Harvest

Here are some photos from harvest, it seems like we didn't take very many this year, but it was busy. Josie rode in the grain cart with me and really liked it (thank goodness for our portable DVD player though). She also took some turns riding in the combine with Daddy & Papa Steve for breaks from me. Everytime she was on the road with Luke in the combine she fell asleep which was pretty funny.

The flies were horrible in the fields, & one night Josie kept saying "I bite flies, I bite flies" when the flies bit her. It was too cute. She would point to her shoulder & say "I bite fly right here". I felt horrible for her, but luckily we were in the tractor & away from the flies for the most part.

Because spring was so dry & we got rain late in June it was a little crazy this year because Luke was actually planting millet while Steve was one field over harvesting wheat. Luckily Luke finished up about 2 days into harvest though.





Josie enjoying a chocolate chip cookie after lunch one day...
Luke planting millet-
Josie all set to go for a ride with Luke while he was planting millet.

The haircut!

Well, I'm a little late here, but I wanted to post pictures of Josie's hair cut (she got it cut the middle of June)! I loved it long, but, I was catching her chewing on her hair, and those of you who know me know that I am totally grossed out by all things involving hair, so it had to go!



Here's before...

And here's after:)

More pics

Here are a few more from moving cows, and around my parents house:) Top is Josie just after a goon nap driving up to the summer pasture.








Luke and Josie climbing back into the pickup after a loooong day!

My sister Marika, Mom Debbie, & Josie playing with her new "Dora" bubbles! :)

Mountains

It appears that I have a limited number of pictures I can add for each entry, so, lots of entries today! Enjoy~
Checking things out with "Aunt Leelee" at my parents before we left to take cows up...
I think this is the very south end of the Collegiate Peaks (top of Poncha Pass) but don't take my word for it!
The corral, 'Cowboy' Luke is helping unload...
Pretty, pretty, pretty
Long day and Scooter needed a nap, she crashed pretty hard! She also loved being in "her" pickup...

Moving Cows

We had a bunch of fun, and enjoyed being in the mountains. A very full day, with everything from Luke 'wrestling' a calf, to me getting clocked by a fence post, to Josie having a ton of fun watching Annalee's dog Olson (black lab) swim... Beatiful pictures!

Josie and her new "Dora the Explorer" doll
For Mickey- he wanted a picture of him holding the calf while Step-Dad Bob branded...
Branding....
Annalee, Mickey, Luke, & Step-Dad Bob sureveying the situation...
More branding...

MIckey's graduation & other pictures

My brother Mickey's graduation was really nice! We went home to my parents, and both my sisters were there as well. Josie had a blast seeing everyone, and, we also got to help move cows to summer pasture so that was pretty enjoyable as well.

Mickey is going to come to NJC next year so he'll be close to us, and both Luke and I are really looking forward to that.

Update on Josie- she's doing really good. Not taking to potty training (resuses to sit on potty when she actually has to go) so we're taking some time off. She's talking up a storm, among my new favorites are: trif-kit! (terrific), I can't believe it!, Dirty Hippies (thank you Daddy), and Check it out! Pretty cute. We're also workning on erradicating our first swear word from her vocabulary 'Damn It'. Pretty cute when she says it though (how horrible is that??!!)

Anyway- below are some pictures of our trip- enjoy!
Mickey walking into the auditorium...

Me and Mickey following the cerimony...

Marika, Josie, and Annalee following the cerimony....


Josie being 'shy' and Annalee laughing at how silly that is!

Recent photos-

Here's some pictures of what we've been up to lately:) We've been busy! Farming is taking off again so Luke's been out in the field, spraying mostly. I have my little online job and that I do when Josie naps which is nice. Josie is talking so much now! Tons of words/phrases. Most notable: "I can't believe it" "Holy Cow!" "Hmmmm, where could be?" "I'm gonna get you!"

