Spring Spectacular

I'm not sure I like this picture. She looks so much older than 10 in it!

Jessie had her first steer show of the year today.

After some nerves, she went into the ring for her first class.

She came out of the open steer class with a second in her class (out of 5 steers). Then it was wait and wait and wait some more to go back in for the championship drive.

After a long break, she went back in for the wayne county steer class, and came out of there with another second (out of 6 steers). And then wait some more to go in for the championship drive....

I love this green shirt that her grandmother made her, which is getting to small for her now, after she wore it last year at the fair and at the fall show we went to. I rushed this morning to make her a necklace and earrings to wear - we had brought a large black metal steer pendant and two smaller ones at the show last December - I did take a picture of it, but it is on the camera out in the other room. And I'm too tired to find the cord to the camera again, walk out there and get the camera:)

Later,

Kris

Calf #3

Yes, another heifer. I'm getting tired of all these girls......

She was up, dry and running around when I got home. A rather LARGE heifer. I call Todd, who said "go out in the field and see if it's a heifer or a bull calf." I'm in my work clothes, mind you, but I crawl through the fence, wade through the weeds and take pictures. Nope - I didn't get close enough to see if it was a boy or a girl.

AFTER I went and changed clothes, I did go back out there and could report to Todd it was a heifer.

Todd: What color is it?

Me: Black and white. Looks like a holstien.

Todd: Huh?

Me: Hold on - I'll text you a picture.....

Todd: yes, that is definitely black and white. Wonder where THAT came from?

Apparently either our bull or this brown and white cow (or both) have a black gene in their makeup somewhere. She has 4 white legs just like a holstein would.

When Todd finally got home from work last night about 8:30 we brought her into the barn since we are supposed to get some rain over the next couple days. His best guess on her weight? 85 lbs.

Now Jessie is campaigning to show her at State Fair, Tyler is campaigning to show his heifer at State Fair this summer, and we are wondering if we are EVER going to get a bull calf to turn into Jessie's steer project for next year.

I'm just glad this calf is not crippled like this cow's last years calf.

And I can also turn my worries to Alli, who is bred to the same bull for her first calf. I really don't want her having trouble cause the calf is too big. I hope we don't have a train wreck on our hands.....

Have a great day

Kris

Spring

Thank you for all your kind comments on Tyler's room. He LOVES it. And I love the floor - much easier to swifter it every other day than drag out the vacuum cleaner. Have I mentioned I hate cleaning house? And yes, seeing the dirt and dust that accumulates over the course of the day, carpet has to be gross with all that trapped in there:)

Flowers courtesy of my Mom for Easter!

I keep hoping that we will enjoy some spring-like weather. Not this 80 degrees we've had for the past week, and not the 40's and 50's that is coming up. 60's and 70's would be nice.

However, I'm not complaining, as at least we aren't getting a ton of snow!

I think all of my fish survived the winter. I cleaned out my pond last Thursday - yuck! Kinda hard to see in the picture but some of these goldfish and comets are over 6" long! And they reproduce worse than rabbits:)

This weekend is Jessie's first steer show for the year with Punx. He had a horrific case of ringworm which has finally cleared up enough that he looks decent. Hopefully she will do well showing him (not placing wise - we could care less about that - just showing him as well as she is capable of...lol)

So we've been spending lots of quality time in the barn. Although spending every evening in the barn means my crafting time has taken a serious hit, I am so close to having a sweater done, I'm going to crank it out here hopefully by the weekend.

Oh and before I forget, seeing these fabulous ladies cranking out clothes for their daughters, I made Jessie a little something to wear to her spring concert last week.

Sorry there is no picture of her in it. We were running late the morning she wore this to school, but it looked really cute with jean capris and a white tshirt. I'll try and get a picture of her when she comes home from school today (she has it on again). No pattern - the fabric already came with the elastic gathering at one end. Simply fit around her chest, sew the side seams, sew 2 straps and hem. We won't mention the capri pants I tried to make to match - which the guy at JoAnn Fabrics didn't cut my yard of fabric straight so I was about 6 inches short to having enough......

Have a sunny Wednesday. I'll be by to see you all....

Kris

Tyler's bedroom redo

Over Easter weekend, we re-did Tyler's bedroom. I am so tired:)

I found a fantastic deal on laminate flooring - 47 cents a square foot (which translated to about $80.00 a room for each of their bedrooms). So I got enough to do Tyler's and Jessie's room both!

