A few Random pics

Cade and Rance were looking pretty cute in their similar attire.  Cade has been very happy to have a cowboy hat again.  Actually two as he got a black and a straw hat for Christmas.  He lost his last hat in Ronan last suummer and was a very sad cowboy because of it.

Mr. Handsome himself!

Avery loves her babydolls.  This is her newest one which is alternatly named Baby Scarlett and Julie.

The little princess.  She is big on princess stuff lately and dressing up in her play clothes.

Chase and Avery helping me bake some brownies.  They were very excited for the part where they get to lick the spoon.

Kite flying.

Sledding where there are no hills requires a willing power source.  In this case it was me.

Happy New Year

 We had a quiet new years eve and stayed home.  We didn't even bother trying to stay up until midnight, but we though we ought to at least take a picture or two of all of us!

Getting our Christmas Tree

 We procrastinated a bit about getting our Christmas tree and finally went to get it 10 days before Christmas.  We saw a neat looking rock along the way that looks a lot like a dragon or some kind of reptile so I had to include a photo it along with our Christmas tree photo.

 The kids had fun tramping thru the snow looking for our tree.

Sleepy heads

A couple of sleepy heads!!  The picture is a little blurry but I didn't want to wake them up and Avery was trying to "help" me the whole time.

Tea Party with Daddy

Avery talked her Dad into having a tea party with her one morning. She is an early riser child and it is nothing for her to be dragging me out of bed by 5 am, hence the tea party at 5:50 :) with her Dad.


Avery is very much into tea parties right now and wants to have them all the time. She got a great tea party set from my mom and Aunt Nancy gave us another, so generally we have enough little tea cups for the whole family to participate or other kids. The tea is usually water or koolaid and then we have to have craisins or crackers to go on the little plates. Speaking of koolaid, because it can spill and stain things, I finally recovered my dining room chairs with a washable, wipe able material. Your legs might stick to it if you are wearing shorts, but I can take a rag and wipe off the playdoh, cereal, spaghetti, etc that gets mashed into it, YAY! My old method was to put the whole chair in the bathtub and soak it up and scrub all the grime out. A little time consuming and the chair was generally wet to sit on at dinner time still, so this is much better.

Ronan Days aka Pioneer Days

Waiting to watch the parade on Sunday morning. Somebody was handing out flags.

Cade and Avery's favorite part about the parade was of course getting the candy. There was a lot of candy thrown, but the kids spilled juice in their bag of candy and I ended up throwing most of the sticky mess away. I don't think they even missed it after all the candy they ate already.

Rance was going to drive the '37 Plymouth in the parade. We made it into Ronan, but then when we pulled over the sign up for the parade it wouldn't start again. :(

Rance driving the 37 Plymouth.

Avery in the backseat. Talk about cushy padded seats!


Cade enjoyed the ride as well.
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The kids all lined up for the stick horse race. Cade did great he ran down to the cones and turned around and came back, not sure who won but Cade had a great time.


Avery trying to decide where to go next during the stick horse race, the announcer ended up going down and helping her run back. She was really tired, it was naptime and she hadn't slept much the night before.

Cade and I went down to do a mom and kid race where the kids all put on white t shirts and black ball caps then ran down to get some candy. Then they told the kids to run from their moms. The moms got turned around and they mixed the kids up and turned us loose to find our kids.

Where is my kid? I couldn't find Cade anywhere! When I finally found him he was back at the other end and as soon as I got close he took off again. It seemed like over a hundred kids out there and they all looked the same!

When I got back in the stands Avery was sacked out on Rance.

Cousins!

Miscellaneous

A moth we found on the door one morning, it stayed all day and then was gone the next morning.

Cade trick riding

Avery in a crazy get up

Cade and Avery were "camping" in the dryer

Rance and I at Linda and Dick's anniversary party

"We went riding on the range" said Avery Gerdes

Avery and her Daddy!
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This was taken at the end of the ride. Cade was very serious and his thumbs were sore from gripping the saddle horn so tightly, not to mention his legs were getting sore from Polka's wide back. When he got off Polka Dot he was walking a little bowlegged!

Riding up in Broken Leg above my parents house. The views were great and Avery thought it was neat we were riding on the range. Cade kept talking about how we could see forever. Thank God for big beautiful wide open spaces!



Big grins from the little cowboy. And the little bowlegged walk at the end of the ride to go play in the waterslide and pool! Although he wouldn't get in until I come back with his swimming trunks!

Cade's first time gathering cows

Cade rode Polka Dot for his first big ride. Polka Dot is a most experienced kid horse and there isn't much that fazes him, so he is a great first horse for Cade thanks to my cousin Wynne. He was so excited to get to ride with a lot of other cowboys and cowgirls. I dropped Avery off at Mom's and she asked him if he was going riding to chase cows and he just shook with excitement.

He did really good. I led him the whole way and he was all smiles for quite a while. He didn't want to yell at the cows however he was just fine to follow behind them. He asked me how come Sterling wasn't afraid to gallop after cows. I explained to him that when he got more experience he wouldn't be either. I was so proud of my little boy!

Here is everyone that helped gather cows. Four generations riding so that was fun, in another couple of years there will be a lot of little cousins helping gather which i am sure will test my Dad's patience!

More fence around the yard!

Rance has been busy on another project outside, more fence around the house. He put in most of the posts today and hopefully will soon have the rails up. I am excited it will look so nice. The fence is already up in the back of the house and the front along the road.
More pictures to follow!

Pepsi

Rance got another horse. Seems like a really nice gelding, four years old and seems really level headed so maybe someday will make a great horse for the kids or I.


Avery adores riding and hates to get off the horse so that Cade can have a turn.
Cade in turn likes to be the big brother and give her instruction like "Hold on real tight to the saddle horn Avery"

Avery being snuggly with her Dad after a bath.

Cade and Avery like to play outside on the big landscaping rocks we have.

And of course jumping off of them is a great entertainment also.

Cheese!