I took this foggy picture before soccer one morning. I thought we should stay home, but the kids thought it would be awesome to play in the fog. Oh Boy!

This is our wonderful horse Elmer. He has an injured flexor tendon in his leg, so he is on R&R for the next 3 months. We are medicating and wrapping it for the next 6 weeks. Hopefully come spring he will be good as new. Hes an awful good boy. We love him so.

Fall is here. I'm so excited! I got these awesome pumpkins and mums at a friends stand.

I got a hunormous one and I love it.

I will take some more pictures and post them.

This is Disco. She is going to be Garretts first show heifer. This was taken a while back. I dont want to take pictures of her right now because shes really hairy and needs clipped on.

After we get her all prettied up, i'll post a new photo.

I havent posted in a while. Things are crazy here. I hope to get back to a routine by the end of the month.

The kids have started soccer, we just cut hay for the last time. And we are getting ready for harvest.

This is my favorite time of the year. Cool weather, fall colors and pumpkins. It doesn't get much better than that. I post some of my new pictures as soon as i can.

6 years ago today, God decided that my mother had other things to do. So today i remember her. I remember her courage, strength and stubborness.
I remember the hugs and kisses, the ones i try to make sure garrett and mahlia get. I remember her laughter and how she would gleek and make us laugh harder. I remember the wonderfull way she smelled. And how she loved to read the paper in her pajamas and watch her special shows.
I miss her so much and think of her everyday. I see her when i look in the mirror and i hear her when i say something to the kids. i feel her around me.
One day we will be together again and i will give her the biggest hug, to make up for our time apart. But until then i will remember.

I Love You and Miss You!

my mom gave me this jewelry. its not anything other than costume. but it was my grandmother and my mothers. i keep it in the box that she gave it to me in, and mahlia loves to get it out and play with it.. she trie it on and primps in the mirror.

this is her favorite one. she gets it out first almost everytime.

here it all is together.

This is kylee.
This is Mahlia.

the one on the left in the blue is me and the little girl in the black and white photo is my mom. I think we all look alike. same eyes and nose. mom and i have the same hair in these photos.

Mom with garrett and mahlia. gt loved hugging grandma. he stayed with them a lot. to the point that when i was pregnant with mahlia, i think he was there every other weekend.

this is at mark and i wedding reception. we had a blast dancing! mom even took a whirl with my aunt.

So pretty! This is moms graduation picture from school. Flawless is how she looks.

So here is the bucket of tools we use to put up the fence. The posthole driver that goes on the front of the skid steer, that makes life so easy. The ground was so dry one day that Mark had to cut the end of the corner posts to get them started in the ground. And then we have the boss at work. I am being shook to death in the skid steer. That is my job. FUN! I will be so glad when we are done.

Things have gotten a little crazy around here. We have been building fence, trying to get it done before we bring the cows back home. The kids go to riding lessons once a week. Trying to keep yardwork and housework up. Registered for school this week and went to drs appointments to make sure everything is up to date to start school. Anyway, i will get back to posting regularly soon.

Kylee, our neice had her first birthday party. What a cutie! Hard to believe shes one allready. Everyone from both families was there. We had lots of cake. And she got lots of goodies.

Princess, being her usual weird self. I swear she thinks shes a person sometimes. The horses got there feet dones today, which was nerve wracking. They had their feet done after we got them, but i wasnt present. They did well as long as they could see each other.

Its raining again today, so im going to hang in the house with the kids. Mark is off with Jeff (his brother) doing cattle stuff. I think i may bake some cookies and start a new book, or watch a movies i haven't seen in a while.

Mark was getting the combine ready to cut wheat. He needed to grease and Garrett thought he needed to supervise

You cant see him but just to the right of the ladder is Hank. He thought the combine made great shade and was also helping Mark grease the combine.

Fourth of July weekend is over. It was a rainy one. We spent most of the evening in the garage watching the rain come down. We had lots of good food, as we always do. More food than people.

We were able to sit around the fire for a bit and roast marshmellows and make smores. Thank goodness since thats what the kids had been waiting for.

