Keeping up with the Joneses

Daddy and Vicki came to visit us on Monday. We were so thrilled that they came! Since it was during the week I was watching Jocelyn but on Tuesday, I watched her till lunch and Louis watched her that afternoon so we could show them around the ranch. They had a great time! I asked daddy if he has ever ridden a 4-wheeler and he said yes, after the ride he admitted he has never driven one! :) He did good, going in and out of the canyons were a little scary to Vicki, but they are definitely scarier looking at them than acutally going down them! We rode around for about 3 hours and still didn't make a dent in the place! Vicki fell in love with the baby deer in our house. Although I am so ready for them to get out, I am glad they were still inside for them to see! Vicki helped me bottle feed them and she did a good job with the motherly duty of wiping them :) They loved her, they sucked and licked on her for 2 days straight!

We went into town for dinner and when we got back to the ranch we took them to the back to see the sunset, but of course it was cloudy!!!!! They did enjoy the view and the big canyon back there!

Also, I bought a puzzle on Monday. I figured since little Jocelyn sleeps 7 of the 8 hours that I have her, I needed something to keep me busy. Of course, Cody made fun of me for awhile, because apparantly he is toooo cool for puzzles! We started it the night Daddy and Vicki got here but didn't get far, but Cody really enjoyed it and was even competetive, who would have guessed! I barely got him in bed! Anyway, Daddy, Vicki we have gotten pretty far since ya'll left! I think that the picture I picked out helps a little getting Cody to do it!

Karen

Jocelyn

The end of week 2 is almost over. I wasn't looking forward to watching Jocelyn at first, not because I don't like kids, I love kids! It was going to take up a lot of my time that I just wasn't ready to give up yet. Jocelyn is 13 months old and a little cuddle bug. Her parents live out here on the ranch with us. Her dad works for Cody and her mom needs to finish school so I decided to help them out. This week was way better than last week. She cries all the time. She cries when you put her down, walk away from her, lay her down for naps and not lay down with her, lay her on the bed and not on your chest, cry, cry, cry as long as your not holding her! She is also the easiest child to console. As long as she is cuddled up in your arms, she is good to go. I think children need their alone time just like adults. I think they need to learn to play by themselves and just be comfortable with being left alone for 5 seconds without screaming at the top of their lungs. Well I do know Jocelyn's mom and dad run to her everytime she cries, so she gets it honest. She knows if she cries, someone will come a running! Not me! Last week was pretty tough getting used to each other and the fact that little Jocelyn has never, I mean never been away from her parents was tough on her. The first day her dad dropped her off at 8:00, she cried for an hour straight, I would try to lay her down and she would cry harder and just cling to me. She finally cried herself to sleep on my chest, I gently layed her down on my bed, and layed down with her. I tried to get up at one point and she started screaming, I layed back down, she fell back asleep, I tried to get up again, she screamed bloody murder, I layed back down, she fell asleep! She slept till 12, woke up for lunch, cried for another 30 minutes, fell asleep till 3:45 when her mom picked her up. The next day was a little better on how long she cried when her dad dropped her off. Well this week has been great actually! She gets here at 8:00, goes back to sleep till 12, eats lunch, plays (while sitting on my lap) takes a bottle of milk at 2:00 and sleeps till 3:45 when her mom picks her up! Easiest child ever, except she doesn't like to be left alone! The crying would be really hard on me if she wasn't that easy to console, but after she stops crying, she just cuddles you up! Well you can't hold a child for ever so we worked on that this week. Her mother also informed me that she can't walk, O' yes she can! Infact she can run!


