Recent Randoms

Summer is happening over here.  It's been a busy week...nothing major, just every day fun.  Here are some random photos from the past few days.

Our little maple tree, fondly known as "Maple Tree Lounge" by our kids, features two hillbilly rope swings this year.  These swings are, hands down, the most popular outdoor toys our girls have.   Bennett and Ainsley swing on them every chance they get.

It's been a tad rainy.  Dad helped the girls construct some boats to float down the gutter last weekend.  Here is Ainsley's milk jug boat.

Bennett had more of a Tom Sawyer raft.  She built a dam to try to stop the flow and increase water depth.

It worked pretty well! 

Thanks to the rain, we had some puzzle time.  Ainsley is a puzzle pro.  I highly recommend the 300-piece puzzle for families of young school-aged kids.  It's just challenging enough to be fun but not frustrating.  And if a couple of people work on it, you can have it done in an afternoon.

And this is a really random one.  We road tripped to the "big city" earlier this week, just for fun on Dad's day off.  We passed a local ice cream joint and saw this giant South Dakota tour bus.  Standing outside of it were the Mount Rushmore presidents.  All we could figure is they must tour to promote South Dakota tourism.  It was hilarious to see all the adults standing right in front of them, taking their picture as if they were actually at Mount Rushmore or something.  I was not quite so fanatic...I took this picture from our car window as we drove by.

Memorial Day Highlights and A Chicken Named America

Memorial Day weekend was a little bit rainy.  Just a little.  Oh well.  We still managed to have a wonderful holiday weekend.  A few highlights...We had ice cream on Friday and again on Saturday.  We built boats to float down the gutter of our street.  We played games and did puzzles.  We watched a movie.  We went to church, ate some BBQ, caught a great sale at Menards and saw baby kitties.  We went to our friend's house for a breakfast party, we saw some flood damage, we saw both sets of grandparents and a few cousins.  I know I am leaving something out...oh yeah...there was a bit of drama to be had.  

We spent a short time at some friends' house Memorial Day afternoon, letting our kids play while we looked at their new (to us) chickens.  The chickens are great.  One of the chickens is named America.  Great name for a chicken.  Anyway, while we were there, two neighbor dogs came visiting while the chickens happened to be out of the coop for the kids to see and play with.  Dogs and chickens are not a good combo.  Panic and dismay erupted from the children.  The dogs were chasing the chickens.  The children were screaming.  The chickens were running and clucking.  The parents were...I don't know what we were doing.  It all happened so fast.  I was standing there saying nothing but thinking "We are about to see chickens die before our very eyes."  One of the dogs was unstoppable.  And sure enough, he grabbed America, who seems to be the favorite chicken of the family, by the tail feathers.  Picture this...clucking chicken running while clutched in dog's mouth who is also running, being chased by a handful of screaming children and one dad.  Oh, the irony of a chicken named AMERICA being killed on Memorial Day in front of innocent eyes.  Dreadful.  Fortunately, our friend (the dad chasing the kids and the dog and the chicken) was able to catch the dog and release America just moments before what was sure to be her death.  It was quite the ordeal.  I am thankful for the positive outcome.  Had things gone differently, America would have died on Memorial Day, which is tragic and symbolic and ironic and horrific.  We hope your day was eventful and fun and lacking in the type of drama outlined above.

Let Summer Begin!

School is out!  Let summer begin!

Here is Ainsley with her terrific teacher!  At the end of the school day her teacher and several students were crying.  It has been a very bittersweet end of the year for this group.  Ainsley was blessed with probably the best class a kid could ask for this year...such sweet, caring, well-behaved, excited to learn kids and an outstanding educator.  We are so thankful!

Bennett also had her best year yet!  Here she is with her teacher...who was an absolute perfect match for her personality and an amazing instructor.  Bennett also had really great classmates this year!  Again, we are very grateful!

