Happy 13th Birthday Hunter!!!

I love this boy. We had such a wonderful night for his birthday! After track pictures Lance and I whisked him off to a night with mom and dad! We took him shopping so he could choose exactly what he wanted.



Then we went out to dinner at his place of choice (Applebees :) then home for cake and ice cream with the family.

He is an amazingly gracious young man. He kept saying that he wanted to go where we would like to eat. He only spent half of what he was allowed to spend on presents! He kept wanting to make sure that we were enjoying ourselves too. We were LOVING every minute!!!


He is a sweetheart. He is always complimenting and trying to understand people in different circumstances. He has always been my affectionate one. I am so glad he has such a kind heart and is such a wonderful example and asset to our family :)

PS Shylee, being a sweet daughter, made the cake while we were out and about!!

It's Great to Be 38?!

Rider and I were having a lovely drive back from dropping kids off at track practice. He was rambling on about his life as a 4 year old. He then takes a completely different route in the conversation and asks me


"How many are you?"

I looked at him to make sure that he really wanted the facts and he asks again intently

"How much are you?"

With a smile on my face, wondering how this was going to go, knowing that he rarely even counted that high on the number line, I said

"38."

And this was his response (I had him rein act the face, which actually doesn't even do justice to the original.




After his quick realization that he doesn't speak old people he immediately pulled a U turn in the conversation and got back on course with his previous conversation (that didn't include the number 38).

Happy 10TH Birthday Trapper!!

Today is Trapper Talkeetna Allen's 10TH birthday! During the day we went to the matinee of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Rodrick Rules.

Fisher got to skip a day of school to party with us! Trapper is home schooled, and he didn't have to do a stitch of work today either!

YAY!

They wanted to take a picture in front of Hop, just for fun!


After that we went out for pizza, then came home and had cake and ice cream with everyone and opened presents!!!


The kids were so full of dinner and treats that they didn't have one bite of cake or ice cream :) In the pic of his cake, you will notice the little koala bear, Rider was dying to include!



Trapper said it was the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER! That means a lot!

Happy 17th Birthday Shylee!

WOW! Did I just say 17th birthday? It's so cliche, but it seems like yesterday I was looking into her newborn eyes thinking she was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on.



Shylee is loads of fun! She is a super fun big sister.
Sometimes when I come home and she hasn't done her chores,
I will get after her and she sheepishly admits that she was
playing with her brothers.

Then her brothers will run downstairs and yell
"Shy are you going to come back upstairs and GET US ?!!!"

How can I get mad at that?




In fact, sometimes she is so crazy with them that I find myself yelling at them to settle down, and then have to think about how blessed we are that our 17 year-old daughter is playing with our 9,7 and 4 year old boys!!






She hunts,
out fishes us all,
and is a camper extraordinaire!


I mean c'mon, how many girls make their mom take a picture of them holding a deer heart? :) No Mamby Pamby Land here!!

She is uber responsible.


My statement about Shylee is that we could leave her on the mountain
with all the boys with a shoe lace and piece of tape
and she would have built a shelter, prepared "all natural" and "organic" meals :) and have had and ALL the boys making their "leaf" beds each morning.


She is that responsible :)

She is stubborn, but when the light goes on in her pretty lil' head, it's a beautiful thing to behold :)

She is a righteous young woman. Kids these days face a lot of resistance in keeping high standards and morals. They become the odd balls at school when they aren't the ones swearing or having moral issues.



Shylee has embraced the fact that she does stand out, and recognizes that it is definelty a positive thing. I love that she raises her sights and ideals and recognizes the spirit. She is becoming such a lovely little lady.

Rider's Wisdom

Rider~
"Mom, I really do love you...

BUT...

the games on your phone are really LAME."


These are the things that keep me laughing :)

Reminscing

"I wish the world would rewind to when we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house."

Rider said today while reminiscing about being pushed in the wheelbarrow at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We can barely wait until June 23rd (our official "drive on outta here" date)!!

Recap of Card Game

Tonight we played War, Go Fish and Crazy 8's. Some of my favorite moments were: while playing Go Fish, telling my son Fisher to "Go Fish" meaning it was his turn, during the game. Next would be, Rider telling us that we were "going down!" Then he would lay down a 2!!!! OOOOH!

We would bust out laughing. Trapper lost every game. I need to remember that for when we team play :) We caught many discrepancies with Riders moves, noticing that he played the same ace many times in a row, during the game of War. What a great night. It ended with ice cream cones and zero fighting!!!