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.