Home Sweet Home

Rambo! We brought this big boy home last Saturday. He comes from a breeder out of Maricopa and just hit his year birthday on Valentine's Day. Our ewes should be ready to breed within the next month or so (hard to believe because they are so petite) and Rambo is ready to breed now, so let the good times roll out there in the stall I guess...

Valentine's Day I don't have a bunch of pictures to document this day, but I wanted to note how incredibly thoughtful Justin is. I pretty much handle all the finances in our home and Justin rarely really knows what is going on with our money. Because of that, it's hard for him to surprise me with anything because I'm always checking our bank and credit card accounts almost daily. We also have a budget spreadsheet that I update every month so I know how much we can spend or put into savings. This month we had extra expenses for fruit trees, the kids lunch money accounts, Home Depot (for gardening and around the yard project stuff), and a splurge I shouldn't have made for some bedding. We were already over budget and I told Justin this and I really didn't want to spend money for Valentine's Day. I ended up buying Justin a pretty affordable electric knife online (of course not in time for it to get here on Valentine's Day, I'm so lame...) and figured I...

  A weekend alone...ALMOST! Last weekend Justin decided to take Brighton, Adaira & Dale up to Seligman to visit his parents and give me a sweet semi-break with just this sweet thing at home:  It was so nice and quiet. Honestly any time I don't have to chase Dale around the house to keep him from causing one disaster after another, it is a relaxing time! Unfortunately a new workout that Justin and I started about a week and a half earlier had caused a bulging disc in my back (which I ignored and continued working out, only making the back pain worse and worse until I finally realized what it was) and I could hardly do anything that involved bending over all weekend. It hurts just to pick up Daisy out of her bassinet! So I had plans to get a lot more cleaning done than I actually did because I was laying down on the couch most of the time. Regardless of that misfortune, I was happy for a break, and the kids had a great time up on the ranch. A few of their favorites: Sm...

 Playing some catch up! It's been really hard for me to keep up with blogging lately, I've got to do better! Pictures below show what you can do with a bunch of expired pancake mix from the cannery instead of just throwing it away (granted throwing it away would have been a much cleaner and less sticky solution). The kids each had their own bag of mix and made their own super sticky bowl of dough. It's funny how much they loved just sitting there and squeezing it between their fingers. They played with it over the course of 2-3 days until I finally made them throw it away and clean/scrape up their mess. The dough dried up a little more each day and it was really tough and gross by the third day. Even so, Brighton tried to hide his bowl in the outside closet so he could still play with it later. Brighton, when will you learn you can't trick your mother? I might not find out right away, but I WILL find out...  So Adaira loves being in front of the camera. She wanted t...

New Baby Girls We brought home two baby sheep last week! Brighton has named one Emily and Adaira named the other one Rosie. They are barely weaned American Blackbelly sheep. Justin and I have been ruminating over possible meat animals to raise and previously thought we might want to try a cow, but we honestly weren't going to have enough room for a cow and hay is super expensive ($18/bale) right now. We've thrown around the idea of pigs but our zoning only allows us a single pig, so we couldn't breed it. I HATE goats, so they weren't even an option, so sheep are the direction we decided to go. Granted in an emergency food crisis I'd rather eat beef or pork over mutton, but the good thing about this breed is they are supposed to have a very mild flavor and are recommended for "gourmet lamb" meat. Anyway, they look like goats because they are a hair (not wool) breed, which means we don't need to sheer them once a year (another plus). They stay relativel...

Daisy had her 2 month appointment today and before I forget I wanted to document that she is 13lbs 5oz and 24.1 inches long. She is above the 90th percentile in everything. She got a few shots and has been sore today, poor thing. That hasn't stopped her from giving us some sweet smiles and excited outbursts today. Last night we visited Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth and Daisy was smiling and giggling when we put her in front of baby Charlotte (and Daisy hasn't been giggling). She was just so happy and making all sorts of cute little laugh sounds whenever she could see Charlotte. It was so precious! I hope they are great friends in a few years! We are glad Daisy is healthy and strong, looking forward to this first exciting year and seeing all of her developments, sweet thing that she is!

A Nice Surprise! Many of you can probably guess that Dale is rough with 99.9% of everything around him (toys, household objects, his older siblings, etc.). There are many toys and books in our home that I bought when I had Brighton and they have survived he and Adaira but were destroyed by Dale. I am happy to say that there is one thing in our home that Dale is surprisingly gentle with, and that is his new baby sister. I have been so shocked to see him sitting quietly next to her like this and softly stroking her head or gently patting her leg if she is fussing. In these first pictures he just grabbed himself a toy so he could go and sit by her and play with it. I tried to catch his little hand on her head but he moved it and wouldn't put it back. Daisy's bassinet is still next to our bed. Last night I was heading to wake up Daisy from her short afternoon nap when I saw the lights on and the door open to our room. I thought "Oh great, Daaaaale!!!" and wondered w...

Daisy's 'Head Shots'  My brother Duane and his family were in town for a few weeks around Thanksgiving. It was so great to see and spend some times with them (I didn't get to see them much though because Daisy was just 3 weeks old and I was still up all night with her all the time, which made me pretty useless during the days). Angie took these pictures of Daisy for me and I pestered her enough that she sent them to me two days ago, just before she had her own baby (yesterday! Congrats Duane & Angie! We are having all kinds of baby cousins born around here!). These were taken when she was just 3.5 weeks old, on November 29th, 2011.  MY FAVORITE! I couldn't decide which hue edit I liked most, so all three are on here... Thank you Angie!