First Time Sledding

Today Amy, Ryan, Danny, Ed, and I took Hannah out for her first time sledding. It was a temperate 20 degrees. We were all excited to see who she would want to ride with and how she would react on the hill.
Here is Hannah and Danny getting ready for a fast run down the hill. We would let her pick who she wanted to ride with. The bad part about being chosen is that you would have to pull her back up!!!

There were several one foot tall bumps along one path of this hill. Ed and Ryan thought it would be a splendid idea to ride together. The first two bumps sent them nicely in the air. The third bump lost the battle to the sled and they went through it, not over it!

Here is Amy and Hannah attempting the bumps on the hill. Unfortunately for the two of them, they only made it to the first bump. They were unable to land it. If you look closely, the sled is still in the air.

After pulling Hannah up the hill several times, Ryan and I decided that it was our turn to be pulled up. After several inches, Hannah decided that I was too heavy.

Uncle Ryan was much nicer than I was. He pretended that he was getting pulled up the hill when in fact he was crawling up the hill. This made Hannah feel good about herself. Although, Ryan only lasted about five feet before he was tired of crawling.

Hannah normally would lay on her belly when being pulled up the hill. However, she soon decided that she would "snowboard" her way up the hill. It was very cute to witness. She was getting bolder and bolder by the time we left.

Lastly we have Hannah and Ed taking a trip up the hill. It is amazing how heavy a little 35 pound girl can seem when you add a little bit of snow, a brand new sled, and the force of gravity. Ahhhh, but it was well worth it to see her smiling. Her first experience sledding was definately a good one. It is nice to live in a place where sledding is just another winter hobby.

TIME OUT!!!

We woke up this morning excited to take Hannah sledding for her first time. We had a nice breakfast of Captain Crunch and started putting Hannah's snow pants on. When her snow pants were finally on, she told daddy to put his on.
Ed immediately went to use the bathroom before putting on his snow pants. Hannah slammed the door open, looked right at him and told him to put his snow pants on right now! She then proceeded to count to 4. Once she reached 4 and Ed hadn't moved, she walked over to him, spanked him and put him in time out! I couldn't contain my laughter. To top it off, she held him there and had Holly guard him so he wouldn't leave. Once she counted to ten she took him out of time out and told him to put his snow pants on RIGHT NOW!!!! Amazing how quick little ones are to pick up on our habits. Ed had to act as serious as possible otherwise we would be sending the wrong signals to Hannah.

Baking Cookies

Today we spent most of the day baking cookies and candies. Ed tackled the never ending battle of keeping Hannah at bay. While mom and I made fudge, divinity, and peanut brittle, Ed and Hannah rolled out and baked sugar cookies.

It took about two minutes to realize baking with a two year old will ultimately end in a mess. Here is Hannah and Ed rolling out the dough and getting ready to punch out some cookies.

Hannah would tell Ed what cookie cutters to use. Then the two of them would press them down and make "PERFECTLY SHAPED" cookies.
Somewhere between rolling out cookies and pressing the cookie cutters, Hannah found time to use the flour as make-up.
Several shirts later, and flour floating through the air, we had our last tray of sugar cookies to put into the oven. Now comes the task of decorating and putting frosting and sprinkles on them. I can't wait to see what new way Hannah can invent to frosting the cookies.

Playing in the Snow

The other day, Hannah, Holly, and I went out shoveling snow. Last year Hannah wouldn't even stand in the snow without whining. This year she ran straight in and started rolling around. It is amazing what one year can do to a child.
What is funny about the Hannah/Holly relationship is that they take turns white-washing each other!!! This is one of Holly's victories. I am sure there will be many more throughout the winter season.

Here is Hannah's attempt at a snow angel. As we have all figured out at one point in our lives, getting up out of the snow angel without ruining it is the hardest thing to do.

Hunting in Glasgow

On Wednesday my dad, Amy and I headed up to Glasgow, MT for a hunting trip. Small amounts of snow fell the night before and we were able to get some beautiful pictures of the scenery.
This first picture is just past Island Park, ID. It is in the direction of the Tetons.
This second picture is driving through Big Sky, MT. Unfortunately, I was too slow to catch the picture of a flock of swans flying by. It is amazing to see one swan in the wild, but a flock of swans is something completely different.
About an hour or two out of Glasgow we drove past a wind farm. The windmills are massive. There were deer in the fields around the windmills, so it seems they are adapting to them just fine.
When we arrived in Glasgow, we immediately went out to the farm to hunt. I have never hunted from a blind before. We were told there was a nice flat layout on top of the hay stack hidden behind the bails. When we made it to the top, there was nothing but two rows of hay. All three of us had to squeeze down between the bails. It was quite uncomfortable, but it left us something to talk about. Here is Amy on the end of the stack squashed down in.
This is my spot. Amy is laying down behind me. I was in the middle of the three of us. This was a picture just after my shot.

