Lucky to have Loni!

Last weekend we were lucky enough to have Loni come over to our house for {almost} the whole weekend! Addison absolutely adores Loni, and it was so nice for her to have someone to play with! {I put a bunch of pictures in there for you Debi- and I'll be sure to keep putting them on as fast as I can get them off of my camera -we've just been so busy having fun!}

Loni and Addison enjoyed playing in Addison's room. Addison has a ton of little people and Loni was very good at building a little village!

Then we ate our BBQ chicken kabobs and some pineapple for dinner.

Loni is so good at making Addison laugh!

We made some very lime green sugar cookies. Loni enjoyed cutting out all sorts of shapes in them. {And I only burned one batch of them... but we ate all the good ones before I took a picture. That's why I have a picture of burned lime green cookies}.

Then we dropped off Addison and Brogan at Grandma Jensen's house so we could take Loni to the Ranch Rodeo here in Gooding. They have some outrageously fun events that don't happen at a rodeo. Teams competed in different events that would happen on a real ranch. Cow branding- the team had to rope 2 cows and brand them. Team doctoring- the team had to pick 2 cows {1 cos at a time}, out of the herd, get it to the other side of the arena and have it roped twice, once around each set of feet, all while keeping the other cows at the other end of the arena. Bucking horses- one team member had to ride a bucking horse, and they had to ride for 8 seconds with a regular saddle {saddle horn and all! -ouchie!} Range race- {this was so stinkin funny!} Two team members had to take off their boots, bridle and saddle and put them in the middle of the arena. The other 2 team members held their horses at the other end of the arena. The 2 guys had to run to the 1/2 of the arena, put on their boots, carry their saddle and bridle to their horse, put them on their horse, then race across the finish line first. Not only was it hilarious to watch these men sprint bootless in the arena, but when they saddled up their horses, they did it very quickly, and didn't do the best job. When they got on their horses and raced across the line, a bunch of horses freaked out. Needless to say there was a second bucking bronc show :). Last was cow loading- the team had to get one cow into a trailer with the door shut. This is the second year we've gone to this rodeo, and I just have to say- it's one thing we will look forward to year after year. Some great entertainment!

{I have to say Debi- I was ill prepared for Loni. I spend my day talking to my two babies who hardly ever respond. (mostly I'm just talking to myself). When Loni came over she fired the rounds of "whys" at me so hard and fast, I was totally unprepared! She's such a smart little girl and wants to know everything about everything. I am doing a bit better at answering all those tough questions, but I don't think I've thought about all those things since I was her age asking them!

Being silly watching the rodeo.

Loni rolling down the big hill at the fairgrounds. She didn't want to do it at first, but I think it was more fun than she thought {she did it over and over again!}

Super dizzy!

STILL dizzy! {and eating a hotdog}.

We picked up our kids and headed home.

{So much for a movie and popcorn! We'll have to save that for next time :) }

The next day {I forgot my camera}, but we went to a little "Heritage Days" Parade. They herded some cows down main street, had a youth mariachi band, a ton of horses, and horse drawn wagons. It was pretty fun. Loni did find a little ant nest on the wall we were sitting on. I told her to kill some of the ants {bad idea}. Ya- the small ant nest exploded!!!! millions of ants came out of the wood work! It was okay though- we didn't sit much anyway.

After the parade I went to a friend's wedding, and Stew stayed home with the kids. Loni played our high school musical sing it game {I bought it because it was cheap}, and boy can she sing! She played outside with Addison a bit, and played with Brogan too! We went to the rodeo again, but Loni was sort of bored with it. She was a little nervous about going to church in my ward, so she had Grandma come get her. {Secretly I think she just wanted to see the Dalton boy from Shoshone at church on Sunday -you know- the boy she had a crush on last summer?} ;) We did take her on Gooding's (not so famous) roller coaster road. And even though she gets car sick I think she liked it! Her and Addison {and even Stewart} giggled the whole way up and down it!

We had a fun weekend with Loni, and hope we get to have her over again soon! She is tons of fun and keeps my kids totally entertained! {And now I'll be thinking about why anything does anything -just in case :) }