Jason

I came home for lunch and this is what I found. I've been teasing Jason about not getting me anything for our anniversary or for Valentine's day. He keeps telling me that he is looking for that "special something".

Well, today is special and for him to think of me this day is way more important than either of the other two days. Today it has been one year since I miscarried. It's hard to believe that a whole year has gone by, and that I still miss and think about that baby everyday. But, today, my sweet husband remembered me and my pain, and along with the card he wrote me a note. I have decided to share it with all of you.

It seems hard for me to understand the pain and the loss completely the way you do right now. But I feel it, too, as much as I can. And I love you deeply and can't even express in words what you and your happiness means to me! Thank you for being who you are, even when I'm not who I need to be. Your support, encouragement, and love promise me that we can handle whatever is to come in our future....with God's help!

I praise God for such a wonderful husband who I do not deserve. His compassion and understanding is what helps me endure days like this. I love you, Jason!

Playing catch up

I'm still alive, I promise! This is just a "catch up" blog. Usually, the winter is what we refer to as our slow time...not this year. Our calves kept us SOOO busy and now that they are gone I feel that my life is without purpose. OK, it's not really that bad but I do miss them terribly! Last month we sold one group of calves here in Willcox, and the other group we shipped to La Junta, CO. As a bonus, I got a small vacation out of the deal!! The calves left on a Saturday morning and we left Sunday morning.

We went straight to the sale barn in La Junta to check on the calves. They remembered me!! That was my last moment with #36. Sad isn't it! But once we knew that they were all ok we headed to Colorado Springs. We called a few people and gave them "hey, we just happen to be in town......what are you doing?" We were able to spend time with Jason's friend Eric, his wife and new baby, and his parents. We had a really good visit with them, and then we went and saw my cousin, Aaron, and his wife, Christina. We had a great visit with them as well. The next morning we went to Focus on the Family! That place is so awesome!! And if you like Adventures in Odyssey, you will LOVE their Whit's End wonderland park. We both agreed that one day when we have children old enough we are going back!

We left there and went back to La Junta to watch my babies sell. I was so sad when we left....I cried. Jason looked at me like I was crazy, but I just couldn't help. Even now, as I write this, tears. I told him that I would rather just have yearlings all year than farm. It was so much work, but so much fun! I miss them so much.

Anyway, since then we have added to our family. Her name is Daisy and she is a yellow lab puppy. And she is all puppy! She has been bitten twice on the face by one or both of our other dogs because she doesn't ever stop biting....ever! Jason loves her, but the jury is still out for me. Not really into the whole puppy stage. She is cute though.

My mom and my grandparents are in Israel at this very moment! She sends a text everyday and they have been to the Jordan River, where they could be re-baptized if they wanted, the Mediterranean Sea and now they are on their way to Jerusalem. They are going to Egypt as well. I can't wait to hear about their stories and experiences in the Holy Land. I'm jealous!

A fun filled Christmas

Hope everyone had a fun, safe, and a very Merry Christmas!! Our tradition is to start off Christmas morning at my Grandma's house for her famous cinnamon rolls, a family picture, and our gift exchange. Then we head over to my parents house for another gift exchange and Christmas dinner.

Here my parents are modeling the wild rags that I had got my mom. Aren't they cute?!?



This is our White family picture. My grandma has so many Christmas pictures hanging on her wall, and we all agreed that we are looking better as we age!

Rocky, Preston, Andrew, Dad, Jason, Chris
Paul, Paula, Kathy, Mom, Jodie, Grandpa
Denise, Brooke, Grandma, Sydney, Me








Two of our very sweet cousins! Denise is a nurse at the hospital in Sierra Vista, and Andrew is playing college baseball in Oklahoma.

Denise, Me, Stacey, Andrew








My parents always fry their turkeys. So this year my grandpa thought that it would be a great idea to fry a sand hill crane. My dad looks proud, but my Aunt Kathy doesn't look so sure.

Now we are waiting for Jen Jen's Circus to come to town so that we can finish celebrating!