After school got out, we headed out for ice cream with friends to celebrate.  This is a crazy crew right here!  Over the past year we have been able to spend more and more time with these families and we love the relationship we are growing with them!  We hope to hang with them a lot this summer!

On our first official summer night, Ainsley suggested an impromptu fishing trip to a family farm pond.  What an outstanding idea!  The fish were biting!   I am typically pretty boastful about my fish catching skills.  Quite often I catch the first fish, the biggest fish and sometimes the only fish!  Once again...here I am with the first fish and the biggest fish, thank you very much! 

The first catch of the night.  Poor sucker went after a cheap fake worm.  In fact, we caught all of our fish with fake worms last night.   

Everyone in our family caught at least one fish, which has never happened before.   Here is Bennett with her prize.  After an hour of waiting and about 30 seconds after she muttered, "Man, I suck at fishing," she reeled this fella in!  Nice job, Bennett!

Ainsley also caught a beauty!  She enjoyed touching the fish quite a bit!

Ainsley also released her fish for the very first time!  She is braver than me!  

And again...touching a fish.  We caught this guy on his neck-type area instead of his mouth.  Weird.  Here's to many more fishing trips and lots of summer fun to come!

The Only Sign of Spring

So maybe it's really cold.  So maybe there is talk of more accumulating snow in the coming days.  So maybe everybody and their dog is sick.  We know it is spring because of one thing....

CHICK DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!

Bowling and Bonding and Blowin' It Up!

We took the girls bowling for the very first time in our family history.  It was loads of fun.  Might I also mention it costs loads of money, so we probably won't go bowling often, but it was worth it.  Super fun!  I have posted a couple of videos.  Notice the sibling bonding, the use of fancy "blow it up" fist bumps to celebrate and classic bowling tunes.

Don't stop...believin'...

I am glad I caught them hitting pins on video.  Most of the time, they were gutter balling it, but they didn't mind at all.  We chose to play without gutter guards because it's no fun to bowl without some risk involved.  Living on the edge!  

The number of gutter balls is obvious when you see the final scores from game one.  Ouchy!  At least Dad broke 100!

And here he is, heading into the triple digits.  Did you know that Dad was in a junior bowling league during middle/high school?  Yep.  His team was named "The Bowling Butts."  Nice.  Very adolescent boyish of them to come up with such a name.   Well, obviously his time as a Bowling Butt paid off last night.  I will say that I kicked his bowling butt in the second game with my personal best of 125.  Anyway, scores aside, we had a really good time!  Next time we feel like burning 35 bucks, we're heading to the bowling alley for sure!

What's Been Up

We had a crazy, busy, fun weekend last weekend.  Lots of hangout time with lots of different friends.  We were pooped by Monday, but it was so worth it.  Here are some highlights from our Saturday friend fun!

We headed out of town to celebrate a friend's 35th birthday.  We left early so we'd have enough time to do a little dining and shopping before the party.  The destinations for food...Chik-fil-a and Scratch Cupcakery!  Amazing.  We waiting in a line of 50+ people for the cupcakes.  Worth it.

We tried a Samoa cupcake and a Shirley Temple cupcake.  Unbelievably tasty!

We didn't intend to wind up in a candy story, but Dad spied a wall of sodas and was mysteriously sucked in.  It was a pretty cool store and we enjoyed seeing several vintage candies from our childhood.

Oddly, the candy store also sold giant animal head masks.  Here is Bennett as a freaky mouse.  The onlookers behind her appear to be concerned.

And here we are, post candy store, celebrating with the birthday girl, our friend Heather!  We had such a great time at her Hollywood VIP party!

Here is a shot of the kids' table.  The big kid in the picture was completely in his element with them.  A kid at heart, for sure!

There was some fun dress-up at the party.  The kids loved glamming it up.  The grown ups did as well.

This picture is so ridiculous I had to include it.  You know you are having a good time when there are grown women in luchador masks and odd dresses from the 80's at a party.  Who needs alcohol to have a good time?  Really.  Not us, man.

