Summer Starts

June was a whirl wind and it's hard to believe we are a week into July already! 

Dusty and I had a mini day break {with our favourite little boy side-kick}

It was awesome to have no phone service and some soul quenching scenery.

Record books have been turned in and we have 1 major 4-H activity and then it's a wrap for the year and it has been one heck of a year!!! 

We finally made some time for riding lessons with one of our most favourite ladies. Penny has been doing awesome! And Lucy found a new pal to ride.

We ran away with another of our favourite ladies on a pizza and buggy ride! We need to make more time for this in our lives!






1st week into July and I hope we get 8 more like it! We have a summer full of rodeos, horse shows, movies in the park, community events, farmers markets, lake time, boating, riding, and hopefully visiting.

Showmanship- 3rd

Western Pleasure- 1st

Western Equitation- 4th

Trail- 1st

Command- 1st

Versatility Pleasure- 1st

English Pleasure- 1st

English Equitation- 2nd

Aye Aye Captain

My parents just got back from a vacation in Florida and they brought back a few gifts for everyone. The most HILARIOUS gift was a captains hat for Dusty. But what was more funny was how much Andy loves it. 

Dusty made a boat/car/truck/semi/whatever Andy can imagine cardboard box toy and this kid for the past two days has been boating around my house and requesting I call him "Captain"

Not a dog person, dog person

Oh man.

This dog.

He really is the cats meow of dogs.

I am not really a dog person or a pet person but this dog makes me one. 

Babies Everywhere!

March and April Whizzed right by! 

The months of March- June is why we live where we do.

 We have babies everywhere

      The grass is greening up.

             The air is warmer.

                   The house gets aired out.

Andy has always loved his goats but this year he is actually particularly helpful!! He is almost my master goat herder!!

{Lucy on Trixie}

{Andy on Molly}

{Andy with a January Lamb}

{Penny and her 4-H lamb, Squirt}

{Andy, Lucy, and Rocky}

{Bailey, Dusty's horse, got a wicked eye injury that almost resulted in the removal of the eye.... the main reason we were married to our house for the month!}

{awe! The lambs}

A Short Sweet Month to remember

We really have been having the best February.

We have been very busy 

but

I have been trying especially hard to slow down and do some extras with the kids

(and having a friend to encourage that is a huge bonus)

We wrapped up basketball and Ellie did great 

and 

I had a great time hanging out with moms that I don't normally get a chance to visit with.

We went to a trampoline park and the kiddos had the best time.

 Dusty took the girls to 4-H foods and they learnt about cake decorating 

AND

seriously we may have discovered ANOTHER hidden talent that Penny has!!

You can expect a bakery to open any day now....

 OH FOR THE LOVE OF HOCKEY

AND BOYS

ESPECIALLY THESE BOYS

Oh man! Dusty gets a gold star because he took ALL the kids to the hockey game SOLO 

and it was with school

SO

ALL of their friends were there.

It was CHAOS

and these two were Captain Chaos and Lieutenant Loud

It's been a great month and we are ending it by playing play-off hockey against a great team and it's been a blast ending our month this way!!

basket ball and trampolines

Oh man! what an awesome weekend!!
Jam-packed as usual but there was some great highlights!

Penny and her little hockey team got to go watch the university team play. They got to be in the dressing room for the pep talk and go out on the bench and watch the team warm up. She hung out with her hockey bestie and came home buzzing. The next day their team won their game and solidified their spot in playoffs.

Lucy was the sheep queen this weekend. She stayed home and hung out with Gramma and Andy and made sure all the new born lambs were up and doing their thing. She also took charge of bottle feeding the bottle lamb and got to have a friend over to play on Saturday.

Ellie was in a basketball tournament and they ended up winning!!! She had a great time hanging out with all her friends and I had a great time watching them play ball.

Andy.... well, his Gramma came and saved him from being toted around all weekend. He had the best time reading books and watching movies.

This week we had a PD day so I took Lucy, Penny, and Andy to the trampoline park and we met Stacey and her mom and the kiddos there and it was an awesome hour and everyone was PLAYED out.
Came home and headed to hockey practise with Penny and she had a surprise pizza party after. It's so much fun to be apart of such a great little team. Her coaches and other players and parents are really great!

