The Mighty Grasshopper Hunter

Carter's new passion this summer is hunting grasshoppers. (Yep, we moved from worms to beatles to grasshoppers...) She will spend hours outside wading through my flowers (her favorite hunting location), the tall grass, and tromping through the garden looking for prey. Fortunately for her, this has been a big grasshopper year, so they are everywhere, eating up what few flowers I have that survived my husband and the dogs, along with my garden and everything else. I really hate grasshoppers, especially when there are this many, so I've done whatever I can to encourage her to keep hunting. The only downside it that she likes to bring them in the house and show you naturally--which means I have a house full of runaway grasshoppers happily feasting on my house plants! We're working on a more strict "No Grasshoppers Allowed" policy for in the house, which works great until she gets all excited about the newest catch and just has to come show you!

She has a little red purse that she really likes to fill up with grasshoppers and take places with her, which also means I have a car full of grasshoppers. It's so funny, especially when she wants to show people her treasures in her purse. Aunty Linda was pretty sure she had some girly stuff, like lip gloss or fingernail polish, but no, not my little girl. She had brought her purse full of grasshoppers over to Aunty's house--who was less than impressed. I think Aunty may have too many of her own to fully appreciate Carters hunting and sharing skills for this particular pest. Robert had given her some kind of a box to put grasshoppers in and I could hear her calling to the grasshoppers to "C'mere, come jump in!" It was hilarious, although I'm not sure she got any convinced to come check out her box that manner. I've got buckets and boxes and jars outside full of the nasty critters that slowly disappear when the mighty hunter isn't looking, which just means she'll have to hunt some more up today and fill everything back up!

Carter and Hadley

Walking up to see Grampa combining the wheat, Carter insisted on bringing Hadley--on her leash naturally. Cater loves dragging Hadley around with the leash. Hadley isn't quite as crazy about it, but is getting resigned to it. We nearly had a catastrophe when Cash, the other dog, chewed the leash in half. Luckily my cousin's husband Aaron, who is a saddle maker, was able to sew it back together and save the day. Yay Aaron! Anyway, I just thought these were pretty cute pictures. I might be biased though...

It's pretty funny to watch Carter try to play fetch with Hadley while Carter is trying to keep a hold of the leash. Well, funny on grass, not quite so humorous on the gravel since Hadley is a fanatic fetch player and has a tendency to yank Carter right off her feet. Carter keeps insisting on trying though because she figures that is the easiest way to get the ball back from Hadley. At any rate, Carter really likes our new little dog.

Combine Ride with Grampa!

My dad and brother have been working hard the last couple days to get all the wheat cut just up above the house, first time in many many years that the custom combiners haven't cut all the wheat. Carter had been watching the combines go by and was pretty sure she needed to go for a ride. So this afternoon when we could hear them running, we figured we better walk up and see if we could talk Grampa into a ride. One of my favorite things (among a whole list full!) that I love about this little girl of mine is her adventurous spirit and how she isn't afraid to try new things.

We didn't have a tough sell getting Grampa to take her for a ride. All we did was stand by the road where he could see us and look cute--well she did. I'm doing the small minivan look right now which might be a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure cute isn't on the list.

Grampa and Carter off for their ride. One more reason I love living here!

Big Splash

Aunty Linda, Aunty Gwynny and my cousin Wynne bravely loaded up an untold amount of kids (my best guess is that there may have been at least 10), along with Carter and took them all to the Big Splash water park in Billings. I really hadn't thought about taking her, mommy brain forgetting that she is almost 3 and a very adventurous little girl at that who loves new experiences. According to my Aunty (who I'm hoping got some great pictures?? Click here!) Carter had a ball. She hollered for about 2 seconds when they dipped her in the cold water, then she saw the first kid go down a slide and she was raring to go. Apparently she spent almost 4 hours running up the slides as fast as she could go with occasional brief food breaks. Talk about one tired happy little girl when I got her! She didn't take a nap, and didn't go to bed until her normal time, but then slept most of the next day, all tuckered out!

