Proud Mama

Look at my little volleyballer!

What form...

And that intensity on her face...

 

Volleyball was a huge part of my youth and I still love to play, but unfortunatley I just don't get to as much as I'd like.  But I'm not gonna lie...I'd love it if the Little Lady loved volleyball as much as me : )

Branding

We branded calves on Saturday. I didn't do as good of a job in the picture department as I usually do, something about this belly being in my way, but here are a few.

John Wayne flanking. 

The boss men - my Dad and Grandpa. 
 The Little Lady's calf, Uno.

 
This is one pregnant Mama who spent too many hours in the saddle.  Sunday at 1 o'clock in the morning, I woke up with killer leg pains and wondered if I'd ever be able to get out of bed?!?


It wouldn't be branding without my "Trust everyone, but brand your cattle" shirt.

John Wayne dragging calves.

 

Time for a cookie break with Daddy.

Let's hear it for the weekend!

I don't know about you, but I was pretty darn happy when the clock struck five on Friday afternoon.

Saturday, we headed to the big city to celebrate my little cousin Lauren's high school graduation.

I love Lauren...a lot.
You see, it was me and a bunch of boys...and then came Lauren.
Thank you, God.

The Little Lady loves Lauren, too.

There were lots of "big girls" at the party and the Little Lady had a big time being the center of their attention!

After the party, we ran some errands.

Love these pictures of the Little Lady in the car wash! 

{And guess what, we found out that our Suburban is really maroon, not tan!}

Then it was time for dinner at Red Robin.
These cute pictures are right before her royal meltdown.
She always makes eating out a challenge.

{Cell phone pics from here on out...I don't know why I feel the need to tell you that, it's pretty obvious...}

We've just spent a lazy day at home today, no church or anything.
I did get entertained by a cowgirl and pony show.

And the good news is...I still have one more day of my weekend left!

Thank you to all of the men and women who died protecting our country.

Mother's Day

I hope that all of you Mamas out there had a wonderful Mother's Day. I sure did!

Thursday I got this very special delivery from the Little Lady at the office.

Saturday evening we had dinner with my Grandma Hammer {but I didn't get any pictures, fail}.

Sunday we went to my Grandpa and Grandma Chisman's house.

Sunday morning just as I had started to blow dry my hair, the electricity went out.
That kinda makes for a grumpy Mama, not being able to do her hair.
I had threatened to kill anyone that took my picture.
My Mom begged.
And now here I am posting it?!?

And then tonight when we got home from work, there was more for me in the mail! John Wayne scored big in the shopping department this year and impressed me with this cap that I've been wanting with our brand on it.

As all of you Mamas know, sometimes being a Mama is hard work, but it's the best job we'll ever have!

The Weekend

Hello friends! I hope that you all had a good weekend.

Saturday, the Little Lady and I went to Pueblo with my Mom and Dad to my cousin Josh and his wife Chevy's college graduation party.
{John Wayne opted to go to our neighbor's branding. Hmmm, imagine that! : )}

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That evening when we got home, we spent a little time outside.

The Little Lady is so funny with Poncho.

Yes, Poncho!  I just realized that I forgot to give you all that "more information" post, including his name.  Poncho it is.  That's the name he came with.  We debated changing it, but nothing else stuck and Poncho did.  I like it.

Anyways...some days the Little Lady is all about Poncho and some days she prefers a little more distance.  She's two, she's pretty much day-to-day with everything!

Today was a distance day : ) 

Then it was on to see Tressie's heifer and her calf.  She calved just a few days ago and Grandpa called to let us know that they were in the corral getting a drink if we wanted to get a look at them.

We gave the Little Lady her heifer for a first birthday present.  John Wayne named her Lasty, because he said "that's the last thing we're ever giving her."  {I like to say "yeh, right" to that : )} 

Anyways, I named her calf Uno, since that's the first money that the Little Lady will ever earn for herself.

John Wayne and I both had a nice savings account when we graduated high school, in part to our parents and grandparents giving us cows over the years and helping us to get a start.  Now, we're thrilled to be able to do the same thing for our kids.

And a parting shot of the Little Lady.

Her cap and boots are pretty much staples in her wardrobe, she doesn't want to leave the house without them.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and here's to a great week!

Wild Wild West Show

In my previous post, I mentioned that many of the horses at the sale were raised and trained by the Amish. These ponies are very well broke. The kids play/work with them almost all day, every day; many of them are ridden to and from school.

The Amish men are also very good salesmen. On more than one occasion on Saturday, when John Wayne went up to a man and asked him about their pony, their response started with “Oh you mean my babysitter…”

The kids ride/drive the ponies into the sale ring and awe the crowd.
These ponies go for a premium.

The most impressive show of the day was when an Amish boy probably around the age of eight, rode his pony into the ring by standing up on him, proceeding to do a back flip off of him and then crawling on the ground in a figure eight pattern through his legs. This pony sold for $3,400!!!

After a full morning of walking through the barns, visiting with the sellers, we had a list of about five ponies that were strong candidates to become the Little Lady’s first pony. Well, these ponies had made the short list of quite a few other people too…people with deeper pockets.

At almost 4:30 we were headed home, with an empty trailer. John Wayne and I remarked to each other that we were glad the Little Lady was only two and luckily therefore, we weren’t going to have a hissy on our hands because we were going home without a pony and made a mental note that for all future sales to leave the kids home. Nonetheless, it was still disappointing; we had came with high hopes and spent a long day there.

As we were leaving, I spotted three little spotted ponies waiting to go in the ring. These ponies weren’t being marketed by well behaved little Amish kids or their Dads, these three little spotted ponies were being promoted by two little cowboys. After learning all that we needed to know about these little spotted ponies in the four minutes we had before they entered the sale ring, the Goldings turned around, went back in and bought ourselves a pony.

