Some Firsts

I have NO PROOF that any of these things happened, because I haven't pulled my camera out all week.....But

THIS WEEK:

For the 1st time all summer we put the sprinkler under the trampoline. It is the 1st time it has been warm enough.

For the 1st time all summer we ALMOST hit 80 degrees! We got to 78 and it felt SO GOOD!

For the 1st time this summer we went to the movies. I took the kids to see Yogi Bear. It was a good clean film....no bad words or bad guys. It wasn't my favorite movie, but my kids REALLY liked it!

For the 1st time Oakley and I tried Advanced Clogging. Oakley had her clog camp this week and her teacher thought her group was good enough last year to start advanced. When I got there there were a few ladies that I clogged with a year ago (I had to quit because clogging + young womens = too much!) that were going to try it. So, I paid the money and joined in. I have to say.....my brain DOES NOT remember clogging steps like it use to. I can do the steps fine, it is remembering what comes next that gets me! :) Oakley did great though and it was alot of fun to do it together. She would help me remember the steps to practice at home. I have to admit though.....I AM SOOO SORE!!

Another 1st that isn't this week, but we have been preparing for it this week is 4H Camp. Oakley has never been and gets to go next week. I decided to tag along as a leader (someone has to check her blood in the night.....I didn't figure anyone else wanted to do it!). We are taking a couple cousins and a few friends and are SO EXCITED!! Plenty of pictures to follow I promise!

This is My Life

So, 12 years ago when I signed-up to marry Ryan Hawkins there were ALOT of thing I signed-up for that I didn't realize I was GETTING MYSELF INTO!! Hauling cows every spring is one of those things! This it the type of thing though that over the years has become part of my life. The "Men" having JUST ONE MORE MEETING to talk about what we are doing around here. This is one of those things that I think we could TOTALLY AVOID if a girl ran this place!:)
Three of the kids waiting VERY PATIENTLY in the bed of the semi for their daddy! They LOVE hauling cows to the ranch because of the ride in the semi. Dallin has turned into "one of the men" and is ALL BUSINESS....so, he rode to the ranch this year with his uncle Chase.

This is Dale - just being Dale - riding on the ropes of the semi trailer after unloading this truck. Dale is Ryan's right-hand man. I can't even imagine doing this whole "Ranch/Farming" occupation without Dale by our side.
This is my tough and rugged cowboy! He was doing the "pour on" (if you know cow language you will understand...if not....no biggie...you really aren't missing out by not knowing!) and I was doing the counting. That is why there are no pictures of actual cows....I can't take pictures of them and count them at the same time. :) I wonder if Ryan would have known that if he still would have married me! :) Ha, ha!!


After the semi ride this is their 2nd favorite part of hauling cows. They LOVE to run free out here in all this wide open space. They would disappear and I would yell for them to come back and they would have been makin' an outdoor potty or picking wildflowers, etc. They LOVE the ranch! This is one of the parts I am SO GLAD I signed-up for!!

How can you NOT love this life?? Culverts, creeks and my 4 year old!!

Another part of ranch life is the opportunities my kids get to learn and grow. This is my little D standing next to uncle Chase's work truck. Dallin has been working his little guts out since the day school got out. He has been fencing, water changing, spraying weeds and branding cows. This day was the 1st time he got to drive uncle Chase's truck all by himself. I sat next to him on the seat, but that was it....he did great for a little 8 year old driver.

So, THIS IS MY LIFE - AND - I AM LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.....THE PARTS I SIGNED-UP FOR - AND - THE PARTS I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT!!

This is one of two posts for today, so make sure and read on!

Parade Day

We had one of our local parades on Saturday and Oakley and Rhett participated in it with their clogging teams.

It took the parade FOREVER to start.....so, this is Laiklie and I, just chillin'!
This is Oakley (in the middle with bandanna) dancing on the float. I was yelling her name and she obviously couldn't see me! :)

Afterwards their dance groups got to dance at the park as part of the afternoon entertainment. This is Rhett (cow) and Laiklie's group doing their Old McDonald dance. It was perfect for a small town parade and rodeo.

This is our shy little sheepy, Laiklie. She is the one on the left.

That night I took the kids to the rodeo. I am just sayin'.....it was the most lame rodeo we have been to yet!! The speaker system didn't work, so they were almost 2 hours late starting.....then we had to sit an hour through all the Rodeo Queen announcements because they were suppose to do that an hour before the rodeo started. There were NO bull riders.....only one saddle bronc rider and only two bareback riders....and one of them had the horse he ride break its leg. So, the highlight of the rodeo was the little mutton busters! We may have to try to hit another - hopefully better - rodeo before too long.

