Happy Valentines Day!

We had a great valentines day. Dean gave us a movie then took us to dinner, and my dad sent a card in the mail. It was a good enough present just to have some good weather so we could get out of the house.

Cowboy Tod..

Dean Hired Tod to help calve this season, we like cowboy Tod he has a lot of good stories. Tod calls Josie his little girlfriend, today she went for a ride with him to sort out the pairs.

We got a new puppy! - Sis -

Dean thinks that in every 20 dogs you find one good one. We got lucky liking Blue first; and now I think we are about on #20 so hopefully this one will stick around for a while. She already survived one near death experience so she might be strong enough to live with us.

Leann had a Dance today. I have been getting these girls ready for days. I forgot how much work it takes to look good. Nails, Hair, Make-up, Dress Shopping... I'm glad to be out of high school.

Papa always has M&M's for Josie.

He gives them to her one after another, all the while he complains about how much dang candy she eats - either way she loves him and loves his M&M's.

PS when Josie sees the camera she makes this face.

I knew this day would come I just didn't think it would be so soon. Help Me!

Cameron invited our whole family to a Grizzlies game for Addy's birthday! When we were on our way to Utah I was on the phone multiple times planning a baby sitter, dinner, and meeting times; then someone else would call and all the plans would change- over and over. Dean looked at me and said, "don't ever expect me to plan you a surprise birthday party with your family- I don't love you that much - there is sooo much drama". It's true there is a lot of drama but it, there is just so many people to please, but it always works out as a good time in the end. After the game we went ice skating. Pretty sure pregnant ladies should not ice skate, however it was a good thing I did or the Ballard's would have never made it around the rink.

For my Journal

My girl is 18 months... 18.11 pounds- She is getting so smart. I have loved watching her play the last few weeks. She is really getting into pretend. She will put a purse over her shoulder and kiss me and wave bye -but never leaves the living room. She is starting to be a good momma too! She used to only give balls rides in the stroller, but she has replaced them with babies and she loves to give her babies a bottle after she has had a few bites on the plastic nipple. She loves to comb her hair and put on makeup. She is always on the phone whether she has stolen mine, using a play phone, or sometimes just uses her hand; she walks around head tilted just chatting nonsense. When I get her down from eating I say go play and she takes off running like she is really headed somewhere but comes right back obviously forgetting her assignment. She knows she can't have a binky unless she is in the crib, she thinks she is so sneaky when she comes out with one, she comes right over to show me and then runs away. She is getting more independent, she cries if she has to sit in the highchair and would rather sit at the table. She cheers and dances at ball games and loves to go up and down the bleachers. She throws whatever she doesn't think is important away, and gets whatever she thinks is out of the garbage. She is a lot of fun but does throw many fits throughout the day - screaming and banging her head on whatever hard surface she can find. She has only gone to nursery once but didn't even look back at me, hopefully that will last. She already does a fake smile for the camera and closes her eyes half way - that does not make a cute picture. She still loves her dad so much and gets gitty and runs to the door when she hears it open. I love spending all day with her and we are truly enjoying this age - the dramatic fits and all.

Branding Heifers

Dean got 120 new heifers this winter and my dad and brothers came up to help him brand. CJ got to come too, grandpa is a sucker for CJ and lets him go everywhere with him. I took CJ down for a while to see the boys work and he kept saying he wanted to go home. The next day he told everyone at Sunday dinner that grandpa would snap the cows necks (catch them in the head catch) and cut off their ears (give them new ear tags) and the cows were crying. It sounds really bad when you put it that way. He did say that he got to ride Pete with his dad so I guess it wasn't all terrifying. I felt bad, I thought he just wanted to go home because he was cold, apparently he was traumatized.

Naturally Curly

Josie's hair is naturally curly. I love it and it's so cute until... She takes a nap!

Alice Lake, WY

Dean went with his friend Doug to Alice Like, Wyoming last weekend. I googled it to try to get a feel for where he would be... this is the picture I got.

I zoomed out and still got nothing. It is obviously in the middle of nowhere, just the kind of place Dean would like. They spent Three days snowmobiling and never saw another person. He said he had the time of his life... I guess that doesn't say much for the last four years of our marriage. I'm just glad they came home safe, he didn't have any cell service and I was worried the entire time.

