Two weeks ago (I know...It's been a while), we went out to Jake and Ruth's. I went into Bismarck around noon on Wednesday to do our grocery shopping for the weekend. The van was so full, I didn't think I would find room to put any more food! I did, but Cedar didn't have much room to sit. We had packed for a long weekend of duck hunting. We got to Jake's just in time to get unloaded and for the boys to go out hunting. On Thursday, Grandma, Grandpa, and Kristina came out for the hunt too. Stacie & Katie came out for Saturday afternoon (not for hunting, but for visiting:). Jared & Thomas were at a study session for the FE that day. We had a great weekend. Josh still has "Duck Fever". Ruth, Grandma, and I enjoyed being at the house with the kids. On Saturday, the guys and Kristina were very sweet to come back from duck hunting early and make us breakfast of french toast. Then they stayed at home with the kids while we (Ruth, Katie, Kristina, and I) went into Valley for a little shopping. We ate some of the duck Saturday night...it was great. We took some home to eat and a few home to mount. Josh has been itching to get to his taxidermy projects this winter.
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| Josh's Wednesday night Red Head |
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| Thursday Morning Hunt |
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| Coming back from trying to sneak up on some geese behind the house after they had come in from duck hunting on Friday morning. I had John with me and we were trying to be quiet...hunting/hiding in the trees. (He didn't like that so much:) |
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| The hunters with their children |
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| Daddys and the kids |
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| Looking for more geese |
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| Sleepy Hunters & Cedar |
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| Friday morning hunt...even Kristina shot one this time! Wow....I've been duck hunting many times and I still haven't hit anything. |
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| Friday night hunt |
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| Cedar is so proud of her catch. She was guarding the ducks all morning. |
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| John and Addy held hands for a second. |
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| Addy practicing walking with her Daddy! |
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| Johnny: "Are you comin Mom?" |
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| Visiting on Saturday afternoon |
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| Daddy & Lu Lu |
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| Katie & Addy...Addy was only happy when she wore the silkie on her head. |
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| John brought his sleeping bag out and pretended to go "Ni Ni" |
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| Lu |
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| Lu going after something |
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| Playtime with Stacie and Katie |
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| Addy: "Hold it there...Perfect!" |
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| Cousins...Soon enough they'll be getting into trouble together! |
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| Johnny & Lu playing with the farm |
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| "See my bear?!" |
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| What a funny face |
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| Big Girl |
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| Katie read Johnny a lot of books...They had a good time |
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| What's going on outside...Are the Daddys back yet? |
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| Kristina holding Saturday night's kill |
Last week I had my first taste of "Winter Routine" with time to clean and bake. It was really nice. I think I'm going to enjoy the change of season!:) For the most part all summer I only cleaned when company, so it'll be nice to live in a dusted and vaccummed home, especially now that we're spending a lot more time in it. It's been such a beautiful fall that we have been able to get a bunch of stuff done outside.
Last weekend we had the dreaded church pictures. We are celebrating our centenial at St. Pius next summer, so we're getting a new church directory. Which is really nice, since they did the last one right before we moved here. Let me tell you, that directory is very nice for my job...Now who is that kid's parents? Anyway, we had pictures at 4:55 on Friday. We were preparing for it all day, making sure lunch was early enough, so the kids got down for their naps soon enough, so that we could get them up and give them a bath and snack before we went for pictures. The pictures went very well. The kids were happy and really cute!!! As soon as we finished taking the photos and went to look at them, they started to act up. They try to sell you the moon and the stars with their photos....It's crazy how expensive it is. Through Lu's crying and squirming and John's overall naughtyness, we got a canvas print picked out with a family pic, a pic of me & Josh, and a CUTE pic of the kids. Josh plans to build a frame for it. We're excited to hang it in the kitchen soon.
Despite having to take pictures on Friday, we had a very productive weekend. We mulched the strawberries, cleaned out the pump house (building a shelf for the bee hives, so we can have room to brood chickens in there), cleaned out manure and fixed up some more (on the inside this time) in the chicken coop...hopefully we've taken care of our rodent problem now, and Josh did a lot of tilling. We combined our two pasture gardens and added another 70 feet making a 50' x 190' garden...It looks really big! It took Josh an hour and a half to till it once. He tilled up where we planted soup beans this year for raspberries next year.
On Sunday, we carved pumpkins. John was a little grossed out at first from cleaning out the guts. He got used to it and started to dig in. Lu, on the other hand, thought the guts of the pumpkins were great! We had to keep her from eating the seeds. Josh helped John carve a "funny face" on his "baby" pumpkin and Lu's name and a heart on hers. I made another funny face on the biggest of the carving pumpkins. We were going to do 4, but the last one had started to rot. They had been outside and the freezing and thawing had done that one in.