Time to get ready for the week and get some things done. We will registering for school soon and going back to the grind and schedules.

While i was trying to avoid cleaning mimi is in the house in a gymnastics leotard, with a belt and microphone. She is Hannah Montana. She dances around and sings. I will get some pictures somtime, just for when shes older.
Anyway she came outside when i was getting ready to go in and she just had to show some love to Diesel. The girl has the biggest heart. She reminds me of my mom, always hugging and kissing. Even the animals!

Finally, the wheat is ready. Which means time to bale straw. Which always such an exciting job. If only the animals new how hard we work to keep them warm when its freezing outside. I always tell mark that i want to run through the wheat in my bare feet when he plants it because its such a beautiful green.

So i'm supposed to be doing something constructive, like cleaning. I just didn't feel like it, so i went out and took some photos of the horses. Diesel wont stand more than 1 inch from the camera.

It's fourth of July weekend. Where has the past 5 months went. I was doing the calendar that I keep on the fridge the other day and in 3 weeks i will be registering the kids for school.

I'm ready for State Fair. I love the sounds, smells and i love to watch the people. I hope that everyone has a good holiday. I cant wait to sit back and just relax with our friends and family and EAT!

This is Jacob Hall. My friends Doug and Christys son. He showed this steer at county fair and got Reserve Champion County Born Steer. The steers name is Walt and Walt went to be butchered. So Jake and I took some pictures of them together. What a beautiful morning. Thanks for letting me take these for you Jake.

So, the fair is over and all the pictures are edited and sent to the Extension office and the newspaper. I love donating my time and taking pictures for these kids. They work so hard and deserver to have a momento to have to show their families when they get older.

The handsome man in the center is our nephew Tyler. He won Senior Showman and then went out and won Master Showman. Thats what showing cattle is all about. If you cant show them then you are wasting everyones time. He has become quite the cattleman. And we are proud of him. Way to go Tyler!

These things are so ugly, they are pretty. I believe they are on a clematis plant. They remind me of something you would find in the ocean. Weird and unusual!

So im walking through the house picking up after everyone, and i look in the sunroom. Harley, in her favorite spot sleeping. Her and Kimber love to sleep in here during the day in the sun.

This interesting looking plant is a popcorn plant. When you rub the leaves it smells like popcorn. A friend of ours has it on his deck and I think it is so neat.

So i'm starting to worry. Hank actually yelped in pain when he got up yesterday. So i called and talked to my friend denise who works as a vet assistant at a vet clinic. we have an appointment on friday to see what steps need to be taken now. we have him on a low dose pain medication, but im afraid its not doing the trick. I am so worried about how he will do this winter. so i have my fingers crossed.

Sometimes, the best things come in small packages. This little heifer came out of Mark and I's first Red Angus calf. We have had her for 9 years and this is the prettiest calf shes ever given us. Mark thinks this will be her last year with us, so he doesn't know it but this little girl is gonna stay here.

I'm so sad sometimes when we have a cow for a long time then we have to get rid of them. Last fall we had to get rid of our first Angus cow we bought together. I cried for days. You miss seeing them out there in the morning. Sappy me! Mark makes fun of me, but i think he misses some of them to.

This morning came early. Its been a long week at the fair. I once again donated my time and took pictures for the kids that showed livestock. I helped all day in the show ring for the cattle show. And then instead of going to bed early last night, i stayed up till after 12:00 Big mistake, I took a few pictures for a friend. He showed friday and his steer is getting butchered tommorrow and he wanted pictures of it since he placed with it. It was such a pretty morning and i saw these flowers on the barb wire.

This is another Bob Cole pig. The kids had so much fun, and it ends a long day with something fun. Mahlia was really excited that she had a pink show stick. She gets to do the runt class for two more years. Then she will be in 4-h. They are growing up so fast!

Thank you to Bob Cole. He lent us a pig for runt class. This is Garretts last year. He will be an official 4-h er this fall. He loved showing the pigs. He got penned and chosen to come back for the drive for his age division. But no luck. He got a ribbon and a dollar and he was excited.