On Monday I decided I needed to do other things around the house besides carry her around constantly or lay down with her constantly while she is napping. So I gradually weaned her off me! :) After about 2 minutes of prying her out of my arms and making her stand straight, (as she is screaming) I back up and she takes off to me like she can't get to me fast enough! She makes it about 15 steps before she falls and I catch her in my arms, and the only reason she fell was because she was sprinting to me! I pick her up and she stopped crying! We did it several times (while she is screaming) but she can sooooo walk! I am sure everytime her parents put her down, she screams so they just pick her back up and they have never made her walk. By yesterday I was able to set her on the floor while I cooked lunch and she played all by herself for about 20 minutes before she would start screaming. Today, she didn't take a nap this afternoon so she was up when it was time to bottle feed the deer. I usually let the deer out of their pen in the afternoon, feed them, then they have free range in the house and usually find a place behind a door or curtain and lay there all day. Well today, Jocelyn was interested in them and they were interested in her! I was able to sit her on the floor for an hour! A whole hour before she started screaming! The only reason she cried this afternoon was because she was tired and that was fine.

I got soooo much done in that hour of her playing! Also, usually in the morning I have to pry her out of her dad's hands, except this morning she actually reached for me! Whoop Whoop! This is the best child ever! She sleeps till 12 and she is the sweetest thing ever, even though she cries way to much we are working on that!


Jocelyn is also expecting a baby brother next month, so I will have my hands full with both. So maybe by the time he comes, she will be walking normal, not sprinting the 100 meter, and not crying when I set her down to play!


I also realized this week you can't really plan for a baby. When are you ever really ready for a baby anyway? Somedays I feel ready and someday's I don't. I also think, no we can't have one this time because of this and not here because of this and not here because of this and O' wait we can't here because then the little rascal will be born on opening day of deer season and we all know that is a big No No! :) So I realized it's never a good time! You just have to roll with the punches, if it happens, it happens, if it don't, it don't and just stop trying to plan it because it's not in your hands anyways. When the little one finally gets here, your automatically a parent and you will be ready then.


Karen

Close call!

It is so very dry up here all the time. Even after a day of rain, the sun comes out, the wind picks up and its super dry again, always dusty and the ground is always hard. It has rained a few times since we have been up here but nothing to bad. We seem to live right where the storms form and then they move east. It could be a beautiful day, clear skies one minute and the next the scariest looking cloud is a brewing! The last 2 nights we have had good rain! Both storms have formed to the west of us and have moved our way and stayed for a few hours. Yesterday and today the ground has been wet, sloppy, and so not dusty! Cody decided to take advantage of this and start working on the winter food plots for the deer in the high fence. Last Spring when he was working on the summer food plot, it was dry and the disc just wasn't cutting it, and he ended up going over each food plot about 6 times each with the disc. Since we had good rains and the ground was actually wet he wouldn't have to go over them as much. So he started this afternoon and decided to disc them all once tonight before he quit and he would be home late.

I was starving about 5 and went ahead and made dinner and put the rest in the oven. Cody called about 7 and said something was wrong with the disc and he needed me to come pick him up so he could look for something in the barn. The only way to get to him was by 4-wheeler. I could have taken the hummer out for its first mountain/canyon adventure, but figured I would stick to the 4-wheeler! I finally make it to him, he hops on and we head back to the house. Half way home a scary looking cloud formed above us and starting lighting like crazy! It was pretty scary. We made it to the barn, the cloud passed and Cody was fixin to head back out. He was just gonna take the 4-wheeler back out with him, finish the discing, and bring the 4-wheeler back and I could drop him back off tomorrow so he could finish. Before he left he decided to come home first and eat before he headed out.