I'm so very lucky to live surrounded by my family who are so wonderful about giving all these kids running around her lots of fun opportunities while growing up. They, particularly my Aunty Linda, seem to go out of their way to provide all these ranch kids with plenty of opportunities for plenty of work and play--both of which I think they need. I just feel blessed because I don't always seem to have the time to take my little girl all the places I wish I could or give her all the opportunities I would like her to have, but my family sure seems to fill in the gaps nicely.

Thank you all so much for taking Carter. She had SOOO much fun and that just makes her momma so happy.

6 Years Together!

Today is our 6th Anniversary. It almost seems strange to me that we've only been actually married for 6 years. It feels like he's always been a part of my life and I certainly can't imagine it without him around. We joke that we are truly stuck together since neither of us feel brave enough to raise Carter by ourselves! In true "us" fashion, we are just spending the day at home--cleaning up and working outside. I didn't even get to make a nice breakfast since Carter insisted upon Cinnamon Toast for breakfast. However, I did cook a nice dinner since he took Carter to town with him and gave me a chance to take a nap. (That is true romance!) I imagine, we'll take a date night here real soon--it isn't important to either of us that we celebrate it right away today. I thought I'd answer Kendra's quiz since she tagged me and today seemed like just the right day to do it. I was a bit hesitant to answer it, since my answers are going to be a big crazier than hers...by far. I certainly didn't meet my husband at a campus ministry dinner at my parents house... Anyway, here goes:

I'm doing this in response to being "tagged" by my best friend in third grade Kendra. It a survey about my hubby.

1. What is his name? Robert and no, he doesn't go by Bob or Rob or any other nickname generally, although there are a few people who insist on trying to call him Bob. Cracks me up.

2. Who eats more? Unfair question since I'm pregnant. I plead the 5th.

3. Who said, "I love you" first? He did for sure. : ) It might have been all the drinks (see question 19)

4. Who is taller? Definitely Robert. I like the tall dark and handsome look.

5. What happened to Question 5?

6. Who is more sensitive? Depends on the issue, although I suppose mostly me. He is very sensitive to me serving casserole, eating leftovers, and not folding laundry right out of the dryer. (He seems to be getting a thicker skin though since he really doesn't want to do the laundry himself)

7. Who does the laundry? In Colorado, Robert did it all, but since we moved to Montana, it's been all me. I think my dad is a bad influence with his "good girl magic" talk. He will help out on occasion though.

8. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Oh who really wants to know the answer to this? Another question I'll plead the 5th. I pretty much take up the whole bed. I do NOT do small cute pregnant.

9. Who pays the bills? We both do right now but soon it will be just him. I am however the official checkbook bitch bookkeeper who zealously oversees spending and actually writes all the checks out for the bills and tries to keep Quickbooks and Quicken up to date.

10. Who cooks more? Oh, I suppose I do 98% of the cooking but every once in awhile Robert will cook or resort to making PB & J and beans for dinner when I'm on a cooking strike. He's actually a great cook, but the mess is almost more than I can stand! His chicken scampi is worth the mess though.

11. Who is more stubborn? Him, no question. And I know where Carter got it too. (Robert would probably answer this question differently...). Hmm...so might some of my family, but hey this is my quiz.

12. Who is the first to admit they are wrong? I'm never wrong! Silly question. We very seldom have to resort to admitting fault. Much better to agree to disagree or agree that the other person might just have interpreted the situation incorrectly.

13. Who has more siblings? That would be me. 3 to his 2.

14. Who wears the pants in the relationship? Who thought up these questions? Me naturally except when I let him. As if... I think the general idea is that we work together pretty well as a team and there are some things that he's in charge of and some things I run. Most big decisions, we consult each other. In theory anyway. He also has a bad saying about how it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission...

15. What do you like to do together? At the moment, parenting one high energy little girl and trying to keep this place from falling down around our ears. We actually like spending time at home working on this place and trying to get it fixed up. Good thing since we are no where close to being done. We both like to ride and can't wait until all the kids are old enough so we can all go out together. Vacationing is something that will also wait until the kids are a little older. He's such a big kid that I think it's going to be so much fun doing some touristy stuff with the kids and him.

