Some Summer Pics

Sierra and Maddie

Sierra

Maddie

Happy Birthday Jake!

We celebrated Jake's Birthday last Saturday. We started out the day by stopping by Jake's favorite breakfast place, Wheat Montana, for their gigantic cinnamon rolls. Then we were off to the fair. This was the first time we have been to the Gallatin County Fair. Of course we wanted to show the girls all the animals. Maddie hated the pigs, but loved the sheep. I think Sierra's favorite were the sheep too. Sierra got a little unicorn painted on her face, but later told us she didn't like the unicorn, she wanted a butterfly... maybe next year. They started the rides up just before we were ready to leave, so we bought a few tickets and went on two very fun rides.

After the fair we went to lunch and headed home to relax a bit before it was crunch time to make a cake. I wanted Jake's cake to be special this year so I made him a tape measure. It turned out pretty cute. We invited our neighbors and Megan over for some cake. Overall it was a nice day. Happy Birthday Jake! We love you!

The 71 Ranch

Last week was the Ellison family reunion at the 71 Ranch near Elko Nevada. Jake's great grandpa Ellison bought the Spanish Ranch (Tuscarora Nevada) in 1935 (Sorry Margaret if I have the information wrong). The Ellison Ranching Company now has several ranches throughout Nevada. The 71 Ranch is a ranch the company bought and is turning it into a dude ranch. They have fixed it up and are ready for visitors. It is really a nice and relaxing place. We pretty much just sat around and visited and took a break from relaxing to eat. They have a cook at the ranch so all of our meals were very good and plentiful. The girls rode horses, played on the slip n slide and just ran around with all the other kids. It was really a great environment for a family reunion. Sierra found a new best friend, Great Grandpa Jones. She wouldn't leave his side the whole time. She always made sure to save him a seat next to her at every meal.

These girls just love horses. I am so glad they had the opportunity to ride one. Amigo was a very friendly and patient horse.

Slip n Slide time! They had a big slide set up for the older kids. It was a very long slide going down a very steep hill. Sierra begged and begged me to let her go on the big slide. She told me she's big now, so she can go down the big slide. I eventually gave in and she had a blast!

From The Desk Of

We are leaving for a family reunion tomorrow, Jake's moms side. One of the things we are doing is a silent auction. We are all suppose to bring something homemade to auction off. I made this little package. Inside this package are four cards - all different, four stamped envelpes, a magnetic post its thing for your fridge and a matching pen. I really like how it turned out. I am proud of myself for stamping everything. Lately I have been using printed patterned paper - so to stamp the whole thing was really fun. I love the way it all turned out and I am pretty proud of it really.

I Have Two Christmas Trees

We (when I say 'we', I mostly mean Jake) have been very busy around here doing a lot of stuff in the yard. Thanks to a very generous gift certificate to a local nursery from Jake's boss and his wife (Thanks Andy and Heidi!!!), we were able to get TEN trees for our yard! I am so excited about our trees. We got four Poplars, two Canada Red Cherries, two Elms and two Spruce trees (Sierra is so excited to have two Christmas trees in her yard). I love my trees! I could just sit and stare at them all day. It adds so much character to our yard. They are already quite big and beautiful!

Next is our walkway. We weren't sure what we wanted to do. We originally wanted to get some nice stones and place them in like bricks. Well, the stones we picked out would have cost us $600! No way! So, we priced out the cheapest bricks - $300 - still no way! Well, I noticed a bunch of old broken up concrete down the street from our house. So we took a bunch and set them out for the walkway to see how it would look. It worked! Free! Can't really beat that - especially when you have other things to spend your money on. We are going to plant grass in between all of the concrete. You can sort of tell it is concrete but it still looks nice. It will look really nice once we get some flower beds, bushes and green grass.

Our fence. Jake has been working hard digging all the holes all by himself and packing all the dirt back in. It is definately a project in itself, but will look so nice when it is done. It will be the split rail type of fence. I can't wait until it is finished. I can't wait until the whole yard is finished! Thanks Jake for all your hard work!!!!

Alfalfa Flowers

The girls looked so cute this morning picking the alfalfa flowers behind our house. The alfalfa is getting so tall and there are purple flowers popping up everywhere. I love looking out at our backyard and our views. Doesn't get any better than that. :)

Antelopes

We have a small little herd of antelope that hang out in the fields behind our house. We see them almost every day - usually in pairs. Today I looked out the window and saw this lonely antelope in our backyard. I have never seen them come that close to our house. If you look in the bottom right of the picture, those teepee things is where our garden is going to be - so he was right there, very close. Sort of exciting.

Later when we were outside doing some yard work. Maddie spotted a second antelope. I knew this one was a different one than the first because it had horns. We sat and watched it for a while. It even made an antelope noise for us. Then Daisy spotted it and that was then end of that. She chased it for a minute. It ran off and joined the first antelope which was in the back field - back where we usually see them.

Happy #2 Maddie!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADDIE! We celebrated Maddie's Birthday on Saturday. She was loving the whole Birthday thing. She knew it was her special day and I think she did feel special all day. We didn't do anything in particular, but we did celebrate with presents and cake. She was very good at opening her presents. Very neat and organized. She put every piece of wrapping paper on the ground and kept her presents on the couch. I don't think she even needed help opening them at all - but if she did, Sierra was right there waiting to help. :) It was fun celebrating. The girls even got to stay up late (to wait for Aunt Megan) and did a little dancing around the house to some loud music (thanks to all the sugar.)

I love the look on Sierra's face in this picture. She was so excited to see what Maddie got.

Maddie had a cat cake this year. He sort of looks like he's on drugs, but he was still good.

Blowing out the candles. Sierra got to help with this one.

Look!

Sierra: "Mommy, Mommy, look, come see!"
Sierra: "Look! REINDEER!!!"

There were three deer out our front window across the street. It was pretty exciting that the girls spotted the deer all by themselves and were so excited to show me. So we went outside and sat on our front deck and watched until the deer walked out of sight.

My Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day this year. We celebrated it on Friday (because I worked Sunday). I cleaned all day Thursday so the house would be super clean for me on Friday. I had the whole day planned out. Eyebrow appointment with Megan in the afternoon and date with Jake in the evening. That was it. Nothing else but relaxing. Gotta love those days. Well, my day started out good. Then on my way to my appointment I got a flat tire - were talkin' driving on the rim for two blocks. So, that was fun. I did make it to my appoiment but had to go to the tire store after. Luckily the place I took my tire to be fixed is right next to the mall. So we hung out at the mall for an hour waiting for the tire. By the time I got home it was already 5:00 (there went my peaceful, nothing to do afternoon). Jake got home shortly after me and brought me this BEAUTIFUL bouquet of flowers. He said there is suppose to be 100 blooms. I would say it's close. We went out to a nice restaurant that we had never been to before - The Willow Creek Cafe. It was a nice to spend an evening without kids (Thanks Megan!)

Today, the girls made bird houses. I found a cute pattern online and was anxious to try it out. I think they had fun.

I think the eye thing Sierra is doing in the picture is her new thing to do for pictures. She closes the one eye everytime I tell her to smile for the camera. Hopefully that won't last long....

At some point today Maddie managed to take off her overalls (her favorite pants) and turn them around and get them back on. She looked so funny wearing them backwards.