He comes home, eats super fast and 15 minutes later he heads back out and said see ya late tonight. He was gone maybe 2 minutes and comes back in and says, "nevermind, here comes another scary looking cloud and then the bottom fell. It was raining so hard. I was thinking, glad u came home to eat first or you would have been stuck on that 4-wheeler in this terrential down pour! Another 10 minutes pass and we could here a little hail. We step on the front porch to see how big the hail is and it's probably the size of quarters, and not coming down to hard or to many. Another 10 seconds pass and they are coming down hard and of course all I think about is the hummer! Cody suggest we take it to the barn, I run and get my rain boots, I get in my vehicle and Cody gets in his truck and I follow him to the barn. By the time we make it to the barn the hail is the size of golf balls and not coming down to terribly hard and Cody has to get out of his truck and open the barn door and I pull in! By the time I get out of my car it is coming down so hard you can barely see 5 feet out and the ground is completely white! Cody then decides he needs to bring in the truck too, finds a cow feed sac and runs to his truck! That so had to hurt! He made it back! Then he decides he needs to bring in the tractor :( He finds a bucket this time because it is coming down harder! Before he can get to the tractor the bucket goes flying off his head, not sure if the hail knocked it off or he threw it off before he got in the tractor. He made it back! We finally realize Cody would have been stuck on the 4-wheeler out in the middle of the high fence if he hadn't come home first to eat and I would have been home by myself and probably would have tried to take my vehicle to the barn by myself and I can never get that huge door open and I would have been stuck in the hail too! We just stand in the metal barn (the noise of the hail was soooo loud we couldn't even hear each other talk) for about 15 minutes. I make the comment, "glad there isn't a tornado warning too" and Cody says, there was! I' am getting scared at this point because I am thinking the run to Jeff's basement sure is gonna hurt with all this hail and that the hail would hurt us before a tornado would reach us! Luckily by this time we start to see clear skies and the scary storm passes us. I leave my car in the barn and we bring Cody's truck back home and check on the dogs. Poor babies, they have never experienced hail before. They looked a little in shock when I reach them, but luckily they have a pretty big shelter! :) Cody picks up some hail and gets the camera and they are still pretty big chunks after 10 minutes of just sitting there and melting.


Now I am worried about the deer in the breeder pens! It will do more damage going out there and scaring them with a spotlight, so we will have to wait till the morning. I hope all the babies were smart enough to go to the shelters!


Karen

When did I turn into a .....

Hopeless romantic.......

Sometime in the last 6 years, 5 months and 1 day. Tuesday night was the first night of the meteor shower and I was dying to watch! Cody and I were laying on the hood of his truck and I made a comment of how romantic this would be if only he had suggested it :) Not only did I have to drag him out there, I made him drink a mug full of green tea in the process! I would have let the green tea slide if maybe it was his idea to go watch!:) He then tells me that he is romantic because 2 months ago he suggested we go watch the sunset, I just smiled and said, "exactly, 2 months ago!"

Yesterday he comes home with freshly picked flowers, finds my favorite vase, sets them neatly on the counter and waits for me to notice them. It made my day, which in turn, made his day! I don't need an expensive gift or date to make me fall in love with Cody even more. Men always talk about how complicated women are. Well, fellas we aren't that complicated! All you have to do is open a door for us every once in awhile, a touch whenever you pass us, a glance across the room, put the toilet seat down, do 1 maybe 2 things a week not a day, a week around the house, something simple as putting your dirty close in the hamper and not on the floor, emptying the dishwasher, just something small will do, a little note and it doesn't even have to be long, a simple I love you would do the trick, offer up the remote 1 night a week, offer a foot rub, I repeat 'offer' the rubbing. I have many more but you get the point. Is it just me or would this not make any woman's day or week complete because it sure makes mine! :)

I love love love poems(which Cody is good at!), picking flowers, making a picnic, riding around looking at houses and just dreaming of our future togething. The one thing Cody has done for me that sticks out more than anything else is, one night I was super cold and decided to go take a hot bath to warm up, when I was getting out he brought me a hot towel straight from the dryer! That is not super big, or even time consuming but it meant so much, made my night, which in turn, made his night :)

