My first buck!

Last night I told Brad that I really wanted to go hunting in the morning if he wanted to take me, and lucky for me he was excited to. I wasn't sure how he'd feel because "technically" he took work off this week so he could hunt, but he's so sweet he really wanted me to get one. So we headed out to a spot he had been watching, we knew there had been a few doe running around, but no one had ever seen a buck.
I had decided I was going to just shoot anything even if it was a small doe, because I had been hunting several times and not seen anything this year. It was really cold and we had been sitting their a couple hours, so I was excited when Brad said he could hear one coming. He was standing behind me and I was sitting with the gun and he could see a little more than me. Then I heard him whisper "Oh man it's a buck, get ready!" That got me really excited and feeling the pressure, because I better not miss a good buck!
I still couldn't see it yet so I just aimed my gun as far to the right as I could since he said it was coming from that direction. Rather than trying to look around for it with my scope, I just focused onto the spot I thought it would walk and sure enough I saw it slowly walking right toward my cross hairs, so as soon as it's body crossed my scope I shot. It was a good shot in the shoulder and it dropped right there. I think he would have caught wind of us if I would have waited even a few more seconds, because he was pretty close to us. I still can't believe I got a buck, I never thought I was a quiet enough hunter to not scare one away :)

It's rack measured 18 inches wide

I sure got my money out of that $10.50/1 deer tag I bought :)

Thanksgiving with the Sheltons

This thanksgiving we celebrated at my in laws beautiful new home. They built their house with idea in mind that they wanted to be able to fit everyone comfortably for big family get togethers. It was perfect.  I was so excited that my mother in law asked me to decorate the tables, because you know that's right up my alley.  I got most of my ideas off of pinterest.

My favorite part was the tray in the middle.

I'm so thankful for my awesome husband and best friend.  He makes me so happy and I just love being with him.

Our family is getting bigger and bigger by the day and I'm so grateful for our sweet girls, they bring me so much happiness I couldn't imagine life without each one of them.  They each bring something special to our family.

Beautiful eyes!

Grandma took this one of our family before everyone arrived. Kayla is passing us up :)

All our yummy food!  There was not one thing that didn't taste delicious.

We were able to have Billy and Debbie, our family of six, Craig and Jillians family of five, Cory and his friend Travis, Ross, Uncle Harold, Grandma Ray and Hal, Uncle Kenneth and Aunt Mary, and Uncle Steve. 22 in all!

I kept trying to get Callie to sit at the kids table, but she kept pulling away and saying "no, mom... I want to sit at the big table!"  She wanted to have the nice plates and most importantly a big girl cup!  She took papa by the hand and had him select her one of Grandma's nicest and most expensive glasses.  And she drank from it like a real lady :) 

Eating in the sunroom :

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  We are so thankful for all the blessings the Lord has given us this year and most importantly thankful for all our family and friends who we love so much.

Holidays

Let me start off by saying that I love holidays!  Favorite time of year for sure.  Although I make myself wait until at least Thanksgiving evening to put up my Christmas tree, I have no problem with seeing decorations up early.  The other morning I heard people complaining on the radio because they saw people had put up their Christmas trees or because Santa was in the malls.  I just thought "Really?... you are complaining because people are celebrating, and happy, and having fun and  it makes you mad because they are doing it a few days before you choose to?"  I understand the argument for this is that people want two distinct different holidays and they don't like "mushing" them together.  But I look at it like one big celebration for a couple months!  Your celebrating family, friends, blessings and the birth and life of our Savior.  I say bring it all on.

Just think what we are celebrating about, really you can't have to much of it in my opinion.
Anyway, enough of that speal I just had to let that out :)

So this morning we woke up and because Brad just got his buck a few days ago, he was able to hang out with us!  So we met Grandpa and Grandma at cracker barrel for some yummy breakfast.  I absolutely love their blackberry topping over french toast this time of year, yum.

After that we did a little Christmas shopping for Kayla since she spent the night at a friends house, and then we headed to the new Bass Pro shop to see Santa!

They even got to mail a wish list to Santa Clause.

And practice some Shelton hunting skills.

