HB - the past four months

I don't want to take my blog count over the top or anything, but geez, I've only posted once in 2012.  That's definitely not hard to top!  I've been telling myself that I blogged four months ago but I guess I am mixing that date up with the birth date of my child.  It's hard to decide where to begin after an almost eight month hiatus from my blog but I thought I would begin with the bright spot of my year - my firstborn child, HB.  I want to keep it short and sweet tonight but I promise to connect the dots of the past eight months later. 

No matter how much friends and family share about having children I have learned that nothing can fully prepare you for how truly wonderful and delightful motherhood is.  Or how challenging some of its early moments can also be.  Becoming a mom has simply been more - more thrilling, more joyful, more fun, more blessed than I could have ever imagined.  It's hard to think my life before this point - my son has brought so much joy and wonder to my life and I am so grateful for the reminder that he is of God's awesome creating hand in our lives.  I am reminded of God's great power and intricate creativity on a daily basis as I observe my son developing and growing.

With all that said, enjoy the amateur cell phone pictures of the month-by-month growth of my sweet son.  (I am working on the whole "taking pictures from consistent distances and angles.")  Clockwise, from top left, one month, two months, three months and four months.  He has gone from posing as a sack of potatoes at  one month to actually sitting up pretty well on his own at four.  Hubby is the "spotter" ready at a moment's notice to reach out with cat-like reflexes and prevent Lil Man from face planting it into the arm rest of his great-great-great grandfather's rocking chair.

Scrapbooking Christmas Cards

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your family; hubby and I enjoyed our first Christmas as a married couple. We even have decorations packed away at this point:) I enjoyed my time off from school as a teacher and was able to relax and take care of some projects that I hadn't had time for during the first semester. I wanted to share the outcome of one of those projects below - after looking for a creative way to preserve the Christmas cards and pictures sent by friends and family I decided to scrapbook them.

After gathering all pictures that you want to include, crop pictures down to an appropriate size. I left some pictures bigger than others until I had a chance to work on the layout. If needed you can always go back and crop more off.

Finally, decide how you want to arrange pictures on the scrapbook paper of your choice. The layout below was for a few cards I had saved from 2006. You can mount pictures on other paper before gluing them down so they have a border, or you can glue them straight away to the background paper. Make sure to include the year - I also like to include some Christmas appropriate scripture.

If you have another crafty idea for preserving Christmas cards I would love to hear about it - please leave a comment! Also, I hope you enjoy seeing the familiar faces of mutual friends - so fun!

I pray 2012 got off to a peaceful start!

2011 Review

Dear Friends and Family,

The first edition of the Wright Family Christmas card is coming to you electronically for a couple of reasons. One - Christmas snuck up on Katy very quickly. As a teacher she feels like Thanksgiving and Christmas happen two weekends in a row. Two - Katy wasn't up for the third massive mailing of 2011. (The first massive mailing was wedding invitations and the second was thank you cards after the wedding.) We hope you enjoy our first family Christmas greeting as we briefly recount the multitude of blessings God gave us this past year month-by-month.

January - Katy kicks off the second semester of her fourth year of teaching with a student teacher who did a great job and allowed Katy to work on some projects around the Ag department.

February - Kelly asks Katy's dad for her hand in marriage; we were engaged soon after on February 11! The madness of wedding planning ensued.

March - Katy's FFA Dairy Judging team named State Champs. We also headed to Florida for the wedding of Brian and Mindy Estevez - the trip was a nice time for Kelly to meet some of Katy's Florida "family."

April - A lamb from our August 2010 sale was selected as the Grand Champion Lamb at La Paz County Fair in western Arizona! Wedding plans continued although most big decisions had been made. Kelly continued working hard on handmade contributions for the wedding including wood centerpieces, wagons for gifts, the arch and unity candle. He was a busy man!!