16. Who eats more sweets? Robert by far. He doesn't just have a sweet tooth, he has like 5 or 6. Chocolate cake generally works well when I make casserole to keep him from pouting. It does make him suspicious now when I make though.

17. Guilty Pleasures? Bull riding. Every chance he gets, he's off to Colorado to help out with one of the bull ridings down there. Luckily he doesn't ride anymore though. He likes to go to roping clinics when he can. Critters. Loves filling the house and the surrounding areas will all the critters he can catch and drag home. Bunnies, cats, dogs, calves, horses, etc. Oddly enough, shopping. Robert loves to go shopping...particularly pawn shopping, garage sales, etc.

18. How did you meet? Yep, in a bar. Definitely not at a church social.

19. Who asked whom out first? Umm, that would be me. He wouldn't dance with me so I kept giving him drinks until he would. Apparently it worked!

20. Who kissed who first? Oh, well no point in being bashful at this point, I'm sure it was me too.

21. Who proposed? He did, but I think it was simply because he couldn't figure out a way to get rid of me. I had pretty much decided he was just the one I wanted. I had to work on him a bit to convince him though...although he wasn't that tough to convince. It might have been my cooking...He'd almost never had anything baked from scratch, so it might have been an unfair advantage. Hey, whatever it takes! But I damn near had the wedding planned out before he ever got around to actually asking me. I had to trap him in Cheyenne during a snow storm to actually get the ring picked out and bought.

22. His best features and qualities? He is a wonderful dad and a pretty darn good husband. My family loves him (or at least does a good job acting like it around me) and he was great enough to move up here in the middle of all of them so that I could raise my kids here. It really meant a lot to me. He is also pretty darn handy to have around. Oh, and he puts up with me, that says a lot!

23. Tag you’re it. Who do you tag? I guess I tag Lyndsey since I haven't heard some of the answers to these questions about her and her husband.

Carter's Big Trip Part III: Wedding

It sounds like the Colorado wedding was very lovely on a beautify day for Kevin and his new wife Seneca. I was so sorry to miss the wedding, although not sorry to miss the drive or the trip... The wedding was held at Kevin's parents house, which is gorgeous, and they had went all out with landscaping this year to get everything just perfect. Carter loved the koi pond and if you couldn't find her anywhere else, checking the koi pond was a good bet. She really wanted to catch those fish! The picture above is of Seneca and all the groomsmen. It's a rare picture were Robert is the shortest guy shown! The picture below is of Kevin and his family.

I think this is the only picture Vashti managed to get of Kevin and Seneca together. It works though. I was lucky enough to meet Seneca when they came through Billings this week as part of their honeymoon/vacation. They had went up to Stillwater for whitewater kayaking and stopped in Billings for dinner with us. I wish them all the best!

Vashti may have caught the bouquet, but Carter was pretty sure it was hers!

Here she is sweet talking a couple of the groomsmen. My baby girl is a lot of things, but shy is never going to be one of them. Gramma Howell had sent the cute dress in one of her great boxes and I had to hide it for the wedding. She took one look at the dress and it was the just the thing she HAD to wear! Outside! To catch grasshoppers in! So mom hid it.

Lots of thanks to Vashti for taking most of the pictures on the trip. I also had about 200 other pictures of fish, butterflies, tigers, and all the sights. Robert took a few too, but mostly Vashti. Robert was pretty glad she came along to help out on the trip. Thanks TyTy!

Carter's Big Trip Part II: Tourist!

Our friend Kevin, who's wedding Robert traveled down to Colorado for, had rehearsals on Thursday evening. Did I mention that Robert was one of the groomsmen? The wedding wasn't actually until Saturday, so they had all day on Friday to play...after getting re-measured for a tux. (Robert, the skunk, had woke me up at 5 in the morning on the day he HAD to have his measurements sent to Kevin for the tux. Apparently my measurements were not as accurate as they needed to be.) Robert took Carter and Vashti down to Denver to check out the Downtown Aquarium first. Carter loved looking at all the fish, but her favorite part was feeding the stingrays.

Apparently you just put a little fish between your fingers and held it under water. The stingray would swim over top (since their mouths are in the middle) and then suck it out of your hand.

