12 Weeks!

I can't believe we're 12 weeks along in this pregnancy.  We pray to God every day for the continuing healthy growth of our "little bean" (as we refer to him/her) and we are so excited to meet him/her in November!  Here's a picture of me at 12 weeks along.  I had just eaten a big lunch so I'm sure that has something to do with my bulging belly (or maybe it was the clothes I had on),  however I know our little one in there contributes to the rest! 

I love watching Wesley react to my growing belly.  He says it makes it even more real now that he can physically see the changes as my body adapts to housing our little bean.  I also received my first pesky little stretch mark!  While I was a bit disappointed to see it, its so high on my hip that only my husband will ever see it, and he tells me it is a beautiful battle scar to show for carrying our precious bundle.  I'm so lucky! 

The second picture is of Wesley and the boys with the baby sign.  Wesley wanted a picture to put in our baby book of him & the boys celebrating the pregnancy which I thought was quite sweet!  Little Jake looked at the camera perfectly however Jiggs really didn't want any part of it.  Oh well...at least I got all 3 of them in the same picture together!

Opheim in the Spring of 2014

To say that I love going to the charming town of Opheim, Montana is a pretty fair statement.  While I love our home here in southeastern Montana, I also love having a little getaway to the family ranch in Opheim once or twice a year.  If you remember from my first post about Opheim, you'll recall all the charm and glory I fell in love with on my first visit to the Montana highline last year.  This trip was no different.

Wesley and I set out the Tuesday after Easter for a trip to Opheim to make sure our steers that were shipped from here to there arrived safely, and put them in their appropriate pastures.  While we got a later start than we wanted, we enjoyed every minute of our time together in this quiet little piece of the world.

Tuesday morning started out with 5 cattle pots coming to the ranch to load all of our steers and take them North.  It was an amazing sight to see these trucks being loaded with roughly 500 head of yearling steers to be shipped to our ranch up North.  It's a moment that I know made his parents so proud to see their work culminating to this, and it made us proud to see our work paying off too.  As I sat & watched the trucks being loaded a huge sense of pride, and a little anxiety, came over me.  I was filled with so much pride for what we do for a living, yet so nervous and full of prayers for the animals and the drivers to arrive to the destination safely.  Our life's work was riding in those trucks and to know that it is out of your control is a bit unsettling.  But, with my faith in God I knew everything was going to be ok, and everyone would arrive safely.  And they did.  Wesley's parents always had a goal to run a certain number of yearlings, and between our cattle and theirs, we achieved that dream for them this year.  It's quite an accomplishment...for all of us.  It is even more of an accomplishment to know that through our hard work (and especially my husband and father-in-laws) we are helping to feed America. 

We intended to set out for Opheim by 10 AM since it is a 5 hour drive from here, but we didn't end up leaving until around Noon or so.  We loaded our trailer with our 4 wheeler and the rest of the steers that wouldn't fit on the trucks, packed up the dogs and put them in the pickup with us, and headed North.

When we arrived we were just getting there as the cattle trucks were leaving.  I was able to capture some images of them leaving the ranch in Opheim which was quite special too.  We knew then that everyone had arrived safely, and there was no life loss in either human or animal.  As soon as we got there we headed to what we call "out West" to count out the steers out of the corral and Wesley was going to trail them with the 4 wheeler and dogs to the pasture they were supposed to be in.  With a little coaxing, and a lot of help from our puppies, we were able to get all the steers moved and counted. 

After that we took a trip to what we refer to as "the Homestead" which is where David spent the first 12 years or so of his life growing up.  The house was as cute as I thought it would be, in all of its aged glory.  You'll notice in the pictures I took of the house that there was a creek that ran directly behind their home.  That was because up until David was about 8 years old they had no running water, and no electricity in the home.  There is a small outhouse between the house & the outbuilding that you'll see in the pictures that they used for just that.  From that creek they'd draw fresh water to fulfill their needs.  While we were out here I got a message on my cell phone welcoming me to Canada.  Yes, we were that close to the Canadian border that my cell phone signal was bouncing off the towers in Canada.  If you look closely in the pictures I took of the Homestead, you'll notice a dark line of hills behind the house & out in the distance.  That is Canada.  Wesley was filling me in on the rich history of our ranch up there as well.  While I am no history buff (in fact I hate history) I found it fascinating that Sitting Bull made his way to Canada via our ranch up there.  The remains of his tee pee rings are still on our ranch today.  It was dark by the time we were to set out to take pictures of them, but next time I plan on getting pictures of the historical place.