May - We married on May 28 at the Groseta Ranch Headquarters in Cottonwood. We honeymooned in Winter Park, Colorado where we stayed in the cabin of our friend's, Jake and Rebecca Mutz. We both are so grateful to the many family and friends who made our wedding day a memorable event - from helping run errands, to baking homemade desserts for the dessert buffet or making decorations.

June - This was a big month for Kelly - he turned 40 and celebrated 15 years with the City of Chandler as a firefighter! Kelly enjoys his job and the challlenges he works to overcome with the "C shift" guys which includes firefighting, technical rescue and HAZMAT calls. Brandy also competed in the Arizona Junior Beef Ambassador Contest and placed first; to say the least we were both very proud!

July - Kelly started feeding spent brewer's grain to our sheep (the leftover grain after brewing beer) - he was able to work a deal with the brewer at the Tempe branch of Gordon Biersch Brewery. We are excited about this opportunity because it will help cut our feed costs down quite a bit since we can now feed less hay and we get the grain for free. Katy was also awarded the Outstanding Young Member award for the Arizona Agricultural Teacher's Association at their annual summer meeting in Tucson. Brandy also moved back to Florida this month to live with her mom; we both miss her but pray for her often and look forward to her next visit.

August - Katy started her fifth year as the Buckeye Ag Teacher and FFA advisor with a new teaching partner that has brought far less stress into her professional life. We also found out that Katy was pregnant; "morning" sickness ensued for the next 16 weeks. (It was more like all day sickness!) Kelly had his annual Wright Club Lamb Sale on the third weekend of this month and we sold over 30 lambs to 4-H and FFA members from across Arizona. Katy's sister, Anna, was our auctioneer and she did a great job!

September - We took 10 of our best ewes to west Texas to be bred. We are both hopeful about the prospect of what will come from this - we are already anticipating March 2012 when these ewes lamb out.

October - We finally used some of the gift money from our wedding to purchase unfinished hardwood floors for the three bedrooms in our house; this was going to be Kelly's project while Katy was out of town for a week. Katy traveled with 25 students to Indianapolis for the National FFA Convention where she also had two teams competing in National contests: Marketing Plan (21st out of 42 teams) and Dairy Judging (22nd out of 44 teams). The month ended well with one of the lambs we sold being selected as the Grand Champion Lamb at the Arizona State Fair!

November - We returned to the farm an hour south of Lubbock to retrieve our ewes - they were in good condition. Still looking forward to early lambing both for these 10 ewes and the other ewes we bred for early lambs to our youngest ram, Carrera. We also picked up our colt, Dib, in Amarillo on the return trip. Kelly did an awesome job finishing the hardwood floors in the guest bedroom and nursery. He worked his tail off to finish the proejct in the nick of time - we hosted Thanksgiving for both sides of our families! We had our first ultrasound the day before Thanksgiving and found out that we are having a boy!

December - Katy had the FFA State Champion Novice Prepared Speaker at the Midwinter contest early this month. Kelly also earned the "Best Husband of the Year" award for all his hard work in helping decorate the house for Christmas which included painting the living room and dining room as well as hanging lights inside and outside of the house! We celebrated Christmas in Cottonwood and are looking forward to the last few days of the year.

We pray 2011 was full of blessings for your family too! We praise God for bringing us together and giving us the gift of a healthy, growing baby thus far in Katy's pregnancy. We look forward to seeing what God has in store for the Wright's in 2012 - check back for updates!

Much love,
Kelly and Katy

Picture Highlights from Last Week

School is officially out for Christmas Break and this teacher is super excited for a chance to clean house (exciting, I know), sleep in a little, and see family and friends. While I look forward to the coming festivities, I wanted to share a couple of highlights from the past week though.

Hubby and I traveled north last Friday and I got to spend Saturday morning baking with my beautiful Grandma. She is visiting from Montana and I was glad for the chance to finally hang out with her. I was dying to make gingerbread cookies so she acted as Executive Chef and supervised my work!