This is dad on the other end of the stack. It took him a while to squish down into the stack, but in the end, he had the most comfortable spot.

Amy was the first to be successful. We climbed out on the stack about 12:30 and she had hers down by 2:00. It is a very symmetrical 5x5 buck. She was using a 270 WSM.

At about 3:50 it was my turn. Out of the forest came another nice 5x5 buck. Amazing that two beautiful bucks came wandering out within hours of each other. I was using a 308.

Dad was quite jealous of our bucks and didn't have much success getting one of his own on the first evening. The next morning he and I got up at 4:30, ate, had a cup of coffee, and climbed up into a different blind by 6:00. It was still dark when we climbed up in. At about 6:30 we could make out several deer out in the field. We were certain that two were bucks, but didn't know how many points they had. By about 7:00 we knew that one was a 3x3 and the other a 5x5. At 7:10 he had his on the ground...another 5x5. He was using a Winchester 300 Ultra Mag.

All-in-all it was a fabulous trip for the three of us. The amazing thing is that we all shot very symmetrical 5x5 bucks. All scoring within seven points. Couldn't have asked for a better trip.

HALLOWEEN!!!

Halloween came quickly. Hannah was more than ready to go trick-or-treating. We had to go the store to buy candles for our pumpkins first. Again, Hannah was so excited to go around the neighborhood that it was near to impossible to get a picture with her holding still. She is about to run right off the step.

Here is a good look of the pumpkins with their candles and no flash on the camera. They turned out very nice. Hannah was so proud of her pumpkin. Everytime we walked past it she would say "that's my pumpkin" and smile widely.
Sadly our pumpkins didn't last long. They made it through Halloween night, but quickly found their way to the concrete. It was interesting how it happened. It was about 2:00 in the morning when Holly woke up and let out three deep barks. Our dog has a very deep, mean sounding bark. Ed immediately woke up and turned on our bedroom light. He swears he heard footsteps, but wasn't completely sure. In any case, he waited about fifteen minutes and then went back to bed. When we woke up in the morning we looked outside and saw what we had feared. Ed's pumpkin was completely smashed on our porch. I believe that is what woke up Holly. When she barked, I think she scared the culprits away. My pumpkin was untouched and Hannah's pumpkin was in the middle of our yard. It was apparently going to be the next victim, but was just dropped and split in half in the yard. When we looked up and down the street we saw every single pumpkin smashed in the road. Explaining to Hannah (who was so proud of her pumpkin) that someone "broke it" was extremely difficult. It makes you think back of all the things we did as kids. Amazing how the tables turned.

Boo at the Zoo

On October 30, Ed, Hannah, Gama, and I went to Tautphaus Park Zoo for "Boo at the Zoo". The zoo decorates all the animal cages with pumpkins and decorations for the kids to enjoy. Also, throughout the zoo there are little booths for the kids to trick-or-treat at.

When we arrived at the zoo we were lucky we bought prepaid tickets. The line for those without tickets consisted of hundreds of people. Here is a picture of the first ghost we saw once we entered the zoo. It was still light when we arrived.

Throughout the zoo we ended up with three toothbrushes, a snake bracelet, and several pieces of candy. On our way out we stopped by the three ghost blow-up for a picture. We actually caught her looking at the camera.
Good-bye from "Boo at the Zoo"! Tomorrow we go trick-or-treating!

Pumpkin Carving

Today we carved our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. Hannah was very particular about cleaning.
Hannah was intrigued with the pumpkin guts. She refused to stick her hand in the pumpkin. Every time she did, she wanted to immediately wash the slime off. She is obviously her fathers child!

While attempting to get a picture of daddy and Hannah, someone decided to hang the pumpkin guts over her head. Quite a funny exchange. Hannah was worried that they were going to end up in her hair. It was a legit worry since some of them did.

We drew a triangle, circle, square, and diamond on a piece of paper and let her pick out the type of eyes and nose she wanted on her pumpkin. We then drew four different types of mouths and let her pick the one she liked the most. Of course, my carving was "close" to what she picked out, but she was happy anyway.
After a thorough cleaning, we could finally call our pumpkin finished. She is so proud of her "BIG" pumpkin.
We took all of our pumpkins out on the porch for a picture. After fifteen minutes of attempted poses, I was finally able to catch Hannah looking at the camera with the pumpkins not tipped. I guess you can't get mad at her for being excited about the pumpkins.

