Today

1. Today the sun is shinning bright and oh how beautiful it is

2. Today the dogs are being soo lazy and just enjoying laying in the sunshine...

I wish I was a dog right now and could just lay out there and enjoy the sunshine!

3. Today I am attempting to finally get my pantry back in order...

I may be working at this for a while, it was an awful mess and will take a lot of work to get it where I want it!

4. Today we are eating meatloaf....

I love meatloaf...well my moms recipe that is...

I have been wanting to make meatloaf for a week now and didn't have all the ingredients.....grrrr

5. Today I can look out my kitchen window and see a dead raccoon...

Don't worry I didn't take pics cause well I don't want to see it so I can't imagine that you would.

6. Today I am trying to get caught up on all my laundry...

"Trying" is the key word here.

7. Today I can't button the top button of the jeans I am wearing...

Let me restate that, I can't comfortably button the top button...

That's the way a lot of my jeans are fitting any more, Oh well that's part of it!

8. Today I realized that cleaning the toilet wasn't nearly as disgusting when I was single and there were no boys around.

9. Today is the last day of February....

Seriously I can't believe it, but March will be here tomorrow and that means we are closer to getting in the field and planting corn and closer to planing things in my garden!!

10. Today I got my new Shutterfly book in the mail along with the rebate for my phone, I am one happy girl!!

That's all I go for now I guess I had better get back to my pantry and laundry or they will never get done.

Laters,

Janet

A New Farm Hand is Comming to the Phillips Farm

About a year ago Caleb and I thought it was time to start a family, the only problem was my body decided that it was time to stop working correctly.

October, 2009 I went off birth control. We weren't sure that we were ready just yet to start a family but the birth control and I weren't getting along, so we decided other means of birth control would be better. After I got off the birth control everything went back to normal....

Well normal for me which means I would cycle every two months. I've been that way since it all started so it was no big deal to me.

Well after two normal cycles, my body decided to stop working...

The ironic thing about this was that Caleb and I had decided to stop all forms of birth control after the next cycle...which never came.

I went six months without cycling at all...

I blame it on the birth control pills I was on, my Doc says they shouldn't have caused that but I have never had any problems like this till taking that crazy stuff!

Anyways, I know some of you are thinking, "Why didn't you go to you Doctor sooner than six months?"

Well for the first three months I kept thinking something would happen and then nothing....

But on top of that I haven't been down in this area all that long and the first Doc I went to I didn't like at all and was gonna go back to. But then the problem is finding a new Doc and when I do find one I still have to wait at least a month because I was a new patient.  There was one local Hospital that was only about 20 min away, but all a couple of my friends who had babies there said that in nine months they had gone through 3 different Doctors. Well I really didn't like the sound of that! Then one of those friends said there was a Doc just north of us about 30 min that had been there a really long time and she really liked her, so finally I found the place I wanted to go.

So after a month or so of waiting I finally get in to see not the Doc but the Nurse Practitioner, which didn't bother me, cause she was great. She started me on some meds to get me to cycling and I was to take a the ovulation tests to see if and when I was ovulating.

Things I learned: If you ever have to take an ovulation test buy the digital one, they are soo worth it, cause there is either a smiley face if you are ovulating or nothing if you are not. The others there is always two lines you have to determine if the second line is dark or if it's not....horrible design!!

Well after three months of cycling and no baby I went back to the Doc and she thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and start me on Clomid (an ovulation drug). I was actually ovulating, but it was really late in my cycle so she thought this would help....

And help it did, after two months of this stuff I was pregnant!! And bot were we ever grateful.

During all of this going on Caleb and I were doing a lot of praying. I had a lot of friends and family who were getting pregnant or who were having babies and there were a few times that I struggled with being jealous. It wasn't so much that I wasn't getting pregnant it was more that my body was all messed up and not acting like it should. But my amazing and wonderful God stayed right there by my side comforting me. I don't know why I had to go through this but what I do know is that when Caleb and I thought we were ready, God knew we weren't...

Maybe it was because we didn't have all the stuff finished in the house and He knew if he gave us a child when we thought we wanted it it probably would have been a big fight and headache for the both of us, or maybe it was some other reason, what ever it was I trust that He knows best.  


So far I have been very blessed to not really get sick, but even if I do get sick or have any problems I am gonna do my best to not complain about it because I have been given a great gift and I have some friends who are able to have children and I know that they would give anything to trade places even if it meant being sick the entire time.

With that being said we will be having our own little Pumpkin this coming October. We actually went to our first Doctor's appointment yesterday and got to see the little one, and as of today the little one is 8 weeks and 3 days along which makes us due on October 3.

