Was March really the last time I posted something ;)

Well a lot has happened since March and I've been slacking at writing. My goal for this post is to let everyone know what is going on in our life. I don't want it to come across negative because it may get a little overwhelming... and we are a little overwhelmed but we are loving life so I want to make sure that is clear. I don't even know where to start... first things first. The guy that has been working for us for over two years gave his notice that he was leaving. He was offered a full time job playing the fiddle in Jackson Hole. We knew it would be coming but I have to say the timing wasn't the greatest but he did give us a months notice so that was very nice of him. I have to say hiring new help is the worst thing EVER. You get a billion job applications and most of them are awful and can't even spell basic words right. Not to go into great detail because its a long story that doesn't really matter... we hired someone and now they are leaving this week and we have a new person starting for us Monday. Its been crazy to say the least! I hope our new employee works out but so far I feel good about it. We move cows to Island Park in two weeks from today! It is a lot of work getting cows sorted and everything gathered to get on semi's to go up there. Not to mention what little time Matt has after work we spend breeding mares. Our stud is currently in reining training with a trainer in Idaho Falls. This means that we have to haul mares into Idaho falls, go get the stud which is a 20 min drive one way and then back to Matts parents house to breed and then back out to the arena. It takes FOREVER and is a very time consuming thing, considering we have about 9 mares to be bred this year. So in the evenings that we breed mares Owen and I go along for the ride so we can see Matt.

Our "expensive" little filly that needs a name ;) I'll take suggestions

My favorite so far- Mandy

 

We have had 4 babies so far this spring and we have one more that hasn't been born. They are so cute and fun to see run around the pasture. Owen is his usual cute self-he has started mimicking so that is a great step with his speech. It is great to see a little progress even if he is still very behind. The program we have is the program he is in right now for speech only goes until he is 3. Then the school takes over his speech therapy if he qualifies. This had me worried because it is basically preschool for special needs and I'm not ready to send my little boy off to school. I didn't think I had to think about Owen and school for a couple more years. Owen will go to school in Blackfoot which is crazy. We just found out that he qualified and will be going to preschool in the fall twice a week for two hours. I'm loving that idea since before I was told it was longer day and 3 times a week. I was worried I never was going to see my baby! It will still be a lot of driving but we are used to it, hopefully this new baby will adjust quickly to the traveling we do.

 

I'm due in 4 weeks and I have so many emotions about it. My body is done being pregnant- my feet are swelling and my back is killing me! However I need her to stay in until the last week in June. With moving cows and everything going on it is very important that she stay put. I still have a lot that I need to get done before she gets here. I'm still trying to get the house de-cluttered and deep cleaned and everything just the way I want it. Haha it isn't going to happen. With Owen around and my body being the way it is, I don't get as much done as I would like. Matt is so busy with everything else that when we have a spare minute I want to go do something fun. That means I try to do as much as I possibly can without his help. We are excited to meet this sweet little girl- she will be here before we know it. I hope she knows what she is getting herself into. ;) This summer we are hoping to build a house out here on the ranch. We have definitely outgrown our current house and there is no place for this little girl. We can make it work for the first little bit since she will sleep in our room anyway. However we need something else real soon. In the summer Matt and I usually live in a 5th wheel up in Island Park. It has worked out okay but I've been worried about having a newborn baby and a 2/3 yr old very active little boy in a 5th wheel. We could make it work and luckily there is a lot of stuff that Owen can probably go and help Matt do. However less than two weeks ago an opportunity presented itself for Matt and I to possibly buy 10 acres right next to our leases in Island Park. It would be a fixer but the price is right and it has a fairly nice house on it. We thought we didn't have enough on our plate in the near future so we would add to it ;) It will be a crazy ride for us the next little while but we are excited for what the future might hold. I love seeing pictures on blogs so I'll include some random pictures... mostly of my cute boys :)

Flynn and our bottle feeder calf are good friends apparently

Owen got a trampoline

Owen got cow horns in a kids meal- He LOVED it!

He was being so cute with Misty tonight- they were like best buddies

 

 

Time needs to slow down a little..

 Where did January and February go? It has been a little crazy in our household so I'm just barely getting around to writing. The first part of January we learned that something was definitely wrong with our septic system. Of course the day we tore into it I became very sick with the flu. Not something you want to happen when you have no water or toilet. Thank goodness my parents happened to be in Blackfoot at a Dr. appointment so Owen and I hitched a ride back to Carey with them. It was so nice to have help with Owen as well as running water and a flushing toilet. My parents and Kelly got to deal with us for 4-5 days since Matt ended up having to put a completely new septic system in and it took awhile.