Our happenings this weekend

The weather has still been nice this week, so we are taking it as long as it will last.  We even made a trip to the park yesterday to play a little bit. Here I am swinging with my mini me:

  

And the exciting news for today is that Kayla finally got her braces.  She has been wanting them so badly because she hates the gap between her two front teeth.  We finally agreed that we would go ahead and do them this year (this was before all my health issues and surgeries from the hysterectomy).  So even though we racked up some pretty big medical bills, we stayed true to our word and let her get them now anyways because we could tell how much it meant to her :)   

 

Of course I tried to talk her into getting clear bands (as I'm sure my mom would guess because I'm so boring!),  but Kayla wanted blue.  She looks pretty cute.

 And the other exciting news this weekend was that Brad got himself a nice buck with his bow.  This was his biggest that he's killed, so we were all pretty happy!

Empathy

One thing that is really important to me as a mother, is seeing traits develop in my children that I know will help them have great character. As Callie matures into a young girl, I have started to notice some great qualities in her.   One of them being the empathy and compassion she feels for those around her.  There are so many examples I see on a daily basis (giving someone a hug that has had a bad day, giving the bigger half of something to someone else when she shares, etc).  But I wanted to write down just a couple to save for memory.

Every night we have family prayer together as a family before the kids go to bed.  Usually Brad and I are in the living room and we call the kids to come to us.  We have started doing this thing where we call them one by one.  Brynlee runs out first and I say "Come to me, come to me!"  While Brad says "No, No come to me!"  We do this with each child seeing who they will run to, usually mom wins every time :)   However, every time Callie comes out she sees that Hailey and Brynlee are on my side and even though she really really wants to come to mom, she sees Brad with a sad face and empty arms and she runs to him, every time.   After about 2 seconds of being with him, she quickly runs over to me.  She just can't stand to hurt either of us, even though she knows we are just being silly and having fun.

Another example is when Callie lost another tooth last night, she was so excited when she woke up to find $3 that the tooth fairy had left.  It was two $1 bills and change.  Brynlee woke up right after her and was admiring her money.  Without me saying anything, I looked over and saw Callie give Brynlee one of her dollars and the other half of her change.  She said "Here Brynlee I want you to have some."  She had given Brynlee half her money.  Even though I wanted Callie to have it, I didn't stop her because I think it's great to see her show kindness like that.  But in the back of my mind I wondered, what will she do when Haily wakes up?
Sure enough, Hailey came walking out next.  Callie realized that she had shared with Brynlee and didn't want Hailey to feel bad, so she gave Hailey her other dollar.  Again I let her, and said "Callie wow, that is really nice of you."  Callie was only left with about .50.
I could see Callie's eyes start to well up with tears.  I asked her what the matter was, even though I knew.  She said "Well I really just wanted my sisters to be happy and have some money, but now I don't have any."   (Melt my heart)  
I was going to offer to give Callie more money, for being so generous but before I could say anything Brynlee and Hailey gave their money back to Callie when they saw her sad.  I'm glad I didn't interject for any of it.  It was pretty neat to see the way Callie sacrificed and gave it all to her sisters and in turn they followed her example and gave it all back.  I love my girls.

Fall Pictures

So I tried taking some pictures of the girls in their Christmas dresses for holiday cards, but did not have much luck. Everyone was either not looking at the same time, or one was crying or weird faces were being made. But I decided I'm going to use them for our cards any way, because hey that's how are we are right now :) But in the midst of the picture taking Kayla talked me into taking some with the girls in their regular clothes, so here they are: 

I think they turned out pretty cute!

Bowling

Nanna decided she wanted to take us all out bowling for Family Home Evening.  The girls love bowling!  Brynlee dances and hollars whether the ball knocks down anything or not.  And Callie is super competitive.  Karren and I thought it might be best if we sit this one out with her being pregnant and me just having surgery.  And the winner out of us all was Kayla!  She beat her dad by 1 point.

 

Church

Nanna bought the girls new dresses for Christmas so we had to get some pictures of them real quick before church started. We sure are going to miss these two.

Out and about

We have stayed really busy while my mom and Karren have been here with Halloween, running around schools, shopping and church. Today we had to make time for our favorite place, Olive Garden! It's a must when my mom, sister and I are all together.  (Sorry they are all cell pics, so not very good).
My mom was loving the color of the trees:

And my favorite person met us there on his lunch break :)

Halloween Carnival

The first night that my mom and sister got here they were able to come to a halloween carnival with us.I was worried they might be to tired to go after flying all day, but luckily they weren't.  We had a blast playing tons of games and winning prizes!

Brynlee with Aunt Karren:

Brynlee playing the fish pond:

Me and my mom with the girls:

Nana and Hailey:

And our favorite Plinko!