Haylee's turned the big 5!

My big girl turned 5 on October 14th! We went to Gertie's for her b-day and had a small birthday party for her with my family. Then we took her on a surprise trip to Boise that weekend to see her Aunt Kalea (who is away at college in Lewiston) and to make a visit to the zoo. We took a quick jaunt to Cabela's first so the men could walk around and drool over all the stuff they want but can't have, and the women could take the kids around to see the animal displays.

 After Cabela's, we went to Tucano's Brazilian Grill for lunch and it was delicious. We had them sing to Haylee for her birthday and she absolutely loved it! From there, it was finally time to hit the zoo.

After wearing ourselves out at the zoo, we went over to eat dinner and cake and ice cream at some of Dereck's family that lives in Boise.

We also tried to get in a decent family picture at the park next to the zoo. But I think we are still going to have to break down and get some professional pictures taken.

Deer Hunting

Dereck left me for a few days to go deer hunting and fend for himself in the great outdoors as he does every year. This has recently become a tradition for him to go out somewhere in the middle of nowhere and camp out and hunt deer in the mountains with some of his friends from Pocatello. I woke up the morning of opening day to find out that he had already gotten his kill for the year and was done. This time around, we decided to take our deer to a local butcher shop and have them cut up the meat and make us some sausage and jerky too.

Back to School!

Haylee started her first day of K-4 preschool the day after Labor Day. She was so excited to be going back to school and to be able to see and play with her friends every day! She is going to the same school this year and already loves her teacher. I am glad to be getting back into a routine again with the kids and to be able to have some time to get the house put together without having it torn apart in a half hour. Brooke is still not old enough to go to school with Haylee but we can look forward to that next year when they will both be in the same school together. So to let Brooke have some time to socialize with other kids and for me to get a break every once in a while and some sleep, we decided to stick Brooke in daycare one day a week. She is absolutely loving it!

We Have a New Addition to the Family.....

We have an announcement to make. We have a new addition to the Sanderson clan. And I know that most of you are probably thinking it is a baby and that is because it is a baby. A baby puppy that is! I have to joke around about the whole baby thing because everyone has been bugging us to have another but no babies for now, just puppies. Our new puppy is a chocolate lab and we got him for a really good deal. So I finally broke down and let Dereck get himself a hunting dog. We named him Moose and everyone is excited besides the cat.

Brooke turned 2!

And she will tell you all about how old she is too. Her b-day was on August 19th and it is hard for me to believe that my baby is really not a baby anymore. We all went to Gertie's for Brooke's b-day and just came back to the house, ate some cake and opened presents.

We also bought a trampoline for the girls towards the end of the summer and they are loving it so far. Now they don't have to go to Grandma's just to use her trampoline.

As you can tell, it is January and I am still blogging about August. I am way behind! To be honest, I have lost some motivation in doing the blogging lately but I have gained some of that motivation back and am going to try to catch up.

Father's Day

I know this is really late considering Father's Day was back in June but I am going to make an attempt at getting caught up. Dereck and Haylee have a special hobby that they both enjoy and love to do together. It is FISHING! He is also hoping to carry that hobby through to Brooke when she gets a little more interested in going with him. So we only found it appropriate to do what Daddy loves doing most with his girls and go fishing for Father's Day. My family came down and we all went to the fish hatchery and fed the fish and then went fishing out of one of the lakes at the fish hatchery. It turned out being really windy so we didn't stay fishing for long and decided to go do some sight seeing instead. We went to a really neat waterfall with my family and then went out for some yummy ice cream. The next day, Dereck and I and the girls went to another waterfall in the canyon by the Perrine Bridge. You can actually hike up to it and stand underneath it. It was amazing and we didn't even know it was there until we decided to drive down into the canyon. We all had a great time and I hope my husband had a good Father's Day with his girls.

Kalea's Graduation

My sister-in-law graduated from high school this year. We are so proud of her and all of her accomplishments even if she did go to our rival school, Burley H.S. She not only just graduated from high school but also finished her EMT course shortly before graduating. Now she plans to move on to bigger and better things and starts college at Lewis and Clark to start on her nursing degree.