Pre-Halloween

We LOVE the holidays and Halloween is just the start of it all.

Oakley, Sage, Laiklie and Violet

 Friday night we had the Hawkins cousins over for pumpkin carving and some chili and cornbread.  SO FUN to be together!

 Rhett, Uncle Jason (who is the main carver in this family! Thankful for him!) Kiana, JD and Dallin

 And here is our little Jack-o-lantern with NO TEETH! Isn't Laiklie cute!!  She talked her big dad into helping out with her pumpkin.  She has him wrapped around her finger!

 What a bunch of scary pumpkins!

Saturday night we went to the elementary carnival.  We had cousins Sage and Violet there too.  Everything is better with cousins! 

Hunting, Hunting, Hunting

For those of you who know Ryan you know that he LIVES AND BREATHES hunting! He also thinks his girl should live and breath hunting.  She likes it for sure, but not like her daddy does. 

 We were able to spend the night at the cabin a few times when Ryan took Oakley out hunting.  So fun! He took her out several other mornings and nights this year as well, but she is very into her social life right now (normal 8th grader!) and so she didn't want to go near as often as her dad wanted to take her.

 He kept trying to get her the "BIG ONE" and she just wanted to be done hunting and was more than happy to shoot this little 2 point.  I love this picture of the two of them together!  Hunting with her dad is something she will NEVER FORGET even though she gets her patience for it from her mommy! :) I would have let her shoot the 2 point the night I went with them but Ryan wouldn't even hear of it. Ha, ha!!

Ryan got buck fever one night too and called me just as it was getting dark to tell me he had shot this 4 point buck.  Dallin and Rhett were along for the hunting trip which I think added to his buck fever.  He wanted so badly to shoot something when his boys were there to witness it. :) Sure love him!! So proud of both of them and we are excited for the jerky!!

Last Game of the Season

 Oakley's volleyball team had an amazing season.  UNDEFEATED!! Yay! Her little team did great and she worked hard and loved every minute of it.  She had incredible coaches that helped her to learn and grown.  The above picture is both middle school teams being introduced at one of the varsity games.  Oakley is to the left of #12 (yellow jersey) right in the middle.

This is the ONLY picture I got of the last game.  Oakley is on the right against the net standing next to her BFF Lauren.  Oakley LOVED playing with two of her very best friends Lauren and Katie this year.  This night they were wearing their pink jerseys for Breast Cancer Awareness.  I am grateful for coaches that teach our girls that this world is so much bigger than just us!!  We are so proud of Oakley for working hard to make the team again this year and can't wait to watch her play club ball this spring.

For now she has shifted her focus to clogging and has her first competition this weekend in Utah.  Wish her luck!

Seriously SO EMBARRASING!

Last Monday, October 21st, as the kids were headed out to get on the bus Rhett's nose started to bleed.  I told him we would get it to stop and then I would run him to school.  My kids are seriously one of the last stops so we don't have a lot of time between when the bus comes and when the bell rings.  So we hurried and got the nose to stop bleeding and headed out to the car.  When we got outside my suburban was still hooked-up to a trailer from the night before when we were helping our neighbor haul her 4-wheeler home from her ranch so my only option that morning was to run him to school in Ryan's filthy dirty ranch truck.  We jumped in and headed to the school.  As I was pulling into the circle drive drop-off area of our school I noticed a cop WITH HIS LIGHTS ON pulling in behind me.  You've got to be kidding me, I thought!! SERIOUSLY! Right here infront of teachers, students and OTHER PARENTS!! When the officer got to my window I rolled it down and his eyes got big as he saw my fuzzy pink bathrobe.  I was HUMILIATED!!  He kinda chuckled as he asked if I happened to have my drivers license on me this morning.  Luckily I had atleast grabbed my purse.  He looked at my license as he told me I was going 30 in a 25 mph zone and 25 in a 20 mph zone.  In my head I am screaming SERIOUSLY, S.E.R.I.O.U.S.L.Y!! YOU PULLED ME OVER FOR GOING 5.....FIVE OVER THE SPEED LIMIT!!  He then handed me my license back, didn't say a word about not wearing my seat belt or anything, thank goodness, and told me to slow down a little and to next time "maybe leave a few minutes earlier!" When I was telling my sister about what he said she told me I should have told him "If I had left any earlier I MAY NOT HAVE EVEN HAD THE BATHROBE ON DUDE!!" I went to the school later that day and one of the moms who is my friend said as she saw me, "Natalie, I am glad to see you got dressed for the day!" SOOO EMBARRASSING!!  :)

And here we are, me and the fuzzy pink bathrobe in all it's glory! Everybody else has seen it now, you might as well see it too! :)

Pumpkin Painting 2013

 Each year Grandma Hawkins invites the grandkids down to paint the straw bale pumpkin.  They love it.  Other than the cold! It seems like it is AWLAYS a cold day that we do it on. :(

The long paint line. Everyone gets a turn.

All the grandkids lined up.  The line keeps getting longer.  This year we added Sage and Violet and next year we will add their new baby! Yay!  We LOVE cousins!

This year the kids also figured out they were big enough to climb ONTO the pumpkin.  Crazy kids!  They seriously thought that was as fun as painting it. :) Thanks grandma for fun holiday traditions!

Darn Wind!

In the spring I posted about the lovely Idaho wind and how it blew my trampoline into the trees and we had to tie it down.  Well.....last week it decided to blow AGAIN, but this time I was at the ranch hunting with Ryan so nobody was here to save the trampoline.

 While we were away the wind decided to help the swing set kill the trampoline.  :(  I got the saddest message on my cell phone from the kids when they got home from school and found this. 

We have since pulled it down off the swing set and got the frame all twisted back around to where it can stand once again.  We took the net down.  That darn net is what makes it take flight like a kite.  Once the snow starts to fall we will take the mat off and haul it into get fixed.  Until then the kids will just keep jumping around the hole.  :) Welcome to country life! Ha, ha!

BIRTHDAY GIRL!

 Her shirt says it all!  Look at that toothless grin! She is missing 4 teeth across the front and nothing coming into replace them yet.  Poor girl can't eat corn, apples or much of anything! :)

 She had 3 of her best friends over to P.A.R.T.Y! Emily, Laiklie, Ava and Kaiya

 I can't believe my baby is 7. SEVEN!!  It amazes me how fast time goes by! I just can't get it to slow down no matter how hard I try!

 I know this picture and these next few pictures are fuzzy, but I LOVEY, LOVE, LOVE the faces she makes as she opens her presents.  You can see she LOVES them all!

We took the party to Blastoff and they had a BLAST!

I love being Laiklie's mom.  She makes life so much sweeter.  She has so much love in her little heart and she loves big!  She likes to joke and be funny.  She gets along great with the girls and the boys.  She mothers anybody that will let her.  She is and has always been our "icing on the cake!" Love you baby girl!