You know another small blessing in this is even though we are due in the fall....which everybody knows can be a crazy busy time on the farm....it is actually a great time down this way, because corn should be harvested and it won't be time to put wheat in or harvest beans yet so it works for us! (but seriously any time would have worked for us!

Here's a picture of the little one...

Now remember the little one is only 8 1/2 weeks along so there's not a ton of definition, but you defiantly see the arms and legs and the body and head. Pumpkin is measuring 2 cm long and it little heart was beating 178 beats / minute (for those who don't know that is good)

I was telling a friend of mine from Church last night that I don't know how a woman could go through pregnancy and not believe in God.  I guess I just sit there and think how from the moment that conception takes place the cells are starting to divide and starting to make a precious child. When people say each child is a miracle there is no doubt about that in my mind cause I know it is true!!!

So in thirty-two more weeks we will have a little farm hand and we are soo excited and can't wait. We if it's a boy or a girl, cause we want them both all we care is that it is healthy....ten fingers ten toes! Oh and we aren't going to find out what it is either... Caleb wanted to and I wanted the surprise and guess who won!!!

Well I guess that's all the news I got for now, it's raining here so I'm stuck inside today....o-well!

Catch ya later,

Janet

It is Finished....Well Good Enough for Me that is!

Back in January I showed ya'll some pictures of my new table and in the comments my friend Kim mad a comment how "she loved the brick on the wall." Well to be honest Caleb and I both got a chuckle out of this because we both don't like the brick not at all.

It was used by the previous owner to protect the wall from a little wood burning stove and since we don't have a stove for here and aren't going to get one I have no use for this wall.

Well it wasn't till this past fall that I found out that this wall didn't have to be there and it could easily be moved and there was already dry behind it....

Why wasn't I told this back when we had the whole house tore apart, I could have had a plain and simple wall there...

Well when I found this out I decided that it was time for it to go, so when we were having a cabinet built for our chore bathroom we decided to have a shelf built to replace the brick wall too!!

Here it is one more time before we start tearin' things out.

The mantel that was on it had seen better days. We were kinda hard on it when we were workin' on the house.

The dry wall mudding next to it was terrible as well!!

"Mr. Gorbachev  Caleb, Tear down this WALL!!!"

And look there's a wall.

Now you may be asking why build a shelf, why not just leave the wall bear and paint it?

Well ya see the wall isn't the problem here it's....

It's the floor where the wall once stood...

You could see underneath the house in places when we moved it and there was going to be hole in our flooring where it had stood so we needed something to cover the hole.

There were pieces of the old linoleum still under it....

I'm don't know why we ever changed the flooring cause that stuff was just beautiful...

Ummm no it wasn't...

So things are never easy when it comes to workin' on this house. WE had to remove some of the wall to fix the terrible bow that was in the wall. Apparently the guys we had doin' the drywall here don't know how to use a level cause they added spacers to make this wall bow out like crazy. So Caleb got to do some work with power tools....

After he got the bow in the wall fixed  it was time for the mudding and the painting...

I don't know why I am showing you a picture of Caleb doin' this cause what you see here was all he did when it came to the mudding and the painting...

I did all of these steps cause well I am more particular and careful so it's better if I do it!

Once we got all that done it was time to do the installing and here it is....

Isn't it beautiful!!! The worst part about it is that if we ever move some day it will have to stay with the house. :(

Boy does it make the room look different and boy do we love it!!!

We also got the cabinet made for the chore bathroom so we can finally get the sink installed!!!

We also get something else made to help solve another problem we have in this house...

My Pantry!

I is over flowing and a mess all the time not to mention that....

If you put two jars on the shelf they sag.

Just so you know I wanted wooden shelves when we built this and Caleb thought these wire shelves would work just fine. I didn't argue with him about this cause we hadn't been married all that long and I didn't want to start a war, but....

In the end I was right and Caleb agrees that the wire shelves were not a good idea for someone who does as much canning as I do so....

He had a canning shelf built for me.

It was a little fancier than I planned but if we ever build a house with my extra sturdy pantry then we will turn this into a book shelf but for now... 

it will hold all my canned goods as well as some of Caleb's stuff.

Now I would love to say my messy pantry is all better now, but I haven't had a chance to mess with it just yet, but it will be soo much better now that I will have a ton more space.

And now our house is done...

Well done good enough for me.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Catch ya later,

JP

The New Men in My Life

So back on January 23rd, on the way home from church I got a call from my brother, Keith...

Brothers call their sisters all the time what's the big deal with that...

Well my sister-in-law was about to pop and we were expecting to hear that the little man was here at any time and that's just what I heard this day....

Well kinda, he was telling me that they were at the hospital and that the little man was on his way.

