Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Ours was good-most of the day was spent "working", Kelly outside working on equipment, me inside working on the farm books and laundry (two never-ending jobs) and making my portion of the Thanksgiving meal. We had Thanksgiving at the in-laws, and I brought a pumpkin cheesecake, got the recipe from PW Cooks...somehow my stuff just never turns out as easy or as nice as Ree makes it look though! And I made rolls with cinnamon butter. Yum. The rest of the meal was made by my mother in law...that makes life easy, for sure! The brother in law and his new wife were there, along with their dog and their new puppy. The puppy found great entertainment in my mother in law's cat...a cat who does not care for dogs, but unfortunately for her, she's declawed so she had little defense against the pestering little puppy beyond hissing, growling and trying to ignore the puppy. Oh did I mention the puppy is the same size as, if not smaller than the cat, right now? It made for a pretty cute scene. Henry even got to come along...only his second trip away from home since he got hurt about 7 weeks ago. I think the excitement of being out and with people and other dogs wore the poor guy out, as he's been sound asleep on the couch most of today :) Kelly's dad, who is also our vet (quite convenient!) said that Henry is healing well. We'll get an x-ray done next week to see how the bones look (his pelvis was broken in 3 places) but it sounds like he just needs to work on getting his muscle strength back now. So we're making good progress!

All in all, a good Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for this year. Loving family, good friends, an amazing husband, our sweet Henry who is still with us after his encounter with a speeding car, our farm which is slowly but surely growing and progressing, our home, and of course, our sweet little baby who, God willing, we will meet in just 4+ months. We are SO very blessed.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Attack of the belly touchers and non-filters

So, we went to a family wedding on Saturday...one of Kelly's cousins. By the way, Kelly has approximately a million cousins and therefore family weddings-FIL is one of 16 (yes I said sixteen) children. Soooo....its a big family, and there a million cousins and a million children and actually its really fun to be part of such a big and close family. Well, once you get past the oh my gosh how am I supposed to keep all these people straight?! Because when you marry into a family that big, its impossible to know everyone and yet everyone knows who you are b/c well, you're the new person! Quite overwhelming for the first year or so, but then you get over it and realize, no I am never going to be able to keep every aunt straight (they all look alike!!) and remember which cousin goes with which aunt and uncle...but you get to know a lot of them and it turns out to be really fun.

Ok....enough of that tangent.....the belly touchers. Its interesting how people are just drawn to pregnant women. Its like there is some sort of magnetic force radiating from a pregnant belly. People feel compelled to touch it, talk to it, at least remark on it if nothing else. I sort of expected it from my MIL, from the grandmothers, even maybe aunts...but when I had a male cousin touch the belly...well that one sort of threw me for a loop! And the comments....where do people's filters go when they encounter a pregnant woman?? Out the window apparently!! "Are you planning on nursing?" (asked by a male, very manly man type of cousin) um...hello, awkward....not sure how its any of your business what I do or don't do with my breasts, thanks much!! Luckily that one was directed at Kelly, who joked it away by saying "well, not me personally, wasn't planning on it!". This next one is just great..."Did you know right away?" Also from a male, also directed at Kelly...who got the most confused look on his face and said "Um...you mean, did we know she was pregnant? Uh, yeah pretty much." The four of us at the table burst into laughter after the person left. I mean...what kind of question is that?! Why on earth does it matter to you or anyone how quickly we knew?? This was not even someone we are close to that asked this question. Just strange. I figure it was his way of trying to ask if we were "trying" or if it was a "surprise". Which of course is also a ridiculously rude question...luckily I've only gotten that from one other person so far. It just amazes me the things people think its okay to ask once you're pregnant. I know this is only the tip of the iceberg...it will be interesting to see what other comments/questions we get. One of those things you just have to have a sense of humor about I guess! Anyone else get any good ones??

How cool is this?

So when I started reading blogs...oh, who KNOWS how long ago...through the nest...or was it the knot then? Oh who knows. Regardless, I got "addicted" to a number of them...feeling like I had really gotten to "know" people through their blogs. Of course, being the shy person I am in real life, even in the blogworld, I was too shy to comment most of the time. And not having a blog of my own, I thought well geez, they're just going to wonder if I'm some sort of crazy anyway-not knowing anything about me. But a few months ago I started my own blog...and then got brave enough to start commenting on a few blogs. In the process I got to know Erin (hi Erin!!)...well, reading Erin's blog one day, she mentioned her cousin who had a baby...from reading some of her other posts I had put 2 and 2 together and knew her hubby was from the general area of Ohio that I'm originally from....and realized...no way...I KNOW her cousin! Like in real life! How COOL :) Granted...I pretty much only see Caleb (her cousin) like once a year or every couple of years at the good old county fair anymore (gotta go back for the county fair, ya know!) which is how we had become friends back in highschool, so unfortunately I'm not very close to him anymore. :( But how very cool is it that I would meet someone through blogs that has such a close relation in real life to me.... Who would have thought?!

So sweet as Erin is...she is just as excited as I am to realize our little connection and has let her blog-readers know about my little corner of the web...so HI to anybody who might have wandered over from Erin's corner. You're welcome to read anytime...I don't lead the most thrilling life but I swear I'm really nice :)

And Erin...trying to sort out the cousin thing...so if you're related to Millers...are you related to Taylors too? Like Zach and Lydia and Hannah and all them? Its such a huge family, I get so confused as to how everybody's related!!

