Birthdays after Christmas

Some people feel cheated with a birthday on or near a holiday especially Christmas. It tends to get lost so maybe it isn't the luckiest time to have a birthday. I can say that from experience since my birthday is on Valentines' Day but this is not about me ... this is about Christmas birthdays, a co-worker's birthday is on Christmas Eve, my own father's birthday was the day after Christmas as is my boss' mother's birthday the day after Christmas ... and very special little girl, that I get to borrow and do grandmother things with, our little neighbor, Gracie, just turned three the day after Christmas. Well this year will be different for her - it is one to be remembered ... she gets a miniature horse!!! Below is a picture of Gracie with Yoko - the pictures need no explanation really - ... there is nothing like the relationship between a girl and her horse :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRACIE - looking forward to doing things together with our miniatures :)

Forgot to Post Group Picture from Thanksgiving!

Grandkids Having Fun Thanksgiving 2008

Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving. The kids really seemed to have enjoyed it and we loved watching them!!! They rode the four wheelers and played with the mini's. Adiah seemingly loved her first encounter with a mini!!! :)

United States Map

A father wanted to read a magazine but was being bothered by his little girl, Shelby. She wanted to know what the looked like.
Finally, he tore a sheet out of his new magazine on which was printed the map of the country. Tearing it into small pieces, he gave it to and said, 'Go into the other room and see if you can put this together. This will show you our whole country today.'
After a few minutes, returned and handed him the map, correctly fitted and taped together. The father was surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly. 'Oh,' she said, 'on the other side of the paper is a picture of Jesus . When I got all of Jesus back where He belonged, then our country just came together.'

Buck in Training

Well as most of you know - Buck is away in training. He has been there two weeks and we miss him as does Belle and Rascal but especially Belle. Here are some pictures we took yesterday.



Now Buck is a fair size horse ... but the horse next to him is no small fry!!! He is a quarter horse also but a really big one --- in this picture the tall one is obviously to the left and Buck is to the right - it is hard to really see well but look at the difference in the height of their rear ends and the fact that the big horse takes up most of his stall whereas Buck doesn't! You'd have to have a step ladder to get on him. LOL


We are anxious to see how it goes with Buck and being able to ride him - but he probably won't be home by Thanksgiving - we'll have to see but doubtful.

IT FINALLY HAPPENED!!!

WITH MUCH PRAYER GOD PROVIDED US A WAY TO GET ...
You got it ... a T-R-A-C-T-O-R ... Jim is so excited and loves it. Guess I can't get him that tee-shirt for Christmas that says "Where's my tractor?" LOL Things will be so much easier around the place now.

Just as Important ...

... Lady's grooming was addressed today also. The sun had done a number on her mane and tail - so we freshened them up - course there isn't much we could do about the body color now but clip her - you can really see her spots! She is mostly buckskin not white much to our surprise. She is now protected with slinky's from head to tail :) and looks like a little silver medieval horse! LOL She is pretty much set for AMHA WORLD - hope to see you there!!!

All Hooked Up!!!

Today was Bambi's first lesson under cart for driving and it went excellently. She took to it very well only giving a slight bucking a couple of times. Our trainer, Bethany Franke of the Circle K Miniatures, said we will do this several times - where we work with her walking beside her before actually getting into the cart. It is very important to have great control over her before mounting the cart as you don't have the leverage once sitting in the cart as you do standing on the ground. But I don't think we are going to have much trouble with her in that regards since she has taken to this so well but of course we will work hard to be sure that she is safe as well as us - after all one day we will be taking precious cargo onboard -- our grandkids!!!

AMHA WORLD SHOW

This is it guys/gals!!! World is here and we have been working hard and preparing Lady to go! Hopefully we will have photo's of her to post next weekend as she goes to get all prettied up for it!!! Papa Jim will show Lady early on Friday morning - October 3rd - if you can be there to cheer them on we'd love it ... otherwise I'll be posting pictures after the event. We will be at the show from Wed, Oct 1 through probably Sun, Oct 5th the final day. If any of the grandkids want to go (like Emily went with me last year) let us know and we will see what can be worked out. Thurs & Fri nights we will actually be staying in a hotel over in Ft Worth to be nearby. Let us know if you want to meet up with us.

Warning - graphic pictures!!! Don't look if your squimish.

CAN YOU SAY OUCH?!!!

Jim's surgery was a week ago now. It was rough at first but he is tough and doing much better now. He wears bandages until next week then they will put him into a cast for a month. One of the toughest things for him is remembering he isn't allowed to do a lot of things he just normally does.  

Here are pictures of his battle wounds .... you know what they say about nurses and doctors 

being patients! ... he just had to take the bandages off and re-dress it.  We pray the surgery was a success and he will be all the better for it once the healing is compete.

