Little House on the Snow-Covered Prarie

Waking up to an unexpected snow Monday morning was not exactly the way I had planned to start my week! At first, (I have to admit), I was a little excited... after all, it was our first this fall/winter season! Jaxon slept in that morning till about 7:30 and for the first time since Christmas Day of last year, I wanted to wake him! When he finally woke up, he of course wanted to get right out there and build a snowman... little did I know at that point how perfect the snow was for just that!

Right before we headed out that morning, we lost power... no big deal, it happens a lot! On my way to town the roads seemed fine and after a short delay we continued on our way to my Mom and Dad's. I was beginning to wonder on my way there whether or not I'd be able to make it home that night... the snow was falling so fast and there seemed to be an endless amount of it! Upon arrival, I learned that Sam had gone to school so how bad could it really be?! My sister-in-law was on her way over too, (they had lost power about the same time we had.) All morning the snow continued to fly, school got canceled and Kent called to inform me that at noon we still had no power. Huh?! Oh well, Mom still had juice and it was nice and warm there! About an hour later things began to change!

We lost power at about 1pm there and ended up having a giant Meier/Welch family slumber party! We all thought for sure that by the next day everyone would have power again and things would go back to normal... we were all very wrong!

Kent and I have a well, which (pardon my pun), is all good and well... (that is until you lose power!) With 36 calves to water we had to come up with a way to make sure they had what they needed and fast! We ended up collecting water from our downspouts for the first 3 days. That worked, but by Thursday we were becoming concerned that we may run out. Between the water we needed for them, the toilet flushing and the small amount we were able to use for personal hygiene... we knew that if we were going to be w/out over the weekend, the water would be gone! We resorted to having them go back to the dairy for a few days... very sad!

With no power and no running water the moral at our house was down! We were all having trouble sleeping at night and smelled as though we were homeless! We were able to stay somewhat warm at night thanks to our wood burning stove but were too exhausted most nights to keep wood on and ended up waking up to a very cold house!

Our power finally came back on Friday night only to lose it again 8:30 Saturday morning! Thankfully by noon, the power was back on and we had a phone again! YAY! (Did I forget to mention that when our power came back on our phone, Internet and cable went out?!) Anyway, things are back to normal and even though it was ruff, things could have been much worse! Jaxon was a trooper throughout the entire ordeal and even though he was battling a terrible cold he still managed to remain his happy little self... most of the time!

Appreciate the little things in life... being able to flush your toilet is truly a blessing!

Farmer at Heart

Few things in life excite our child more than one of these "big, green monsters"! We have been waiting in anticipation for the harvesting of this bean field since earlier this summer. Jaxon's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree upon discovering this beast in our backyard! He had a hard time focusing for the first few minutes and I had an even harder time getting him to eat his lunch! As we sat on our back steps enjoying our cheese pizza and the sights and sounds of the combines running, I couldn't help but think of how lucky we are to have this kind of simple entertainment at our disposal. As the afternoon went on, we scoured our 5 small acres for the best spot to watch. Jaxon has spent lots of time perched upon these red rocks so it was no surprise to me when he drug me out to join him. He was a bit distracted by the traffic going up and down our road... at the moment I shot this picture, there was another big, green combine headed out to the fields.

We were thankful to wake up this morning to dry ground... now if only it can stay that way to allow the farmers to get their crops out of the fields. Jaxon and I miss Daddy on those long days away at work and this weekend was no exception. Thankfully we had Grandpa around to keep us company on Saturday. We spent the day moving calves and bales... (this is another one of those exciting moments in our child's life!) And even though he has been begging for the past 2 days to go w/ his Grandpa, (I know deep down it's not because he wants to be away from Mommy)... he's a farmer at heart!

Jaxon's October "ArtBoard"

Since Jaxon and I are always doing art activities, I thought it might be fun to start documenting these pieces for him as a keep sake. Throughout the month of October I taped every drawing, painting, collage, color book page, etc. to our fridge and at the end of the month, hung all of the work on my kitchen bulletin board. I then took a picture of the board... here's the first of many in a collection I call, "Jaxon's ArtBoard"! The "ArtBoard" stays up for the entire month of November, and at the end of the month, all of his work goes into a file folder. I then put up the November art and so on, and so on! Keep watching for more to come in upcoming months!

Costume Creation

Costumes, up until this year, have been pretty easy for me to find! The first year we were given a costume as a gift from Jaxon's Papa & Grandma Welch, that year he went as Superman. The next year my Mom came across a really cute farmer costume and last year he went as a football player.

This year, Jaxon was very admit about being a certain carnivore from the Jurassic period... Buddy (the t-rex) from PBS's new cartoon, Dinosaur Train! After discovering there were no premade costumes and that I would have to come up with this on my own, I began searching through his closet for an all orange outfit. Since I am no seamstress, I knew I would more than likely need to go another route and by another route I mean construction paper and duct tape! It turned out to be a pretty inexpensive costume, I paid $6.50 total and that was because I ended up buying the orange hat!