Checking out more fish with Dad...

and with Vashti.

Carter was also very impressed with this bubble that allowed you to look at fish in the middle of the tank. I think you had to crawl down under the tank to get to it.

Last stop was the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster. Robert had decided against the Children's museum, but thinks she'd rather go there next time since it was all hands on. Carter got pretty tired of checking out butterflies pretty fast when she discovered that No, she couldn't catch them and put them in a bug jar. (We keep a big bug jar in our house that always seems to be full with her latest treasures. Rules of the house: If you bring in bugs, they go in the bug jar and the lid has to stay ON in the house!) She did really like the tarantula though. They had one on display that you could hold, although she was disappointed she couldn't take it home.

Vashti was NOT interested in holding the tarantula, although Carter, naturally was first in line.

Carter's Big Trip

Carter took her first big trip to Colorado for a friend's wedding with Robert and left mom at home. He really wanted her to meet his friends and was actually looking forward to the trip. For me, the prospect of 4 whole days to myself was way more exciting than trying to get up the ambition to go with them, and especially with Number 2 coming, this would be my last big hoorah to clean and get things ready for one more kid in this house. The idea of me traveling to Colorado, 8 hours on the road, with a toddler, in the heat of July didn't really appeal to me at all, as much as I would have loved to have been at the wedding and the chance to see some of my friends still living in Colorado. Not to mention that the timing was really bad for my job since most of the office was in Hawaii for our User's Conference and I was the main person in charge of customer support. (Yep, I volunteered to stay here...Hawaii, 32 weeks preggo, 8 hours of flying and hauling luggage, again didn't have much appeal...) Robert is much much braver than I am to take that little girl all the way down to Colorado in a car. And against all odds, Carter was wonderful for the whole trip, and just had a ball. Vashti, my little cousin, went along to help with Carter and really made the trip fun as Carter loved having her along. Wednesday night we got the car all packed...we ended up borrowing Aunty Linda's car who was gracious enough to lend it out for the cause as it was a Subaru Outback and had more room than my car (not to mention better tires!) We didn't get everything packed until almost 11 pm since Robert didn't even get home until almost 10. The car was packed full! I made darn sure that they had plenty of snacks, beverages, extra clothes, blankets, pillows, toys, books, movies...every space inch was full! They also had a saddle to drop off in Brighton for a show! Robert thought I was crazy packing all that stuff but later called to thank me!

Robert didn't actually get out of the house until 4:30 am (yikes!) on Thursday morning. Carter was so excited about the trip, it was all I could do to get her asleep by midnight, and by 4:30 she woke right back up and happily hoped in the car, gave mom a quick "hurry up and let me go now!" kiss and away they went. Carter and Vashti sorta slept on the way down, although Carter didn't fall back asleep until after they had gotten past Sheridan. Pancakes at McDonalds seems to settle her right in for sleeping.

To all our amazement, Carter had ton of fun on the trip and was really good. No temper tantrums or nothing. Fairly amazing. Robert credited it to me not being around. Sigh. I do have to admit she is better behaved when mom is gone. Sad truth, but every other mother I've ever talked to seems to hear the same thing too!

Grampa to the Rescue

A couple weeks ago, Grampa showed up with his handy dandy sandbox kit and fixed up a great sandbox for Carter. It's a little redneck being an old tractor tire and all, but Carter loves it and to be honest, it rather fits in with the decor around our place right now anyway. I rather like that the rubber is a bit more forgiving if you fall on it. Carter has already clocked in hours playing in her new sandbox. Thanks Grampa!

We had a tough time even getting Carter to get out and pose for a picture with Grampa. She spent most of the afternoon in the sandbox happily playing while mom worked outside. Robert would like to eventually bury part of the tire so it's not so tall and easier for Carter and Number 2 to get in and out of, but for now it's working great. The dogs even seem to be keeping the cats out of it, which is also a bonus!

I love that I'm surrounded by so much of my family! It just makes things so much easier and funner with little kids.