I used to not be like this at all. I used to get mad when a guy would open a door for me, I thought it was annoying. I would get mad if a guy would tell me everyday how much he liked me, I would be like, "you told me last week, do you have to tell me that every day, man up!" I was not affectionate at all, maybe a little cold sometimes and even down right mean. I can't believe anyone ever wanted to date me. I wouldn't have wanted to date me either! I do think age has a lot to do with this too. I would say from 17-20 I was like this. I was very sheltered growing up and super naive about things, which is why I think I pushed people away when I realized what couples were actually doing at my age, LOL. I am super glad I was sheltered and naive about the world, I am also glad that I moved out on my own at 18 and got to experience things on my own, and make my own choices and my own decisions and this is where the sheltered and the naive part helped me make the right choices! It also led me down the road to Cody, and I am so happy about that! I think we met at just the right time, if we had met any sooner I would have been super guarded and probably bitter and definitely not ready to give someone my heart completely. I think me and Cody have a pretty good love story, how all the pieces came together at the right time, how we met, when we met, having to do the long distance thing from the time we were 21 to 23 made us have to work 10 times harder for our relationship to work, which made us realize we were in this for the long run.

I am so blessed and this is what I sing everyday........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcZoNBngAnM

Maybe one day one of us will tell our love story.....

Josh-a-Roo!

Cody's brother came and visited us this weekend and we showed him around the ranch. I think he fell in love with the baby deer in the house! He got in late Sunday night and left today. Monday night a storm blew through, which a storm blows through probably once a week but it always goes around us. Well Monday night it hit us straight on. The wind got up to about 70 mph and it was crazy! Cody and Josh ran up to the deer pens to bottle feed the babies before the storm hit while I fed the dogs. No lie, the wind was so powerful it blew me down! I ran as fast as I could back in the house and just glared out the window to make sure Cody and Josh were gonna make it back without getting blown away! Well the wind didn't phase them, they were just lollygagging (not sure this is a word, ha) down the drive, walking as slow as they possible could! When they finally get in the house their like, "man, that wind is a blowing!" The wind lasted about an hour, then rain for about 30 minutes and then the bluest skies you have ever seen! The sun came out and hit the storm clouds and it made a double FULL rainbow and it was sooooo bright! It was amazing! This picture doesn't do it justice!

In case you don't know Josh, he is gonna be famous one day! He is in a band called the Rocketboys and they are GREAT! Also, Josh is a little pimp! The blonde chic from Gloriana is his friend and she not only texted him ALL weekend, she even called him one night! :) Go Josh!

Today while Cody was out he got stung by a horse fly! Poor thing, he is falling apart! When he came home he looked like he had been ran over by a freight train and his poor little hand was twice as big as the other one. Tonight, it's about 4 X's as big as his other hand! :)

Today I started watching Jocelyn. She is Louis and Gisella's little girl. She is 13 months old and she has never been away from her parents. Well Gisella needs to finish school and I agreed to help them out while she goes to school. She slept the whole time....No lie! Louis dropped her off around 8, she screamed for an hour, until she cried herself to sleep, slept till 12, cried some more till Louis came to check on her. He took her home for lunch, dropped her back off around 1:30, he left, she screamed for about 5 minutes, until she screamed herself to sleep and she slept till 3:45 when Gisella picked her up. Luckily for me Cody went to town today to get feed and swung by walmart to buy me The Time Traveler's Wife:) So I can read it before he takes me to go see the movie on Friday! Let's just say......I got A LOT of reading in today with a sleeping baby! :)

Karen

Update on the babies!

The 2 babies we have in the house are doing good. Also, they are 2 females, Cody thought he saw something else on the little one, but I guess his eyes were playing with him. ha! It is still a huge chore to get them to take a bottle, so we have to force feed them, but once we get the nipple in their mouth they suck away! They are so cute, one is real loveable and the small one is kind of a snob!

The 3 other babies we are bottle feeding are doing really good outside! The bigger 2 are on just one bottle a day and the little girl is still on 2. So at night when we give little girl her second bottle we give the big 2 just water in their bottle :) Well tonight, Cody's girl didn't like that and she stood up on her hind legs and started coming at me, well she is little enough now that it did not hurt, but I smacked her nose and she got off of me real fast. I guess for safety reason we will have to start being more dominant over her and not letting her get away with little cute things anymore cause if she does that when she is full grown, she could hurt someone!

