Family Holiday Photos

 As a general PSA. If you plan to do family photos with both children and animals, you are either going to have a good looking animal, or 'normal' looking kids. Not both.

That being said. I love all of these photos. Especially the professional ones. 

 A mini Gwyn!

I signed up for a photography mini session to support Cortney's drill team and took the whole family including Gwyn to be in the photos. I don't plan to send out holiday cards but I do love having the family photos.

I brought the reindeer antlers, did a cursory groom of Gwyn who tends to stay pretty clean on her own, mainly just picked the shavings out of her tail, and the location provided the backdrop and the wreath that Gwyn wore as well as a mini horse. 

Kaylee discovered the struggles of a selfie with a horse

On to the professional shots! I would hope it goes without saying, but these were all purchased!

I love how her head is cocked to the side.

Gwyn is usually so unflappable that the photographer, Cortney and the third assistant really had to work to get Gwyn to even look remotely curious. The trick was trotting the mini back and forth WHILE crinkling the candy cane bucket.

We brought the mini in for photos too and Gwyn was curious, but also very much "I AM IN CHARGE"

I'm laughing because in between shots Gwyn was trying to bite his face.

Then we did a few without Gwyn, who didn't care because I kept her happy by letting her eat a ton of hay.

It was a long day for a short photography session. We drove pretty far south to support them but I feel like it was worth it to both get the photos and support Cortney. 

The mountain gets bigger when you go south though. So gorgeous!

Metamora Wassailing Celebration

I think I've previously mentioned this, but I live just on the outskirts of a very horse-central town in Michigan. Their activities revolve around horses and it's like... magic for a horse crazy person like myself.

They have a Horse Celebration at the end of summer and have breed displays and draft pulls. There's a yearly barn tour of the fancy schmancy barns in the area. Pretty much the Metamora Hunt members are likely also the Metamora Chamber of Commerce members and so what they say goes and I'm totally okay with that. It's their thing.

In Anticipation

I'm basically all packed and ready to head out in the morning for what's basically my endurance loaded next two months! Three rides in the course of seven weeks.

I'm SO excited.

I also finally got my ribbon in the mail for placing at the Hunter Pace with my team but I keep forgetting to take the ribbon out to the barn and make Gwyn pose all official-like.

ah well :D

The plan for the weekend:

Drive up/over to the west side of the state Saturday AM
Set up camp
Help hang night time trail markers for the 100 milers (Yay volunteering!)
25 mile LD Sunday AM
Chill out Sunday PM with Alicia and her kid (bathing suit brought for the lake just in case)
Monday AM be the timer for the monday rides
Pack up camp and go home

This is a ride I haven't been to before so it'll be all new trails! Alicia is already there with her daughter, who I haven't met yet.

Just, in general I'm excited for the weekend. And I'm hoping that even if the actual ride doesn't go as planned that since I have other activities worked in (volunteering) that it'll still be enjoyable.

Easter Egg Hunt

So over at DIY Horsemanship, there is an easter contest running! You can easily enter by just commenting, but you get BONUS points and potentially an extra prize if you do an 'easter egg hunt' with your horses using homemade treats from a recipe by DIY Horsemanship.

That was my plan for today!

I used the Peppermint Horse Treats recipe. I made a few modifications since I couldn't find flax seed (it's probably in the deep freezer, honestly). I omitted the flax seed and horse feed. The horse feed was because I didn't want to run out to the barn to grab it and leave the kids unattended in the house. That's how things get destroyed.

I also really didn't measure exactly. I just eyed it. The recipe ended up being more of a guideline, hahaha.

I got distracted easily.

I picked these silicone muffin pans from the dollar general when I also grabbed easter regalia. $3 each!  Since I had some mixture leftover but not enough to fill my big silicone muffin tin, I also used my swedish horse small cake form and a dolphin cookie cutter.

I baked as directed for 45 minutes only to find when I pulled them out that someone had turned the temperature of the oven to OFF.  Gosh, I wonder who that could be (my bet is the 2 year old...)

Rechecking that the peppermints I had were not the easily melted kind, I bumped the temperature back up, stuffed the cookies full of peppermints, and threw everything back in for another 20 minutes+.

No regrets

It worked. Though I think it'd be really hard to screw this recipe up, honestly. So if you're scared of screwing up, don't be! I changed so much and it still all worked out and made treats that my animals were mad at me for leaving without giving them more.

Once those were made, and the tiny terror (2 year old) was down for a nap, we headed outside to 'hide' the 'easter eggs'

I took six, figuring three treats per animal since they were fairly large, would be sufficient.

I also made the decision that the zombie garden gnome would become a jump decoration

Paying VERY close attention.

After I decorated the animals with easter regalia Gwyn got mad and I had to entice her back into the arena.

Saffron wore the bunny ears

Their easter best, mud and all

Saffron figured out the game immediately.

So did Gwyn

She ended up knocking the treat off the standard and into the dirt

"Okay lady, where are the rest of them?"

"Hmmm, this isn't a treat..."

"AHAH!"

"The Tiny Human does not, I repeat, does not have treats at this time"

Kaylee wanted to speed things along so she ended up feeding Gwyn's third treat by hand. I had to seriously point out the second. Her smartness finding the first must have been a fluke, LOL

But then she had to investigate ALL the jumps to make sure she didn't miss any more.

"There was one here BEFORE!"