Oh...thanks too b/c Its a Small World is now in my head....so yeah...I need to go turn on the radio or something now. LOL!!

Its a.....

....Baby!! Yep, we stuck to our plan of not finding out what we're having. I have to admit, I was tempted...but I know it'll be so much fun to find out on our baby's actual birth day! The ultrasound was great. Everything looks good, baby weighs 11 ounces, heart rate at 142, and everything measuring just right. We got the whole thing on a dvd, which I thought was pretty cool. And the tech even switched to 4-D for a little while and printed some pictures out in that mode. We have a sweet profile picture of our little's one's face, with a hand up to his/her mouth. Adorable! I wish I could scan them in to post them here...I tried on the scanner at work and they scanned really badly, you can't see anything but some black and white blobs. And our scanner at home isn't working...it doesn't communicate with our computer for some reason. Very annoying! So until I get that sorted out...I can't post the pics I promised. Sorry!

So all in all...its a great Monday! We got to see our little one and we had a beautiful snowfall this morning...big soft flakes that coated the trees and dusted the ground, so gorgeous! Welcome to winter!

Thoughts on a rainy day

Its the middle of November already, what?! Well, on the bright side, that means our big ultrasound is on Monday!! I cannot believe I am halfway through this pregnancy already, its crazy! Once I got through that first trimester, time just started flying by. And with the holidays coming up...and everything that comes with that, before we know it, we'll be in the middle of January. So much going on between now and then. We still have to finish up harvest, plenty to do there. All the first crop soybeans are in...working on doublecrop soybeans now. Not this weekend though..its raining and dreary today. Then there's still corn to shell...then it'll be time to get dry cows. For my non-farmer readers...when a dairy cow is about 2 months out from calving or "freshening" as dairy people call it, they will stop milking her. Gives her body a chance to rest, and focus on growing her calf and also they don't make as much milk after a certain point anyway. So, the local dairy farm that we raise replacement heifers for is a seasonal dairy. Which means that they breed all of their cows within about a one month window so that they will all freshen at the same time. So, come December, they dry everybody off and stop milking entirely until about mid-February. Well, when they dry everyone off, we get about half those cows...called..you guessed it dry cows! :) So in mid-December we usually get about an extra 100 or so animals on our farm...in addition to the about 120 heifers (which have also been bred and will freshen in February or March as well) that we already have. So in other words...winter is a busy time for us.

So Kelly and his brother are having a "guys night" tonight...they are off to their cousin's bachelor party. Which means, the pets and I have the house to ourselves! The house is clean, the laundry is in process, and I have a night of doing whatever I want ahead of me. I considered renting myself a chick flick to watch...might still do that...the night is young :) I really need to work on the farmbooks...that is a chore that never ends, for sure. This morning I dropped Kelly off at his brother's (who lives a whole minute away...really, he lives across the road from our farm) and got to meet their sweet little new puppy. Tragically, their dog of 4 years, Maggie (who looked just like our Henry only grey instead of red) died suddenly last week. I won't get into the details, as its quite sad..but basically it was a complete freak accident that no one could have anticipated. We will all miss her so much, she was a sweetheart of a dog and certainly part of the family. I know B&C (the brother and his new wife) were absolutely heartbroken to lose her. They have another dog as well, Shadow, who was very used to having Maggie around and seemed quite lonely as well, so earlier this week they went to the local pound and picked out a new little puppy friend for Shadow. She is very similar to Maggie (and therefore Henry), except she is a darker grey. She's the tiniest little thing and just adorable! Reminds me of Henry when he was a puppy :) They named her Maddie...it will be such fun to watch her grow into a dog. Hopefully when Henry is all better (he was hit by a car in early October...I'm not sure if I mentioned that, did I?) and able to play with her, they will get along. I think they will. But Henry is still on "house rest" until about March or April, so she'll be a lot bigger by then...better for playing :)

Here's Maggie and Henry a few years ago...Maggie is the grey one, Henry is red. They look like they're related, don't they? She'll be missed :(

Well, look what happens when I have no interruptions...I write a novel! LOL! I know by tomorrow, I will be missing Kelly like crazy, but if I'm honest, I have to admit that its sort of nice to have an evening to myself :)

I will be sure to post pictures on Monday of our little one!!

48 days till Christmas!

Its hitting me already...the Christmas spirit. I went to two stores this week that had Christmas music playing. Normally, I think, what? Christmas already? We just passed Halloween, people! But for some reason this year, I am easily getting all caught up in it. And its fun! I was really worried about how I would react to Christmas this year...what with our 'original' due date being Dec 17....for a while after the miscarriage, I would cringe anytime anyone brought up the holidays. Being that Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday...I have to say I was more than a little upset at the thought that it may be ruined for me. But being pregnant now with my sweet little "Wigglie", and having everything going well so far...has really helped. Soooo.....I've started my Christmas shopping list...and my baking list (very important, baking is a HUGE part of my holiday celebrations!)...and I'm hoping I might even get started on stuff a little early this year. We'll see, b/c I normally can't do anything "Christmas" until December...but its looking promising this year! Which is a good thing, since I have to be out of town for work for 8 days out of the first two weeks of December. Not so thrilled about that...but I'm trying/hoping to make the best of it, and if I can get started early on my holiday stuff, then hopefully I'll still have plenty of time to relax and really enjoy the Christmas spirit. :) 48 days!!