Playing at Aunty's House

Carter's been spending a fair amount of her summer over at Gramma Aunty Linda's house. With all the other kids and commotion going on over there, I think it's been a pretty darn fun place for her to be, not to mention all the favorite movies, stickers and treats...I think the living is pretty easy over there. She likes getting in the swimming pool, but does NOT like to be splashed or get her face wet right now. (However splashing others and the dog is acceptable naturally)

Carter swimming with Sterling and Ashley.

With lots of ponies around, Carter is generally always up for a ride, and here Blake was leading Carter around on Mikey.

Carter also really loves the garden and eating as many peas as she can find. She also enjoys trying to feed them to the horses, carefully doling out one or two here and there. It's been so nice to have Aunty Linda so close by (about 2 miles up the road). We tried to go home yesterday and eat some of the peas out of my sadly neglected garden, but a baby flycatcher had fallen out of his nest right into the peas. The parents were frantically flying around trying to figure out what to do and there was quite a commotion going on. Carter really wanted to see the baby, so we got out an umbrella and carefully snuck up to the garden to take a peek. It looks like he was just about big enough to start flying, but hadn't gotten up the nerve just yet. (He did need to hurry it up a bit with my 7 hungry barn cats prowling around). Carter tried to pet him and he let out a terrific squawk and boy did that get the mommy bird all sorts of excited. We hightailed it for the house, umbrella or no, and decided it would be best to try to eat peas tomorrow.

Computer Issues...

I've been having lots of issues with my computer in the last couple weeks that is giving me lots of extra grey hair that I seriously didn't need. My Internet has been on the fritz, first with an old system that randomly worked when ever it wanted to and was slow, to a new system that keeps randomly dropping service for a few minutes here and there throughout the day and doesn't seem to be a whole lot faster yet. Then my darling daughter somehow managed to jam up my printer and it refuses to print the color black. The color works fine, but no black. After consulting with a couple repair people, I decided to just buy a new printer. I extensively researched and bought exactly what I wanted, jumped for joy when it showed up, and 6 hours later (most of it on the phone to the HP tech support) was ready to take a baseball bat to it. I figured I would at least get a few minutes of satisfaction out of the whole project with that approach. After deciding on second thought to wait a day or two on the baseball bat approach, I ran a bunch of updates and service packs for my computer as suggested by the HP Tech, and next thing I knew, my computer was giving me the blue screen of death!! Ack! (For the non-technical and the lucky enough to have never seen it: the blue screen of death is a horrible blue computer error screen that pops up and indicates you have really screwed up and need to start praying that you have your backups in order. Your computer basically refuses to work until you fix the problem--which is generally very technical in nature requiring expensive help and occasionally requires either a new computer or reinstalling everything on your old one) After two days of wasted work time, three expensive trips to town and two IT techs later, we finally figured out that my damn wireless keyboard was causing some of the problems. OK, so I plugged in an old keyboard and old mouse (that I hated to begin with because it occasionally skips and hops around the page in total disregard to the direction you may be moving it) and away I went for a couple days...only to discover that I also got that blue screen of death when I tried to plug my camera in to download all my new pictures. So, back to town again tomorrow with the computer and camera in hopes of getting this resolved with out having to buy a new computer. I've got some pictures that I managed to download before all the drama began that I will try to get posted today and hopefully will have the rest to download soon!

The little chef

On Saturday while I was cleaning up the kitchen, Carter kept running into the kitchen grabbing a fork here, then a cup, then roaring back in for water, measuring cups. Finally curious (yes, mom is a bit slow these days...) as to what she was up to, I followed her outside where she informed me she was making muffins.

Naturally muffins need lots of water in the muffin tin, preferably from a tea pot.

You also need a fish squirt gun...

And then put them in the oven! I really got a kick out of her narration as she was cooking. She had quite the story to go along with the muffins. I so love her imagination even if it generally makes messes bigger than this one. The house will clean (eventually I promise) but the stories I will remember.

Christmas in July aka More Boxes from Gramma!

Yay! More boxes from Gramma Howell! Three boxes showed up this morning and Carter was very excited to tear them open. Lots of great clothes, books, a little baby rocker and bouncer, and even candy and balloons. Carter was most excited about the new swim suit with flotation padding and frog goggles which we promptly needed to try out over at Aunty Linda's pool. More pictures coming!