The end of the month we had our long awaited gender check ultrasound right before Matt's birthday. The baby of course wasn't cooperating with us but the lady was pretty sure it was a girl. This whole pregnancy I have felt like it was a girl and so we ran with it. Even though she only gave us an 80% prediction. I told Matt I just wouldn't buy anything until we went in for another ultrasound a month later... well... that lasted about an hour. :) Our little family is so excited to be welcoming this sweet girl into our family!

 

January 16th (17weeks)

 

 Matt turned 30 on the 31st so my parents watched Owen for the afternoon evening so Matt and I could go to dinner and a movie. Then on Saturday we took Owen to Leo's place and played in the arcade and had lunch. (Matt wanted to :) Then had cake and ice cream with Matt's family that night. I wanted to do something more exciting but it just wasn't working out. Hopefully someday Matt and I can get away and go on vacation soon to celebrate a bit more.

Owen Helping make Matt's Birthday Cake

 

Playing skee ball our favorite!

 

 Much of February has been spent getting Matt's horse ready to go and sell at an auction this past weekend. We've had some beautiful weather this month and Owen and I have enjoyed getting out of the house and outside more. For Valentines day we stuck around and had our traditional valentines dinner but with some twists. I froze pomegranate juice in a heart shape ice tray and had the fancy 7 up with the ice cubes in it. Owen enjoyed "cheers" all night with his wine glass. I'm pretty sure he hardly touched the rest of his dinner. That was ok since earlier in the day he had thrown up randomly. I made raspberry jello with mousse and whipped cream on top. I saw the recipe on pintrest and it looked so cute. Mine however didn't look NEAR as pretty as theirs. It still tasted good though. Then we had green salad and homemade pizza.  Then to top it off I made strawberry cheesecake. I only make the "real" cheesecake on Valentines day. I tried a new recipe and I have to say I wouldn't do that one again. It had a lot more sour cream in it than the one I did last year. It still got eaten so it must have not been that bad. haha All in all it was a nice day spent at home relaxing.

Two weeks ago Owen and I went to Carey to spend a couple days with Derrick and Kelly before they  left for China. They will be over there until the end of June teaching English to kids in China. I'm excited for them to have this experience and can't wait to hear all about it! It was fun to be able to stay up late chatting like we used to do so often. This past week we spent at the Dr. and getting ready to leave to go to the horse sale for 4 days. I had another ultrasound to check gender again and do the anatomy scan. It was a huge relief to find out that she is definitely a girl and she is healthy. She is measuring a little on the small side of things but the Dr. will just monitor her measurements a little closer and possibly do a later ultrasound. I'm not concerned at all... she just might be a petite little girl like her mom was. It's amazing how much love you feel for these tiny babies ALREADY. I've had tons of fun buying and looking at girly stuff and spending lots of money. :)

 

Matt's shoulder has been really hurting and we were worried that he wouldn't be able to rope on his horse at the preview they do before the sale. So with some help from the chiropractor (and perhaps the vet... don't ask) Matt's shoulder was still very sore on preview day but was better enough to be able to rope. Our trip really went rather smoothly. My parents took Owen and I'm so glad they did! With us trying to buy as well as sell Matt's horse, it was nice for me to be there instead of catering to Owen. Matts horse ended up bringing more money than we thought, so that was awesome! Now the money is burning a hole in his pocket and we might not look or talk about anything but horses until he finds another one to buy. :)  Now its back home and calving season is officially in full force so we aren't going anywhere for the near future. From now on out until we move cows up to Island Park in June its pretty crazy. This year it could even be worse since I'm due two weeks after we move up. It could be ANOTHER crazy summer but all in all life is good!

        Matt's horse he sold (Jagger)



Owen loves Hats! He doesn't care what it is- he will wear it on his head. We have had to hide his cowboy hat numerous times so he wouldn't have a fit when we wouldn't let him wear it to nursery.

                                                      

Our December... "I guess you have to have bad times to notice the good"

I haven't wrote a blog post since before Owen was born! I decided that needed to change... mostly for me. I love going back and reading since it is the only journal I will probably ever write. Instead of trying to play years of catch up... I will just recap where we are at in life at the moment. We still own a ranch out on the desert between Idaho Falls and Arco. Though we shut down our trucking company and bought out two of our partners so now it is just Matt and his dad. This year we doing a feed lot as well as our pairs. It has definitely kept Matt and Jud busy. Owen is 2 1/2 and definitely keeps me busy. So on to our December..... I'll start with the bad so I can end with the good :)

