Meet the Calves

On Monday the boy my DH mentors, JB got a calf. This calf is staying with our calf so let me introduce you to all the calves now that they all have names.

This Valentine which is our calf. I know I posted pictures of him before but here he is again!

This little one is JB's calf, Buddy. He was born Monday morning and we picked him up that evening!

These next two calves are my brother-in-law, DN's.

Poncho

and Lefty.

It's quite a cute collection of calves and I will say they all eat like pigs! Especially Poncho! DN comes up every morning before school and we feed them together and then we feed them again in the evening along with my DH. It has been a neat experience for this gal!

Hallmark Smilebox

I'll admit it, I'm hooked on Smilebox!!! I have found that it is much easier and quicker to send several pictures at a time using Smilebox. Plus at this point it's as scrapbooky and I get with my photos. If you've never tried it I recommend you give it a go. There are many different formats and music that one can choose from. You can pay for the service if you want pictures sent without any ads but I find it works just as well with the free version. Here's one of the Smileboxes I put together using some of the snow pictures I took back in December. Enjoy!!!

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A Walk on the Dike

On Monday I woke up to a lite dusting of snow on the ground but by the afternoon the sun was out shining and one would have never guess that it a snowed during the night. Since it was such a beautiful, sunny afternoon my mother-in-love and I took the dogs on a walk along our neighbor's dike. Here are a few pictures from our walk!

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Calves

Well, my brother-in-law has decided on his two calves so here is a picture of ours! Isn't he a cutie!

My father-in-law first noticed the heart-shaped white spot on our calf's forehead so we decided to name him Valentine!

Here are my brother-in-laws two calves.

I have to laugh because yesterday morning as my DH and I were eating breakfast we all of a sudden saw our little calf walking around in the pastures with the donkey and mule. (He apparently slipped under one portion of the fence.) He was clueless about them but Monk and Jasper sure were curious about him! They seem to get along fine so that will be good for the future.

Callie on the other hand isn't so sure about these new fellas. We brought her in with us when we fed them last night and she was very nervous. She didn't know whether to bark or sniff them. She is more scared of them then anything so we'll have to work on her!!

A New Addition to Our Family

Well not only do we have a dog, a mule, a donkey, 1 rooster, and 17 chickens but we now have a bottle calf. My youngest brother-in-law was going to get two bottle calves and they had an extra one so we got it. I really don't know much about raising calves/cows but I know I'll become quickly educated. Currently we have all three of them in our little red barn and we have to bottle fed them twice a day. We are hoping to get them bucket trained to make the process a little easier. All I have to say is they are really cute.

Since our was a last minute decision, my brother-in-law gets to pick which two he wants so I don't know for sure which one is going to be ours!

Around the House

So what's been happening around our house lately?!? Well, our chickens have begun to lay!

I don't think I mentioned that several weeks ago our chicken count went from 9 hens to 17 hens and a rooster! A family from church didn't want their chickens any more so they wanted to know if we wanted them. We said yes and upon getting them we discovered that they had a rooster too!

I wasn't to sure about the rooster but I have to say not only is he handsome but he is nice. The eight hens that we got from our friends had been laying but they needed a light to help them start back up again, so we put a light in the coop and within a week some of them started laying. Our original eight are also just starting to lay. We are now getting between 9-12 eggs a day. Its very exciting to be collecting our own eggs!!!

A New Year!

Happy New Year! It is surprising how fast a year has gone by. Last year on January 1st my life changed as my now DH proposed to me a top a beautiful meadow overlooking the valley floor. Six and half month later we were married and what a wonderful thing that has been. God has blessed us both so much in the past year and in all honesty it has been overwhelming. It has been so exciting to look back at the past and see what the Lord has done and even more exciting to look into the further to see what He is going to do! We wish you all a very Happy and Blessed New Year!

The Holidays!

We had a wonderful 1st Christmas as a married couple. We had a great time as we drove down and spent Christmas and several days with my family and then came home and celebrated a 2nd Christmas with my DH's family.


We had such a fun time with my family. I think all we did was eat and talk. We shared many laughs and made great memories! How embarrassing that we were opening Christmas morning from 8am-12pm. It's not that we had that many presents but a lot of talking between each gift opened. Our breakfast became our lunch but it was well worth it! One of the fun things that my family does is pick names and we have to make a homemade gift for that person. I had one of my sisters so I made her notecards from different pictures I had taken from around our new home. I had so much fun doing that!!


While we were down visiting my family we also had a chance to visit with friends and go down to the Midway Aircraft Carrier. We never made it to the lower deck. I guess we'll just have to visit it again!!!


We all enjoyed our time together and were sad to see it end. It was amazing how fast the time went and we are looking forward to getting together again!!

Once we got home, we celebrated our 2nd Christmas with my DH's family. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law made waffles for dinner and after that we sat around an opened presents. My poor youngest brother-in-law was just dying to open his presents. They have a tradition of drawing names and we only get gifts for the person that we drew. They opened stocking while my DH and I were gone but waited on the gifts till we were all back. Guess who had the youngest brother-in-law...me. In the end I don't think he minded waiting a few extra days!! I have to laugh because theme of the gifts was airsoft because all the guys ended up with airsoft guns. I foresee many battles, fortunately none of them take place inside! We had a fun evening!

So this years New Years was different from last years as my DH, one sister-in-law and brother-in-law, the boy my DH mentors and myself were out rabbit hunting. We spent New Year's Eve and day over the mountains from our house hunting rabbits. There weren't many rabbits. We saw about 10 rabbits the entire two days that we were there. All the rabbits were safe. We still had a lot of fun walking through the countryside and just spending time together!


Well, there's a quick peek into our busy holidays!!!