That evening we were able to enjoy a nice supper prepared by our neighbors Bruce & Sammi.  These two are balls of fun and we always enjoy getting together with them!  We were able to share the good news about our baby with them over supper, and they are just thrilled!  I know next year when we ship steers up North Wesley and I will have to return to Opheim only this time we'll have our baby in tow and will be able to show him/her off to everyone up there.

Wednesday morning we rose early, and went out for breakfast at the local café downtown.  Its a place where everyone knows everyone (obviously), and once they recognized my husband when he walked in after me, we were welcomed "insiders" of the town too.  Breakfast was awesome, and after filling our tummies we set out to clean out the attic of all things baby from when Wesley was a baby.  We found some pretty awesome toys that I can't wait to share with our little one - like a spring rocking horse that was David's as a child, passed to Wesley, who will now get to share it with his son/daughter.  I remember having a big spring rocking horse growing up and I remember sitting and rocking for hours on that thing.  I loved it!  Wesley loved his spring horses too and I'm sure our baby will love theirs as well.  We also found a high chair that was used by David when he was a baby that we are now going to try to use for our child.  I say try because the tray is broke, but we are taking it to a woodworking guy in town here with the hopes he'll be able to build us a new tray so we can use it.  It is such an antique, and I'm so in love with the idea of being able to pass that down from the baby's grandpa all the way to the baby.  Along with these baby items we found some of Wesley's clothes from when he was a wee one growing up.  The paisley button up shirts and plaid and checkered pearl snaps are too cute for words.  I'm anxious to find out if we are having a baby boy or girl because it we end up having a baby boy he will be able to wear a lot of his Daddy's clothes as they were kept in mint condition.  Furthermore, I find little boys clothes (of the western kind) to be quite timeless.  Only time will tell if our baby is a little boy or girl!

Along with the "store bought" clothes were items that his grandmother hand knitted for him and his sisters that I can't wait to put on our child such as gender neutral booties and little knitted hats.  They.  Are.  Adorable!  I love all things knitted especially when it comes to baby items.  They're so special because they're handmade. 

While we only stayed one night in Opheim because we had to get back, we enjoyed our time together up there.  No TV.  No cell phone service.  Just each other...which is something I'll treasure forever.

Getting loaded at the ranch

The brand inspector leaving after his work is done

Heading out to Opheim

Wesley & the dogs heading out to move the steers in Opheim

This was an amazing sight.  I loved watching the steers move just as much as I loved watching my husband and dogs work the cattle

Old machinery around the ranch

Old branding corrals in Opheim.  If these corrals could talk I'm sure they'd have a lot of stories to tell!

The house David grew up in until he was about 12.  You can see the outhouse between the house and the little storage building off to the left.

The creek where they drew water.

The very dark hills at the back of the photo is Canada

A view of the ranch house, barn, and shop in Opheim where we stay today.  This is the house David and his family moved into when he was around 12.

The cattle brand that Wesley's grandparents used which they passed down to Wesley.  He now shares this brand with me.  The brand is still on the gate at the entrance of the ranch in Opheim.

10 Week Bump-date

I'm a couple weeks behind in sharing our 10 week baby bump pictures, but we've had a lot going on around the Ranch in the past couple of weeks.  We celebrated Easter with Wesley's parents Easter Sunday and we had a delicious feast to eat. 

Wesley smoked a prime rib to perfection, and I managed (with all the windows open) to make a pecan pie, vegetable pizza, and deviled eggs to take over there.  We had way too much food, but it was fantastic!

Shortly after Easter Wesley and I left for Opheim to see to it that our steers got shipped up there and things were taken care of at the ranch in Opheim (another post about that to follow).  I finally have some time to update my blog so I'm taking advantage of it!  Here is a picture of my baby belly at 10 weeks  :)

Kannon Dean

HE'S HERE!!  Wesley and I are officially an Uncle & Aunt respectively.  My sister gave birth to their first born yesterday morning.  Kannon Dean weighed in at 6 lbs. 13 oz. and was 20 inches long.  Both Mom and baby are doing great.  Kannon is quite the sleeper these past two days, but I'm sure I'd sleep a lot too if I was just taken from my warm cozy home out in to the big world!  Its quite surreal to be an Aunt.  It seems like it took him forever to get here, but then again it happened so fast.  I can't believe that Kannon will soon become a big cousin when our little one arrives this Fall.  What a fun Christmas we will have this year! 

