Choking the Right Way

One of the first things Grandpa wanted to do was to check out the chokes on his new shotgun.  I ain't no gun expert, but my basic understanding of a choke is an something that you change inside the barrel of your gun that changes the way the bullets come out.  Since there is so much space down at Pa's house, we set up a small range, and did a few test shots.

 It wasn't a matter of hitting the exact target so much.  The experiment was mainly to see how the choke's affected the pattern of the shot gun shells.

 Of course, shooting attracts little people, who come running.

I like this shot for many reasons.  I like the background of the "wilderness", I like the position of Grandpa, and I like that I caught the shell mid-ejection.

 Each paper target could only take one shot, so there was much walking involved.

 To put up and to take down.

 And because the shots were pretty few and far behind, hubby didn't bother to put his ear plugs in.  Fingers would do the job.  I do love this cuddling picture too.

 Kelsey, however, DID put on her hearing protection.  She also brought water and a seat.  She made sure to make sure she was comfortable.

 When all was said and done, she asked me to take a picture of how hot and sweaty her ears were.

 Then, once all the shots were taken, it was time to bring them inside for some analyzing.  

While I am not always personally interested in whatever Grandpa is, I have always appreciated his educated and investigatory approach to finding out information.  The kids seem to be enjoying it too :)

Going to Pa's House

Remember that we got to spend Spring Break with Grandma?  Grandpa and Grandma had come into town for Dylan's baptism, and when Grandpa flew to another continent, he left Grandma in our care.  We really didn't do much during that time, since we had recently come back from Disney.  But towards the end of spring break, we decided to take Grandma and Grandpa down to Pa's house.  Grandma has been once before, at least 13+ years ago since it was before Kari was even thought of.  But Grandpa hasn't been at all.  We wanted to share the joy of the peace and quiet that is living out in the sticks.  We did have to stop at Priester's Pecans on the way down though.  We had to sample all samples and buy a few cutesy things.  And try out the tire horses of course.

We also brought grandpa down to experience turkey hunting.  When I questioned hubby what equipment he needed he responded with "you mostly just sit very still in the middle of a field and try to sound sexy."  Which makes me giggle every time I think about it.  They did hear some, and even got a few to respond to their calls.  But they never did get them to come into the field.  So....  we'll have to get our Thanksgiving turkey the normal way: from the grocery store freezer.

But, being outside in the country air, with no neighbors to contend with, and nobody watching you tends to free up a person.  And allows them to try things they haven't done in a really long time.

Right Grandma?

This is how the story goes:

Grandma, the kids and I headed down to Pa's house on Thursday afternoon.  Hubby joined us later that night after the kids were in bed.  Grandpa flew in from Chile over Thursday night, and joined us on Friday afternoon.  While we waited for Grandpa to come, the kids got out their bikes and the go cart.  These two baboons took off down the road.    

Grandma borrowed Kari's bike and took off after them. 

Everyone goes down to the road and turns around, and on the turn around, we notice that grandpa is on the way!  Grandma pauses and takes a breather to say hi...

While the other kids spy to see what is going on.

And grandma lets grandpa pass so she can continue her bike ride at a leisurely pace.  Kelsey, ever the caring child, decides grandma needs an escort, and decides to help her come in.

And then it was time for the rest of the weekend to commence.

Yay!

Adventures with Kelsey

 I have four children.  I live with them, so I see them on a regular basis.  You know, daily even :)  But, every once in a while I enjoy seeing evidence of them, without actually seeing them.  Like, in this instance...  I know Kelsey was playing under my craft table.  Call it a mother's intuition.

We have also decided to work really hard on Kelsey's nail biting habit.  I have bought her something better to chew on (a necklace) but she still prefers her fingernails.  So I bought some of that nasty tasting nail polish stuff.  I just have to remember to be consistent.  So far, we are about 2 weeks in, and she is doing much better!

Rawr!!!

 On this particular day, we were stuck in Sams Club.  Like, literally stuck.  The tornado sirens had gone off, and they herded everyone into the center of the store to hang out until the warning was over.

 How do you keep a barely 5 year old entertained in the center of Sam's club?  By taking selfies of course!

 That day also happened to be team day at school.  By complete happenstance, all three of my school aged children got on the same team at school.  Go Yellow Team!  And because Kelsey wants to be in school, she loves to support her siblings when they have days like this.  So she allowed me to spray paint her hair yellow too :)

 One of Kelsey's new favorite movies is Sing.  I'm pretty sure its just because she can get away with saying "Oh my gosh.  Look at her butt." over and over again.  But she seems to have a favorite song.  This is a clip from the movie.

And this is Kelsey's version.

And this is my life in a nutshell.
The end :)

They Love Me! They Really LOVE Me!

