We bought Baron when he was 10 months old, four years later, I’ve never regretted the decision.  He is an incredibly sweet dog, and we’ve been so blessed by his kind disposition.  Though he’s a guardian breed (Pyrenees/Akbash cross), he’s incredibly loyal, cuddly, and devoted to our family.  He’s also huge – latest guess 150+ lbs.  He’s solid.  He’s already starting to look like winter, but his coat will grow to be MUCH thicker than this.  Every Spring when we brush him out we get several 5 gallon pails full of white, fluffy fur.

He sleeps during the day, and barks all night keeping the coyotes at bay.  We purchased him after reports of bear sightings in the neighbourhood; we’ve yet to see a bear on our land, but he does a good job at chasing off the smaller varmint.  The only caveat is that you need to have at LEAST 10 acres for a dog this size, 20 would actually be better.  Without enough roaming room Pyrenees can start visiting the neighbours, and you wouldn’t want that .

Baron, we love you!

Today was actually a BEAUTIFUL day, so we were all outside enjoying it.  It’s still only around 1 C…above freezing!

After we all went for a big walk around the field (little girls on sled), Kaelynn and her Dad had a snow fight, and I took baby into the house for a nap, they built this snowman together. It was warm enough for sticky snow – yay!  Don’t they look proud of themselves?  First snowman of the year!

And I have the pictures to prove it!

Our hay supply for the year that we cut off our pasture is under the tarp, there’s some beautiful wheat straw that we picked up from Larry’s parents (absolutely gorgeous stuff – incredibly golden), a snowman and our big dog .  This photo was taken at 3 p.m. sort of gloomy, no?  Already our days are becoming shorter and shorter.  The thought of winter makes me long for heaven – ah to be warm all year round!  Here in Alberta we have winter for at least half of the year.

I know, I know – I’m a bit early .  After my pictures of my older daughters – here and here –  in a hole Larry dug for their swing set (it’s a big ‘un!), my Dad asked for an encore with our youngest daughter.  Well, this isn’t the same hole – that one got filled in by the time the encore call came in – but living in the country, it seems we always have a hole handy!  So my husband Larry grabbed our baby and snapped a quick photo – here you go Dad!

Here we all are!  Larry is SO outnumbered!  Four to one .  This is the female majority of the family in the morning.  Yawn – I’m not at my best in the a.m. – it takes me a few hours to get going!

Here she is…goat baby!  Eleven months old and climbing up and into everything.  On the floor you see the results of her victorious raid – papers strewn about, and she looks mighty proud of herself too!  She’s our lightest baby at this age, earliest walker and definitely earliest climber.  She’s a little daredevil…maybe I can get a snap of her standing on the back of her rocking horse with no hands.

Is it legal to post two Wordless Wednesdays in the same day?  If so, here’s my second installment!  This is a sequel to my first WW post here.  This is our three-year-old daughter in the self-same post hole that my six-year-old is shown in in the first WW post.  She’s a pretty tall girl too!  They just HAD to try!

Just to provide some background information. This is our oldest daughter – she’s six, and she’s tall! This is a hole that her father dug in the ground for a post for the swing set her Dad put up for her.  Yep, it used BIG posts.  What a goofy girl we have!

Children sleep in the strangest of places. My 2 year old falls asleep in some odd locations.  One time she fell asleep on the rocking chair in the ‘bum up’ position.  Fairly common.  But sometime later she moved into this interesting position:

She slept soundly for some time – she was even snoring.  Now, she was somewhat disoriented when she woke up.  I’m surprised at the positions children can sleep in!

We found this “old-school” Lite Brite at a garage sale this summer for $5.00.  Sadly we didn’t notice that one of the ‘grates’ for putting the pegs in had been badly melted/disfigured by a searingly hot lightbulb in the past, rendering it unusable.  Fortunately the inner ‘grate’ only had mild damage to 1-2 slots, so we can still successfully use it! It came with a LOT of pegs, and two boxes full of pattern sheets.  Here is Rose (2) with a windmill she helped Kaelynn (5) make.

Retro fun-times!  My friend across the road when I was a young girl had a Lite Brite and we spent many, many hours punching coloured plastic pegs through the black pattern sheets.  I remember my finger tips getting sore from the strenous work!    I see that they have smaller, modern travel versions available but I haven’t spied a full-sized one yet in the toy stores.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they are still available though!