Clint and Marion's Visit

As usual, Clint came to hunt and it was Marion's turn to come with him this time! We had such a fun week with them here.  Their much anticipated arrival was met with squealing, jumping, and lots of hugs.  Here Q and J give Uncle Clint a welcome tackle. 

We got some snow so the Texas cousin got to have a little snow fun! 

This is a paper Nolan wrote in school.....

I left to go to the gym and came back to these 2 jokers who were both dead asleep.  

We went for a walk one afternoon and got to enjoy the snow with warmer temperatures.  Meanwhile Uncle Clint was out looking for a bear. 

A game of cousin telephone.  

Kanyon playing telephone is hilarious for a billion reasons.  

I'm pretty sure this was a structure Jaylie built for Balloony to stay in, complete with a sign that says 

"Nobody step"

One evening me and Clint took Marion, Q, and Juney out to the ranch to see if we could call up a coyote.  These pictures should give you a pretty good hint as to why we didn't see any animals....

They all got to blow on the call, look through the binoculars, and eat some snacks. So other than the actual animal part, the hunt was a complete success.  

Sweet little cousins snuggled up. 

Clint struck out on a bear this time, but he did kill this White Tail the last day.  

As Clint and Marion's trip was coming to an end, the second half of the party was just beginning.  We were all headed to Texas for Thanksgiving.  We had fun traveling together...

Boarded and ready....I will take this opportunity to tell American Airlines that I love them and they have made so many things so much easier for us by starting their direct flights from Billings and Bozeman to DFW.  The prices were way higher at first, but now they are as equally unreasonable as the ones that have layovers (which usually end in disaster for us) so we are SOOOOOOOO thankful to have these direct flights! 

klp assumes his travel position pretty quickly...

He did wake up for a little snack

Made it to DFW and waiting for our car! Great group of travelers! 

In all the craziness of the fun week and trying to get packed up to leave for Texas, we forgot to take a porch picture! Roselyn saved the day by drawing us a porch picture! It may be my favorite porch picture ever!!!  

Halloween and Snow.....already?!

Halloween day me and Jaylie went up to the school to watch the Halloween parade...

Kanyon and Mrs. Alex came in to the parade a little early so they had the whole stage to themselves! 

 Quinn's Halloween costume only works at night, so he was Kawhi Leonard at school.  We tried making a corn row wig but it didn't quite turn out.  

Mrs. Alex the troll with Kan Man the scuba diver! 

Here's a close up of Kan's oxygen tank.  This costume made me laugh so much.  I can't really remember how we decided on it, but we got a kick out of it.  

Q and his buddy Barrett at their classroom party.

I'm dying over the Minion here....

We finally ended the crib mattress business and got Jaylie an actual bed.  Funny thing is she felt like she was out of this world special for getting a real bed.  She kept telling me no one would believe she had a big bed.  So really its just further proof that you keep your standards super low (crib mattress past the age of 5) and when you hit baseline (actual bed) they'll think its out of this world! YAY! 

Of course I was a little sad to see the change. I'm sentimental about alllllll the little kid things.  (I will say adding the second mattress when Ellie was here did extend the life of the crib mattress.  She at least didn't flop onto the floor in the night anymore, she could flop onto another mattress....winning as usual.)

New mattress!!!! We actually did order a bed frame so she is now the only child in the house that is not sleeping on a mattress on the floor. She's the only person in the house with a head board.  She's the fanciest of all.  

Halloween fun!!!! There are some perks to having to live in town right now and one of them is our great Trick or Treat neighborhood! This was Jona's first year to really "get it" and we had so much fun.  It got a pretty rainy and yucky but they were total troopers! Kanyon has zero interest in trick or treating. I get it...he doesn't like candy and walking is a ton of work so he was pretty much done after our sweet old neighbor's house.  He came back to our house to help Gram and Chief pass out candy while the rest of us trick or treated.  

Kanyon the scuba diver, Jaylie the Rainbow Trout, Jona Winnie the Pooh, and Q the glow stick man! 

Y'all...Rainbow Trout??? Where does this kid get her ideas? This was quite the challenge for me, but I had fun with it and she was thrilled with it and didn't seem bothered when no one knew what she was! When it started raining she just said it didn't matter to her because she was a fish and fish are used to the water. 

The eyeballs were my favorite part.  

How cute is this Pooh Bear with her honey jar!!!! 

There's no denying that Quinn is my brother Clay's clone on the outside, but otherwise, Quinn is so much like his Daddy.  Even down to their heels.  Neither one seem to be bothered by gigantic holes. 

Juney spent the night with Jona...here they are watching their movie before bed.  Sweet little girls. 

And just like that we are outside playing in the snow.  Check ya later pretty fall days....time for this stuff.  

I can't remember now what they were doing...maybe getting the stragglers out of the mountain pasture??? But I got this picture from Kory and loved it!