Fall Festivals and Everyday Stuff

 One weekend in early September, our town had the annual Chokecherry Festival.  There was a big street dance with a live band one night then the next day there were several different activities and Main Street was full of fun booths.  The weather was nice and warm and we had fun walking through looking at the goodies and visiting with everyone that was there.  Here's the view from near the top of Main Street.  

We came home with this gem.  A bow and arrow with giant soft ends.  A total craft fair treasure. 

The next day in a town about 20 miles (teeny tiny town) they had their Bale Trails What The Hay event.  There's a stretch of highway where everyone decorates hay bales or makes hay sculptures, etc. and the highway is full of people driving by to look and take pictures.  There's a contest and some other little events that go with the festival, but we missed those. We just drove out that Sunday evening. I LOVED IT! I was cracking up all night at the different plays on words people thought of.  Not to mention how great some of these sculptures were.  We had a blast. I ended up taking pictures of pretty much every single one but I managed to narrow it down to a few of my favorites for the blog.  

This might've been our overall favorite

These were at a little park area so you could get out and see them.  The elephant was attached to a water hose somehow and when you pressed a button, water shot out of the elephants nose! 

See the needles in the hay stack??! I thought this was so creative!   

I think "Haypunzel" won overall. It really was pretty impressive.

 This play on words still makes me giggle. 

Its hard to see the sculptures in the picture but they were great! I think this one got 2nd place. 

These were a few more of the ones we saw at the little park area.  

Juney girl was loving the puppies.

We enjoyed our little weekend of local festivals!! 

Here's a few shots of just our normal stuff: 

Like how much time my kids spend playing in the kitchen sink. Sinks are my best friends.  They occupy everyone and keep everyone happy!  

Even though it wasn't cool enough to need clothes, we figured jjp better get her winter hat ready just in case.

Little Mommy keeping her baby warm after a bath. 

The fall weather has been AWESOME!!!!!  We've loved it. Even our train set had to move outside.

Shaggy haired Kanyon got a haircut.  We've had VERY bad luck with barbers in this town, so I refuse to go to a barber, especially since I wanted to keep klp's hair long.  I called the girl that cuts everyone's hair that I know.  She's so sweet and did such a great job cutting his hair. She kept it long and shaggy, but shaped it up a bit.  The boys got the biggest kick out of going to a BEAUTY SHOP like girls do! They thought it was hilarious.   

Rachael had jjp hypnotized tickling her back! 

Me and Quinn had gone for a little bike ride/walk and he stopped by the creek by our house and said "Mom, I'm just gonna sit right here by myself and watch the creek".

We had to have 2 giant trees cut down in our yard.  It provided great entertainment all day long! 

This was later in the day when they were just grinding up the stumps.  We saw it all happen from start to finish! 

These 2 little monkeys are playing together better and better.  The 3 days klp is at school, they do pretty good playing together and having a good time....with minimal whining.  Win for mom. 

Gay Gay sent some new shirts! They were so happy to put them on and take a picture for her.  Obviously jjp had been crying about something. I'm sure it was a big deal and she screamed loud for a very good reason. Not. 

One day me and Kanyon hit the road to Billings before the sun came up.  He had a Dr. appointment at 8:00 and then another one at 4:00.  After his first one we played in a nearby park then I told him he could pick the lunch spot.  He said "DO THEY HAVE WENDY'S HERE??!" and he was PUMPED when I told him there was a Wendy's and we could eat there.  For a week straight he would randomly say, "Thank you for letting me eat at Wendy's mommy." We at lunch and then ran tons of our "big city" errands and he was such a trooper!  We went to his last appointment and made one more stop after that.  By the time we got home it was almost 9:00. LOOOOONG day, but good.  We liked the Doctors that we saw and I enjoyed spending the day with Kanyon.  

Football and high heels.  She's cray.

Best game ever.  All 3 can play without assistance! 

Kory's mom ran across this awesomeness.  When Kory was in high school his friends called him Phipps.  There for a few years he was the basketball king of the town and apparently there was a Phipps Fan Club complete with Tshirts! Someone gave KLP one and his mom kept it. I'm sooo glad. He's totally embarassed by it, but I think its pretty hilarious! 

Littla Mama has to feed her baby. 

We had a little cold snap, that luckily only lasted a couple of days.  Q went with KLP to salt cows/check cows/ whatever else one morning.  I had to bundle him up. I thought they sure looked sweet headed to the pick up to go to work. 

And this may be my all time favorite thing Kanyon has ever done.  Most of you that know klp know that he has a serious obsession with smelling hair.  He loves it and does it all the time.  Well, he brought home a 5 senses book from school and when I got to this page I almost died laughing.  Truer words have never been written! 

Spencer Cousins Come to Lewistown!

After a great few days in Yellowstone, we still had another week together in Lewistown.  We had fun just being together around the house and town, as well as lots of fun out doing some ranch things. 

Some pretty cute cargo in the back of the Ranger

Monday they were preg testing, so Clay was helping and we took the kids out to watch.  It makes for some interesting questions from the kids, but we all got a kick out of it and they got to see the guys working with the cows.  And play with sorting sticks.  It was a good day! 

Lots of apples were falling off the tree, so everyone was snacking on an apple when the work was done. 

We went for a ride in the Ranger.

