Spiders, Hawks and Horses

The two year old came running out of the play room this morning, yelling to me that there was a spider down there.  I told him to squish it.  He was gone for a little while, then he brought me his teddy bear and asked me, "Can you help the bear squish the spider?" Lol.  My brave little man.

 On the way to see where the spider was, I found the five year old with a library book.  He had found the page of sticker dots that we had used to label Sadie a few weeks ago - each sticker has a horse part on it, and these were all the things that were more difficult.  We just labeled the easy stuff.  Anyway, thankfully the library is covered in a protective plastic ... which will make removing the stickers much easier - ha.

 We had a hawk hunting our gophers today.  It was right outside the window.  Such a great view.  This first picture was taken with my phone.  I had to run upstairs to get my camera for better pictures.

It was pretty cool to see the gophers' response.  This was the only one I could see anywhere.  We usually have at least 10 visible at once.  He knew exactly where that hawk was at all times - even when the hawk flew way up high and over the field in front of our house.  That's around 800 yards.

Yesterday the five year old had another riding lesson.  He was much more cooperative than he has been in the past.  It was the first time the kitty came out to the arena.  We used to have a cat that looked a lot like this one.

 When it was time to get on the horse he was ready to get right on.

Each week they have an activity to do while on horseback.  This week they had poles with colored cones on them.  Each cone had a ring on it in a different color.

They had to take the ring and ride the horse around the circle until they found a cone that matched their ring, and then put it on the cone.

 He did really well with matching the colors.

Riding the horse nearly put him to sleep though.  It must have been the rocking motion because he shouldn't have been tired at all.  But at one point they were having to hold onto him because his eyes were completely closed.  He seemed really out of it to me - not himself.  Not sure why, but I found this a little unsettling.

At the end, Sadie gets a treat - a grain mix.  He got to hold the bucket for her.

10 Mile Day

 I'll explain the 10 mile part in a bit.  But first, our 10 year old tried out for a play today - "Blackbeard the Pirate" - which is put on by Missoula Children's Theater.  Each year, they come to town for one week and put together a play by the end of the week.  Some of the moms were talking with them beforehand, and they said they travel 48 weeks out of the year, each week in a new location.  They also said there are 42 teams of 2 leaders who travel, so they must be in a ton of towns - in all 50 states, and 17 countries.  Pretty impressive.

Anyway, today was audition day.  They sure have a good system worked out.

 Our ten year old was selected to be one of the "lazy beach bums."

After two hours of auditions, they had a 30 minute break, then started their first practice, which went for another 2 hours.  The schedule is like that all week, with most days being 3:30-8 pm.  But it's only one week, so I think we can handle it.

I only sat in on a little of the end of their rehearsal, but it looks like it's going to be a really good play.  This is the first play he's ever been in, and after he was selected, he started really worrying about whether he could remember the lines.  He was hoping for few lines, but there are quite a bunch.  After the first rehearsal though, he's excited and enjoying it.

 While he was at practice, the rest of the family went out for Mexican.  We even had fried ice cream, thanks to it being someone's birthday.

When practice was over, we picked him up and headed home.

The sky was beautiful.

The day was not so beautiful.  It was extremely cold and windy all day, and we had blinding snow flying completely horizontally for parts of the afternoon.

Last night we had half a dozen deer in our yard.  They found some melted snow and were stopping for a drink.

 This is what it looked like one morning this weekend.  We had such nice mild weather at the beginning of the month, and now we're paying for it.  Sounds like the whole week is supposed to be cold and nasty.

 So here's the cake the ten year old made for my birthday, which also coincides with 10 Mile Day.  He was studying the transcontinental railroad a couple months ago and learned that I shared my day with a milestone in history, and from then on, has been planning to make the cake with a train theme.

Pretty good job - especially considering the two year old tore into it this morning and ate some cake and frosting while I was on the phone with a birthday well-wisher.  Yes, we're talking about the kid who is allergic to everything under the sun.  I gave him some benadryl, but he didn't react as badly as usual, so I'm hoping that's a sign that he's outgrowing some of these allergies.

The five year old has been obsessed with the lighter all day.  He told me to "fire up" my cake first thing this morning, but I told him we had to wait for Dad to be done with work.
 

We had to re-light the candles about 4 times because each time we got partway done, one of the younger two would blow them out.

Let's just say that when it was time to blow out candles, all I had to do was make the wish ;)

But thanks to the lighting and re-lighting, the poor little train got pretty toasty and the chocolate was totally melted on the side near the candles.

I ended up with some pretty good loot.  My Mom sent me some owl kitchen towels, which I LOVE. Mom and Dad each sent a card with money.

The boys had all sorts of things for me to open.

And there was plenty of advise and assistance in that department too.

The ten year old made some pretty cool things.  I should have gotten a better picture of this artwork - there are mountains and wildlife in this picture.

He made me a cool pop-up fold out card with a train theme.

They also got me a new hand mixer which I desperately needed since my old one died.  I have a big kitchen aid mixer, but sometimes it's nice to have a small one too.

So here's a close-up of the pop up card.  Outside.

 And inside. :)  This is one of my favorite gifts.

I got a new insulated mug too.  It says, "Good Moms have sticky floors, dirty ovens, and happy kids."  Woohoo.  I definitely qualify on the first two counts.  The happy kids part changes from minute to minute, but for the most part, we're a pretty happy crew.

After the candles were removed from the cake, the ten year old licked the icing off.  The five year old just played with them, sticking one in his orange peel.

It sealed really well, and he asked nicely to light it.

 Pretty fun (and mostly safe way) to get a close-up lesson on fire.

Of course the two year old had to try too (with MUCH supervision).  I love the five year old's expression in the background.

See my pretty necklace?  The ten year old made it for me from punched out paper flowers and black yarn.  He came to me this morning and said he had made something he wanted me to wear all day.

And I did. Gladly.  Sure do love my boys (big and little ones both).

It was a great 10 Mile Day.  (And I only covered that distance in a vehicle.  Thankfully.  I spent most of my day reading.)