The New Me

I chopped off over a foot of hair this week. It's my third donation to Locks of Love -- and probably my last, since this is the shortest I've ever gone and it would take FOREVER to grow that much again.

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it. That's mostly just because I look in the mirror and it doesn't look like me. Once I get used to what I see, I might love it. Or I might wear a lot of hats.

Here's the profile shot:


And another picture of Vivi because she's a lot cuter than I am:

Two Months

Vivi is now 2 months old. Crazy!! Here are some newer pictures.

Fence

This is my fence. I am just about done. Holly wants me to paint it white next year.

Enjoy. Taken by Janelle and Lori (Holly's sisters).
ryan

And now for my REAL baby

At 6:27 PM last night (you win, Sabrina!), Genevieve Lorraine Sweetwood joined our little family. After 21 hours of labor and 1 and a half hours of pushing, we're SO glad she's finally here.

Don't you love that hair? Like father like daughter.

We just can't believe how beautiful she is.

More pictures will come later. But now I'm going to nap. :)

My Baby

Now I know you all want to hear about my actual baby, but I still don't have one of those, so I'm going to post about the baby I have now:

my dog.

I have a pretty unhealthy relationship with my dog. When I moved to Paonia, he was my only friend, and all day long it was just me and Toby. I am very very attached to this dog.

And this morning he was hit by a car.

He's going to be fine, but for about 10 minutes I was a WRECK. I didn't see it happen; I just heard a series of very loud yelps and went outside to find him coming into our yard from the street, hopping around on his back legs and chest with his front legs folded under his body. I thought he'd broken his legs. I thought he had been run over. I thought my dog was dying. So I screamed and ran after him and got him into the car. I sobbed my way over to the vet, and then Toby walked in just fine (with a limp). The vet looked him over and listened to his lungs and determined that Toby ran head first into the passing car, and the head trauma caused disorientation, which was why he initially wasn't using his legs. So he's bleeding from the side of his mouth and 2 spots on his front leg, and he'll have a very bad headache for a while, but other than that the vet thinks he'll be fine. We just have to watch him and make sure his behavior stays normal. And he has to wear a huge cone to keep from licking his wounds.


He looks miserable, doesn't he?

The wound here at the bottom is pretty bad, but I didn't want to move him to get a good picture of it.


My poor baby.

The Final Countdown

We are now into the single digits of days left before this baby's due. In 9 days, on October 3rd, I will be very disappointed if I still have no baby.

Things are progressing well. I've been having contractions since Sunday, so my body is already in practice mode. Monday night we even had a false alarm and drove to the hospital. My contractions came every 5 minutes for more than 3 hours, but it was still just nothing. sigh...

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment, and I am only dilated to 1 but "very thin." It could be any day, or it could be 2 weeks from now. Who knows? Ryan's always hopeful she will come any minute so he can leave work, but I kind of don't want to miss the Mountain Harvest Festival this weekend.

Any guesses on when she'll come? Winner gets ... well nothing, but good for you if you get it right!

I think his tractor's sexy

Ryan had the time of his life on this tractor. We rented it from a place in town, and he drove it down the streets to our house to till our garden for next year. When he drove it back, Toby followed him the whole way!

Yeah, Ryan and Toby are BFF:

Oh, and here I am at 38 weeks. 13 days left until the due date! Yikes!

Shoes, glorious shoes

One of the big employers in town for many years was a Chaco factory. They make great hiking sandals and boots and sell good, quality shoes. Earlier this year, they shut down the local factory and outsourced to China. We bought our house from a couple that had to move because they lost their jobs. It was all very sad.

Except...

Ya know one benefit of a shoe factory closing? Sales. Lots of sales. I just found out yesterday that every Friday afternoon they open up to try to get rid of the last of their inventory. They don't have much left, but ya know what they have a lot of? Women's size 7. And I just happen to be a size 7.

Now, I know for a lot of you that generates feelings of "whoop-de-doo, big deal, eye roll," etc. But usually size 7 is the first to go because it's so common. I guess people here have big feet. Anyway, I got 3 pairs of shoes that would normally total for around $350 for $30, including the boots I have pictured here. Every pair of shoes is on sale for $10. They all have some kind of minor defect, but I couldn't find them on any of my shoes.

So if any of you size 7 women out there live in snowy weather or enjoy hiking or just want some good, cheap shoes, let me know before next Friday and I'll see what I can do!

Baby Shower

Last week some sisters in the ward threw me a baby shower at church. We had games, food, and of course presents -- what more can a pregger lady ask for?

Here we're playing the "guess what mashed up candy bar that looks like poop is in this diaper" game. I got them all right except for the Sugar Daddy. The most disgusting was definitely the Almond Joy.


And the food was yummy. Check out the babies-in-bed cake:


And here are a few pictures from opening presents. This first one is the sling a sister made me. And yes, that is Piglet -- another present. :)


And here is a gift from one of my laurels -- matching mommy and baby hats!


And last but not least, here is ONE of the homemade baby blankets I got. Isn't that amazing? These women make them like it's no big deal. It would take me years to actually finish one of these. Here it's already keeping baby warm.


19 days until the due date. Aack!

36 Weeks

Apparently the baby grandmas are very anxious to see how big she's getting. :)

So by popular demand, here I am at 36 weeks:

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Who out there has the best answer for this one?

Black Canyon Hike

The biggest natural attraction in this area is Black Canyon. It's within an hour of where we live, so Ryan and I decided to finally go see it. Last weekend we did a short hike, and it was beautiful!


Toby had a great time and was pretty good about staying away from the edge.