Tuesday Kory worked and Clay stayed in town with us and we went on the walking trails and played at the park.  I'll probably say this over and over but the weather was PERFECT! I went ahead and sent klp to school his 3 days so he missed a little fun, but he still got in on plenty of it when he got home. 

Jaylie LOVED her some Aunt Mo all week! She talked about her everyday for at least a week after they left! 

klp had show and tell at school one day, so he took his cousins! He also took his bike to ride for his class so it was lots of fun! Here's the show and tell crew ready to show off for Kan's class! In the chaos of it all, I got no pictures, but it was fun for klp and all of us! 

Wednesday, KLP and Clay were moving cows and trying to find a lost bull and get him in and doing a few other things, so we went out there to visit.  We ended up counting hay bales which, of course, led to all sorts of fun running around on top of the bales. 

On Friday we took the whole crew up to the mountain pasture thats up in the Snowies.  The cows needed salt/mineral so it was a good excuse to take everyone up there and see that.  It was such a fun trip. We saw elk, deer, and of course lots of cows! 

We went to see the old cabins that are up there. I think these were built by/for sheep herders back in the day. This particular piece of land was acquired by Kory's grandad so he didn't put these cabins up, but they were used for the sheep herders to stay in while they had their sheep up there.  

Carved on the inside of one of the cabins it said "May 24, 1939"

Inside the other cabin it said "Donald made is cabin in 1941" We are thinking Donald made a type-0 (carve-O???) and meant to say "this" cabin.  Either way, Donald built a cool cabin.  

The kids found a stump that was obviously a drum.  

Sweet Mallory looking at the cows.

If you look closely you can see black dots that are cows.  Otherwise its just a nice shot of the side of the hill and a beautiful sky! 

Saturday we spent most of the day out at the ranch.  The kids had fun with the kittens.  Not sure the kittens can say the same. Please look at Ellie's face!!!!!! Sweet thang. 

Mallory, Ellie, and their Daddy.  

Each kid got a turn to ride Cash around the corals.  Kids on a fence is always picture-worthy! 

Avery!

Kan Man! 

Mal Mal!

Lou Lou!

And last but not least "Wanna ride 2 girls??!" They said No, but were outvoted by the adults so we got them on for a quick second.  

After the horse rides, we headed up to The Butte at sunset.  Awesome. 

The big kids.  (and me holding on to klp hiding behind the rock.)

Mostly when I see this picture I just feel so full of everything good.  Joy, love, happiness, thankful for family, and especially family that travels to see us.  But there is also a part of me that looks at these next 2 pictures and wonders why everything is a weapon in Quinn's hands and why he has to look like he's in a battle with someone when he's holding a "weapon" in a picture.  There's no such thing as "just a stick" and there's for sure no such thing as holding one in a picture and SMILING! sheesh.  

Awesome kids-awesome view. 

My peeps

This picture doesn't come close to capturing the sunset, but they're just unreal.  The colors in the sky were incredible. 

We came down from The Butte and rode over to The Clearing for a cookout.  This is what we did with pretty much everyone this summer, but our days are much shorter now, so it was dark and a little chilly.  But we had a blast.  It really was the perfect way to spend our last night together. 

It was a perfect evening until it was over.  We had tired kids that had played hard all day, so we finished up the cook out and headed down the mountain in the Ranger/Rhino.  Then there was a tree fallen on the road.  Clay and Kory tried several different things but we ended up having to hold the tree up to drive the Ranger under it.  By "we" I mean Me and Clay.  By "me" I mean this out of shape mom who doesn't lift anything but kids all day.  Turns out they needed someone responsible (Kory) to drive the Ranger so that left me and pregnant Mo.  So I was the mountain woman for the job.  Despite a few close calls, I didn't break my back, Clay's chest wasn't crushed by the tree, and the Ranger wasn't even scratched.  

Here's Aunt Mo and all the kids watching the show.  

By the time we got past the tree, it was SUPER late and the already tired kids cashed it in.  This was them when we got back down to where our cars were.  They were all snuggled up and all sawing logs. 

Sunday we had matching little cousins at church.  They were constantly yelling "MINE!" at each other all week, but other than that I think they really do love each other.  See, jjp is probably eyeing some toy off to the side making sure Ellie doesn't get it before she does.  

THEY SHARED THE CAR!!! 

 Mallory and Jaylie having a little snuggle time. 

Just helping each other through the tall grass.  

Aunt Mo, mother of 4 girls, fixed hair every morning and one morning we finally got June to agree to let her put pigtails in (I may or may not have bribed her with candy). It was an excellent use of candy because LOOK!!!!! 

jjp was so proud and I think I kinda teared up a little.  She looked so big and girly! 

We drove about 45 min. away to an elk viewing place.  There are HUNDREDS of elk that come adn you can hear them bugle and watch the bulls fight. Its so awesome.  We were very excited about this trip but it was almost ruined by MOSQUITOS! They were swarming like nothing I've ever seen before.  We couldn't even get out of the car! You couldn't see, your whole body was covered! It was AWFUL! This was Kory's attempt at getting out of the car....We were disappointed that the mosquitoes put a damper on things, but we still saw the elk, heard them, and watched a few fight. It just means we will have to bring this bunch back to redeem the trip and get the full experience!  

Is there anything better than this??????????

I'll never stop saying how much I love my family and I'll never stop saying how thankful we are that people are willing to come see us. There is no easy way to make the trip, but the fact that people do it means so much to us! We had a blast with the Clay Spencer crew! Love Love Love!