Meet My Little Man

I am going to be all cliche here, and tell you that my heart is incredibly full with love for my little boy. 

Hunter James was born on December 20th at 5:16 a.m. He weighed 8 lbs 2 oz and was 20.5 inches long.

We kept the first name a secret, but we had it chosen for a couple months. The middle name is after my grandpa who passed away last year, and ironically enough, he was born on my grandmas birthday! 

Right now we are just spending time at home, getting used to a schedule. The first few days were tough, but we are getting the hang of things. 

I am getting about 7-8 hours of sleep at night with 1 feeding in there, so I'd consider myself pretty lucky! I'm not going to go into any details of my labor and birth experience-I'll save that for another day. I just wanted to check in and share some of the pictures of my little guy with you all :)

Wearing his Montana State Bobcats gear!

And lastly, his Christmas picture :)

I mean, I might be biased, but I think he is pretty darn cute. 

Christmas Goodies

I do Christmas baking every year, which usually takes up a whole day for me. The tradition came from my mom, sisters and I going to my aunt's house when we all lived in California and baking with my cousins. The memory is pretty vague, but I remember thinking I had a lot of fun and wanted to do it every year! I baked during high school, during college, and still do to this day.

I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get it done this year, hoping that I would have a child by now...but wouldn't you know it, I got it all done! haha. 

So the goods...here is a list of the things I made this year:

Lemon Blossoms
Almond Brittle
Raspberry Almond Braid
Chex Muddy Buddies
Pecan Shortbread Cookies
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Cinnamon Apple Streusel Bars

The Lemon Blossoms recipe I got from Pinterest. It's a Paula Deen recipe, and it did NOT disappoint! It was probably my favorite thing that I made this year.

The Raspberry Almond Braid was a recipe from a family member, and I wasn't too fond of it so I won't be making that again. It was good, just not my thing. The Almond Brittle is like crack and I could eat a whole pan of it. The Muddy Buddies are always a crowd favorite and I was more than happy to eat a lot of those :) The Pecan Shortbread cookies were good, but a little boring for me. I'm not a huge fan of shortbreads. The Oatmeal Raisin cookies were Patrick's favorite. I can't remember where I got the recipe, but here it is:

The Cinnamon Apple Streusel Bars are also a favorite of mine and I've made them many times. I have that recipe for you guys too-it's out of a holiday baking recipe book that my mom has.

 Did you guys do any baking this year? What did you make?

My Christmas Wish List

I'm not gonna lie, I haven't really thought too much about Christmas gifts for myself this year. Patrick and I decided not to get anything big for each other, because we're going to buy new couches. I did get him a couple things, but they're small. 

I do have a couple things on my ongoing wish list, which I'll probably just go purchase myself, ha ha. As I try to do this post, for some reasons non of my pictures are coming up...so for now you'll have to do with just a list of the things I want...

-Michael Kors watch. I don't wear a watch now, but I've wanted one of these for awhile.

-New black Purse. Probably something Coach or Kate Spade

 -Kindle Fire HDX

-New barstools

-Keurig (I already know I'm getting one of these from my in-laws :) )

And what am I getting for Patrick?
-George Straight button up shirt
-Garth Brooks' new box CD set
-New Ariat leather wallet
-Fast & Furious 6

Like I said, nothing too big since we're getting new couches.  I love this time of year and seeing what everyone is wanting for their Christmas gifts! I will say, that in getting older, it's much for fun for me to get stuff for the house! I'd rather have new furniture or some sort of decor than clothes or jewelry! Ok, maybe not jewelry...

What's on your Christmas list???

Nope, No Baby Yet

I'm getting impatient...baby is due Thursday and I'm ready. I made all sorts of plans this weekend hoping that I'd have to cancel them. Nope! We had a great weekend full of fun stuff!

First, we got to dogsit for a friend of ours. She is a border collie named Gunnison Rose, or Gunner for short. She is a super sweet dog and Smoke really loved having her around.

Friday night Patrick went and spent some time with his uncle and cousin, so I stayed home and started my Christmas baking. I finished the rest of it Saturday morning. I'll have all of the recipes for you on Wednesday!

Saturday afternoon was also full-we helped my brother move into a little townhouse in Culbertson. Well, they moved stuff and I supervised.

Saturday afternoon Patrick took me to look at some new couches that he had seen at a local furniture store. We've had the same couch and recliner in our living room since we started living together in 2007. So I went with him to see this living room set, and loved it! We bought it at 2pm and it was delivered and set up in our living room by 4:30 that same day. That's the service you get when you buy local! We bought a couch, love seat with center console and recliner. It's brown leather and the couch and love seat recline. We love love love them!!

