Where the Wild Things Are

When we moved out "to the sticks" a few months ago, people kept telling me that there was so much wildlife out here. I believed them but didn't really think we'd see all that much. WOW, was I wrong! Really, not a day goes by that we don't see some sort of animal not normally found in neighborhoods! Even as I'm doing this post, a deer just walked across our front lawn. Aaron saw a bear in our backyard last week (which I would have LOVED to get a picture of...oh well), and he has also seen a bobcat on his way to work. We also have a herd of elk that frequent the area. We of course have raccoons who we frequently see raiding the neighbors deck for cat food. And most evenings we have at least 5 bunnies frolicking in the yard. It is so funny to be sitting watching TV and to see bunnies go BOING, BOING, BOING out the front window every few minutes! Yesterday we looked out the front window and saw a mink on our front porch. I tried to get a picture of that, but the boys beat me outside and scared it under the porch. Unfortunately these animal sightings usually happen to quickly for me to grab my camera, but I have been able to catch a few here and there.

So this might be considered NORMAL to some of you, but I think most of you know that I'm a city girl through and through. This is so AMAZING to me! It just never gets old. I love that the boys are getting to grow up seeing all the animals and enjoying God's creation!

Fishing with the Boy(d)s

Aaron took the boys fishing last week with Chad Boyd and his oldest son, Cole. I think they caught 8 fish total and each boy got to take turns reeling them in. The boys had a blast and while I would've loved some actions shots of them actually reeling a fish in or something, I wasn't there and am happy to at least have these pics! Yay for boys fishing with their daddies!

Oh, to sleep like a kid again...

One of the boys' special treats is to get to fall asleep in our bed occasionally. Usually Aaron goes to bed before me since he gets up so early and that leaves me to move the kiddos to their own beds before I have a place to sleep! The other night when I went to move Landon, this is how I found him! How crazy is this? He was completely asleep when I found him this way! He gave me a little frown from the orange camera light shining in his face, but other than that he didn't even move!

My sweet Landon

The recent sunny days have turned our monster sized yard into a blooming field of lovely dandelions. Landon has found a new pass time of gathering bouquets daily and presenting them to me. It is pretty sweet. We do, however, need to work on getting longer stems. Most have stems about a 1/2 inch long so are pretty challenging to put in water and wilt within the hour! But the look on his face when he gives them to me is priceless and that's enough for me!

Ugh...31... Really?

We celebrated my birthday this week by basically eating, eating and more eating! I think it's time to hit the gym now... We used my free Red Robin burger on Sunday with the family and it was so yummy! Then on Monday, Aaron arranged for me to have lunch with my friend Sarah and to go shopping for the afternoon. All this while he stayed home and CLEANED THE HOUSE!!! Then when I got home, we dropped the kids off at Grandma's and had dinner at my favorite restaurant, Thai Bistro and then wandered around Southcenter mall (man that place is so different these days...). We each got a new book at Borders and then ended the evening with dessert at Cheesecake Factory. It was the perfect birthday!