Montana!

Giddy up! 

We had a fantastic little trip to Montana this weekend. There were a couple horses I wanted to try out, as well as a gracious friends' offer to stay in a beautiful cabin in Red Lodge. How could we pass that up?

We're not in North Dakota anymore!

We started the trip with a rather chilling airplane ride. The heater wasn't working. I don't really want to talk about it.

Love that he can write his letters so well!
He copied the words from a snack he was eating... hilarious.

But our feet all thawed out, and we forgot all about the frigid temperatures that 2 hours in the winter sky produce.

Hellooooo Montana! (Notice the hand holding kiddo from toppling over mountainside.)

The highlights of my trip were as follows:

1) Riding a couple beautiful Friesian cross horses that I am considering buying... I am pretty sure they wanted to come home with me.

He had the most beautiful, long mane and tail!

2) The steam sauna in the shower at the cabin. No photo. But 15 minutes of bliss. And the only 15 minutes I wasn't holding the 6-month old who loves her mama. Well, except for when I was horseback riding. But she was screaming for me then, does that count? This could easily compete for the #1 spot on my highlights list. But that would just seem selfish.

3.) Rangers with tracks.

We all fit inside!

Pit stop.

Our posse. A four wheeler with some crazy snow tires and an identical tracked Polaris Ranger. It's pretty fun to play with other peoples' expensive toys! :)

I believe we were singing a preschool song.

Completely covered in snow! On the way back down the mountain...

View from the windshield.

The boys!

Deep snow on the road less traveled!

Back at the lodge...

Fresh mountain air!

A creek that runs right down by the lodge. Um... beautiful! Kind of wanting to move here!

Does This Register?

Ok. I'm just going to admit this, and then move on with my life.

I have a child that pees down air vents.

We discovered this last night. We noticed some paper sticking out of our 5 year old boy's (of course only a boy would do this sort of thing!) air register. Removing the grill revealed more crunched up paper, a marker, some toy cars, and... wait, what? OH NO! Oh... yes.

The discovery was a bit disheartening, to say the least.

I suppose you are all wondering what kind of punishment suits this type of deed. I wondered to. But it just sort of came to me. About two minutes after the discovery of the pee. So here it is. Feel free to copy this if your child urinates down the vents in their room.

• No free time- that's right, no playing and NO TOYS! (Unless we are all outside, for this is valuable and rare enough this winter.) Duration is the entire weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday.)
• Time will be spent working. I can come up with a hefty amount of chores for a 5 year old... it just takes constant management. He enjoys helping me, so I'm not even sure this punishment is severe enough!
• When he is too tired to work, he will trace and/or learn to write words that pertain to the... um, situation...
• When he is done tracing, he will become a student of duct work. See video below.

That about sums up the rest of my weekend. I'm keeping my head up, though.

After all, I only have three more children that could potentially do something like this.

Of Planes and Poets

We had our first family flight yesterday. It was successful. I can verify that my husband can fly an airplane. Up until this point, it has been all hearsay.

To prepare for the flight, we packed snacks. Lots of snacks!

When the kids' headsets came in the mail, Thor exclaimed "I have wanted one of these for years!"

How cute is this pink headset?

We decided to break the family in easy with a trip to Bismarck, which took only 30 minutes. It takes almost 2 hours in a car!

We spotted our homesite on the way out... {it's the upside down L shape}

Enjoying the ride! They did so well.

Arriving into Bismarck, ND... and scoping out the place we may want to eat!

When we got to Bismarck, we went into the FBO. As far as I can understand, it is like a gas station for pilots. It's pretty awesome and has nice restrooms and a living area with a water feature. Thor exclaimed, "This is a beautiful house!" while Maycee said, "Are we in Hawaii?"

We went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries and then to Bread Poets. I bought some lovely huge loaves of freshly baked bread and cinnamon logs. Delicious.

On the way home. Car seat got booted to under the hood!

Paying close attention to all that radio talk!

So tough missing that afternoon nap!

Loving it.

Now, when we got home the kids had to go to Grandpa and Grandmas' to tell them all about their flight. When we got back to our house we realized that the dog reached up onto our counter, pulled off the best loafs of Bread Poet's bread, and... yes. He ate about $16 worth of freshly baked, gourmet bread. I will have to make a blogpost about his obsession with bread some other time, when I don't feel like killing him.

Another trip, maybe?

D-Day

Today I took a deep breath... then escorted my oldest three into the dental office.

Helping little brother out last night

I was hoping for good news of healthy teeth and no cavities. We don't "do" juice normally, we eat healthy, brush every night... you know, I still worry.

Ok, I'm not this uptight about juice.

The great news was that the kids did so well. They didn't freak out or cry. Which is always a possibility; especially with my shy and cautious #2. Instead of acting scared, she just acted plain weird. Which I suppose is better than crying.

I normally try to prepare with a good book on the dentist... because if Dora or Little Critter say that something is fun or safe, well, than it just is. But you know, we've been more into a different set of books lately. And well, honestly, I just forgot. So this was all new and suspicious to Dax; but he was a good little boy and even picked out a lovely pink (yes, pink, sorry Dad!) toothbrush.

So brave!

Another brave soul!

I love that there is a children's dentistry in our town. Everything is set up so nicely for the kids and the staff is just wonderful. I can honestly say it was a breeze.

And the excellent news: no cavities! All of the kids have great teeth. The hygienist and doctor both commented on how nice of a color they were and how their diets must be very good.

Hooray for healthy teeth!

Camera Roll!

Oh, life. It is just full of little moments. Here are the ones I captured on my phone this week...

Sewing project: boot socks

Mama's hand on lock down!

Sewing project: ruffle tee

I discovered Overgram (text on instagram pics). This one made Leif laugh.
Backstory: It turns out our cat is a worthless hunter. But on a positive, I killed a shrew in the house with my bare hands and a plastic tupperware bowl.

Sewing project: footies and a cozy tee!

Laundry helper~ not!!

Sewing project: Christmas pajamas! 

We have had a week or so of beautiful frost on everything!

Another silly captioned photo... sorry...

Prairie grass in the frost.

Love that I still get fresh "flowers" everyday!

This girl!

Nose pinching session.  Don't ask.

Winter wonderland.

Best buds.

Sewing project: repurposed white dress to a new wintery dress!

What is this I see out of my mirror? My husband's new hobby!

Sewing project: grey tee! I've been on such a sewing kick... don't ask me when! (Ok, usually between 9pm-11:30pm)

So happy!

Look who found my camera!

All dressed up for church.

Lazy Sunday...

Four Months.

Well, Maren is four months old! And sadly, I have yet to break out the baby book and post write updates. Obviously I'm not good at that so much. But I will write a couple things here. Or shall I say, post.

She is wonderful and loving, and so loved.

She is fat. Rolls on rolls on rolls.

She eats a lot. She still eats twice in the middle of the night, usually at 12 am and 4 am. I absolutely love getting up in the middle of the night. Oh wait. No, I hate that. 

But I love her.

She is grabbing things! She loves to grab things and taste anything that comes close to her mouth.

She giggles.

She does not appreciate a car seat. Like, ever. Which is unfortunate.

And then there is this one. She cut these trimmings from the Christmas tree. When I asked why she did such a thing, she said that it was for her nest. Oh, of course.