Their sale ring show was quite different than what we had seen most of the day. These little cowboys rode into the ring bareback, turning and working the little ponies like they were cutting horses. One of the little cowboys swung his rope in a big loop, further trying to push his selling point that he was trying to use on us, that “this pony is rope broke.” After two of the ponies had sold, one of the little cowboys jumped off of the pony he was riding and ran over to hop on the unsold pony. That pony proceeded to take off and dump him in the middle of the sale ring.

Terrible picture, but I wanted to show the three little spotted ponies in the sale ring.

So there you have it, the story of how the Little Lady bought her pony from the Wild Wild West Show. Those of you that know the Little Lady, know that this is more fitting anyway!

Yee Haw

This weekend we went to a horse sale in Brighton {several hours away from the ranch}.

John Wayne, the Little Lady and I headed up the night before the sale, we didn't want to make a long day even longer by having to leave home before dawn on Saturday morning. I'm a hotel snob, but didn't want to spend a ton on a room this trip and besides, where we were, there were no Ritzs to be found. We stayed at Baymont Inn and Suites, which I was pretty happy with.

Parking when you have a pick-up and horse trailer always proves to be a challenge.  So we parked in the boonies and walked.  I'm sure everyone was wondering where the hillbillies were...yep, our horse trailer, it's a classy one : )



The room was definitely clean and I thought actually pretty nice for the price.  And in case you're wondering, no, the Little Lady did not sleep in that crib.  John Wayne and I deemed it 'not Tressie proof', it was for sure more for an infant.  So she slept in between us, but with the nice big bed, we managed just fine.



The Little Lady and John Wayne checked out the pool and had a big time.  We don't have many swimming pools in our neck of the woods, so pool time is always a treat for the Little Lady!

Saturday morning, we headed to the Adams County Fairgrounds for the sale.  There were A LOT of horses, everything from really little ponies {what we were in the market for} to the biggest draft horses that I've ever seen in my life.

Many of the horses were raised and trained by Amish families.  It was something to watch all of the little kids ride and drive their ponies around.  John Wayne enjoyed visiting with them and asking questions about their horses in search of the perfect pony for the Little Lady. Seeing these families and visiting with them really sparked my interest to learn more about the Amish lifestyle, I'm in the search for an good book.

I love this next pic, too bad it's a little blurry.

It was a long, long day, but at 5 o'clock, we finally left, the Little Lady the proud new owner of this cute little guy!



I love the pic below..."Daddy, I got this, this is MY pony!"

 

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But, the day wasn't over, we headed south to my bestie's 30th birthday party.

The Little Lady got to see the Maranville girl's again - two weekends in a row - she was in heaven!

We had a great time celebrating Kate's 30th!  {Do you think the Little Lady might like her Aunt Katie, just a little bit?!?}

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After the big day we had the day before, we slept in a little bit on Sunday morning, but then it was time to ride that pony!

We have a little saddle for the Little Lady, but growing up I never had a little pony, I always just rode a big horse, so we need to shop for a smaller cinch and tack for the pony.  So we threw the Little Lady on bareback and she did great.  I was actually pretty impressed with her balance and skill, it seemed pretty natural to her : )

Well, more on the pony {like his name!} soon!

Have a great week, friends : )

Easter!

Coloring Easter Eggs at Grandpa and Grandma's House

Hunting Eggs at Great Grandma Kinkade's House

You'll notice in the bottom two pictures...at times, someone was more interested in eating the candy in the eggs, than hunting the eggs!

Dancing with Cousin Kensie

The Easter Bunny Visited Tressie!

She got a "big girl doll" (Barbie doll) and not much else mattered!

Headed to Church

Hunting Eggs after Easter Dinner at Great Grandpa and Grandma Hammer's House

The Little Lady...she's a BIG ham!

We had so much fun doing our little photo shoot for our big announcement.

And it confirmed one thing...Tressie's a BIG ham!

The best are the pictures where we told her to show us her "excited face!"

Tressie's Big Announcement

There you have it.

I have not fallen off the face of the earth.
Although, at times I wish I had.
Just kidding. (Not really.)
My body and pregnancy do not agree.
I've been puking.
A lot.
So that's where I've been.

John Wayne and I went to my 12 week appointment today and the doctor said everything looks great.  We are very thankful for our newest little blessing and every time I run to the bathroom I'll keep trying to remind myself that it's all worth it!

The Little Lady Turns Two!

Our sweet Tressie Laine turned two on March 1st.

We celebrated this weekend with a pink zebra themed party.

She's so sweet, her latest is putting her arms around both of us : )

The birthday girl with Grandpa and Grandma.

All of Mama and Grandma's hard work.
My Mom did all of the baking and I did the decorating.

Yummy pink punch: sprite, pink lemonade and raspberry sherbet.

Grandma made lots of yummy sweet treats and we also bought pink snowballs and zebra cakes.

Decorations included lots of pictures from 12-24 months.



We also had sandwiches and other snacks complete with fruit kabobs and veggie cups.

The Little Lady was ready to party!

Time to open presents! 

Her favorite present was for sure her trike from Grandpa and Grandma. 

She sees it for the first time... 

Oh my goodness... 

She LOVES it!!! 

She insisted that she not have to get off her trike for us to sing Happy Birthday to her. Daddy had to keep her candles at a distance because someone was anxious to blow them out. 

But someone has enough hot air that she still blew them out before the end of the song!

We had pink zebra lollipops as party favors. 

"Thanks a 'lollipop' for coming to my party." 

It was a great day. The Little Lady had so much fun celebrating with all of our friends and family who came to share the day with us!