Carter impatiently waiting to open (rip, tear, and preferably shred!) all the boxes. She was not happy that we had to take a picture first rather than jumping right in. Mean mom had already made her wait until she got back from running around with Aunty Linda in the afternoon to open them.

My house looks like a hurricane hit with the main storm happily sitting in the midst of the chaos trying to get all the candy open.

Thank you so much Gramma! It's such a great help to get all the wonderful clothes for both Carter and Number Two! Carter has almost as much fun opening the boxes as finding out what is actually inside. She is convinced that all the little baby clothes for Number Two are actually for HER baby and will gather them up to put on her dolls and stuffed animals.

Jumping with furry friends

Carter decided that her dogs really wanted to jump on the trampoline with her this morning. Although Robert wasn't able to get a good picture with Cash in it, she had both dogs in there with her and she was just having a ball. Not sure the dogs were as excited about it, but hey, part of their job is entertaining my little girl! She's had the cat, Pete, on the trampoline before too and now he is a lot more careful...and faster.

My newest nephew has arrived!

My latest little nephew decided yesterday that he was ready to come out and meet the world!


Everett Phillips was born yesterday afternoon to my brother Clint and his wife Corinne. They both look pretty sleepy and very happy. (The sleepy part probably isn't going to go away anytime soon guys...).

My sister and I were excited to go in and meet him...this makes 3 little nephews for me and one niece so far. I just remember when I was pregnant with Carter thinking how sad it was that she was going to grow up without any cousins her age. At that point none of my other 3 siblings were even married much less worried about having babies! But, within a year of Carter being born, all three managed to get hitched and Christy was already pregnant with Jess soon to follow. Yay! Check out the little bitty foot sticking out!

He fits on my belly just right! Everett felt so tiny after lugging lil miss Carter around. Carter was never that small either...she was born weighing 8 lbs 9 ounces while this little man is starting out at 7 lbs 11 ounces--still pretty good sized. Still, I'm pretty sure I'm NOT ready to do this just yet, although my days are getting numbered!

Anyway...I wanted to hurry up and get this posted so our other sister Jess could see pictures too of the latest Hammond to join all of us on Haley Bench. I think Christy and Aunty Linda got lots of pictures too!

Sandbox Pretty Please?

Grampa, Dad...We really really need a sandbox pretty please.

Meet Hadley

Oh and yes, we've picked up another dog. (I'm hoping this is the last post of this kind for quite some time) She's a very nice little terrier. Robert thought she was a Boston Terrier but she doesn't look like one to me. One of his friends in Colorado had picked her up from another friend, but couldn't keep her anymore. At any rate, she's moved in and made herself at home. She's very sweet although not too sure what to think of Carter other than something to avoid when possible, tolerate when she can't hide. She's pretty much decided she is my dog and follows me around all day. Sigh, Robert isn't the only sucker around here!

Summer!

Yah, summer is here and its really starting to warm up finally. Not nearly as fun when you are very pregnant. Carter's loving the weather and being outside (sans clothing whenever possible naturally). I've been working on Robert and Dad to get Carter a sand box and need to get her small pool set up in the yard. We've been using a small stock tank, but it has to been cleaned out each time before we play in it.

I picked up several baby items from my sister and Carter has decided they must be for her and her baby. She's moved into the swing as her favorite new chair and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to convince her to let her brother try it out when he shows up. The picture above shows her fresh from sneaking the bottle of chocolate syrup outside and trying to eat it before mom caught her. I'm hoping she didn't think I wouldn't notice, since she'd tried to pour some in a cup and had chocolate smeared all over the kitchen floor and the refrigerator as well...

Carter all ready to go swimming again at Aunty's house. She was excited to go back and see all the cousins and play.

Our big dog Cash likes to nip when he's all excited to see you which Carter HATES. He doesn't nip hard but it's wet. She came running in the house mad because he had got her again. So, I gave her a fly swatter and sent her back outside and told her to whack Cash if he nipped her again. Pretty soon I could hear her out the kitchen window, calling "Cash, come bite me!" Not exactly what I had in mind. Oh that little girl just cracks me up!