We have CARMEL now :)

Meet Carmel - she is almost identical to Bambi without the blaze!!! Notice her long, long tail - it drags the ground.
Papa Jim is standing with them - Bambi on the left and Carmel on the right!!! Kind of like with Buck and Belle - one is lighter sorrel than the other.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JACK!!!

Today Jack is FOUR years old.  Wow!!!  That is so hard to believe.  For those of you who did not know - we hand raised Jack - his mother died when he was born.  Bottle feedings ever two hours - baths like his mother was cleaning him!  We carried him with us when we went out - one of my favorite memories of him as a baby was when we went out to eat with Gina and family ... their first time to see Jack ... we had him in a carrier much like a duffle bag and she had her hand stuck in there - well, most of the time and the waitress would look at her as she passed and Brooklyn would smile her little bashful smile.  Nothing was ever said. 

Then as he got older he was a little more brave and this picture of him poking his head out the pet door actually won two contests!

Then he grew up!  He has a sweet disposition and is quiet for the most part but he is our house protector and will bark only when you enter until he realizes who you are.  

I guess because of his missed his mother he has one big habit that sometimes proves annoying -- he sucks - when he was little it was stuffed toys but since Jill and Jenny always took them away from him and destroyed them we stopped buying them and then he turned to doing what he does all the time now ... he sucks on the ball!!!  Yes, Amy, he still does it - sorry.

Praising God for our R-A-I-N!!!

and singing "Raindrops keep falling on my head" as we were definitely thanking God as the rain came down ..."THANK YOU, GOD".  We needed it so bad.  We have now decided that we need rain barrels so that when it does rain, we can collect it and use it for the trees, grass and plants ... go GREEN.

The channels that Papa Jim made worked great and there were no leaks in the barn!!!! YEA

... and it poured - what a happy sight.  Definitely worth leaving the horses stalled up today.

we showed having 1 and a half inches of rain although our neighbor's website said that we got a total of 2.98 - I don't think we got that much but ours probably isn't correct either as it is near the house and I believe is shielded from a true reading - but at least we know it was at least 1 1/2.

 

The Barn is Almost Complete!!!

Papa Jim has worked so very, very hard (and I've helped the best I can) to finish the barn before his surgery.  Looks like it'll be complete soon.  Pretty much all the siding is up - just like some of the trim and a little paint (my job) on the doors to finish them out.  We will wait until it warms up in the spring to put up the turnouts for the mini's.

And then there was Lady

Who stole our hearts!

She is definitely Papa Jim's ... she has bonded to him and I think the feeling is mutual :)

Course I can't say much - I think she is a sweetheart but we really gotta work on the clipping.

Just look at how tiny her hooves are beside Papa Jim's foot - hey, look at it this way - less injuries ... (sorry Jim, just had to say that).

Adiah's 2nd Birthday

It was fun watching her open presents and get excited.  And the one that scared her was loved by Hannah! 

Glad we were able to share in her birthday celebration and look forward to many more years of joy to come.

But the Elmo dancing was too cute!  Wonder where did she learn to twist like that? LOL  It was precious to watch.

Then there was the cake that she was too dainty to destroy or mash all over herself much to her siblings disappointment!

What do you think they are doing, Belle?

Just grooming, Rascal!  But they are so little ... 

Seriously, several have asked if we could get pictures of the "bigs" and "littles" together - well, this is the best we can do for now.

This past weekend we worked on getting the fence "hot" again since our "bigs" are starting to lean over the

 fence.  We also put up the round pen - wow what a difference that made to the appearance of the barn once again!

Sunday afternoon, Jim worked with Dede and Lady in the round pen while I worked with Bambi in her pasture.  We feel we accomplished quite abit with them - especially Jim made lots of headway with Lady --- to bad I didn't have the camera to get some really great shots - they were face to face and Lady didn't freak out!

Dede is just mellow and easy going - whatever.  But she loves to eat - which she does slowly!  Not that she can't have that spoiled kid attitude though! LOL

Poor Lady - when we clipped her a couple of weeks ago we could not complete the task as she was so scared - bless her heart she looks like she has the mange or something. Hopefully that will change soon! World competition is in a couple of months.

New Beginnings ...

First, let me say a big THANKS to Gina for setting up this beautiful blog for us.  We are excited to share some of the happenings around our place and hope you enjoy it as well.  Your all welcome and encouraged to come visit anytime.

Our first blog is to update you all on the training we are doing with the mini's.  

Here are a few pictures of us doing just that - being trained on how to train - how's that for a play on words!  While Linda/Grammy works with Bambi - Papa Jim is working with Dede and Lady.  We'll see how it goes but right now - I'll be showing Bambi in driving carts and Papa

 Jim will show the halter class - although I'm sure we will both want to do both.

Check us out - we look like we really know what we are doing don't you agree?!!!