Mountain Lion Hunt 2015

Nick has been hounding me to put these pictures up on the blog because he's pretty proud - so since it's his birthday today, I better do it!

He went on a mountain lion hunt in Wyoming a couple weeks ago and had a great time.  If you're wondering how you hunt a mountain lion, here are the basics.

1. Drive around and look for tracks on the side of the road.

2.  When fresh tracks are found, set the tracking dogs loose on the trail.

3.  Follow the dogs.  (they have GPS collars in case they get too far ahead)

4.  When the dogs finally stop, hopefully it's because they have treed a cat.

5.  Shoot the cat in the tree.

After a few days of no luck, he really had the perfect hunt.  When they let the dogs go, they only had to follow them about 700 yards where they found a nice big cat up in the tree.  Nick shot him once with his bow and he was dead before he hit the ground.  

Here are some photos and a video of the kill.  A few of the photos are a little bloody, so if you don't want to see that, don't scroll down!

Nick with his big cat and the two guides.

We're having a rug made to hang on the wall.

Happy Birthday to my Honey!

And also Happy Birthday to our baby Dutch!  He's 1 today!

 Our sweet puppy at 8 weeks old - awe!

Our big, goofy, grown-up baby!

Domino Rally

A few of Rylan's recent domino creations.  

(That's not fly tape hanging in our house - Mackenzie was decorating with strips of wrapping paper.)

My New Favorite Christmas Cookies

I found this recipe on Pinterest and it's my new favorite Christmas cookie - seriously, I don't know how many I've eaten, they're so good!  That is as long as you like peppermint and chocolate. :)  These would make great little Valentine's treats too!

Here's the link to the original recipe.
http://insidebrucrewlife.com/2013/12/oreo-peppermint-crunch-cookies/

Oreo Peppermint Crunch Cookies

1 box white cake mix

1 stick butter, melted

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 cup Oreo cookie chunks

1 cup Andes Peppermint Crunch pieces

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

1. Combine the cake mix, melted butter, egg, and extracts.  Beat until a soft dough forms. Add the cream cheese and beat in gently until combined.  Stir in peppermint crunch pieces and chocolate chips first.  Then gently stir in the cookie pieces by hand being careful not to break up the cookie more.  Refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes.

2. Roll the dough into balls.  Bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 9-10 minutes.  Do not over bake.  The cookies will be very soft and look undone.  Let them sit on the hot cookie sheet for 2 minutes, then gently remove them to cool.  Store in a sealed container.

My tips:  

-You will want to bake them longer than 9-10 minutes, but don't!

-Don't crush the Oreos up too much - you might feel the need to really crush them, but I made a couple batches and I liked them better with bigger Oreo chunks in them.

-I always make cookies on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.  When its time to take them off the cookie sheet, just slide the parchment paper onto the counter, no need to mess with warm cookies and a spatula!

-I had never seen Andes peppermint crunch candy, but I found them in our local grocery store by the holiday candy/baking supplies.  They came as little bars, just like the regular Andes chocolate mint candies, and one package was perfect for 1 batch.  

But it was after making 4 batches and needing to unwrap every candy and crunch them all up that I found a bag of already crushed bits at Target in the baking section!  So check around!

Christmas Part 4

One more picture - I forgot about this one with Nick's family.  We celebrated Christmas early because Katie and Brian were heading out of town for 2 weeks.  We were all amused that this spur-of-the-moment photo turned out so well.  Whenever we've scheduled having Christmas pictures taken of us all, it's always stressful and no one cooperates, so go figure a candid shot would be best!

Christmas Part 3

More Christmas get-togethers!

Mackenzie, Elliana and Rylan with Great Grandpa and Grandma

Mackenzie's girls in their new outfits from Great Grandma

 

The good picture of my parents and their 3 grandkids.

How most of the photos looked - Mackenzie's creepy smile and a wiggly toddler trying to escape.

Santa's helpers passing out presents to Great Grandma and Grandpa.

This picture was a little trickier, so heres a few.  My grandparents with 8 of their 10 great grandkids.

I love this one of my Grandpa just laughing about all the chaos.

My Dad's family is the biggest group we have a party with and it's always so much fun.  (This is the side of the family we go camping with every summer.)  For the past few years, we have our party in the conference/break room at a local business because there are so many people.  It really works great for everyone.  I don't have many pictures though. :(

My Dad read the Christmas story from a picture Bible to all the little kids for devotions.

My Grandma and her 8 kids.  Even though it's blurry, I love Grandma's face - she has the best laugh!  My Grandpa passed away in 2003.

Missing a few, but here are all the grandkids/spouses and great grandkids who were there.

My Grandma has:

8 kids/8 spouses

20 grandkids / 10 spouses

11 great grandkids

We always have a great time together!

Christmas Part 2

Christmas with our families.  We had more wonderful meals and time together - we are so blessed with so many amazing family members!

Sisters

Grandpa and Grandma

Our little family

Grandma, Mackenzie and "the girls".

Matching shirts from Grandma!

Rylan playing the Perplexus Epic - it's an enclosed maze for a little ball that is super fun - for all ages!  It's not easy either, but we've all had fun working on this maze.

We were so blessed to spend a week with my family - it doesn't happen much when the whole family is together and we had a blast!  I hadn't seen my sister and her family since June, and I missed them so much!  Elliana is so much bigger and her little voice is the sweetest!

Playing Tenzi with Uncle Spencer and Jenna

Grandpa and Elliana

Friendly competition

Busy cousins

Taking care of the baby - so sweet!

Presents!

Love this face!~

Enjoying her toy - toast that popped out of her new toaster!

Goofballs!

Love them all so much!

Christmas Part 1

I have lots of Christmas photos, so I'll spread them out through a few posts.  Here are the first couple parties we attended.


Mc-Abel Night - so much great food and so many great people, who keep multiplying each year with weddings and babies!  I'm sad I don't have more pictures, but here are the few I do have. (Thanks Laurie!)

McEnroe Great Grandkids (plus 1 grown-up who wasn't able to escape)  :)

Santa always comes to this party and our kids did great - not giving up any secrets!

It was also an ugly sweater party - here's the gem I found at a thrift store for Rylan - Santa's ark?

I wish I had a better picture of Nick and my shirts.  Nick's was a sweatshirt with a holly wreath full of birds.  I had an amazing Christmas tree/present turtleneck underneath a sweet sweater vest - it was awesome!  Mackenzie's shirt wasn't that ugly, but the rudolph on her shirt was a plastic piece that stuck out, so it was really weird.  All were courtesy of a local thrift store.

Brown Family - so much fun!  This is the loudest party we have each year, but we all laugh so hard.  My cheeks and abs were sore from laughing - such a fun night!

Brown Great Grandkids - It looks like a crazy bunch of kids, but they were all so good all night and played so well together. 

Mackenzie was so excited to be the one to hold the baby - she LOVES babies!

I'm sad that his face is blurry, but I love the look in his eyes!

I love this one - comparing bellies!  

Such a ham!

Love this!