We are all excited for the arrival of Hazen and Andrea's baby, Josie has not idea what's going on... a few weeks ago she patted my tummy though and asked "Momma, you got a baby in there?" I had to tell her no:) She does like the baby in Andrea's belly though, and will pooch hers out to match ;)

We don't really have a ton of news, just day to day stuff- we did get Josie and outside playset which is really cool! It's used to wasn't terribly expensive, but it features a play house, two slides, a tunnel, and climbing tower:) Pretty cool! Enjoy the pics! Love to you all-
Josie helping me make bread- she loves to help in the kitchen, she'll get her step stool and climb up. Heaven help you if she does not have her step stool and cannot help- it doesn't go over well!

A beautiful fairy princess, Josie all dressed up as Tinkerbell. She was singing too, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but unfortunately I don't think you can post video on the blog:( I like this picture though:)


Josie and her partner in crime, Aidyn. The terrible twosome, they make a good team:) This is a nice pic:)




Dying Easter eggs- which mostly I did, but Josie had fun putting stickers on them when they were dry:) Easter was a lot of fun this year, but, of course we forgot to take any pictures while we were dressed in our best:(

Josie's new outside play gym- lots of fun! :)

Long overdue....

At long last, here are some photos from Schlachter Sausage in March. We had a lot of fun, nice to see all the family, and Josie of course loved getting so much attention.

Luke and the 'men' loading sausage into the smokehouse- we had stuffed the 'guts' the night before:)
Luke, Aaron, Uncle Perry,and that's Stacey with Josie in the background...

The sausages are hung on the rods to dry before smoking, it's a tough job because you have to make sure none of them touch, if they touch they'll stick, and if they stick the casing breaks and you've wasted a link...

Aunt Gail caught one of the kitties, Josie loves them, but it was so nasty, cold and windy, he wanted nothing to do with being petted! They had fun anyway:)

It was also fun to have a lot of other kids around, Josie really enjoyed that part!

After standing in the wind putting sausage in the smoke house everyone headed to Schmidts for coffee and cookies- here's a shot of the kids table, Josie had so much fun being a big girl sitting with the other big girls:)

Josie's birthday.

I just realized that I have yet to post on that, so, here ya go. I think I'll let the pics do most of the talking though:) It was a very nice day, we had a lot of fun. Josie's favorite presents are the two blankets she got. One has is purple with different colored eliphants on it from "Aunt" Gail, and the other is white and blue with Cinderella from Christy...

Pictures from our Grand Junction portion of the trip...

So when you view these it looks like I took them all at the same time. This is not the case. I took them over the 2.5 days we were there, but Josie wore those goofy St. Patricks day sparkly headband antennas the whole time we were there!!! Grandma Debbie got them for her, she loved them. Now, I have no idea where they are in our house, but I'm anticipating they'll reappear at some point:)

Catching up!

Well, it's been quite some time since I posted, so, I have a lot of catching up to do!

Josie had a wonderful Valentine's Day (Luke and I did too, we snuck away and had a long overdue romantic dinner that was lovely). Josie got some beautiful roses from her Grandma Judy (and another mylar balloon that she is still dragging around with her!).

We also took a little vacation west to see my college friend Sarah and her little girl Kathrine, and my sister Annalee and her new house in Grand Junction. So, here's some photos from the trip.

Kathrine and Josie hanging out in their PJ's. They played together really well, I think that's because each one is a match for the other, so rather than fight they just sort of co-exist. Lots of fun to watch them together!

While at Sarah's we had the opportunity to go watch cow's being moved by her neighbor. We also got the chance to ride and of course jumped on! Josie loved the horse, she sat up there like she'd been riding all along, and cracked me up by saying "neigh, neigh, pretty horse, neigh, neigh" over and over the whole time we were up. It was a blast though.

The scenery over there is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! We were in Parachute, about 50 miles east of Grand Junction and those cliffs are made of oil shale (mining is big business over there).

I've run out of time for today, but I'll post pics from the rest of our trip as soon as I can!

Vote for us!!!!

I entered a photo contest on a John Deere website and wondered if anyone who reads this would like to go check it out, and of course vote for us:)

Here's the link: http://www.rungreen.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=37

We're photo number 16...

The picture was taken this summer, there's Josie (on the right) and my friend Sarah's little girl Kathrine playing on one of the tractors. I think they really wanted to take it for a spin!

Thank you to everyone who goes and votes for us!!!