The obligatory baby bump shot:

My First Demolition Derby

Last week was the Delta County Fair, and Ryan took me to my very first demolition derby! I was so excited, and the place was PACKED. Unfortunately, the fair workers wet the field about 2 hours before the show -- so the cars couldn't go too fast and hurt the drivers -- and then it rained very hard for a good 20 minutes. So most of the show was watching cars overheat trying to move through the thick mud. :) It was still fun though!


I think the best part was when one driver gave up on getting out of the mud and shot fireworks off the hood of his car. Then he kept revving it until the hood went up in flames. He got a big crowd response to that.


And during the breaks Ryan and I went around to see the animals. It was amazing to see such little kids lead around cows and take care of pigs and do just about everything. 4H is very big here.

We liked seeing the chickens best because now we know something about them, but Ryan also loved this comparison:

Who's bigger?

My First Rodeo

A few weeks ago, Ryan had to go work a booth at the Gunnison County Fair, which also included a rodeo. I went with him, and he took some interns so they could take shifts and watch some of the show. I've never seen so many cowboy hats or tucked-in shirts (to show off the belt buckles) in one place!

We had so much fun.

My cowboy. I think we're both adjusting to this life pretty well. :)

Poll

An important question for any parent or babysitter out there:

Huggies or Pampers?

Family Friendly

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Site

This rating was given b/c of (or in spite of) the presence of dead (2x) and shoot (1x). I think I need to stop posting about chickens or I might risk a PG rating soon.

Our Chicken History

** This is a long history, though we've only had chickens for less than a year. Be ye warned.

Once upon a time, Ryan and I moved to the country and decided to get chickens. So Ryan worked very long and hard to build this:

We started off with 4 chicks, which we got from a local farmer. The neighbor girls loved to come and play with them:

Of those chicks, Toby killed one. He thought it was a toy and didn't know he'd done anything bad. I bawled like a baby. Then 2 (Fatty and Blackbeard) turned out to be roosters. We lived inside town limits and weren't allowed to have roosters, so Ryan worked very long and hard to make them into this:
They did not taste very good.

That left one original chick, Rosie. Meanwhile, we decided to buy some full-grown hens so we could have some eggs. So we went to another farmer and bought Gandalf the Grey, Phantom, and Ugly Betty:

Well, Toby decided those chickens looked too tasty. Gandalf and Phantom didn't last long. I bawled like a baby. We started kenneling Toby whenever we went anywhere (our chickens wander the yard during the day), but one morning he got at Rosie before we got out of bed. She had a big hunk of skin and feathers missing from her back when I found her, but she was walking around as if nothing was wrong. Ryan said she would likely die soon from infection, but I was stubborn. So I held Rosie, looked the other way, and sang songs while Ryan cleaned her back and put a whole bunch of ointment on it. Now I figured that Rosie was kind of like the flock of my field, so I prayed very hard for her to survive. More to come later on that.

We were down to 2 hens, Rosie and Betty, so we went to Murdoch's and bought 6 more chicks. One was taken by a hawk early on, which left 2 identical grey ones (the Olsen Twins), one with a black stripe down her back (Pepe le Pew), one really beautiful one (Cindy Crawford), and a white one (Gandalf the White -- in honor of our previous lost chicken).

So then we bought a house (see earlier post), and Ryan worked very long and hard to build our hens this:

The Olsen Twins turned out to be roosters, as I discovered when they crowed at 5:30 AM one day. We're technically allowed to have them now, but our neighbors live right on the other side of the chicken pen, and we didn't want them to hate us quite yet. We actually found a good home for them where they didn't get eaten! Amazing!

This past weekend we really discovered what a difference it makes being outside of town. A fox got Gandalf, Pepe, and Betty. There are still white feathers all over the yard, Pepe just disappeared, and Betty's body was still there. A neighbor found them first and said Rosie was just standing by Betty waiting for her to wake up. I didn't bawl like a baby this time, but there were tears. Ryan says they're just chickens, and now that we're in the country I need to get used to it. I think I'm getting better, but I was still sad.

That left Rosie and Cindy, who's not laying yet. So yesterday I went and bought 7 grown hens from a man who is moving. We didn't want quite that many, but he said it was all or none. I would have posted a picture of them, but they're molting right now and honestly pretty scary looking. Rosie kind of hates them.

Think the story's over? Oh, just you wait.

Early this morning, Cindy once again flew out of the pen (yes, we clipped her wings, but she's still so light it's easy for her to fly) and was walking around the yard during prime fox hunting hours. We heard her make some noise, so Ryan jumped out of bed and Toby of course followed. Ryan found a fox forcing Cindy into the corner when he said, "Toby, get him!" Our wonderful dog chased that fox to the river. We were feeling pretty good about that, but I just searched the yard a few minutes ago, and Cindy is nowhere to be seen. The fox probably came back and she just didn't make enough noise this time. I'm sad because I really want our hens to be able to wander the yard, but I'll have to let them out late and put them in early. And then it's still risky. Puts a whole new spin on the whole security vs. freedom debate doesn't it?

And then there was one (plus the herd of ugly ones, but they don't count yet). Meet Rosie:

Oh yes, Rosie survived the dog mauling and now holds her wings higher on her back to cover the wound. Looking at her, you couldn't even tell she's been so scarred because she's moved her feathers to cover it. Rosie is now, as of this morning, our only chicken left from before we moved. And I am one lucky girl because she also happens to be my favorite. As soon as I go outside, she'll run over to me from across the yard and follow me around. Ryan says she was probably protected because of my aura of prayers surrounding her. I also think she's a fighter since she somehow got away from Toby even after he took half of her back. I have already warned Ryan that if she gets eaten, I will bawl like a baby. I'm trying to work her into the pet category with Heavenly Father so we can have her in heaven. :)