The little guy had played a little too much in mommy's tummy and had the cord wrapped around his neck so they had to do a c-section to get him out but other than that he was just fine. Momma was a little sore but she is doing a lot better now.

Little Mr. Ratliff was 7lbs 10oz and 19 1/2 inches long and just as sweet as ever!

Daddy with his new little man. The little guy actually looked a lot like his daddy, all except for his little nose...

He had his mommas nose.

Keith was practicing his swaddling, and he didn't do to bad of a job at it.

We weren't the only ones visiting them that night.

The little man also got to meet some of his cousins....

Who no doubt will teach him all sorts of rotten things!

Auntie Kim also got some cuddle time with the little guy he was just a sweet little thing.

One Man's Junk...

This past week has been a crazy busy week from the get go. I haven't sat down at the computer but for about two seconds...

Which isn't near enough time to write a blog post, let a lone read anyone else's, but that's life some times.

Well yesterday afternoon I got a crazy itch and was out in the garage wokin' on a project for our house and I was lovin' how beautiful it was out there so I ask my hubby to go for a walk with me.

First he said no....

But I don't really like that word so I took the paper he was reading away from him and asked him to just walk out into the barn yard with me over to where the cattle were standing....

It's maybe a 100 yards, I didn't think this would hurt him too much!

Well while we were out there we decided to pick up some stick that were laying in the yard and take them out to the brush pile in the pasture...

This led to walking over to this old mineral feeder and ripping a board off of it for another project I have to do....

Then we kept on walking...

By an old pole barn that we need to cut a tree down by....

Then on back to the back side of the property to look at the wheat that we planted late last fall...

It made us both very happy to find that it was sprouting and looks like it will make it...

But it made us very sad to discover that the fence was tore up pretty good and we are gonna have to fix it.

We only had Jasper with us on the walk cause the other two were really bad the night before and were on the chain...

On the way back there Jasper found a nasty ole possum and had a good ol' time tryin' to kill it...

We tried to help too but I don't know if we did any good or not.

As we were walkin' back we were passin' by this old pile of "stuff left by the previous land owner...

Well we have gone by this pile a million times and I have never really paid any attention. It just so happened this time that I need to add some thing to the pile and while I was over there I found a little treasure just lookin' at me...

It was this dirt old 8 gallon crock...

I love old crocks so I made Caleb come over and help me fish it out of the pile...

In the process of pullin' it out of the mud my buff husband broke a piece off of it...

Its easily fixed so it didn't bother me and well I found out why it was back there in the first place...

It had a big ol' hole in the bottom of it...

Not very good for storing liquid, but if it just sits there and holds stuff then no big deal.

It was too far back there to carry it all the way back to the house. So once we finished with our walk I headed back in the Jimmy and brought it back and did some washin' up on it and it looks as good as new....

Ok maybe not as good as new, but it looks a lot better that's for sure.

It's not Western Crock...that's really sought after, but it's a Pittsburgh one that was made just down the road in Pittsburgh, KS.

Needless to say I was a happy girl when it was all said and done.

Oh, we ended up walking a little over a mile...

Which is more like a 100 miles to my hubby who doesn't enjoy walks like I do. I will probably go back out this afternoon and go on another one, but this time I will take my camera with me.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day and that ya'll enjoy this beautiful weather if you are getting it...

Laters,

JP

Things to Know

1. I was born in Northeastern Missouri where on average it is 10-15 degrees colder than Southeast Kansas most of the time...

That was until this winter where we have reached colder temps down here than they have had up there.

2. I can't stand cold weather.  I grew up with it but I didn't like it then and I still don't like it now. If I could move farther south I would but since my hubby and our farm is here I guess I will stay.

3. All this cold white stuff will be gone next week and I can't wait!!

4. When I woke up and saw this temp a week and a half ago I thought it was ridiculously cold and that I would never see temps that cold down here again...

Only to wake up yesterday morning to find it even colder and that's just wrong! 

5. I really don't have anything to say about this picture, I just really liked it.

6. We got more snow.

7. There is no such thing as too many pictures of baby calves....

Especially when they are cute and nosey

8. These little ones had the best seat in the house the other morning.

9. I am sick of taking pictures in the snow... 

So I went back through my archives and found some pictures with green grass and sunshine when it was 80 degrees.

10. I know I've said before that I don't like the looks of a field full of hay bales, cause that means I got a lot of hauling ahead of me, but...

Oh how I wish I was wearing a tank top and hauling hay right now!

11. I wish I could catch a toad right now...

that would mean it is warm and I am wearing a tank top and a very happy girl!

12. Ok that enough reminiscing for now. Spring will be here before you know it and I will be a happy busy girl!

13. Later tatter,

14. Janet