Reflection

As I reflect back on 2011, I realize we are very blessed,
for our warm home and fireplace,
for our health,
for our families,
for faith,
for good friends,
for the egg producing ladies,
for the pets... even Jingle Bunny,
for the checker board table on the front porch,
for my new Janome... she's quite a machine,
for Grandpa's cabin... fishing, trap shooting, eating,
for Christmas break... 4 1/2 months until summer
for making soap,
for garden vegetables,
for "glamper" camping,
for technology... the girls love their new gizmos,
and mostly, for the opportunity to experience and live life to the fullest!

For 2012, our goals are to...
arrive at school on time,
eat more vegetables,
keep homemade noodles in the freezer,
not loose any calves during calving,
make more soap,
weed the garden,
lower our rodeo times,
attend the Craig Reunion and Cheyenne this summer,
de-clutter more... started in the basement over break (4 bags of trash)
take piano lessons,

and enjoy every given moment!

Happy New Year to All!

(Note: house cleaning did not make either list)

ZeBrA

A few weeks ago we remodeled the girls' bedroom from sweet little cowgirls to rockin' zebra-print cowgirls! Here are some before and after photos... we also found some missing treasures when we "deep" cleaned their room. We misplaced a DS about 3 years ago... we found it! We also found "Blankie" who had been missing for 4 months. Absolutely amazing!

Before... do you see why we lost treasures?

After... nice new look!
Added some beautiful cowgirls!

Get Along Little Doggies

Monday morning, we got the call... "Dad's moving cows today, can you keep them out of your yard and let the neighbors know?" Now, most people move cows with trailers, or horses, but not us... we move them right down the rode. That means, Dad leads the cows with his truck and a feed bucket and the rest of us keep them on the road and out of yards along the way. And "most" of the time this works well, but I can recall a few times that it did NOT! Once they shot through the evergreens at Helen's, another time they followed the truck out, got spooked, and returned to the pasture at a high rate of speed. A few years ago, the old cows were trained to travel from Richard's to Pete's (our ranch) except, curve ball, they were going to home, so they just circled the ranch house, and headed on down the road. Sometimes, the "I'm sick of running down the road" cow jumps the road fence and is M.I.A. for a few days... always unpredictable.

The next generation in training!

Here they come... I almost had to hurtle the fence, Olympic style, to keep them out of our hay... almost!

Get along little doggies!

And there they go... only with a few communication errors this time, the lovely ladies returned home to feed on fresh round bales of hay and sparkling ice cold water for a few months until they will produce another bumper crop of calves.

Homemade Christmas

Our "Homemade Christmas gifts" were a great success again this year.  I gave the six pack gift, including homemade vanilla, fire starters, homemade soap, and hand painted glamper ornaments.  I love this tradition!

Homemade Noodles

A couple days ago, the girls and I made noodles. I haven't ever made noodles. Our chickens finally started producing eggs again, 4-6 each day.  Way to go ladies! With our abundance of eggs, we decided to make noodles. For supper tonight, we had homemade chicken noodle soup (not with the chickens, but with egg noodles) and beef and noodles are on the menu for tomorrow.  The homemade noodles are awesome!  BL even liked the soup.  There is no reason why we can't have these noodles in our freezer all winter, Polly Pioneer thinks they are a must!

All I Want...

For Christmas is my 2 front teeth!