Calf Roping

This has been quite the anticipated day for Brian. He has been super excited to start calf roping.

Ash and Brans are such good little helpers with Brian roping. Ash loves to work the shute and Brans loves to run the cows up.

The first day roping, it took most of the time to teach the cows where we wanted them to run, Branson and Ashton kept laughing at me, thinking I looked like a bird flapping my arms trying to push the cows into the alley way.

Brian in action:

Roping Buddies:

Brian is learning that it isn't quite as easy as it looks. He has some good guys teaching him little tricks, and has been watching Cody Ohl over and over. This is what our summer is going to be overtaken with.....ROPING

ARENA IS DONE!!

The arena is DONE!! Well, pretty much. There will always be something that needs to be changed or fixed or moved. But the arena is definetely ready to rope in, and that is all that counts.

Heeling/calf roping box:

Ash fixing up the roping dummy area:

It is quite the 'redneck' arena.....with different panels used throughout the whole thing. But hey, it gets the job done.

Now guess where Brian wants to be ALL OF THE TIME! ROPING!!

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAD!

In Ashton & Branson's mind, there is nothing better than tricking/teasing their dad. Last year on April Fools Day we tricked Brian that we had a water line leak and water was going everywhere. He fell for it pretty good. So this year, Ashton had to make sure and trick his dad even better than last. So he came up with this idea:

Replace the white filling in an oreo with toothpaste. And sure enough Branson had to be in on it too.

Ready for an oreo DAD??

It took Brian 2 days to finally decide oreo's sounded good to eat. Sadly, we weren't around when he did decide to snack on them. But, he did tell us all about how bad and soggy they were. Ash and Brans LOVED that! They had a good laugh about it all night long!

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY!!

Pulling out the Geo Trax

I love when my boys play nice, they usually play nice, but of course they have their days. This 'nice' day they decided to pull out the geo trax and come up with some fun designs. Such good brothers!

Branson always puts a smile on your face!

Bed time is always a fun experience at our house. Dad usually tucks them in at night, and if the boys get there way, they can talk him into reading them a bed time story. Then Wobby comes back 10 minutes later and turns off lights and tucks them in again for the night. One night while I was tucking them in for the night this is how I found Branson:

At first I thought he was wide awake, and tricking me, after laughing for a minute, I heard him snoring. He had fallen asleep with these goofy glasses on. It had surprised me and made me laugh! I had to drag Brian out of bed to come and look, we both laughed about it for awhile.
Such a funny boy! He has a mind of his own!!

Ashton's 1st School Project

Ashton came home from school with an assignment to put together a diorama and a report of an animal. His very first school project.

We had put it together pretty fast, thinking we did a good job. When he came home from school, after turning his in, he said we need to work harder next time and do a better job. (I thought we did pretty good, but I guess there are a lot more creative mom's out there that made better dioramas) SO, the pressure is on to out do everyone next time!

He did do a really good job on his report, he told me exactly what he wanted it to say, and wrote it out with his best handwriting. Oh the fun of school projects!!

Grandparents Day

Grandma Cindy & Grandpa Doug were able to come up for Grandparents Day. Ashton and Branson both look forward to this day all year long.

Grandma & Grandpa started out the day with Ashton at the Elementary. They were able to visit his class room, look at the projects they have been working on, let Grandpa try out Ashton's desk, take a picture, and then Ashton performed his Spring Program for the Grandparents. After all of that, Grandma & Grandpa checked Ashton out for the rest of the day and treated him to some good ol Pizza Stop Pizza.

To Branson's surprise Ashton decided to come home and enjoy his pizza with us. After our delicious lunch it was Branson's turn for a fun Grandparents Day afternoon. They started out the afternoon with some time at the library reading as many books as Brans wanted. Then they headed over to the store to pick out a coloring book. Ending with an ice cream shake from the Drive In.
Grandma & Grandpa definetely take advantage of the day, spoiling as much as they can. Thanks for coming up for the day Grandma & Grandpa!!

Spring Program

Ashton had his Spring Program in April for school.

He was pretty proud to be standing on the very top row, I guess it made him feel like he is tall.

Here is the 1st grade performing:
Ashton smiled through all 3 songs.

He was glad to be done.

Good Job ASH!!

Biscuit Pizza's

Growing up, my mom always made these biscuit pizzas for our family. I remember she couldn't make them fast enough, we loved them so much. So I told the boys I had THE BEST dinner ever for them to try out. When they heard they were going to make their own pizzas they were pretty excited. Started out with spreading out the biscuit, adding the sauce and cheese:

then the pepperoni:
Glad that we were the only ones eating these, they kept putting things down on the pizza and then pick them back up and snackin on the cheese and pepperoni. Branson is trying to hide his, and Ashton got caught red handed:

And dad was just in time to eat them up:

This has become one of our favorite meals around here.

Brian got him some COWS

This may not sound very exciting to most, but to Brian, this was the best money can buy:

ROPING CALVES!
When we first moved to Idaho we had 4 full grown roping steers. We fed them for about 6 months and then decided to sell them, because we didn't have an arena built yet, and no need to keep them around. (of course we ate one too, I love corriente meat, in my opinion, they are better than angus! :) So it has been over 2 years now since we have had roping cows around. As soon as the arena was ready to rope in, Brian found him these two cows.

Branson's cow is named LONG HORN and Ashton's cows name is STRAN (named after good ol Stran Smith)

I kept telling Brian that I thought there was no way he could 'throw' these guys around.....but he proved me wrong in a hurry. He has so much fun calf roping.

......more pictures to come to show off the ARENA and Brian roping......

Creative Kids

On the weekends Wobby & Dad like to sleep in, but Ashton & Branson aren't quite up for that yet. This particular Saturday, the boys woke up at 6 am, and kept begging and begging for their dad to get out of bed. We told them to watch a movie and then we would get up for the day. While they were watching a movie, they got a creative idea to build something. Here is what they come up with:

BRANSON'S:

And ASHTON'S:
We have what we call 'starter wood' given to us from Grandpa Doug's woodshop. These pieces were all inside in a little bucket sitting by our wood stove. I can't believe how creative they are to come up with these neat ships!

They took them right outside and floated them in the horses water trough. Ashton's made it, Branson's didn't!