Chase at Young Riders

Chase is unfortunately completely fearless around all critters including horses.  He loved all the commotion at the Young Riders and all the horses!  It was quite a trick for me to keep him away from all the other horses and stop him from trying to crawl on, under, etc any horse he saw.

 I love the suspicious look Strawberry is giving Chase in this picture.  Smart horse!

Taking a short breather in the grass!

Young Riders

We thought it might be fun to take Carter to the Young Riders this summer and see if it was something she would like to do and maybe meet a few more kids to play with.  I underestimated how much work was involved and how many kids go to this!  However, I think she is going to enjoy the experience and she loves any excuse to ride her horse.  She's certainly got plenty of cowgirl attitude!

Robert helping get her all saddled up on Strawberry.  He explained to Carter that he had put on a more severe bit so she needed ask Strawberry nicely to do something before she just yanked on the bit.  Well, Carter took him literally and you could hear her, very nicely, asking Strawberry to "please pick up your head and stop eating grass".  It was pretty funny and cute. 

This was the first time Carter had every ran barrels.  Although she assured us she knew exactly what she needed to do, she'd been watching the other kids, Robert went ahead and walked her through the pattern. 

Her time certainly didn't win any speed records, but the run was clean and she was smiling when they handed her a participation ribbon.  Looking forward to doing it again next week and adding poles and maybe goat tying.  Goat tying looked too darn cute with the little kid riding down, hoping off the horse and tying a ribbon on the goats tail.  Hopefully we'll get a couple chances to practice before we go again. 

Mud Puddle Ducks

The ducks that Robert brought home this spring have had a pretty good wet spring.  Although we don't have any big water available for them, they've been pretty happy swimming in all the mud puddles in the driveway.  Carter is more than happy to help Mother Nature out in keeping the ducks plenty wet.  Here the kids decided to fill up one of the mud puddles.  Chase had to test out the water while the ducks are anxiously watching...

And some happy ducks!

We're hoping to move them down to Granny's pond in a few weeks when things start drying up, but so far they've been pretty happy around the Howell camp, other than when the kids chase them around!

More Riding lessons with Gramma Aunty

Linda sent over these great pictures awhile back and I'm just not getting around to posting them.  My little girl loves every chance she gets to ride, which isn't nearly often enough in her opinion!

Jaylyn, Sterling and Carter

She looks so darn cute and happy to be out riding!  We're so lucky to have a great horse for her to ride and a wonderful teacher living so close by!

Van Christopher Lundren's birthday!

My sister Jessica and Eric's little boy was born this morning, a whopping 8 lbs, 13 oz and 22 inches long.  Such a cutie!  He slept the whole time for his first meeting with his Aunty Jami, but that's ok, since I'm sure I'll get to see him a couple more times before he flies away to Slovenia.  I really loved holding him and watching him sleep; his nostrils would flare as he breathed.  However, I had ZERO inclination to ever go there again.  Very happy with my two, all done, thank you very much!  Still, they are fun to hold when they are sleeping at this size!

Meeting Gramps...also still asleep!

And the proud new momma!

Still waiting for Eric to make it here!  The volcano erupting in Iceland messed up his flights out of Europe and he spent several days trying to get to Montana, finally got a flight out of Rome and hopefully will get in by 11am tonight.  Left Rome at 2:30 am it sounded like, so one very long day for him and Jess both. 

Must be a boy thing

Chase is in LOVE with Sterlings dune buggy.  Everytime he sees it he can't hardly get over to it fast enough to climb in and pretend to drive around.  He doesn't really seem to want to go for a ride yet, although I'm sure he'd enjoy it.  Mostly he just wants to play!  Checking it out with Uncle Tricky...

And headed back for some more!

My baby's growing up!

Chase has really seemed to be growing up fast this last month.  He's added lots of words to his growing vocabulary.  His favorites include "outside", his very favorite place to be, "dunk", his work for drink, "yummy" for candy generally although he uses it for food too.  He calls most animals of a certain size "bunny" although he's working on chicken, doggy and kitty.  He also like "bonk" when he's trying to head butt you, and "Boom!" when running into things. 

He has really started to like wearing hats around, and Aunty Linda was nice enough to find him the great one on the last picture here.  He's been such a sweet kid, although he's starting to figure out temper tantrum.  I suppose it's about that time!

Riding Lessons with Gramma Auntie

Carter has been working with Gramma Auntie, aka Auntie Linda on learning to ride and having lots of fun.  She's doing really great considering she's only 4.  I love watching her whenever I get the chance although Chase seems to think riding lessons is a good time to see just what he can get into at Linda's house. 

Carter is very determined to ride all by herself so really loves riding in Gramma Aunties corral where it's safe for her to do so.  Now it's just working on remembering and applying everything Auntie's telling her!  I love the picture below, she looks pretty determined!

And headed back to the barn for more!

Carter and her Hero

Every little girl needs a hero, and I'm so glad mine has such a wonderful one: cousin Blake!  She was up for the weekend and Carter stuck to her like glue every chance she got.  She looks so darn happy whenever Blake is around it makes my heart happy.