And you also know you are at a good party when Dad is looking like this.  Oh, the shifty sideways eyes.  He was a good sport to let me take this picture, and he will hopefully be a good sport when he sees it posted to this blog.  Fun, fun Saturday!!!!

Selfless Love - The Nurturing Spirit of Mama Hotdog

Just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder...

May your Friday be filled with unexpected little joys!

Passing the Time

February is almost over!  Spring Break is coming!  There is light at the end of the tunnel!

In the meantime, here are a couple of things we've done to pass the time...

Today's snow day means a little indoor beach ball baseball.  It also means I dug out the tub of Cabbage Patch Kids from my childhood for the girls to play with.  Yes, I had several.  Yes, I still love them.

A couple of days ago we made hard tack.  Bennett had learned about it at school and had been begging to make some at home, so we did.  Hard tack, in case you didn't know (I didn't) was a hard cracker/biscuit thing that pioneers and Civil War soldiers ate.  If you make it a certain way and store it properly, it can last for fifty years!  It is made of lots of flour, a little water and salt.  Ainsley is poking holes in her cut dough, above.

Bennett is also poking holes.  Notice all the flour on her face?  She put that on there, you know, for effect.

We baked it FOREVER, and here you have it...hard tack.  Hard tack is H.A.R.D.  The girls think it is delicious.  "Delicious" might be too strong and positive of a word, in my opinion.

The best part of making the hard tack was the kneading of the dough...definitely the highlight.  We might make more to put in a pouch and take outside with us to eat while we play in the snow.  It's always fun to pretend you are crossing the plains in the winter,  eating hard tack, praying you don't fall victim to hypothermia or tuberculosis...toughing it.  Maybe we'll even get a nice fat buck with our bows and arrows.  A little venison to go with our crackers.  Who knows?!  Sometimes one must use a little imagination to embrace what's left of winter.  We can do that...for a few more weeks, anyway.

"All About Me"

Well, she's at it again.  Bennett is writing...and writing...and writing.  This time she had to write an autobiographical "book" for school.  It was called All About Me.  Below are a few excerpts from the book, which ended up being several pages long and full of text, drawings and photos.  I must say, I learned a few things about Bennett myself!

Above is a portion of her opening paragraph.  Bennett aspires to become a Big Foot expert!??!

The above selection is from her chapter on free time activities.  And the part about 50 pillows is no exaggeration.  Chances are pretty good that most people who read this post have been gifted with a handmade pillow from this girl.
 

Bennett included many photos that have now been marked up with arrows galore.  I did not know when I gave her the pictures that she's be arrowing them up.  Oh well.  Take special note of the little woman just to Bennett's left.  That's Grandma E.

Now note the reference to Grandma E. in the above excerpt.  "Peppy" and "spunky" are great words to  describe her.  What a wonderful, fun, sweet, loving lady we are blessed to have in the family!  

Finally, a snippet of her closing remarks.  I sure hope that everyone who reads her book has good intentions.  I also hope that Bennett is at peace.  One of the final lines she wrote after this that is not pictured was "If you didn't like this book, you have wasted precious time.  I apologize."  I assure you, Bennett...all who read will enjoy!  Time well spent!

Slow Saturday

Ainsley is on day 6 of the stomach bug.  She is showing slow signs of improvement, but she's still under the weather enough to keep us all home today.  It's a slow Saturday.  There are, however, big things happening with the "friends" at our house.

The sock dolls are on a pilgrimage.

And their friend, Mousey, is the guide.  Here he is, studying some maps in his bedroom before the dolls set off.  I'm told that Mousey is an old friend of the sock dolls' father, but they had a falling out of sorts and are no longer associating with each other.  I'm glad to see that Mousey hasn't let the squabble create a divide between himself and the sock dolls though.  Very mature of him.  

Clearly, we are desperate for entertainment over here today.