Here are a few pictures of the handsome little man...enjoy!!

Kannon Dean just hours old

Mimi & Kannon

Pops & Kannon...he looks so tiny in my Dad's arms!

Sleeping baby

Sorry I've been so absent but....

Its been close to a month since I've last blogged...A MONTH!  Y'all know that is not the norm for this blogger.  But, things around our home have been quite crazy lately.  We are in FULL calving swing and are about 2/3 of the way through our calving season at this point.  We have had a few hiccups with losing a few mom's unexpectedly (which left us with some adorable baby bum calves to feed...YAY!) but other than that we have been pretty lucky with our calving season thus far. 

The first weekend in April brought us snow again, and lots of it!  We had snow drifts up to Wesley's knees (and he's a fairly tall gentleman).  We got about 10 inches of snow that storm which was a great thing for the moisture content it brought the land.  We're expected to get some more rain in the coming days and we welcome it with open arms.  All this beautiful moisture Mother Nature is giving us will really help to set us up for a very nice haying season this year.  The temperatures have warmed up a bit now and the snow is pretty much all melted away, so that's given both Wesley & me spring fever of sorts!  We have been wanting to seed our lawn with grass because the lawn we do have looks like a dirt sheet in front of our home (seriously...there's no grass growing).  This past winter Wesley worked up the ground & brought in some manure to help get some nutrients back into the soil and then yesterday & today we worked on seeding the front lawn.  We're not holding our breath that the grass seeds will grow because the amount of nutrients taken from the soil is unbelievable, however we are optimistic that if it doesn't grow this year, it will next year.  Then he & his Dad worked on disking up the back lawn and working in manure into the ground so we can seed that with grass too in an effort to get it to grow more uniform instead of so patchy.  I'm hoping their hard work pays off!  They've been working on the lawn for 4 hours now...and they're still going strong at it!

In the evenings since the weather has been so beautiful we have been sitting out on our patio enjoying the beautiful Montana sunsets and discussing how our days went.  Wesley has been putting in 12-14 hour days easily since we started calving, so it is really nice to get to catch up with my husband even if it is just for an hour in the evenings.  Sometimes I go over to the ranch & help Moo Moo feed the little bum calves in the evenings too.  They're too precious not to want to love all over them.  And, I think its pretty cute that they think you're their Mom.  After all, we're the only source of food for them.  So when they start to ball to us I just find that so dang cute!  I always tell Wesley that if I could potty train them I would let them live in our house with us.  Of course I get the raised eyebrow look when I tell him this but it is always good for a laugh from the both of us!

There have been other changes in our home too that I have yet to blog about:

 

 

That's right!  Wesley and I are THRILLED to announce that we are pregnant with our first child!  This has been the main reason for my lack of blogging.  This Momma has been so so so sick this first trimester!  But, that's ok...as long as our baby continues to grow healthy & happy I am willing to be sick.  We found out at the end of February/beginning of March that we were pregnant and chose to keep it a secret until now.  We have went to the doctor twice now and both times have heard a beautiful, strong beating heart.  At our last doctor's appointment our little bean's heart was beating about 175 beats per minute!  We could not be happier or more thrilled with the news of our baby!  We have wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but chose to keep it a secret until we went to the doctor a few times...just to be safe.  It has taken us over a year and a half to get to this point in our lives and we thank God every day for the miracle of being able to have a baby! 

The neatest thing about my pregnancy is that we will have a baby for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.  We often wondered what this year would bring for us, and we are getting our answers one by one from our Lord.  And, my parents will become grandparents to not 1 but 2 grandbabies this year!  They're really excited about that :)  And for Wesley's parents this will be their first grandchild - so you can just imagine how spoiled he or she will be!

My sister is due any day with their baby boy so we are anxiously awaiting the phone call that tells us she's in labor.  We will find out toward the end of June what our little one will be, and we will share the news as soon as we know!  We ask that if you have any extra prayers to please say one for our baby & pregnancy that we are blessed with a healthy pregnancy & baby this November!!

P.S.  I don't have any "bump" pictures yet because I have felt less than glamorous these last few weeks.  However, we are going to start doing weekly bump pictures soon so I'll share some of those once we take them.  And yes, I do have a very teeny tiny baby bump starting, and even though I'm certain its more bloat & water weight than anything, I still smile every time I look at it in the mirror.  God is amazing!!!!!!