Busy Times

Merry Christmas from Arizona! Good friends of ours had there annual Christmas party yesterday, and this was her Christmas tree. She had the local FFA chapter make the ornaments which were brands from ranches in the area.









Jason and I have been so busy taking care of our calves. This pretty much consumes most of our day everyday!! But as you can tell I'm in love with some of them. That is 36 giving me a kiss on the check. He is so sweet.....I'm going to miss him the most when they are gone.





My most recent cake. Not only did it look good, but it tasted really good! I think that I've found a new cake recipe.





Hope you have a wonderful Christmas celebrating the birth of our Savior!!

Tis The Season....

for cotton harvest!! Dad started stripping cotton yesterday, so I took the opportunity to snap a few shots. The field is so white that from the highway it looks like snow. This could possible be one of his best fields ever, and he has grown some pretty good cotton these last couple of years.











This picture is blurry, but he had just dumped a load onto the bowl buggy, which my brother is driving. And Preston is moving the cotton around so that they can get more into the buggy. The first time you see this done you think that they are going to dump it on the ground!










Here he is dumping the cotton into the module builder, and from there is gets pressed into a nice block of cotton that can be hauled away.

















Isn't it beautiful?










"Riding off into the sunset"!











When I was little, my family raised lots of cotton as did others in this valley. I remember getting to jump in the cotton trailers to smash down the cotton so that they could get as much as possible in the trailers. We also lived right next to the cotton gin, and I remember one time spending the night inside of one of the trailers. All those fun memories came flooding back yesterday with the smell of the cotton! What a wonderful life growing up as a farm kid....and being a farmer's wife!!

One of those weeks.....

Side Note: Had my blog done ready to post and it erased this picture. So, it's story is below!













OK, so this is a random blog for me to vent a little bit! I'll start with this picture that I took back in May, just thought that it looked really cool. Last May, when my mom and I went to Denton, I found this wagon wheel at an antique shop...still haven't done anything with it, but it looks kind of neat leaning against my house! ;)






This month marks a year since we put Windy down, and got Praise. I was browsing my old pictures and found this one when Jason and I first went and looked at him.


This is Praise this summer. I just talked to the lady that we bought him from this last week. When I called her and told her who I was she was SO excited to hear from me. She lives close to where we go to church and she had been driving around the different church parking lots trying to find our pickup!! I gave her an update on him, and told her that he is the best horse that we have ever owned, which is true.

Now, for this last week.....it basically started out bad. I was filled with frustration, disappointment, and sadness, hoping that the week would get better. Well, it didn't. We finally got a combine on Thursday to harvest out pinto beans, and that night as Jason was backing up to dump the last load the back axle broke. Did I mention that it's not even our combine? It's still not fixed, but it is no longer sitting on the ground. On Saturday, we were able to get another combine here and we will be done by today.

It rained last night, on our hay that was ready to be baled. Lovely. How in the world we have had so much rained on hay, but yet are still so dry is beyond my comprehension. And the clouds are building again today. We have had lighting and thunder, just like it is monsoon season. Weird.

Sick calves. Coccidiosis to be exact. I told Jason that this is more stressful than a newborn baby.....I think anyway! Every night I'm dreaming of these calves and trying to keep them alive and healthy. And with harvest being in full swing, I find myself there a lot by myself. But I really do enjoy spending time with them.

Maybe this week will be better!

Our Latest Project

For weeks, Jason has stayed up late crunching numbers and building spread sheets. For weeks, all he talked about were calves, what we would buy, where we would keep them, how to turn our rained on hay into money. Well, after weeks and weeks and weeks, we finally have calves!





These two pictures are some calves that we bought right from the ranch last week. There is one in this group that I call Stitch, from the Disney cartoon "Lilo and Stitch". And once I get a picture of him, you'll know why but he is the cutest little thing!







These calves came from the sale barn two weeks ago and there is more of them, but I did not want to bore you with pictures of calves, that is if you are still reading this! ;) We have had to doctor them several times to get them over shipping fever. As of today, everyone is fat and happy!


So, basically, what all of the this means is that we are going nowhere this winter. Just 8 miles down the road to check on our sweet little calves and back again!!