Meeting Otto

Trent's sister Alese had her first baby last week so over the weekend we took a little road trip. They live a little over 3 hours away from us and it is on the way to Trent's parents house so we took the truck so we could get hay for our horses while we were going.

Olin got to ride in the backhoe with his Dad which definitely made his day. You can see his hand on some kind of lever and he didn't let go of it the whole time. He thought he was pretty cool.Once we got the hay loaded Trent had to restack the straw around the hay stack. Well considering Trent hasn't ran that backhoe for over 5 years it was al ittle slow going and we had a little blooper. He was pretty lucky the hay didn't come rolling back. Luckily he was watching close enough that he rolled the bucket back forward and the hay just got stopped right there.

I about had a heart attack. Then the front wheels kept coming off the ground and again, I about had a heart attack. I'm definitely the worst person to watch these situations. I could ride a roller coaster all day but to watch a wreck or a potential one makes me crazy.

Once we got the haystack put back together we stopped to see Nicole and Colby's new house they are building. It is going to be so pretty. When we finally arrived at Alese and Ryan's house to see Otto......

JayLee got to hold him first. And she doesn't take short turns holding babies. She takes her sweet time loving on them.Here is Lottie (7 weeks old), Me, Alese, and Otto (5days old). Alese and Ryan stole our next boy name, just in case anyone was wondering. Just kidding we almost named Olin, Otto. But we decided on Olin. Then when Alese and I found out we were expecting at about the same time, Ryan really wanted us to be having a girl so they could name theirs Otto.

And here they are together. It was a lot of fun to be together and to meet Otto. We even got to stop and see our friends Matt and Aimee on the way home. It was one loaded trip but we had a lot of fun.

A Visit from Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Jenna

Grandma got to come and see Lottie while she was in the hospital but Grandpa and Jenna didn't get to see her until she was about a month old. Of course JayLee and Olin had lots of fun with Jenna. And Jenna got to hold Lottie quite a bit.

Olin talked Grandpa's ear off about heifers and bulls, and calves (it's never just "cows" with Olin) We don't even have any cows right now but he chases pretend ones all over my house. So far Lottie is sleeping through the "shouting associated with chasing cows"

Grandma and Lottie did get to spend some time together. It was interrupted quite frequently by the other two though. They had her up in their clubhouse and playing games.

We have finally decided Lottie's eyes are going to go blue. We couldn't tell for the longest time. Grandma Lottie's eyes are brown so we thought it would be kind of cool if baby Lottie's were brown too, but it doesn't look like it is going to happen.

This is Lottie at about a month old and down below....
is JayLee about 6 weeks. I think they look a lot alike. And lots of people have been commenting on how Lottie looks a lot like Olin...

Olin is about a month old in this picture. I think my babies look a lot alike.

What do you think?

Just like my Dad

One of the best things about having a boy is they want to be just like their Dad. When I put Olin down for his nap every day he says, "and when I wake up, I go outside with my Dad..."

I can't wait until it warms up out here so that he can go out with him more. Olin isn't a fan of the cold. Then the snow came and he really doesn't care for it, so his time outside is usually pretty limited.

Here is a picture of Trent and Olin putting the kids' new beds together. Trent sanded everything outside and then brought them inside to put them together.

For Christmas Trent's Mom sent Trent a bunch of his old hats (thanks Michele). When Trent saw this yellow hat ( I think it was his Dad's hat), he remembered his Mom had a picture of him wearing it with his Dad's gloves on. Olin loves to have a hat on. He always says to me, "Mom, I need my cowboy hat on like my daddy" or "I need a hat on cause it's cold"

Olin usually has one of our old cell phones in his pant's pocket and when his Dad gets a call he gets one too. Trent always answers it in the other room and this time Olin followed him. Trent started hollering at me to come and see what Olin was doing. I shouldn't have been surprised that he was doing exactly what his Dad was doing.

Christmas Clothes

My kids in their new Christmas clothes

I saw this dress (thanks to my sister Melissa) and knew that JayLee HAD to have one. However, the dress comes with a hefty price tag of $140. So I told myself "I can make that" (Trent hates it when I say this) and I did for a lot less than $140.