This next weekend should be filled with awesomeness too..... 4-H, more basketball, AND the Superbowl!!!!!

Public Speaking

We had an awesome weekend!
The kids had a full schedule and I had a full schedule but theirs was full of things they love!

Dusty came home early so he could curl with our team and we did so great!!
We actually had three ends in a row where we scored points and I made some crazy shots!!

Ellie had a Young Women's activity with everyone in the area. She said it was like a carnival and then she look off to her friends house for the day to play basketball!

We had our first "with horses" 4-H horse project meeting and we measured and weighed everybody's horses. It was actually super fun and we have such a good group of kids.

Then the next day Dusty and I went to Penny's first game at 8am and she did so great.
It was a really close game and they beat Cochrane by 1 point.
I went home and did the older girls hair for 4-H public speaking...
I should of taken a picture of it!!!
We rushed back to the rink to watch Penny's second game against Med Hat.
She won so then they were on to Semi-finals against the grey Lethbridge team.
Dusty stayed with Penny (and Andy... oh Andy)
and I took off with the older girls to public speaking.

The girls did so great.
Ellie was the very first speech of the day and you could tell she was a little nervous but she battled through and ended up with a great speech.
Ellie nailed her impromptu and got first's across the board.
Then Lucy spoke after the break.
and it was her day.
She delivered a wonderful speech and her impromptu was amazing.
She was beaming.

Lucy placed first in the Juniors and Ellie placed second in the intermediates!

We loaded up (with a few additions!!) and headed back into Magrath.
We dropped off the extra girls and headed to the rink to catch Penny's game for third place in the tournament.
Penny's team lost a really close game in overtime to the grey team so we played Cochrane for third. They played a good game but Penny was outa gas and they lost a good game.
What a weekend!!!!

Birthdays

This year dusty and I did more for our birthdays than I think we ever have done! Most of it was last minute and it was our friends that swooped in and helped change things up. It was fun and simple and easy!
I got to go out to dinner at Brown's and Dusty and I ate dessert while waiting for Jared and Jasmine. It is always so easy to hang out with them! Jasmine tried a spicy tuna roll for the first time and it was hilarious, she was NOT a big fan. We split up and went home and we played a game with the kids. Stacey texted the next morning and asked us to go and ride. Dusty's been wanting to go so we packed up and headed over. The ponies all did great. We invited Tom and Stacey over for dinner and it was a good thing because we had so much food. This year Dusty wanted Steak Oscar, roasted mini potatoes, salad, garlic bread, AND strawberry cream cake PLUS we got to eat my delicious chocolate cake that Stacey made. I was also surprised but a couple friends who brought me gifts and it was such a sweet birthday!!!

Now that our birthdays are over though, there's not many excuses to eat a little healthier! hahaha

Andy Boy

This Kid!! Is the craziest little thing ever!
He kept me on my toes all day.

He literally woke me up with a wet willy that he calls a wet washy and then a big lick to the side of the face.
So gross.

Then he pretty much jumps on me every 20 seconds demanding, in rotation, pancakes or tv.
Yeesh.

He finally scampers off to drink chocolate milkshake and I crawl out of bed.
I make him a little breakfast to go with the milk shake and sit down to do some work. Every 10 minutes I was interupted with a request of snakes and ladders or the need for a drink (which he can get on his own but refused today). Finally after completely just two documents I conceded for an Andy break. I made him more pancakes because he was "starving". He ate 4.
We then rushed and got ready to go visit some neighbour ladies. I took an ipad thinking that it would be the perfect solution since he was media deprived all morning. WRONG.
He pretty much complained the entire time of being starving and thirsty. AND then got out all the other peoples toys and made a mess and was just really freaking annoying.
FINALLY got home. Made him some pickles. He ate the entire jar and then refused to eat dinner.
At hockey he ran away and so I left to get Penny dressed and mid-dressing a mom brought in a very panicked bawling Andy...... We have been to the rink thousands of times... He knows every location AND he ran away from us.... anyways
MOVING on....
so I get her on the ice and then go to fuel up. He runs into the road, won't sit in the car while I pay, loses mittens, and then runs off again when we get back to the rink.

And now, even in sleep he is restless and barking demands IN HIS SLEEP.

He and I are ready for the next phase.... SCHOOL.... too bad it's 2 years away!!