We had a busy day today, Luis and his family are in Nacogdoches for the weekend, so we have been feeding the Elk and the red deer too ( cause Luis usually takes care of them). Cody came home before lunch being all kinds of sweet and asked me if I would go with him to the back of the ranch while he fed the elk and watered them, because he just wanted to hang out and wanted my company because he missed me because we don't get to just ride around and hang out anymore! :) Then I realize an hour into the trip, after I have opened 40 gates in the 110 degree weather, that this is why he wanted me to go with him! Man, he is good! LOL

We also have water buffalo, and of course they LOVE water! They have a huge water trough that they drink from, but also have a little watering hole where they like to roll around in it. Well this little watering hole dried up about 2 months ago and every once in awhile the boys will fill up a huge 300 gallon water tank and dump it in the hole for them, but this dries up fast too. So today we connected 5, 100 yard water hoses to a pump so they could have their watering hole back! They are in water heaven now!

Yesterday while Cody was feeding the Red Deer he got a great picture of a couple of boys fighting, he said they were really just playing but it sounds way cooler when you say they were fighting! :)




P.S. Cody got his bow and I will have to wait on the King size bed.... :(


Karen

Carter's, Dr's and Deer

The Carter clan came to visit this weekend and we had a great time. Eli got to play with the little deer in our house and he thought it was the coolest thing! We needed to put little girl out on Monday but we waited till Eli got here so he could play with her for a bit in the house. As soon as they got here, out she went! She was definitely missing her buddies and she is doing really good outside.

Sheila, ELi and I went to Alabaster Caverns on Saturday so Eli could see the Gypsum caves and I think he really enjoyed that and he thought being underground was pretty cool and next time he wants to bring his buddy Jackson :) to see the caves. Cody and Mark left early early Saturday morning and went to Oklahoma City to a whitetail deer auction. Cody said a yearling doe that was going to be AI to a big buck went for 16,000 dollars. O My! On Sunday we all went out on the 4-wheelers and did a little exploring. It amazes me that I have been out about 20 times and I still see things that I have never seen before! Something new everytime! Eli was riding with Mark and they hit a little dip going a little too fast and Eli smacked his face on the 4-wheeler and he is gonna have a pretty big shiner. He was posing for me, so I could get a good picture of his bruise, but this pic doesn't do it justice! He was pretty tough!



Eli also got a lot of kisses from little girl!

Cody also had his Dr visit today and it went great! The Dr. said that everything is what he thought and that the cancer is low grade and the only thing Cody will have to do is get scopes every 3 months for a while and he is not looking forward to that! I also asked the doctor about cancer fighting foods and stuff and he just smiled and said it's not scientifically proven and that their is nothing you can do to prevent it. I knew he was gonna say that, most of the sights I visited said that doctors can get in trouble for telling patients things other than science proven and medical stuff. He did go on to tell us that he had a patient once who had the worst bladder cancer possible and that he suggested he have his bladder removed. The patient declined and went home. On his next visit for a checkup, his cancer count or whatever they go by had dropped, and eventually over the years his cancer no longer existed in his body. The dr. said the man drank green tea everyday. :) I have been making Cody drink that and he hates it! The doctor also said there is no science behind green tea and that there is no telling if that was what it was. I think it had something to do with it! Only after reading all the stuff I have read over the past 2 weeks.

Also this morning, Cody comes running in our room at 8:30 and telling me he needs help. Another doe had babies last night, which we thought they were done having babies, cause it's already August. Well they doe had twins and they look way premature. When I come in the living room they are both just laying their with their heads down and just looking lifeless. Cody gave them colostrum and I loved on them and tried to get them to take a bottle ALL day!

The one in the back is a female and she sucked a lot more than the other one, which is a male. The male couldn't even get up today and walk but by this afternoon he was able to walk about a foot and then fall. The female is walking all over the place but she is so weak! I was so looking forward to getting all the deer out of the house, but it looks like we have 2 more if they make it! I hope they make it!

Karen