coming up fast.  I had to do a little sewing.  I have never had any real sewing skills, but I can follow a pattern and I am learning not to take shortcuts.  I made a skirt and an apron, and they won't be too embarrassing to wear.  Danny and I will be spending our 5th wedding anniversary on trek.  What fun right!?

Chance talks a lot, two and three word sentences.  He is still pretty hard to understand but he really tries to communicate.  Mikelle graduated into a big girl twin bed and Chance is in the toddler bed.  The transition was smooth.  Now when Chance is awake he stands at his door and yells "hello...hello...anyone home?"  Makes me laugh every time. 

Mikelle is becoming quite the little mother. I get a little embarrassed when she copies me and I see myself from her perspective. Whenever I am disciplining Chance and he is crying she comes to his defence and says "mom, you be nice to him, look at how sad you made him, you say sorry right now...say sorry...I said say sorry to him" Word for word she copies me, it is infuriating and hilarious at the same time. I am hoping to start her in pre-school this fall but I have yet to hear from the school to see if she got in, there is a short waiting list. I know she will love it though. She is really ready.

Trying to smile with the sun in her eyes.

Throwing rocks in the river

Mikelle was just hugging Chance, she is very good at that.

He rarely looks right at the camera and smiles.

They took their shoes off and the water is chilly.

 We're hoping to get some camping in this summer and I am sure I will have a lot to say about that.
We survived a couple of birthdays. Danny turned 28 and I got him a trail camera for tracking game. Mikelle's 4th was big, with a big party. There were 14 kids here at the house, she loved every second of it. I ambitiously made her a castle cake, that actually tasted good. I got some tips from Kelly and that helped a lot. She got way to many gifts but she was thrilled with everything. We got her a bicycle that she has yet to really get excited about but Danny hasn't had the time to really work with her yet. Chance will be two in a few weeks. We're going to try to go to the Zoo in Boise. We'll see. There is still a lot of summer left.



She got Merida from Brave
we saw the movie two days later

She got a little Bell doll to add to
her growing collection

This was a bag of girly hair things
and a little mirror.

Here she has a purple bag aunt Kelly
made and is opening some jewelry

Some side walk chalk among
other girly things



Enjoying the spoils of her birthday party

She had just blown out her candles



I thought I would throw in some pictures of the kids playing in our own private river, or our driveway as I like to call it without the water.  When the neighboring field is flood irrigated, our front yard gets irrigated too.  My only complaint is that the garage floods a little.  But the kids love to play in it.  The summer really is fun.

Danny is just leaning on his pick-up looking cool
in the background

I'm not sure why He preferred this position.

Needless to say these clothes went straight into the washer.

The water looks pretty gross but it is just muddy.

Catching Up

I think it is rather fitting that I skipped the winter season in my blog entries seeing that winter skipped eastern Oregon. We had a few skiffs of snow but nothing worth putting snow tires on for (even though we did...you never know). Spring kind of snuck up on us but I was determined not to be caught unaware.

Mikelle is modeling her crown and necklace from Aunt Liz

We had some company for Christmas and we couldn't have had more fun. Everyone chipped in on the food so we had lots of treats and thanks to Mary lots of healthy snacks too. Mikelle and Chance loved having their cousin Max around I loved having my sisters Liz and Mary and their hubbies and my fun brother Dave.
          We tried not to go overboard on the gifts this year. The few the kids got they loved. Danny got me some great pampered chef knives and I commissioned James (Danny's dad) and Eli (his younger brother) to make a display rack for Danny's John Wayne rifle. It turned out beautifully and he was really happy with it.

Chance got some trucks and horses, that is Max's chubby hand stuck in there.

We played a lot of games and Danny even took the guys Quail hunting. They shot over twenty birds and then Danny grilled them up and we had them for dinner. Good fun.

You can tell they are proud of their kill

We spend a lot of time in the house in those cold months leading up to spring. Despite our sometimes extreme boredom we manage to entertain ourselves. Chance likes to do some trick riding and Mikelle does a lot of dancing.

Mikelle is a Sunbeam now in the Primary and I am the music leader as well. She is finally getting over seeing me in there and she is adjusting really well. She likes the songs and really tries to sing. Chance is still getting used to the nursery, all the colds he keeps getting keep him out of there half of the time so the adjustment is slow.

Chance is doing a lot of talking and Mikelle is doing a lot of drawing. She also really likes puzzles. She can put together a 25 piece jigsaw with normal pieces. She has moved on to a hundred piece one and hasn't quite conquered it but she tries every day.

Hanging out with daddy and possibly playing with a Sleeping Beauty Doll

Posing with her Ponies and showing off her new haircut

  Mikelle and Chance have become really good friends. As long as they don't want the same toy, there is a lot of fun playtime together. We have been trying to get to the park more now that the sun is shining brighter. They are both just big enough that I don't have to stay on their heels the whole time. Mikelle really likes to look after Chance, keep him safe, kiss his "owies" and boss him around. He takes it all in stride.

Playing at the park

 Trying to go up the slide and falling onto each other over and over. This is pretty much what we do at the park.

I wish I had taken more pictures of Mikelle's regular wardrobe changes. She needs a different dress every few hours. I am just content that she wants to be dressed at all. Chance prefers hats of any kind and likes to pose in them. Occasionally we catch him in some jewelry ;)

  We like to take Sunday drives now that we have church in the morning and the kids usually fall asleep and Danny and I enjoy the scenery. The other day Mikelle requested my sunglasses as we drove to take Danny some lunch, she fell asleep in them before we got there.

  Not much is new with Danny unless you count the regular changes to his gun collection. I have lost track despite my efforts. He is always making trades and looking up serial numbers and values. In fact one of his favorite gifts at Christmas was an updated book on gun values. I think I mentioned his trapping hobby in the last blog. He will be taking it to the next level this year with a trapping license and a fancy GPS device that shows property boundaries and owners of where you are trying to trap. It's better than being addicted to some video game I think.

I signed on as an Independent Consultant for The Pampered Chef in the end of February. I really like it. I just do parties about once a week. I made back my small investment and then some and have also earned $300 in free products from the company. It's going well so far and hasn't been too stressful. Mary and Liz were kind enough to host parties for me down in Utah so that I could go visit them and right off my mileage and gas (another perk). It was beautiful and warm most of the time we were there and the kids had a great time. 

Mikelle loved the park near Mary's house, and it was
warm enough to leave her coat in the car!

Chance like the little "beehives" with the mini benches

Mikelle, Chance and Max watching Curiouse George
Just after waking up, everyone hade their "blankies"

Chance got into the dirt a little too much and wasn't too happy.

  Now we are just trying to get my garden ready...that's right we're going all out this year. Danny brought home a rot-a-tiller (sp) and dug up a nice little plot on the south side of our shed. I have my pumpkins, tomatoes, cantaloupe, and peppers started. I'll also be planting pole beans, onions, garlic, potatoes and corn. I can't wait. My tulips and daffodils are coming up and I can't wait to see everything in full bloom.

This summer is going to be fun. Big birthdays, Danny's 28th, Mikelle's 4th, and Chance's 2nd. I won't be mentioning how old I will be this year, it's just too depressing. I hope I caught everyone up effectively and didn't overwhelm y'all with too many pictures. Much Love!!

I love this picture, happy kids!