Matt and I started December very excited for what the next year would bring but we didn't know in a matter of minutes that excitement would be replaced with a lot of fear and worry. *Rewind a month or two* We decided that Owen still wasn't making much progress with his speech so we started to have a speech therapist start working with him. He was advanced in his motor skills but was behind in speech in his evaluation. Before the therapist started even working with Owen she suggested we see an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist just to make sure he didn't have fluid in his ears. I did as she suggested and made an appointment first part of December. It happened to fall later on the day that I was scheduled to have an ultrasound. Yep you read that right, I'm expecting the 4th of July! The baby looked great  and overall the appointment was perfect. What I didn't expect was to receive the horrible news later at Owen's appointment. Going in, I thought worse case scenario we would have to remove tonsils and adenoids or put tubes in his ears. At the appointment of course Owen didn't want to cooperate so he could look in his mouth or ears. It was a fight and it took Matt and I both to hold him down. (Thank goodness Matt was with me because he had gone with me to my ultrasound right before) The Dr. looked at Owens hearing test he had done at 9 months. Then he asked if Owen had been wearing hearing aids. That took me off guard but what really took me off guard was what he said next. "Owen showed moderate hearing loss at 9 months old" The hearing center hadn't told me anything like that, they said everything looked fine for now and that we would need to recheck at 2 to make sure he didn't have late onset hearing loss. (We had to have his hearing tested because of the antibiotic he was given in the NICU) I was in shock so I really didn't know what to say and what I did ask was probably stupid. I asked, "Well how long will he need to wear hearing aids?" I was in denial until he said he would need them for the rest of his life. That hit me like a rock! My son would need hearing aids for the rest of his life and I wondered how normal of a life he could lead. The sad part is it wasn't even the worst part of the day. Matt asked the E.N.T. whether this hearing loss had anything to do with Owens two different colored eyes. He threw out a syndrome that it could be but didn't know. Well of course we had to look it up and I still to this day kind of wish I could have brushed it off and not looked. When Matt and I looked it up it scared us to death. Owen fit some of the symptoms and if he had it, it meant that I had it or was a carrier. There was a 50% chance that I would pass it along and of course I was pregnant. I was now worried for both of my babies. I tried looking at the positive- that the worst symptom was hearing loss. I wasn't finding it all that comforting at the time. I cried for days, no matter what I did. I tried keeping myself busy but instead I found myself bawling as I swept the floor or in the middle of Walmart. Luckily through many talks with my Heavenly Father, he gave me the comfort I needed to get through. It was always in the back of my mind but I just knew somehow it was going to be okay. Matt and I started getting a referral to get genetic testing done at Primary Children in Salt Lake. Unfortunately, Matt and I were going to be gone the whole next week and so we had to wait over a week before we could get his hearing tested. It was crazy trying to get everything done and ready to go to Las Vegas for the NFR and I never got an appointment made before I left to go to Primary Childrens. I decided to wait until we got the results from the audiologist on his hearing test.

 

The picture we sent to announce to our siblings that we were expecting! We will find out if we are having a boy/girl in less than 3 weeks. :) 

Matt and I were actually able to relax a little bit and enjoyed the NFR so much! We will hopefully be back next year. We missed Owen dearly but knew that he was having a blast with Grandpa & Grandma Patterson back home. Unfortunately Owen was starting to get a cold when we left and still was fighting it when we got back. So we ended up having to push his hearing test back as we didn't want it to effect his results. In the meantime I requested his hearing test results at 9 months and showed it to Owens speech therapist. She looked at it and saw nowhere in it that showed moderate hearing loss. That gave me a lot of hope but I also didn't want to get them up too much. I wasn't thrilled that his hearing test was so close to Christmas but didn't want to push it back anymore. Matt was able to come with me for support if needed but I'm happy to say I didn't need any. Owen passed his hearing test down to 5 decibels and the audiologist thought he could do zero if he would be more cooperative. They weren't able to do the frequencies because Owen wouldn't sit still and not scream and pull out the ear buds. However the audiologist was not concerned with Owens hearing on a speech level. As long as Owen is making progress with the speech therapist (which he is!) I also showed him the results from his last hearing test. He didn't see anything wrong at his last hearing test either.  So at this time we don't need to do anything with his hearing. Now you are probably thinking well why did the E.N.T. say he had hearing loss. Well we will find out on Tuesday when he goes back in for a follow up. He has a lot of explaining to do for the scare he put us through! Though I just feel blessed. I know many people kept us in their prayers and put Owen's name in the temple. I couldn't be more grateful for our wonderful support of our families and ward family. As for the syndrome, hearing loss was the most major thing. Without it Owens only sure symptom was his different colored eyes. I have heard of many people that have two different colored of eyes and don't have it. Who knows whether we have it or not but at this point we will wait and see. It doesn't change really anything and at this point not worth paying a lot of money to get tested.