Daddy Daughter Date

Last night my sweet husband took my beautiful little girl to her Activity Days Daddy Daughter Date!! It was a Cowboy Hoedown....and they were suppose to wear costumes.
I MADE Ryan wear the pink cow material around his hat for his hatband so he matched Oakley (he didn't see the point in matching, ha, ha, boys!!) I also made him wear the Sheriff's Badge! I LOVED IT!! :) They had a great time and played games including galloping stick horse races and guess your daughters hand. I asked Ryan if he guessed the right hand...he said, "Yep, I just looked for the darkest one!" Oakley's skin browns like a little indian! They also did a little boot-scoot-n-boogie! Totally wish I could have seen it!! When they got home Ryan said, "I remember why I love these cowboy boots so much." When I asked why he said, "Because they feel SO GOOD to take off!" I sure love Ryan and love watching him with his kids. Oakley had a great time and even got to go with him for ice cream afterwards! What a fun night for both of them.

Memorial Day 2011

We had such a great Memorial Day Weekend. It started on Friday with NO SCHOOL!!! Yay! We are SO GLAD to finally be finished with that for the year. We slept in on Friday and it was SO NICE!! On Saturday we went with Grandma Jake to a few cemeteries. It was a pretty nice day to visit cemeteries! Sunday we had some cousins arrive at our house and had a slumber party. My kids LOVE their cousins and could not wait for this batch of them to show-up. We ended up having my sister Arnica's family and last minute surprise my brother Cody's family showed-up too! My parents came and stayed the night also - WE HAD A HOUSE FULL and it was a BLAST!!
I went to check Oakley's blood Sunday night and her and her cousin Ali had made this cave type bed under Oakley's raised bed. I LOVED that they were matching sleeping!:)
Monday morning we hit some more cemeteries. This time it was a little chilly. I always love going to the cemetery with my parents and grandparents. This year my grandparents didn't make the trip because of cold weather and grandma not feeling well. My dad always tells the kids stories of the people we are there to visit. It is a great teaching moment!

My mom always takes pinwheels for the graves and this year she bought these birds for the grandpa's headstones. She handed one to Laiklie and Danica and the birds wings went CRAZY in the wind. I LOVED their little faces. They thought it was great!!

After visiting the Cemetery we headed to my Aunt's for our Annual Jacobson Memorial Day Picnic. It ended up being crappy weather so we did the picnic and games at the church.

This is Max. I had never met Max until this get-together. I fell in love with him instantly. He is my cousin Emily's little boy and such a cutie!! I seriously would have brought him home if I could have stole him away from her. He was such a little clown and I just couldn't get enough of him!!

This is a line-up of just "some" of the crowd of children at the Jacobson picnic. There are SO MANY OF US!! Ryan always teases me that I "make-up" cousins. This is proof that I have alot of cousins! This is a handful of the 3rd generation Jacobsons!

Games at the church. This was a version of freeze tag. I posted this picture for my big sis Jenny. Her oldest son Jake is staying with us for the summer and I wanted her to see him (big guy on the right) taking out the children in freeze tag! He ate it up!!

Back to my house for more snacking and lots more playing with cousins! This is Paige, Danica, Casey, Rhett and Laiklie.

So, to sum it all up we had alot of eating, alot of visiting, alot of laughs and SO MUCH FUN with family!

IT HAS ARRIVED!!!

FINALLY! We had our last day of school yesterday!! Two of my kids (O & R) have LOVED every minute of this past school year and I think would have kept right on going all summer long if that was an option. D on the other hand is more like his mom and has been counting down the days for over a month now!:)

On Wednesday (the only day the sun was out) we had field day. I helped with Dallin's age group in the morning, but forgot my camera....bummer. I got to help with the afternoon Kindergarten and Oakley's age group in the afternoon and got a few pictures.

This is Rhett's kindergarten class. I had the opportunity to do the Physical Fitness program with them every Friday this year. Also, about 1/2 way through the year one of the other moms that helped on Friday could no longer help so I got to step into her place and got to do school work with them also. I got to know these sweet kindergartners very well and LOVED being in their classroom.