When all was said and done, our little family of pumpkins turned out very cute. Hannah and I just went for broke on our carving while dad had an epic battle carving his. Nonetheless it was a very enjoyable evening. We can't wait to buy candles and see how they illuminate our porch.

Halloween Party

This last Saturday was our school's Halloween party. Hannah was pretty set on being Scooby Doo for Halloween (surprise surprise). The day of the party the four of us were still undecided what we were going to be. At the last second (1:00 pm day of) we decided to be the Mystery INC gang. We went store to store shopping for the perfect outfits. Ironically, the first store we went into we found the hideous pants that make up Fred's outfit. They were PERFECT! A couple other wigs, three cans of orange hair spray and a little leg and we had our outfits. Amazing how things work sometimes. Needless to say, our costumes were a huge hit. Of course Scooby stole the show, not surprising though.

Pumpkin Hunting

Yesterday we went to the local pumpkin patch with Hannah. We thought it would be fun for her to pick out her own pumpkin. When we entered the patch, there were more pumpkins than she knew what to do with.

As we walked threw the corn stalk entrance, she told us that she wanted a "BIG" one. After trying to pick one up the size of her, she decided that a "BIG" one wasn't as cool as she thought it was.
After attempting to pick up at least a dozen other "BIG" ones (each smaller than the one before it), she found the perfect "BIG" one. It was just her size and she was so proud of it. We left with three pumpkins in all, one for each of us. It should be fun to carve as a family.
On our way out, there was a small kids hay maze. She worked her way in just fine, but had difficulties finding her way out. Of course Ed and I could look in and see her at all times. With a little help from mom, she was able to make her way out successfully.

Rock Collecting at Kelly Canyon/Heise Hot Springs

On October 3, we went to the Heise Hot Springs/ Kelly Canyon area to collect rocks for Grandma SiRan and Papa Dale's yard. It was rather impressive how many rocks there were all over the place. It was about a 75 foot rock slide, Hannah and I made it up about 25 feet before we started sliding down backwards. It was scary, especially since the rocks created a massive land slide. So, we decided to head back to the bottom and explore the area instead.



This first picture is of Hannah finding a beautiful rock. Not sure how it was different from the rest, but it was the one she wanted.

After collecting rocks for five minutes, our attention shifted to throwing the rocks rather than collecting them. Even with her small tosses, the rocks would break in pieces. She loved to see them break.
About fifty feet from where they were collecting rocks, there was a huge rock cliff. Hannah is sitting on the edge about a foot and a half off the ground. It almost looks like she is just floating there. The only bad thing about this place is that there was broken glass all over the place. Kind of sad really.


Right near the big rock cliff was a small little creek that ran out of some ranchers property. The sound of the little trickle was quite relaxing. Hannah thought it would be good to throw rocks in instead. Oh well, at least she was having fun.

Lastly we walked across the road and found a small secluded grove. It was down a small creek bank and over the creek. It was quite a beautiful place to take pictures. Of course, she is always ready for a photo opportunity.
On the other side of the grove, there were still green leaves on some of the trees. Here the trees branches hung down like whips slightly blowing in the breeze. Hannah was quite intrigued with with the way it blew in the wind.
Before we left, we needed to get one more photo on the rock slide. Getting Hannah to look at the camera instead of throwing the rocks was almost impossible. Needless to say, she crashed the second we arrived home. Too much fun for one day.

Butte Montana

This weekend Hannah, Amy, Ryan, my mom and I headed to Butte, Montana for my cousin Darby's baby shower. It was a fun time with lots of fun games that Hannah enjoyed.

The first game we played was a bottle drinking game. Lori was unwilling to drink pure milk, so she spiked it with a shot of Kahluha...the game was on!
Hannah was doing fairly well with her bottle. She tired out after a short time though. She is a year or so out of practice and it is suprisingly hard to drink out of those things!!! I attempted to take up where she left off, but found I was slightly behind. Our dual effort lost by a milliliter. Oh well, it was our first mom and daughter game.
The next game we had to play was guess what was in the diaper. This is a great picture of Lori sticking her nose into one of those nasty things. Luckily for me I was able to guess all the diapers correctly. There were weird items in many of them i.e. relish, sweet chili sauce, jelly, hot mustard, and peanut butter.
Our next game was to see how many balloons we could stuff up our shirts to get a pregnancy belly. Hannah loved this game the most. She only put two in her shirt, but the smile should tell it all. Luckily for our family my mom put the most in her shirt with 15.
As the shower was coming to an end, Hannah fell asleep. We took her back to the house for a short nap before coming back to Idaho Falls. When she woke up Aunt Lori suggested we go see the bulldog puppies a couple houses down the road. They were amazingly cute. I believe that all were sold already, $1500 a piece. Boy I am happy for our $30 mutt.