We decided we will rearrange the living room once all of the Christmas stuff is down. My brother really lucked out because he got our old furniture, which helped him out a lot moving into his townhouse this weekend. 

Every year towards the middle of December, We go with Patricks parents to a nice dinner, then drive around town looking at all of the Christmas lights. I think they mostly just indulge me in my desire to do this, but I'd like to think they enjoy it a little bit too :) Here is our picture from the night.

Sunday we drove around to deliver the baked goody trays to some of our friends, then my husband about had a coronary watching the Packer game. It gets pretty intense on Sundays in our house!

How was your weekend?

Current Favorites

Currently...

...listening to: I've recently discovered the Pop2K station on SiriusXM, channel 10. It plays all of the great songs from my high school and college days. Try it out-promise you won't be disappointed! Also, Christmas music, duh! Here are some of my favorites: Mariah Carey, Michael Buble, Point of Grace, Sugarland, Faith Hill, Kelly Clarkson and Lady Antebellum. I tend to like more country artists, because I feel they stick to the more tradition sounds than say, Britney Spears' Christmas album.

...reading: Just finished the Divergent Series. It was pretty good! It got a little boring towards the third book, but overall I liked it. It did remind me a lot of theHunger  Games, but had a different story. I need to visit my Goodreads list to see what I'm gonna read next.

...cooking: Lighter Lasagna Soup. Easy, healthy and delicious!!

...missing up on: my family and niece. It's hard knowing we won't be spending Thanksgiving or Christmas with them this year, but my parents will be here to visit us and baby after the first of the year.

...watching: we watch a lot of football this time of year, which is fine with me. Other shows I'm loving are The Blacklist, Greys Anatomy, Nashville, Law & Order:SVU, and NCIS. I do not however, enjoy that they all take a break this time of year!

...enjoying: the coziness of our living room with all of our decorations up, and of course the Christmas tree. I love sitting in the dark with just the Christmas tree lit, and just staring at all of the magical-ness of it. Yes, that's a word :) It literally brings a smile to my face and I sit there in the dark grinning like an idiot. Ha ha ha.

...over hearing about: I am SO incredibly sick of hearing about Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and the Kardashians. I went to google something about Christmas the other day and the number 1 thing that came up was the 2013 Kardashian Christmas card. Are you kidding me?!? And people wonder what's wrong with the world. 

...craving: hot tamales and puffy Cheetos. Yummmmmm :)

...looking forward to: finally having this kid! House is clean, everything is ready, and now we just wait...

What's going on with you lately?

Low Key Weekend

As you can probably imagine, I'm not doing a whole lot these days, other than relaxing and spending time at home. People say that at the end of pregnancy you start to nest...I can't really say that I have felt any of that. I've had a lot of time at home so naturally I've done a better job at keeping up on dishes and laundry. Especially after working 2 days from home last week! But nothing crazy like scrubbing the walls or any deep cleaning.

Now a quick side note...I know a lot of the US has been dealing with artic temperatures. But I saw a couple of my FB friends post something about how Montana had the coldest weather in EARTH last week. That's right...colder than the South Pole. Yes, Montana is for badasses. Or really crazy people. 

This was without the wind chill, which put temps at -45 or so. 

So what does a low-key weekend look like for me? Friday, I went to a Christmas craft bizarre. It was ok, but didn't really really have anything I was looking for. I ended up only buying a couple jars of canned jellies and jam.

Saturday morning I woke up early...didn't even sleep in. Patrick ended up spending about 6 hours outside getting the cows' water unfrozen. He was frigid by the time he came back in, so I made up some yummy beef stew for him...one of his favorites. It's the Pioneer Woman's recipe and I highly recommend it. Saturday night we stayed in as well.

Sunday morning I was up early again, and decided to cook Patrick breakfast in bed. He deserved it after his day outside on Saturday. I cooked up scrambled eggs with cheese, homemade hash browns, bacon, toast, blueberry muffins and orange juice. 

Yum!! After that we headed to church, then home to watch football for the rest of the day. Anybody else watch that crazy Vikings/Ravens game??? I napped, made more blueberry muffins, then cooked chicken Parmesan for dinner, which is also one of Patricks favorites.

To say I'm counting down the days for baby to arrive is an understatement...10 days until due date...

