Christmas 2011 Part Four, Ranching

The big excitement of the final day of our Christmas visit to Ennis was: RANCHING! At about noon (after a morning of: are we going ranching?, is it time to go ranching?, can we go ranching now?, is it time now?) we all piled in the truck and drove a couple miles to Jack's to get hay for Grandpa's horses.

That's me on the right in the red toque.

Resting after all that hard work. Notice there was no car seat required on this trip either!

Now that we were back in the pasture, the boys had to get the bale out of the back of the truck. After several attempts at gunning it in reverse then slamming on the brakes, which resulted in a lot of sliding backwards, Aaron hopped in the back to add some muscle.

One good shove...

And off it went.

Taking a bow after a job well done.

Farm boys.

Howling like a wolf/"doing the big eye". The big eye is a particular expression that Rick taught Aaaron when he was ittle that has been passed on to Matthew. Matthew added the sound effects.

Snuggles with Grandma.

Christmas 2011 Part Three, Christmas Day

On Christmas morning I managed to keep Matthew in bed until about 7:30. We all knew it would be an early morning just like always.

We started with the stocking.

Then Matthew got to dig into the pile of presents.

Which included two big trucks and two smaller but beefier trucks from Grandpa and Grandma. He kept saying "Holy Macaroni" over and over again.

One of the hits of the day that continues to please is the magnifying glass i picked up at the dollar store.

After a nap, Matthew and Daddy headed outside with the bat from Grandpa and Grandma to play a game of "baseball" with snowballs.

Daddy pitches while Matthew swings.

Matthew makes contact.

Then Matthew takes a turn throwing the snowballs.

Success!

Happy being outside.

After the baseball game we hopped in the truck for a drive . Matthew was very excited to go because in rural Montana at Sunday drive speeds Grandpa says you don't have to use your car seat.

Enjoying the wind as it rushes down the plain.

Sitting on the console.

One of the fellas.

Reindeer, Christmas 2011 Part Two

I think the highlight of the trip for Matthew was the small herd of mule deer that gathered in the yard for their morning and evening feeding. Each morning and afternoon Matthew would wake up asking if the reindeer had come back.

There they are all gathered in the yard just outside the kitchen.

There were three bucks who were more skittish than the does.

Aaron getting up close and personal on a trip to the car.

There they are coming right up to the porch.

Some of the deer that Aaron got to walk through when he went out to the car.

The does would even come right up to the window to try to smell the people.

Christmas 2011 Part One

On December 22 we drove the 14 1/2 hours to Ennis, Montana to spend Christmas with Grandpa Rick and Grandma Ida. It was a marathon journey but we made it all the way over the mountains with very little trouble.

Matthew's first order of business on the 23rd was to get outside and play in the snow. Ennis usually doesn't have a lot of snow but we got lucky and they got about a foot a day or two before we arrived. The weather was perfect: just below freezing so the snow stayed but warm enough that Matthew could happily play outside.

As soon as he was out the front door (and had managed to navigate the ice patch) he was into the snow.

Pick it up and throw it was the order of the day. He is wearing sunglasses because we discovered on a trip to Alberta that he is really sensitive to the glare off the snow.

Throwing snow at the house because I told him he couldn't throw it at me.

Throwing snow at Daddy who was happy to throw it back.

Sissy and Beau Grandpa Rick and Grandma Ida's two 7 month old golden retrievers we got to spend the holidays with.

Following the dogs into the deeper snow.

Daddy rescuing Matthew from being overtaken by the dogs.

So happy to be outside throwing snow.

Until he got a little too much on his face. This is completely self inflicted.

Happy to be inside again eating sugar cookies.

Big Announcement

We have been sitting on this secret for a while now but decided not to shout it out until near the end of the first trimester when we knew it had a good hold on me.

This was the first test we took the Friday before Halloween a couple days after I got back from Edmonton. It turned out to be quite a shock as we had figured we had not timed the October cycle very well.

Took a second test, not because we didn't believe the first one but because the +/- is so much clearer than the single/double line.

The first ultrasound one day shy of 12 weeks.

A better picture although we all know these ultrasound pictures are not great. During the procedure he/she was really active. Hands moving around and even reaching up to rub his/her face and you could see the feet actively kicking against the side of my uterus. Scary thought though it is, this one seemed to be much more active than Matthew was at this stage.

Frosting Cookies

This year due to my lack of energy, I decided I would buy pre-made sugar cookies and have Lily and Matthew frost them for me.

Matthew's decorating consisted mainly of really big blobs of icing with lots of sprinkles on top.

Lily was more artistic to the point of mixing the three colors together to get some more interesting hues. You can see that Matthew did expand his repertoire to decorating the plate.

In the end it turns out that pre-made cookies with pre-made icing are a great kid project but just don't taste the same so I found someone to bake some for me from scratch.

Letter from Santa