I am losing it

I was just downloading some pics to put on the blog and I realized I have not put a lot on our blog that I thought had. I need to back up to June 20th, Father's Day. We had our three nieces at the time so the morning of Father's Day I had all the girls go upstairs and make cards while we let Shad sleep in. The day before we "snuck" over to Sportsman's and I picked out an electric smoker and water shoes for Mr. Wonderful. When he woke up we gave him cards and his present. He was pretty shocked. I am proud of myself because he is the hardest person to buy for. He had the girls help him put it together and he used it for the first time yesterday. Thanks for being such a wonderful father to our daughter Brinley we love you honey!!!!

Bat:
Another fun thing that happened while the girls where here was they saw a bat. It was sleeping in our umbrella!! I can't remember what kind Shad said that it was. Anyway, it was cool to see "a real live bat". The best part was seeing the girls reaction.



Workin':
I am not sure how many of you have ever done manual labor before. I have been shocked lately at how many people have never gotten their "hands dirty". My nieces are no exception! I think this story is my second favorite experience with them here. We had them earn money. One of the jobs was helping Shad and I fix bald spots in our lawn. We needed to put seed down and then spread peat moss over it. I had the girls wear gloves because the seed was treated and I didn't want them to get it in their mouths by accident. They did fine with the seed, but as soon as it came to touching the peat moss (even with a glove on) was quite the experience for them :) "I have some down my glove"!!! "I have dirt on me". "It is on my foot"!!!!! I was laughing inside. I kept telling them it was part of working and that it could easily be washed off. Brinley on the other hand wouldn't stay out of the peat moss. Here is a picture of her after a hard days work :)




Playin':
So my favorite experience while the girls were here was floating down the river by our house. The girls had been waiting to go down the river all week. When they first got here I took them for a walk and let them get in the river. They did fine so I thought they would really enjoy floating on a tube. Shad took Brinley with him, I had Autumn with me, Kylie and Morgan both had their own. We put a life jacket on Kylie even though the river was only a couple feet deep with a very slow current. I don't think I have laughed that hard in a really long time! Kylie kept thinking she was going to drowned with a life jacket on in two feet of water. We couldn't get her to stay sitting in her tube. Instead of trying to steer she would curl up and scream. Morgan kept being "attacked" by the trees and hated it when we laughed at her being grossed out by the things in the water she was going to run into. It was so much fun. Shad's favorite experience was "beating" on them the night before they went home. He was "gopher popping" them, wrestling, spanking and stacking them on top of each other. Little Autumn was fearless. She kept attacking Shad all on her own. I thought I was going to pee my pants. They are tough girls. They cried on the river, but they could take Shad's beating without a tear??? Too bad Brinley was asleep she would have loved to be in on the action!