Now that's behind us! I just couldn't help but feel so overjoyed at Christmas. We have a wonderful two year old that LOVED everything about Christmas. He was so cute! After I put up the tree on many occasions, usually first thing in the morning, I would find him laying on the floor with his hands behind his head in front of the tree. He loved the Christmas lights!  On Christmas eve we went to Carey and had a great time making gingerbread houses and celebrating "Christmas in China." Kelly is going to China in February for 4 months and I'm going to miss her dearly but I'm excited for her. It was kind of bittersweet that we got 8 inches of snow on Christmas. It was so beautiful but we were sad because it meant Derrick had to leave earlier so he could get back for work the next day. Owen loved playing with his toys and we were all spoiled like usual. Unfortunately it was back to reality way too fast. I can't wait to see what the New Year will bring us!

Matt's house

Derricks (sorry kel I don't know what happened to my picture of yours)

My wonderful parents who are AMAZING

                                         It was fun to spend time with Derrick even if it was too short!

We ate our Chinese food on the floor and attempted chop sticks :)

Catching you up on the last 10 months of our lives!!

Caution: I'm covering a lot of different things so I will try to make this as painless as possible. Also part of the reason I'm getting around to this is because I needed some therapeutic writing today. :) So consider yourself warned.

This past July Matt finished up classes for his degree and we set off to figure out what the next chapter in our lives would bring. We had the opportunity to join a partnership and buy a ranch that Matt would run the daily cow operations on. I quit my job working at Michaels in August and we moved the 30 miles out of Idaho Falls to a ranch that borders the INL. Most people would think that would be the big adjustment but for the most part I have loved living in the middle of nowhere. There was a little log cabin on the place that needed some major renovating and so that was and is a continuing project. Here are some before and after pictures however. I still need to take pictures of it decorated and with furniture in but I want to get a few things on the house that need done first. So there will be more pictures to come.

The living room before

After

                     

Bedroom before

After

                                                       

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

Laundry Room

We couldn't have pulled off this remodel with the help of Matt and I's families. They sacrificed a lot of time and money coming here to help us get it done before winter. We moved in a couple days before Christmas. Backing up a little we were able to go with my family to California for thanksgiving to visit Stephanie & Luke and their family. It was a lot of fun to go to the beach, shop, and play with their family.

Playing hand and foot

The kids must of wore out grandpa

Playing at the beach

While there for thanksgiving Stephanie announced that they were having another child in June. This was really funny to me because Mindy shortly before said she was expecting in May and I knew that I would be due to have a baby shortly after Stephanie in July. It was really hard to keep it secret from everyone. Well my parents knew but I still wanted to tell everyone else. However Matt and I held it in to tell the rest of the family until right before Christmas. We had planned on decorating our front bedroom as a nursery so when family came to see our new house they would find out. However I couldn't wait much longer and we had nothing to put in the nursery because Matt is making the crib and we still aren't finished with it. :) So... we made a cheesy t-shirt and put it on Bentley. It would have to do. I have felt pretty good for the most part. Around 8 weeks I got pretty sick for a few weeks. That was miserable because I wanted to be working on the house. While being pregnant I have managed to still help around the ranch the best I can. I have helped brand cows, process calves, paint the inside of the house pretty much in 24 by myself. (I didn't sleep much that night) Some of my not so proud moments is when trying to look at a tag number of a cow that had just calved got charged by the mom and dove over a fence. However I'm not as fast nor graceful as I used to be. I ended up doing a complete flip. I was a lot more cautious around mammas after that. I have to say what I miss most is being able to ride horses. Matt and I decided that I needed a different horse and so a few weeks ago we sold Maia. I really thought I would keep her forever and it wasn't easy for me to let her go. I rode her one last time moving cows a few weeks ago. I realized that it definitely was going to be the last time I rode a horse during this pregnancy. Getting on was very difficult and Matt was worrying the whole time about me getting hurt. I really wished I would have taken a picture so I could look back and see how crazy I was to be riding at 27 weeks pregnant. I haven't taken many pictures of me because I really don't like to see myself huge. As much as I wished and dreamed as a little girl of one day being cute and pregnant. Cute is not at all what I classify myself right now. 

Thanks to my mom and family members for helping Matt and I have a Christmas tree this year

Our new puppy Nash (No longer that much of a puppy)

Matt and I have been really busy with our calving season starting in January and going until April. Just when you think things might slow down it never does. Thats life though, right! This spring we have kept more than busy with brandings, fixing water, and moving cows constantly. We have about 1,000 cows out here on the ranch right now and Matt is the only full time person hired. It has been very overwhelming. I just wish I were more help but I still try to move cows on 4-wheelers or in anyway that I can. We will be moving our cows up to Island park in the middle of June. After that Matt will be gone 3-4 days a week up there while I will be here on the ranch waiting out the last few weeks until our little guy is born. Hopefully I can get more prepared for him to come. Right now his room is not at all ready.