How was your weekend?

Christmas Traditions

One of my favorite things about the Christmas season are the traditions that my family has. Lucky for you guys, Jen @ It's My Life asked some of her fellow bloggers to share in their family traditions. I'm over at her blog today, so if you want to hear what my family's traditions are, head on over!

And I promise you that you will want to read it...I talk about stocking stuffers like cans of olives, jars of peanut butter and baby food. Oh, and Pizza Hut for Christmas Eve dinner. Yep...you read that right...

Christmas card picture 2010

Photos from my phone

I know I'm not the only one who randomly will go through all of the photos  in their camera roll on their phone and reminisce about all the good times had over the past year. 

I was scrolling through these last night and was just laughing out loud at some of them, and thought it would be fun to share them with you all. I'm sure you've probably seen most of these at some point or another on my blog, but hey if I didn't remember the pictures, surely you guys won't remember some of them too. That's my hope anyways...

Calving shed from last March...love all the icicles!

Helping my hubby load grain. That was probably the first and last day I'll go with him for the entire day...he said I asked too many questions :)

A weekend trip to Billings for an FFA state officer 10 year reunion and the PBR rodeo. In the grand scheme of things, Baby Hackley was about 3 weeks old at the time :)

My handsome boys after their annual spring haircut!

My backyard fire pit...my favorite place to spend time in the summer...

Branding...

Ohhhh and the dancing cows!! How could we forget that?! I literally crack up laughing every time I see these pictures!

Miranda Lambert concert...only my 3rd time seeing her :)

My MIL's birthday present...patriotic pallet flag that I made!

My friend Chay and I at the Wolf Point Stampede rodeo.

Good friends wedding....don't mind the giant goblet of booze my friend Emily is holding...it's a sorority tradition :)

My garden!!

Back when I had a teeny tiny baby bump, and looked more bloated than pregnant. Pretty sure that shirt would fit about halfway down my stomach right now, ha ha.

So I just realized there are way too many pictures to share with you for one blog post! This is the first half of the year, so I'll save the second half for another day!

Happy Wednesday friends! I'm working from the comfort of my living room in sweatpants :) roads were crappy and my boss didn't want me driving on them, oh darn :)

Friendships

I've been thinking a lot about this topic the last couple of months...friendships. How they change, how they evolve, how they begin and how they sometimes end. Over time, we change as people. 

At the age of 29, I know that I am a very different person than I was at the age of 21. Back in college we have LOTS of friends. Some of them great friends, some good friends, some acquaintances, frenemies, or just drinking buddies. I found myself periodically deleting more and more people from my Facebook friends list over the years since college, since I really didn't talk to any of those people anymore. It doesn't mean I value their years of friendship any less, I just don't connect with them anymore. I think I was at about 600 people, and am down to 200-some now. 

I can honestly say that some of my best friends now I met in college. I talk to them on a weekly basis, either text, phone calls, or email. Some of them I talk to every now and then, maybe once a month. And then there are others that I can not see or talk to for 6 months to a year, and we pick right back up where we left off. Those are the kinds of friendships I love. We understand that life happens to each of us and we may not be able to put each other as a top priority, but we still can connect as good friends when we see each other.

There are other times where you have a good friend, and life happens. People seem to change and go in different directions; they may have different priorities in life than you do, and it makes it hard sometimes to connect on that same friendship level that you have had in the past.

I think the reason I'm thinking a lot of this stuff is because we are currently in the transition phase of moving into parenthood. There have been comments made by some of my still-single friends about "locking your kids in the closet and leaving them home" when making plans to go to dinner with others because they didn't want the kids to disrupt the dinner. And purposely telling everyone that children are not allowed at this event or that event-which happens to be everything that they want you to come to. And basically they want it this way because they want you to party like a rockstar, get drunk and have a wild time like you used to in college. I know I'm not a mom yet, but as I start to think about feeding schedules, babysitters and basically how our whole lives are going to change, I can't help but feel a little frustrated. 

And when this person is a supposed great friend of yours, how do you deal with it? I guess I feel like this person is being rather selfish. I feel like I'm having to make a choice between my husband and child and their friendship. Which to me, is an easy decision hands down. I will choose my family each and every time, no question. And when I make that decision to choose my family over them, I know they'll be mad and treat me differently. Which is fine. I just can't wait until they have children and will maybe finally understand the different lifestyle choices you have to start making.

So to other moms who have dealt with this or to others who have dealt with good friendships growing apart how did you handle it?