This is a little bit of a close up of Rhett in the line-up. It is a little blurry, but you can see that cute little best friend Raeg right behind him. :) I told you they kinda like each other!! This is Oakley (in the Red t-shirt) playing twister with some of the girls in her class. I was the twister caller - you can see my leg on the left - and had NO VOICE by the time I was done yelling twister calls for 2 hours over the super loud 4-6th graders. More twister. They spray painted it on the grass. SUPER GREAT IDEA!, but the circles were REALLY far apart and they seriously had to do the splits to reach them. Poor kids!
On the last day of school we had the awards assembly. This is Rhett and his Physical Fitness award. Our elementary is 17 time state champion in Physical Fitness because we have from kindergarten - 6th grade participate in the program. We work once a week all year so it gives as many children the opportunity to get the Presidential award as possible. I really stressed to all 3 classes that I worked with (all 3 of my kids classes) that Presidential, National, or just Participant DOES NOT MATTER.....it is doing their VERY BEST that does matter. I was SO PROUD of all of them no matter what award they got.Dallin and his award. This is Oakley and her awards. She not only got the Physical Fitness award, but Oakley's teacher Mr. Stones got up and the first awards he started with were the Citizenship awards. He explained that for the Citizenship awards this year he picked kids that were totally selfless and very willing to help anyone around them and always trying to be kind to others and never thought of themselves.....the very first child he announced was my sweet little Oakley. Selfless fits her to a T! This is Oakley and her teacher Mr. Stones. He was an amazing teacher and the reason she loved this past school year. This was Mr. Stones last year teaching at our school because he is moving to Arizona. After the awards assembly he gathered all the kids in his classroom and had a little heart-to-heart with them. I happened to be one of the moms in the classroom to pick-up Oakley diabetic supplies to take home and got to witness this little heart-to-heart. Mr. Stones cried, the kids cried....some bawled....the moms cried. It was very touching. He truly loved this class and they loved him. Oakley cried most of the afternoon. It was heartbreaking. He will be missed!

Then, to finish off the night of the last day of school we had pack meeting. It was the BIKE RODEO! The weather was HORRIBLE and we FROZE!, but of course all the little 8-10 yr old boys didn't know that! :) This is D running the obstacle course. He had to borrow Rhett's bike because of a popped tube on his. He did great and had a blast! I sure love that he has the opportunity to be in scouts.

So, NOW WHAT???? A super fun summer!! We can't wait to get started!

We've Been Busy

We really have been busy this week. We have had alot of fun things going on. First off.....Rhett has really struggled his whole life with friends. Not that Rhett doesn't have friends or can't make friends, he has just ALWAYS had GIRL friends. He has alot of girl cousins his age that live close to play with. The only other kid in our old ward his age was his very best friend in the entire world Tylee (who moved). His preschool class consisted of Rhett and 3 girls....not on purpose....the other little boy moved only a few months into preschool. So for a very long time we thought Kindergarten is where he would start to find some boys his age to play with.

INSTEAD RHETT MEET RAEGAN This is Raegan and my sweet little Rhett. Everyday Rhett comes home talking about what he and Raegan did at school. For along time I thought maybe it was kinda one sided and Raegan probably didn't like Rhett as much as he liked her. Then, I went to school where I got the chance to see the two of them together. She TOTALLY likes him as much as he likes her, IF NOT MORE!! She is always right next to him. They hold hands at recess. When we walked in the door at stake conference she was there to greet him and followed him to his chair and sat RIGHT NEXT TO HIM the entire 2 hours. She infact told her mom she was no longer going to church unless she got to move to Rhett's ward! :) They really are BEST FRIENDS!
Here are some other BESTIES!!
Kooky Katie, Always texting Alicia, and Oakley are best friends. They have been for a few years now. (They are missing one of their besties Lauren who moved away for the year....we are hoping she will be back this summer. We miss you Lauren!!)
The big smiles are because Oakley called yesterday from the school for me to bring her her camera and I stopped by the office, the gym, her classroom and FINALLY found these three dancing and giggling in the BATHROOM!!! I made them pose for a smile!!

Oakley needed her camera for the annual 5th grade bike ride. They ride to the next little town 6 miles away....have some bbq lunch and play and then ride the 6 miles back. This is most of the 60 5th graders we have at our school.
This is Oakley (far right), Katie, and Alicia lining up and ready to go. They are looking much better here than when they came riding in to my yard the 12 miles plus 1 1/2 miles from the school to my house later!! :)
So, what do two little girls need after a super long bike ride??

A MAKEOVER!!

We had our monthly ward potluck last night so these two girlies were looking GORGEOUS for it!! They loved having their hair and make-up done after a long day.

Today as I was hitting a few yard sales I got a phone call from Ryan telling me that I had to run a calf to the dead pit for him when I got home. YES, UNFORTUNATELY I AM ONE OF THOSE WIVES! So, when I got home Dallin, Rhett and I jumped in Ryan's almost dead '92 Red Flatbed truck that doesn't even have a radio that works with a bloated and EXTREMELY stinky dead calf tied to the back and headed for the ranch. The girls didn't want to go (WONDER WHY??) and when I came back I could see they had done some makeovers of their own.

Here is my little Laiklie looking gorgeous thanks to big sis!
The only other thing we did this week that is note worthy is Dallin and I went on a date. At conference I heard a talk about how we need to be doing one-on-one interviews with our children and I decided that date night it was!! We went first to the hospital to visit my grandma, then over to Toys R Us to buy him the long saved and awaited MP3 player and since it was a date we hit Petco to see the animals. He LOVED it. I had to send him to see the hamsters, mice and rat type animals alone because I knew they would cause nightmares if I saw them! AH!! We had a great time being together and I LOVED talking and learning more about him!

What a fun, busy week!!