Let's be BRAVE and shoot some arrows!

When I first heard about the movie Brave, over a year ago, I was sooo excited! A Scottish princess, heroine without a prince! Finally! I was psyched and I drug the whole family to see the movie over the summer, whether they wanted to or not....luckily they wanted to. Yahoo especially liked it of course! What little girl wouldn't want to ride off on a giant horse into the wilderness shooting arrows? Sounds like a blast!  

(I just love this picture of Yap. I'm not sure if he's hollering or if he's channeling Michael Jordan with that tongue!) 

Do you know how many crappy toy bow and arrows my boys have gone through in their short 8 years? Too many to count. Finally I had to put my foot down and wouldn't let them buy any toy bow and arrows because I knew they'd be broken by the end of the day.  

A while ago I found this great tutorial on how to make bows and arrows out of PVC pipe. Awesome! One lazy weekend during harvest, when DR wasn't home, we marched down to the hardware store a block away (I'm so spoiled) and bought the supplies which weren't expensive at all, maybe $20 in all? I think we had three bows and six arrows built and shooting within an hour! They are a bit tough for Yahoo to play with but she still enjoys being out playing with the boys while they shoot the arrows. 

We built these over a month ago and the kids still play with them! Talk about durable! Well, the only part that has taken a beating is the foam arrow heads...they've gotten shredded between my kids and the neighbor kids playing with them but the dowel rod arrows are still in one piece and those shoot just fine! 

How do you like my daughter's fashion sense? She's wearing a skirt, well as a skirt and then another skirt as a shirt. I should just be thankful she's covered! 

The ONLY problem we've had with this toy is my boys tend to shoot toward the big pine tree in our front yard and the arrows get stuck a lot. 

The boys and I have had a lot of practice throwing the football up in the tree trying to get the arrows down! 

The PVC Bow and Arrow is one of the best homemade toys I've ever made! Check out the instructions at Skip to My Lou. She has great step by step photos!

What's the best Do It Yourself toy you've ever made? 

4H Archery

Last weekend the boys participated in our county's 4-H archery shoot. 

Thank goodness we finished before the temps reached the 90's that arrived in the afternoon. 

Checking to make sure we have the right arrows. 

Waiting for each arrow to be scored. 

Saluting Mom and the camera because he's a ham! 

Isn't that green grass gorgeous? Sooo much better than last year. 

Finally, what all the little boys had been waiting for....the 3D shoot! 

Shooting fake animals is so much more fun, and more difficult, than shooting at some boring old target. 

Now...if they'd only get old enough to go hunting for some real wild animals (yum)...this momma would be super happy! 

Archery Contest!

Yip and Yap had a 4-H Archery contest over the weekend.

They LOVE archery. The only complaint they have is no one will let them shoot a crossbow! HA!

One boy shoots left handed, one shoots right; they have different dominate eyes although they are both right handed.

The kids were divided by age and discipline (which kind of bow they shot) and the boys were in the youngest group. We started at 9 am and finished around noon.

A long day for the youngest kids but they managed to keep themselves entertained while waiting for the older kids to finish shooting.

But what they were really looking forward to was the 3-D shoot. There were about 15 or so target animals set up as part of the contest; bears, deer, wolverine, boar, fox.

But they were really looking forward to shooting at the fake alligator!

After his arrow ricocheted off it's back, Yap wanted to know if the instructor put real alligator scales on the back! The funniest though was one of the other little boys shot a standing bear right between the legs...oh the giggles that ensued!

Don't they look handsome out there shooting?

Now get out there and get me a real deer boys!!

4-H Archery

The weather has been pretty cooperative this week and we had 4-H Archery to go to.

Yip and Yap enjoy archery a lot more than shooting a BB gun.

Probably because they can actually see where the arrow goes...and those BB guns are still kind of heavy for 6 year olds.

I didn't get to stick around to see them shoot this week. :(

Miss Yahoo decided to get super grumpy (no nap that day) and we headed home for an early bedtime while DR watched all the fun.

Maybe next week I'll get some better pictures...but I couldn't resist sharing the one above of all three kids. Yahoo thinks she can, and should, do anything her big brothers do. Most of the time you can find her right with the boys.