If anyone else has both has this attitude... 1. Your favorite little girl HAS to have that and 2. You can make that, let me know and I can help you. It really is simple to make, just time consuming. I would love to help though, so let me know.

And for all the Olin lovers out there.....

We had a fun little photos shoot one night but they didn't cooperate very well. Lottie didn't want anything to do with it but here she is 3 weeks old.

Christmas

Christmas Eve

If you were my neighbor.......

I would have brought you a plate of goodies.

Then the kids got to open their Christmas pajamas. Olin got Toy Story PJs and of course he had to open them with his glasses on. And knowing Olin there is probably a cell phone, some chapstick, and a set of keys in his pants pocket. "Because, I have to" is what he says. Here is Jay opening her PJs. She got cute Christmas trees on her PJs and slippers. She is the only one that didn't have any in our family and she has been feeling kind of left out.
Christmas Morning

Olin got a train, even though he told Santa he wanted treats. And when asked what Santa brought, Olin will respond "Treats" because lucky for us he did bring treats too.

Jay got a chalkboard/whiteboard easel....and treats. She also sent another letter to Santa this weekend. I told her she better send a thank you note before she asks for more stuff.

And then, just to make JayLee's day better Dad moved Cash up to the coral so we could start feeding him. That meant Jay got to ride him from the tack shed down to the coral. That girl is horse crazy!!!

The day after Christmas is my Mom's birthday so this year we planned for all of her kids to go to church with her, then have dinner and open gifts. So we ate some great food and then watched 5 of my Mom's 7 grandkids open gifts. It was super chaotic but lots of fun.

In one of the chaotic moments where no one was watching JayLee, she opened this Barbie doll from Mike, Marie, and the boys. Oh my word, you would have thought she opened up a million dollars. She let out this high pitched squeal that made all of us stop what we were doing. It was definitely the kind of excitement you remember having about Christmas when you were a kid.

To be honest, I didn't see Olin much the whole night. He is pretty social. He just wanders around smiling at everyone and batting his blue eyes, trying to get candy. And considering Uncle Bro gave him a belt (one more thing he thinks he HAS to have) and had 5 lbs. of gummy worms in his possession, I was not #1 on his list of friends.

Lottie spent all night with her Great Grandma Greenan just sleeping away. And I can't believe she slept through it all.

And when the presents were gone the kids climbed underneath the Christmas tree. That is Melissa's little girl Bryar in the middle. Her and Jay are best buds when they get together, and Olin just follows/chases them. Something the girls take advantage of when they want to run from a monster.

These are the 2 of my Mom's grandkids that weren't running around all night. Hannah's baby Kahlen is on the left and Lottie is on the right. Both born on December 11.
And here is the proud Grandma. It was so much fun to have these 2 little ones together. They are 2 weeks old in this picture.

At the end of the night we tried to get a picture with all 7 of my Mom's grandkids. If you want to see how that turned out scroll down to the next post. I did manage to get these pictures of my kids in their new Christmas clothes.

We had a great Christmas, I hope you all did too!

Grandkids.....

Our best attempt at a Grandkid picture for my mom.

Snow Day

This was right outside my front door.

Tuesday before Christmas we got a very big surprise. When Trent woke up at 5:00 he thought we had about 6 inches of snow. When I woke up at 7:00 Trent was still out pushing snow with the 4 wheeler. He came in shortly after we woke up and said he seriously underestimated how much snow we had, we had at least 14 inches with more coming down. He took the day off work to dig us and the neighbor out and I kicked the kids outside.

It was a good day for me. I had a very quiet house.

JayLee loved it as well....

Olin wasn't a big fan. He stood and watched JayLee and we tried to get him to jump in the snow but didn 't want to. I was inside and heard him screaming and walked out to see him kneeling in the snow. He fell down but didn't like it at all. However, when he gets mad at you (inside) He says "Ugh, I'm throwing snow at you!!" So watch out this 2 year old might get you.