Category Archives: My Family

My Family

First Day ~November 2014

11/03/2014 Danielle Huddleston 4 Comments

I finally remembered to join Journey to Josie in documenting our first day of the month!

We had our first frost!

Which of course called for baking.

We all dressed pretty warm to go out and work on the boys tree fort!

Nick is building them a tree fort with a zipline!

We have been setting my camera’s interval timer to take a picture every 2mins while out working.

So I totally cheated on this one since my camera was set to document the day anyway!

We have a bunch of Mimosa trees in our back.

I like to just sit and watch them dance in the breeze and watch the sunlight play with them.

I took the few pictures I was actually doing something to put in this post…

Most of the decking was up so these boys got to get up in the fort for the first time!

I have been calling it my sunrise/sunset viewing platform.

I am sure that I will share with the boys though.

Sometimes…

I left to do a photo session of this adorable family.

When I got back we headed to lowes to pick up a few things and as soon as we got back from that all the boys thought we should finish hooking up the zipline so we could try the LED seat.

It was a huge hit.

Who would not want to ride a zipline in the dark?

Me…

It was chilly out there.

I am enjoying this taste of fall we are getting though!

I think projects that have you document your whole day are so great!

If I could look back at a typical day of my grandma as a little girl it would be wonderful!

The history buff in me loves anything that encourages documenting things for future generations.

I will be sharing more pics of the fort as we get further along!

Museums/Events, My Family

Pumpkin Patches and bloody noses.

10/27/2014 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

I went to my first Pumpkin Patch four years ago and have since gone every year.

Our Stay at Home Mom’s group goes or I do not think my boys would get to experience this particular yearly event.

They really don’t care about the pumpkins at all.

They just like doing the straw maze.

I don’t have any pictures of it but it is big straw bales stacked with a tarp on top to make it dark.

The go through over and over.

My youngest decided to run in the exit to find his brother and came out with a bloody nose after colliding with some poor kid.

His brother and friend brought him over to me but they had not realized yet that he was bleeding.

Neither had he.

I wanted to keep it that way until I got something to help with the bleeding.

Of course his brother and friend realized it at the same time and their eyes got huge.

I gave my oldest the “don’t say a word” look and said he is fine we are just going to find a tissue.

I have found downplaying blood is always the best thing for my boys.

I got him a wipe and sat with him, waiting for the bleeding to stop.

He noticed he was bleeding finally so I started joking about how tough he looked with blood all over his shirt.

He then resorted to glaring at me and making growling noises for all the ridiculous things I was saying.

There may have been some grunting and chest pounding going on…

I was just trying to make a point.

I wanted to take pictures of him but thought I might get a similar look from parents around me as this llama was giving me…

We fed the animals next so obviously he recovered just fine.

So fine in fact that he and his brother thought it would be a good idea to turn on the water hose near the animals…

My oldest also found an open pocket knife in the straw maze.

Nice.

All in all I would say we had a pretty normal pumpkin patch visit.

Festivals, My Family

MN Trip ~Day 8 Wolves & Wilderness at Tamarac

10/15/2014 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

On day 7 we hung out with family and crashed.

It is amazing how much your feet hurt when you lay around vs. when you are using them constantly for a hiking.

I was trying to not laugh at all the aches and pains that were showing up from our hike.

As soon as I put shoes on and got moving they faded away.

Although I did take pictures that day I decided they did not need to be shared on here so I am skipping to our last day.

On our last day in Minnesota we decided to go to Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge again so we could go to their Fall Festival called “Wolves & Wilderness”.

They have educational stations set up about different aspects of the park and wolves.

Wild Rice grows in the park so they had a demonstration of how they process it.

The volunteers were very nice and full of information.

It was held near these old cabins which were cool to look into.

At the trapper tent they told my youngest he could touch the wolf trap they had.

He wanted to know if it was set to go off first.

Yes, they set it and are trying to trap the little children that come to the tent…

I guess that is a valid question if you have never really seen one before and therefore do not know if it is armed.

Of course his next question was if they would set it.

The event was centered around a wolf named “Old Three Legs” that terrorized the area in the early 1900’s.

Since Nick and I saw a wolf limping on our trip north, my youngest told everyone and said maybe it was three legs.

I don’t think you would have made it Maddie…

Poor Maddie being compared to Old Three Legs.

You got a stamp in a book at each station and if you filled it you got a prize.

What I like most at events like this is the spark it puts into my boys.

Even if they do not remember any of the information they hear, they are more likely to try to find out about that subject because they are interested now.

It would not surprise me at all if my youngest picked up a book on wolves at the library sometime.