I am pretty proud of what I was able to come up with and even though no one else knew who he was supposed to be, he did and that's what matters most!

Pre-Halloween Prep

I love carving pumpkins so I was really excited this week to finally get the chance to do so. My plan was to do our carving outside this year to hopefully cut down on mess... the weather had other plans! Oh well, we had a great time, mess and all! Jaxon was given three designs to pick from... a ghost, some bats or the creepy spider. After all his excitement this year over ghosts (or boos, as he calls them), I thought for sure that would have been his pick! He proved me wrong when he pointed to the creepy spider with no hesitation! His reasoning behind his pick... "Daddy's scared of spiders!"

We had a fun day of Pre-Halloween Prep. After picking treats for the cousins, we put together their bags and delivered them as far as their Daddy's work. We made Orange Jell-O Popcorn Balls and a few batches of fun pumpkin and scary cat cookies. Tomorrow we will tackle a recipe for some pumpkin cookies that actually have pumpkin in them... the others were brought to us by our good friends at Pillsbury!

Jaxon is really excited about getting to go Trick or Treating for the first time with his Dad... his Dad is pretty excited too! His costume is done and as long as rain stays out of the forecast, we should be good to go! I haven't let him try it on yet since it's constructed of mainly paper and duct tape! Who knows, maybe Henson/PBS will see my pics online and hire me to mass produce my "Buddy the T-Rex" from Dinosaur Train! (Yeah right!!!)

Santa's Little Helper

I have only one child to raise but I feel sometimes like I live with two! And while I tend to spend most of my time writing about my adventures with Jaxon... I have a few w/ my other child (at heart) too! My husband has never been real good with electrical issues and why I thought this time might be different is beyond me!

Anytime we have an opportunity to work on home improvements, there always seems to be hurdles to overcome! This time was no different! With time change right around the corner we felt there was a need to add a few more lights outside to keep us safe while feeding our calves in the dark. We also thought it might be nice to add a motion sensored light to our back porch since we are always forgetting to leave a light on when we know we'll be returning in the dark.

Changing light bulbs went smoothly (even though the ladder we were using had a broken leg)!Kent's quick fix: random pieces of wood found on the ground (real sturdy)! Oh yeah, and me of course, to hold the ladder in case it decided to move on us! There are times in a wife's life when she knows to keep her mouth shut and yet I couldn't resist the urge to ask (while he was on the rickety ladder), "and what am I to do if the ladder decides to shift a bit?!" He didn't have a response for that one, just an under the breath sort of grumble!

Moving on, we next attempted to tackle the removal of an already existing porch light... no problems there! He was successful in wiring and mounting the motion light (at least we thought). Now we were ready to try out our new lights! Upon opening the boxes in which our bulbs were in, Kent discovered that attention to detail is of great importance... we had one red light and one green light!

Working together has never been real easy for the two of us when it comes to things that men are just naturally supposed to do better than women! And after much frustration with the ladder and various other things, I made the call to just try the lights out to make sure he had it wired correctly. After all, the bulbs could be exchanged! He went back inside, flipped the breaker and all I hear is a somewhat loud popping sound... I think I forgot to mention earlier that the back porch light and my kitchen light are on the same line!

After a much needed break on both of our ends and a call to my Dad for some advice regarding electrical tape, the lights are all working again! But I felt that "Santa's Little Helper" (let's call him, shall we?!), needed a reminder everyday that paying attention to the small details of life is of the utmost importance! After the holiday season the bulbs will be switched out but for now "fa la la, la la, la la, la, la"!

Indoor Art

If there's one thing that my child might actually be prepared for when he starts school, it's art projects! Now that my Planes, Trains and Trucks mural has been done for about a month we took a brief break from the paint brush and focused more attention on catching up on a few good books instead! Since my Hubby is a weather fanatic (lunatic) I pretty much know sometimes a week in advance how to prepare... inside or outside activities!

On Monday morning we took an hour to scour our yard for fallen leaves to use in a leaf rubbing activity I had planned for Wednesday. Jaxon really got into the collecting part... the rubbing part, well let's just say, he would have rather used some "blueberries" (a.k.a. some purple, weed berries he found while scouring), than the boring, old leaves! Anyhow, I did manage to get his attention long enough to create the piece pictured below!

And after much deliberation, Jaxon won the "I want to cut w/ scissors" battle we have been having for the past couple weeks! Now I know what you're thinking... but he actually is doing a wonderful job! And even though I have to sit there through every, little, sniplet... watching his tiny fingers grasp that little pair of scissors is awful cute! And you can't have scissors w/out glue! So I gave in and let him use a little glue too!
It was finally time for the final activity of the day indoors... the pumpkin painting! The pictures that follow pretty much explain themselves! Finger painting isn't just for paper... pumpkins work too! Needless to say, this was our final art activity for the week!