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| Lu Lu & the pumpkins |
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| She started to crawl up on them |
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| Johnny throwing his guts in a bowl for the chickens |
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| Scooping the pumpkins clean |
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| "Yucky Daddy!" |
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| Johnny's so proud of his and Lu's pumpkins |
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| Olue tried eating every part of the pumpkin |
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| Mommy carving and Olue eating |
Josh had a headache on Sunday, so after carving pumpkins, he laid down on the couch for a nap. He wanted to be left alone...John wanted to be like Daddy, so he brought out his blankie, pillow, and Penguin and laid on the couch too. After a while he got bored and started to bug Josh, so I kept him in the kitchen with me for a while. We carved the pumpkins straight on the floor, so I had a little scrubbing to do. Both John and Olue wanted to help, so they both got rags and we all scrubbed the kitchen floor, Lu trying to eat her rag more than scrub:).
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| Daddy & Johnny on the couch |
Monday was beautiful!!!!! I usually get the chicken chores done before the kids get up, but I didn't that day, so when Lu went down for her morning nap, John and I went outside. I had promised him the night before that we would play with Cedar outside...And after breakfast that was the first thing he wanted to do:). It's crazy the things he remembers. Anyway, we went outside and started to spread the last of the woodchips (that have been in the truck all summer) around our young apple trees. Johnny was such a good little helper. He got out his little wheel barrel and shovel and followed me around dumping wood chips just like Mommy. After shedding our coats and hats, I called Josh and asked him to take the afternoon off so we could work on outside stuff together...He did and we got the garage cleaned out, oil changed in multiple vehicles and machines (including the mower and snowblower), and we somehow managed to fit the mower, 4-wheeler, car, and van (along with various other things) into the garage. Let me tell you...It's like the Cat in the Hat's magical hat. We can fit more and more stuff in there every year. You wouldn't think you could get that much in there! I don't think we'll be able to top this year though. I, for one, am not pulling anything into the garage! Josh can do the scraping on the vehicles;). And you can only get to the van if the car is not in the garage...unless you crawl over the 4-wheeler which Josh found out on Monday night when we went to All Saints Day mass.
The kids really enjoyed being outside and having Daddy home on Monday afternoon. Lu ate cat poop (but only twice) and John had fun playing with his tricylces. It's days like that when I wish we could make enough money with our business, so Josh could be home every day....Some day!:)
Before we went in for supper and to get the kids up from their nap, we went down to our scrap pile to bring some metal that had come out of the pump house...We never made it to the scrap pile. As we walked, Josh remembered that he had set the trap to catch that nasty skunk that has sprayed Cedar twice this summer. We've only caught raccoons so far. Josh had his glasses on, and couldn't see as well. I saw it right away! It was definitaly a skunk in the trap this time. We slowly backed up, hoping it wouldn't notice us. We then ran to the house to get the 22 and and camera. Josh shot it (from a distance). It curled up like he had hit it. Then two big clouds emerged. Josh shot again to make sure it was dead and we started to head up to the house...Then the cloud hit us and we had to run to get away from the awful musk!
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| Josh checking out the skunk from a distance |
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| Skunk at the bottom of the brush pile |
Turns out, the skunk wasn't dead. Josh checked on it last night, and it was digging, trying to get out. Since it's nice and big and ready for hybernating, we can't just leave it (like Josh had originally hoped to do). He plans to shoot it again. Maybe this time with the shotgun...Hopefully the neighbors don't notice??
Monday was Halloween, and we were party poopers. We had All Saints Day mass that night, so neither of us wanted to take our tired kids anywhere. Lu wore her pajamas to mass and we sat in the Cry Room...We never sit in the cry room. Ours were the only kids there and we (Josh and I) were the youngest there by 10 or 20 years...we both thought this sad. But mass was good. It was neat to think of all our family that has died are now Saints in heaven. I especially was thinking about Grandma Hanson. I've been missing her lately. Besides being tired, the kids were pretty good. We lit the candles in the jack-o-lanterns when we got home. John and Olue thought that was pretty cool. We had one van of trick or treaters (friends of ours) stop. Luckily I had bought a bag of peanut buttercups, just in case.
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| Halloween night...with the pumpkins lit |
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| Happy Halloween |
Today Olue has a weight and height check to make sure she's growning. She had been small at her last appt.
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| Typical Morning. Josh leaves for work at 6am, but before he goes he has coffee and gets Olue up so I can nurse her. She only sits nice with Daddy after she gets a full tummy. |
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| Horse Radish...We made 12 quarter pints of "horsey sauce". |
