Abilene and Special Occasions

So I'm writing this on Saturday! YEAH! Yes, that's right a day before I post blogs, I'm writing it! I know that may not be a big deal for you, but I don't remember the last time I wrote the blog before Sunday! It's the small things in life that I get excited about!

So not a lot of about agriculture this week again. We've been finishing up wrapping hay and putting up hay. We still need to haul it. So not a lot of new things happening on the farm that I haven't blogged about before so I thought I would spend this week giving an update about Abilene and all the celebrations in our lives.

Abilene is now 4 months, 10 days old. She's getting spayed soon. She goes with me everywhere. We're always in and out of everything. She does less sleeping then she did when she first came. Abilene loves playing with other dogs/puppies. Luckily, Matt's sister, Jenny, has an outside dog that Abilene plays with several times a day to burn some of that puppy energy. I'm in the process of training her. We're so bless to have my cousin and cousin-in-law be basically professional dog trainers. They have several years of experience and are helping me a ton! Thanks Donda and Denny! She will sit, down and stay. She does this both on leash and off leash. I feel like a mom bragging about her children and you all probably care as much as those people listening to those moms. I get really excited about when she learns something new! We're in the process of making her a cattle dog so she can be a real farm dog! And she's doing excellent in her training! I love my puppy, but if we ever get another dog, we're going with at least a year old dog. The puppy experience is something I wanted to go through, but now that I'm going through it I don't need to do it again. Once is plenty...and my puppy is REALLY good. I can't imagine an untrained puppy. That would be awful! She's doubled in size since we got her. She's now 30 pounds. That's the update on my puppy. And all I got wrote on Saturday. Now it's Sunday. Feels more normal to be blogging on Sunday. It was a good attempt at not procrastinating!

Now for all the other special people in my life this week...(I'll go in order of event date)...

Henry and Margaret (my parents-in-laws) had their 27th Anniversary on the 25th. (Thanks Moe for putting the number of years on Facebook!) So we had a little dinner party on Friday night-the 25th. Now for those of you who don't know, you might be thinking I'm a very considerate daughter-in-law...having dinner for them on their anniversary. Well...you can stop thinking that. We had a neighbor family that did quite a bit to help with our wedding so I've been meaning to have them over for dinner to thank them. Well, just a mere 9 1/2 months after the wedding, I finally decided enough was enough they were coming over for dinner that night! So I call my mother-in-law and ask her to do this, this, this and this. Not knowing it was their anniversary because her son, the one I'm married to, neglected to mention to me that it was their anniversary. Our neighbors, the Slipke's, get here and Phyllis was talking about how she'd left their anniversary card at home. All I can say is thank God for good neighbors that know what's going on! Cuz I sure in the world don't! Epic fail on my first year as a daughter-in-law! Anyway, happy anniversary to you two and thanks for getting married and having your son so he could grow up and I could fall in love with him!

Margaret, Matt, myself and Henry

Next, Mauricio, Matt's brother's son, had his 8th birthday on the 25th as well! Happy birthday to him! And yes, another epic fail...do you think I got his gift sent to him on time? Of course, not. I haven't even got their Christmas gifts to them. So I apologize, but happy birthday to Mauricio and hope you had a fantastic day!

I thought I had a much better picture than this one, but can't seem to find it. Mauricio is the boy on the very right with the purple shirt. He filled in for his brother that was sick for being a sign carrier. He did a great job and I'm sure there is a picture somewhere, but like I said, I'm not finding it.

Next, Brooke, the Slipke's oldest daughter. She turned 6 on the 26th! Happy birthday to her! So glad that the Slipke's are in our lives and I apologize to those of you that don't have the Slipke's for neighbors because you're missing out on the best neighbors ever. I've been blessed to get to know them a lot better after I got married. They are amazing people and have beautiful daughters. It's always such a joy to get to be around them.

Brooke is on the left. Abilene in the middle and April on the right.

Next, Autumn, my oldest sister Kristen's daughter, is turning 3 today! We're hosting her birthday party at our house this afternoon. This little girl means so much to me. She's the first child I've really ever been around so everything I know about children has come from her. She's such an absolute blessing and joy.

I am not crafty at all. Not at all. So I'm very proud of myself for this. My sister picked this up and it was just wooden. Unpainted. So I painted it. For you crafty souls, you're waiting for the hard part. That was extremely difficult for me! I'm not patient at all so doing the details was incredibly time consuming! I'm so proud of my work. I was so excited when Matt got home the night I finished it. I was basically jumping up and down. Okay to be real...I was jumping up and down. You're already judging my non-crafty skills so might as well tell you the truth.