Emma riding!! All by herself :)

Emma seriously rode all by herself, out in our small field (I wasn't comletely crazy, I kept them semi contained!)
Then she got stuck in the barn...Srgt Pepper's favorite muddy spot.

Afterwards, she got out again!! yeah Emma, well done!
And she was also very willing to take her turn leading others around. Here Sierra and Emma help lead little E.D.B.D. *Ethan* around. What great fun they all had.

Sierra and Emma...Summer time

Sierra and Emma leading Srgt. Pepper. At first Emma didn't want to be left alone with the pony or other animals at all...but she grew nicely into being a horse girl herself!

Sierra and Emma on the swings...remeber them Emma?






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The three muskateers? not quite, but cute nonetheless!











And grooming, an important part of the horse riding process...they would do this for a long time, braiding his hair and keeping him all dolled up. I think Srgt Pepper liked the attention. 

Uncle Jon and Ethan sharing some quality time!

John with his groupies. The baby is not ours, it is John's cousin Jim and wife Amy who brought this little one to our home for a bit, they also have another daughter...have to see if we have any pictures of her, she and Ethan had a bit of a love hate relationship...very cute! 

Happy Hallowe'en

Halloween, not a holiday I get into a great spirit over, I enjoyed our halloween as achild, mom and dad would have candy at the house *even those little trangle ones I despised, still they sit well in my memory* and we would carve the pumpkins and bake the seeds, sometimes our friends Barb and John would pop over and scare me a poor little girl half to death with their extremely old age masks! I enjoyed it and never went out trick or treating till I was in Calgary and 15 years old. That was the first and last, just not all that grabbing to me. However John grew up going out for haloween, which is strange as he grew up in Caronport!! However we decided to stay in this year and have the kids go around to the bedroom doors where we had mom, dad, Jon, myself waiting to hand out some candy, then they went on a candy search for the ones mom, dad and uncle Jon had hidden around the house. After that they carved pumpkins with John. They had a blast and we stayed warm, slowly I'm winning John to my version of halloween. *I think too I'm lazy which makes my way a lot more attractive to me!


This is Ethan's pumpkin, John got one pumpkin for each of us, differnt sizes and then he carved them with different expressions... he did an awesome job and it took a lot of his time!!










The finished products. They looked great in our dark living room all lit up, we've got in on video as the pictures don't do it any justice (that's cause they were taken the next morning!)

John's Prize!!

The following are pictures of what John was up to this November 1st, opening day of the season *hunting season that is, not holiday or christmas or even thanksgiving for that matter. However John was VERY thankful for this guy! Quite estatic actually, maybe I'll get him in here later to write his exciting tale!

Enjoy the pics all you animal loving killers, :) and for the rest of you who are more like me, or more adamently like Amy M...avert your eyes!!

I am much better than I used to be, I took these pictures of John, let him hang the dead heads on our walls and I even tried to eat this wild meat...it is actually quite good if I keep my mind out of the process!

Apparently this is actully a very good sized buck, white tailed I believe. I think John scored a 181 gross and 169.25 net (I had to reedit this as I had accidently put it in at 9 points less, sorry John, now its right though.) For those of you who understand what that means. It's good enough to get in some book somewhere, again I'll have to get John on here to give his side of the story.

1st Tenting of the Season

This is not really a sleeping tent, more of an eating tent, as half of it is mesh and the back enclosed half is only protected by a tear down tent wall...needless to say it is presently really wet due to a hail storm and a slant in our positioning. However the night we put it up and slept in it was amazing!! Beautiful, comfortable (we moved our futon in) and fun.  

The mosquitoes were crazy!! But they couldn't get us, at first.

Ethan and Sierra slept great in the tent, once they went to sleep.
And even John made it part of the night, until the mosquitoes came in (probably on the dogs back, after I let him out for a bathroom break)
Brody is our latest dog...he has taken Scouts place and is excellent!! He slept all night with us in the tent and joined me up on the bed when John called it quits and went inside to get a bit better sleep without buzzing, whining, snoring, or the swish, swish sound made by the tent every time the dog moved :0) Poor light sleepers. But it was fun none the less! 

The Morning after...Brody and Sierra having a cuddle.

Brody, pretty hansome guy eh?

Sierra, Ethan and myself, the survivors. 

New Star Wars Trilogy--Emperors beginnings

Look closely and you'll see he has the emperors mouth!


His rescuer...Princess Sierra who tried desperately to turn him from the darkside...guess a sister's charm just didn't cut it. 

E.D.B.D.

Ethan, our little orphan. Nice head eh? I didn't mean to cut it this short, but forgot to put the guard on the clippers before I started...it'll grow, until then, he'll be fine as he's got a pretty decently shaped noggin. 

Sierra with Phil and Kim

Sierra's "other daddy" as she refers to him, and his wife Kim came down for a visit on Sunday June 25 to bring her her birthday gift (I'd given them way to short of notice for them to actually come down...phoned on the day and they were away...sorry /:) Anyhow, Sierra talks to them on the phone periodically and when she talks, she talks! She also remembered Phils voice this last time and I thought that was pretty amazing. I asked her how she knew it was him and she said, "umn, cause he talks the same". I guess that is true, silly me :) Anyhow, I so appreciate the effort both Phil and Kim put in with Sierra, we really want her to know her extended family and are going to be better at keeping in touch with them ourselves...including Phil's parents and grandparents. .Phil and Kim are headed back East to visit them this week and we here at the Paterson household say "Hi!" to each of them in hopes they have this blog address!!
Sierra opened her gifts, Kim took on the instruction reading when it started to get a bit fuzzy and then the 3 of them got it all set up. We figured it will be great when she has to sleep in our bathtub--which she does when we have visitors! ;0) and that seems to be quite often.
 

The process of putting the bed together involved all of us including myself who documented the process! 

Nice Picture, prompted by lawn cutting mother who keeps an eye for those perfect shots. There was a lot to watch as we had a houseful of people over. (mom, dad, Hope and Dave and their 4 kids, plus Chad and Giuseppe (John's workers/our friends). I think Sierra was getting tired by this point (late nights, excitement over Phil and Kim's visit) so a peacful pause was in order.










Sierra and Scouty. Scouty spent quite a bit of time fetching...she'll do it forever and she does spectacular leaps and dives too as she chases the item we throw.








In these two photos we see Phil going to responsibly keep Sierra from falling into our flooded pond as she seeks to retrieve the frisbee Scouty turned her nose up at, and then Sierra actually helps Phil stay dry as he leans in for the frisbee. However I thought a little dip would have made for even more memorable photos :)