Not every day as a stay at home mom is easy.  AmIRight?

Some days there's wailing, and whining, and stomping of feet, and time outs and nap times and gnashing of teeth.  And the kids even do some of that too!

But it is nice to get the occasional note from the kids that lets you know they appreciate you. Where they recognize that you are trying, even if you don't feel all that great.

 Even if the original message sometimes comes out a bit catty wompus.

 You gotta love them anyway, right? :)

And this wasn't even for Mothers Day!

I'm a Horrible Mother, AKA Fun with Stairs

We all do things that aren't exactly smart.  And we all do things we aren't/shouldn't be proud of.

Like, in this particular instance.  When I saw my eldest, and most adventurous child sliding down the stairs, instead of telling her she would break her neck, I made sure they put down a mattress and then got out my camera.

 And we did this multiple times.

Because I wanted to cover it from every angle.  From videos.

To Terror.

To finally enjoying it once you figured out you weren't going to die.

Kaitlyn had a bit of a rough start, as the first time she went, she rolled over and fell down the stairs.  But after seeing how much fun the rest of the kids had, she tried it again, just being a bit more careful.

I mean, seriously.  Look at that kids face!  He is not sure he is going to survive!

Aaaaaah!

But, since we have a split level home, and there is only 7 stairs total, the drop really isn't all that dramatic.

Kelsey fit inside the tub quite nicely.

With room to spare!

What can I say?  She is an animal!

She isn't old enough to be scare of anything.

And I, apparently, am still not old enough to know better....

Make Up!

That same friend also has some of her own make up.  And when the girls came to me and asked if they could put some on, I again said yes.  Knowing full well that that night was bath night.  #ScoreForMom.

 Kelsey had to reapply her lipstick before we came home.

 Can you tell?  

She also wanted to show how her eyelids were sparkly.

 I sent the above picture to my family who said I better watch out for these girls.  I sent this one back, after bath time.

Along with the caption "This is how I prefer to spend my evenings...  maybe she will too :)"

Fun with Friends

One day I had something to do, I don't even remember what at this moment, and I left Kelsey with her bestest friends in the entire world.  Her bestest friend's mom happened to have a henna tattoo kit that she was using that day, and asked if, as my daughter had requested, she could use some on her.  I said sure!  I'm a pretty hip mom when it comes to things like that.  You know, things that aren't permanent.  So she drew a flower on Kelsey's wrist.  And Kelsey managed to leave the "yucky brown stuff" on her arm for almost 30 minutes.  

 I was trying to get the whole tattoo as well as her face in the shot, but because of limitations based on the way the human body bends, we had to get kind of inventive with the poses.  I think we got a good one though :)

 If you aren't familiar with henna, the longer you leave the paste on, the darker the tattoo will get.  

 And it continues to get darker for several hours/days before it starts to fade again until it is completely gone.

That same day I brought the other kids over to play for a second, and the girls really wanted to try out this bike thing.

It took them a few minutes to figure out how to get the right balance, and to make things work.  But once they did, they did alright :)

Grandma and Grandpa Come to Call

Pickle was here for the week before Dylan's baptism.  Grandma stayed for the week after Dylan's baptism.  Grandpa came up to visit for a day or two before travelling again for work.  And they all overlapped by about 36 hours.  Yay!

Grandpa is always so good at sharing his technology.  In this particular instance, he was telling stories about farm life.  The kids were both entertained and taught.

Grandma, as always, brought some fun stuff with her.  These things, in particular, are toys that I played with growing up.  And she did such a good job playing with the kids.  

Until they slowly left to play with other things.  And Grandma got tired, and just decided to lay down for a small nap.  This picture reminds me so much of early parenthood.  :)

So Dylan got baptized on Saturday, and on Sunday, Kari gave her first talk in Sacrament meeting.  She did a great job!  She is definitely her fathers daughter.  

 We also did FHE while Grandma and Grandpa were here.  And they got assigned to fulfill my role (by the kids, I promise!) so I didn't even have to do anything :)  After the lesson, we played Liverpool.  Hubby taught me this game a long time ago, and we have since passed it onto several friends.  We finally taught it to the kids just a few weeks ago.  And surprisingly, the love it!

Before Grandpa left on his business trip, he took a nap on the couch.  He said Mollie came over and asked to get up on the couch (yes we let her on the couch since she doesn't shed).  Now, normally, Grandpa would not have pulled her up.  He doesn't really love dogs, so most of the time he just ignores her.  But for some reason this time, he pulled her up.  And while he would have been happy if she had sat anywhere other than next to him, she curled up next to him and they both fell asleep.  

I'm pretty sure Mollie feels it is her duty to "convert" anyone who doesn't love dogs.  She usually cuddles up to the one person in the room who loves dogs the least :)