ring in the new ______s

PAH i'm not even going to organize these.






















hooorayyyyyy! it's a new year! and my laundry is done.

i wish i had more photos of this christmas, we were spoiled rotten by the cochrans!

elaine built us a chicken coop for laying hens and now we have four of them.
this is little red
the other two are silver wyandottes and one arucana (they lay easter colored eggs, blue and green)

the wyandottes aren't very friendly... aren't they beautiful though? i'm not sure what happened to them to make them pecky at all the other hens and cranky but hopefully after they get to know me and little red and all the food, they will be nicer.

we have to wait until it gets warmer to paint the rest of the coop, it will be barn red with off white trim. and i want to make little curtains for their windows too.

it's insulated and has a heat lamp and heated water. spoiled things.

the back door for the chickies- in the spring we want to build a little run for them that is fenced in so they can semi free range and scratch without being eaten by any neighborhood cats.

and we may want chicks in the spring too i haven't decided yet because there is an incubator- somewhere!

and then around the run we want to plant an herb garden and strawberries.
i wish it wasn't too late to plant tulips EVERYWHERE, even though the deer like em and those are everywhere in this neighborhood too. :\

gotta plant some marigolds to keep them away- and hopefully the smell of DASH will help them stay away from our garden too. look how big he is getting. he's kinda a chunk when he's all curled up. he needs some friends... he loves the chickens (he'd like to have them for dinner...) but they don't return those feelings yet.

he loves the big back yard, he runs around like a crazy all day hunting birds, killing his stuffed animals for the 1234567890th time, and climbs in the playhouse to watch over his kingdom.

after christmas with the cochrans, we went to san diego! where it rained. but it was still GORGEOUS. we had off and on sun and it felt like tropical paradise, everything was so green and lush. brandon was in heaven watching football the whole time and stuffing ourselves silly.

we were spoiled there too! holy gift cards! i wont go into details here but, my family was really generous this year. AND i got the sweetest ernie beanie hat which i wore home on the plane and got way too much attention... i won't be making that mistake again- children are confused and excited about seeing one of the muppets on a grown persons head. also, apparently, flight attendants share these feelings.

it was a good end to the year, and i am so excited for this one! i had another ultrasound, and peanut is definately a girl- i saw her little face/profile and she is a doll.

i hope i haven't killed her by priming her room- in my defense, i did it with the window open and the paint man said there wasn't anything in the paints that would harm me or baby... but still i suspect i was inhaling too many fumes and later i helped myself by having a panic attack about it.

oh pregnancy. how i wish you were done. but i can't complain! this part has been flying by!

in contrast, unpacking has been ... unflying... by. and i wish it was done! but look at the beautiful house we are staying in! also, i haven't even thought of taking down our christmas tree yet. look how big it is, i love it.