Redneck-ish? I'm afraid so...

This Sunday afternoon, the boys, Kris, and myself went with my parents to their land in Wayne Co. to check dad's traps and for Kris to look for a hog he thought he had shot the night before. This kind of stuff is just the kind of stuff our boys enjoy, no LOVE, doing! Me....not so much, but I had better get used to it, huh?


Karsen just loves being outside, doing everything the men in his life do!


Kooper just had to have Gramps' hat to wear.



Karsen took every step his Gramps took! They are checking a beaver trap.


OK....this is the part of the trip that I have the most concern about. A 2 year old (well one day shy of 2, anyway) carrying a dead coon! It makes me quiver to think of such...I mean, look how nasty it looks, and Kooper is 2! But, he wouldn't have it any other way. He kept saying it was "my coon" when Karsen asked him if he could hold it. He said "it so heaby!" Later, Kooper said "ummmm, it smell GOOD! It smell wishious (aka delicious)!" We don't know where that came from! Look at the hold he has on that coon!

I have mixed emotions about a 2 and a 3 year old being around guns / hunters so much and talking about hunting and killing animals. I mean, it's pretty brutal. Karsen will sit and talk as long as he has an ear to aim at...telling tales about hunting! So detailed and very creative. But, what I always realize about his tales is the similiarity to the "adventures" he goes on with Kris, Gramps, Papa Mike, Uncle Don, or Pappaw Sumrall. I know these people and these adventures are making an impression on his little, curious mind. These are fun times that he enjoys and that may not be available to him when he is older. If any of these people happen not to be around for these special times when Karsen and Kooper are older, I will be pleased and comforted in knowing that they had the time that they had, doing and learning what the men in their life loved to do! I am so grateful for the time my dad takes with Karsen & Kooper. It makes me so happy to seem him teaching them (outdoor stuff and things about life in general), and he will never know how much that means to Kris and me! He is so patient with them (and that is not a virtue of his) in explaining why things are the way they are in nature, why you do this and that in hunting, what kind of animal makes this or that kind of track, why you never point a gun around people, and of course, in showing him how to "talk country" as Karsen says.


Gramps "teaching" Karsen how to shoot the pistol.

Karsen loves to drive his Gramps' truck. Karsen asked me this morning why his Gramps talks so country...I quickly responded "Why do YOU?"...he said, "Cause Gramps taught me to!"

Boys...try not to get the pine sap all over yourselves, please?

Gotta love these two, tough little boys! They like to take care of each other, and Karsen loves to teach Kooper new things...the good and the bad things :( They will always have someone to "have their back," a partner in crime, a best buddy, a brother...and THAT is what I love so much about having two BOYS!