Busy Lady

While I was getting ready for church Josie was busy making this mess. She was so busy she just kept jabbering to herself. When I finally paid attention to her she held out her arm to show me her pretty bracelets (hair elastics) and then clapped. She was so proud of her jewelry that it didn't even bother her that her arm was bright red and loosing circulation.

Road Trip

Dean had to get a load of cows from Montana. 12 hours... In all reality it was a short drive, from where he usually picks them up at. However for me it was forever. My sweet neighbor watched Josie for me and I invited myself to ride along with Dean. It makes me nervous him driving all that way alone, so I decided I would go and keep him awake. Turns out I slept most of the day and the roads were so icy I couldn't have driven for him to sleep anyway. I really do enjoy being with him even in the truck. He is my best thing!

Josie enjoying the left overs from the New year

New Year's Day

Blake, Casey, Johnny, Dean, Mckay, Collin. There were three more but they didn't come for the picture. Every New Years these boys come for a snowmobile ride at my house. I'm pretty sure they each took a turn trying to back out this year because it was sooo cold, in the end they all manned up and came.

Ang and the kids went sledding with Dean's brothers and sisters but no one else could stand the cold weather. Emilee did a great job getting lunch ready for the boys, while Ang shared her make-up with Josie.

New Year's Eve

Addy was planning on coming for New Year's and her entire family got crazy sick, so they had to stay home. So my Mom, Ang, the kids, and Maddie came to stay. We went to the stake activity for a little while and the kids played games and danced. Leann's dance group preformed 3 or 4 numbers. They are so talented and my mom really enjoyed watching them. Dean is such a party animal he stayed home and tended Josie.

Don't forget about the boy

Janale gave me a gift on christmas, it was a little suit and tie. I opened to bag and automatically handed it back to her and said I think this one is Kason's. She looked at me shook her head and said read the card its for baby boy fox. That never crossed my mind, it's not that I forgot about him I just totally don't think about it like that. It was weird for me when I held it up, its like seeing something for him to wear made it more real. I'm getting more and more excited to meet the little guy. Dean and I have some names picked out but I don't like to talk about it, I'm just not 100% sold yet. I went to the Dr. today, everything looks good with this baby. He is very active, crazy active, its painful and makes me motion sick. I'm pretty sure its a good thing though, I hardly ever felt Josie so hopefully this is a BIG boy.

My friends got together in Utah for the day. It was so fun to see them again. We went to lunch with all our kids and Angela and Jordan came too. We didn't get a picture, it may have been to crazy to even think about pictures, but it was fun. We missed Jessica by only an hour she headed back to Omaha but will return for good it just a few short months. Later that night We all got babysitters and did a little shopping and had dinner. We went back to my moms and she made us hot chocolate and we visited for far to long. It was so fun to catch up with them and just hang out. Shawnee came back to Idaho with me for a few days and was good company.

Toddler?

I didn't know if this day would ever come but I finally have a toddler. She started walking a few days before christmas and has just taken off. I can officially say she started walking when she was 16 months even though was was really close to 17. She is so funny, she never crawls anymore and cries to get down and walk in the grocery store - thats a problem.

Deck the Halls...Or don't

We did get a christmas tree this year. We did wrap presents. We just didn't have any decorations. Josie was so sick for a couple days after we cut our tree down and by the time I was ready to bring it in from outside it was covered in snow and hadn't had any water, it was ruined. Well there was no sense in bringing up all the christmas boxes if we couldn't decorate the tree so we didn't. Low and behold Christmas still came to our house and we really enjoyed it.

Christmas

Dean was so good to me this year he got me great gifts and they were all very thoughtful. We spent Christmas morning with Dean's family, we all got spoiled. It was fun to see Josie and Kason play together or mostly just play with each others toys. Josie was fun but totally didn't care or get the concept of opening gifts, Santa used that to his advantage and didn't bring her anything. Don't worry her grandparents totally covered it.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we went to my moms. The boys went snowmobiling all day and that night We had a wonderful dinner and program. Then came the presents. Josie was in love with baby Koen and would not stop kissing him and patting his head. Cameron let Josie hold him and she didn't want to let go. I called Dean to tell him to hurry home form snowmobiling so he could shower and be ready for dinner, he told me there was a terrible accident on the road and he would be late. Turns out he just had some christmas shopping to do. The funny part was some was for me (music box) and some was for him (stuff for his snowmobile). He is so good to make sure we are both taken care of.