I gave all 4 walls a fresh coat of paint, beige on 2 opposite walls:

Red on 1 wall:

And blue on the 4th wall:

New curtains (which are kinda hard to see here):

Some firetruck prints on the wall. I took a bunch of pictures from the Firefighter Festival two years ago in West Salem, and printed some of them off. I'd like to get some of Todd's department and the trucks that are on it (especially the one that we rode away from the Church on when we got married):

And a spot to hang his fire helmet! This is Todd's first firehelmet when he joined the department back in 1989. Needless to say, it's not legal for him to wear it today. But Tyler has enjoyed playing with it, he LOVES to play fire fighter:



I still need to put baseboards up all around. And probably get a few more area rugs before next winter. But I'm thinking I'm going to wait to do the baseboards until we have the floor laid in Jessie's room. And I really don't feel like staining all that trim! Eventually we will have laminate flooring throughout most of our house - it's so much easier to care for than carpeting.

I was amazed at how easy it was to install it. A friend of ours and I did it on Saturday morning, we started at 8:00 a.m. ripping out the carpet that was in there, and by 1:30 it was done.

I still want to find a few things to hang on the walls, like an old fire hose and fire extinguisher (which I actually think Todd has at his parents' house), and I do have some letters spelling his name that I painted in royal blue that I need to hang, but for now, it's complete.

Now it's onto Jessie's room:)

Kris

Tyler

Today Tyler turns 7. How can this be???

He's growing up so fast. He is almost as tall as his sister, and probably about 10 times stronger than her.

He has an eagle eye with his bb gun. He's graduated from shooting at empty pop cans to shooting at birds.

But he still likes to go to Grandma's house and hunt for easter eggs.

If it involves trucks, tractors, farm equipment or cows, he is all over it.

Happy birthday Tyler!

Love,

Mom

work

Due to the nice weather, and the new puppy, knitting has sort of taken a backseat. But I'm still flying through test knitting this sweater (this picture was a few days ago - I've got the back, the right front and half of the left front done):


I love it. I love the yarn, love the construction but am not sure that I will like seaming it up when the knitting is done.


And I FINALLY remembered to take a picture of my medicine cabinet. Which will be painted white on Thursday afternoon and hung in our bathroom.



We've been spending a lot of time in the barn with Punxs. Who is very, very hairy. We try to give him a bath every day (no soap) and blow dry him. The drying takes about an hour and a half to get him good and dry. Jessie's first show of the year is April 11th so we've really got to get moving.

Barlie supervises from whatever comfy spot she can find - in this case Jessie's sock drawer.

I hope everyone is enjoying a sunny day - it's supposed to be in the high 70's the rest of the week here. I. cannot. wait.

Kris

busy

Don't let these puppy dog eyes fool you!

She already knows to stop what she is doing and pose for the camera. Right before this picture, she was trying her darndest to grab ahold of Todd's hand.

She tries to look so innocent. Last night the kids were watching TV and apparently she thought they should be paying more attention to her. Let's just say the newspaper met a quick death right in front of both kids. Which then resulted in them chasing her around the house while she spread the shredded newspaper everywhere.

She's already practicing her stalking/pointing skills.....on the cat. Which is pretty funny when the cat turns around and stalks her right back.

When Todd's grandmother passed away last December, the job of cleaning out the house fell to Todd's mom and Aunt. These are just one of the many treasures they found:

Right now they are at my house to be repaired, and then Todd's mom will be getting them quilted. To think, they were shoved in a brown paper bag in the corner of the chicken coop where she stored a bunch of stuff. I think they are gorgeous!

Thank you for all the commnents on my thrifty finds! I'm loving old junk right now that is a fraction of the cost of something new that I can make my "own." I did go back and get the medicine cabinet. And of course (?!?!) I forgot to take a picture of it. Right now it's a baby blue (blech) but if my planning holds, come friday it will be white. I'll try and take a picture tonight.

The other exciting thing we are hopefully doing this weekend? Well, besides the early morning Sunday service at church and dinner at my parents house? New laminate floors in at least 1 of the kids rooms. I think I've mentioned before, I am not a pink kinda girl. And our carpets when we moved in were all a dusty mauve. Well, the bedroom carpets are getting pretty disgusting (cheap carpet that is PINK) and when i was at Home Depot the other day, I found laminate flooring on clearance - for 49 cents a square foot! While my first choice would be carpeting, we did the math, and I cannot possibly replace two bedrooms with new carpet for $180, can I?

I love the color of this. I do have off work for Good Friday, but am also taking a half a day off on Thursday. It's my plan to finish painting Tyler's room (all the nicks he's put into his walls) clean out his room and we can start laying the floor sometime Friday and Saturday. Jessie's room will have to wait as she is getting a new bed from Todd's grandmother's house and we have to wait for it to make it's way here. And I'm not taking down her waterbed to lay the floor, and then putting her waterbed back up - which is what she wanted me to do:).

Have a good tuesday!

Kris