After my baking session was complete, hubby and I headed to Sedona for the wedding of a long time friend from my hometown. Sedona is beautiful at anytime of year but a little chilly for an outdoor wedding a week before Christmas. Some of you have been asking for a picture of the baby bump, this is as close as you'll get until the next time I post pictures.

My thoughtful sister gave me a certificate for a cake decorating class as a bridal shower gift last spring and we finally had the chance to redeem it! After I finished my last day of school on Tuesday we met for a quick dinner and then sat down for an hour and a half of instruction on using fondant. We both felt like we should have taken notes but after leaving we both feel more comfortable decorating a small cake with fondant. Check out my cute little winter themed cake below - I didn't have a plan when I started but the snowflakes turned out well and I love my little snowman!

Southwestern Turkey Soup

Hubby and I hosted Thanksgiving this year - we had 12 people over and really enjoyed the day with both sides of our family. Some of the highlights from the day include seeing my grandmother, my sister-in-law's green bean casserole made from scratch and the cute comments from my nieces and nephews. Oh, and how can I forget the fact that hubby and I were moving furniture out of the living room and back into the guest bedroom and nursery one hour before everyone arrived. Kelly was in a MAD RUSH to install, sand and finish new hardwood floors in our bedrooms and he finished in the nick of time. I am very much thankful for my husband's handiness and hardwork and grateful for his willingness to help get everything ready for Thanksgiving including cleaning the house and helping prepare food.

My favorite moment though was when we revealed baby Wright's gender to our family - I really wanted it to be a surprise because we called everyone to share the news that I was pregnant back in August. When I got done with school Wednesday last week, Kelly and I went for my first ultrasound. I picked up an outfit at Wal-Mart that evening and wrapped it up. Once everyone had arrived on Thanksgiving day, my youngest nephew opened the gift to reveal an orange and blue (Go Gators!) outfit for a little BOY!! He won't be able to wear the outfit until the Gator's 2013 season when he is a year and a half, but at least we're prepared! It was so fun to see everyone's faces when we revealed the news - I will try to remember to post a picture when my dad's gives me a CD of pictures from the day.

In the spirit of abundant leftovers, I wanted to share a delightful recipe that I tried last night. It was published in Cooking Light and chicken was the original protein featured in this recipe. Hubby acquired a 4x4x4 cement vault and installed it in the ground as our new pit barbecue; we inaugurated it by cooking two turkeys, some lamb and pork for Thanksgiving. The turkey had a wonderfully smoky flavor infused from the mesquite wood which blended really well with the cumin and lime juice in the recipe. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and enjoy this recipe!

Southwestern Turkey Soup
1 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloves minced (I love garlic so I always had a couple more for good measure!)
6 cups fat-free, less sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup uncooked white rice
1 (16-ounce) can Great Northern beans (aka canellini), rinsed and drained
3 cups chopped turkey
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped seeded tomato
3/4 cup diced peeled avocado (I just used 1 whole avocado.)
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
6 lime wedges

1. Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray or olive oil. Add onion and garlic and saute three minutes. Add broth, rice, cumin and beans; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 15 minutes. Stir in chicken, cilantro pepper and salt; simmer five minutes or until turkey is thoroughly eated.

2. Remove from heat, and stir in tomato, avocado, and lime juice. Serve with lime wedges.

Miscellany Monday

In an effort to blog more (twice in almost two weeks, what?) I am going to make my first Miscellany Monday post today. I don't know how to link to the Lowercase Letters blog other than creating a hyperlink like I just did. Can anyone help this technologically disabled, in a constant rush person??

1. My hubby and I drove to Lubbock, Texas this weekend on a whirlwind trip to pick up 10 of our ewes from another club lamb breeder. They had spent 42 days in with some rams and we are excited to see the babies they produce come March. I LOVED the time locked up with my hubby in a truck because we had lots of great time to visit however I don't recommend driving 13 hours straight and then turning around immediately and doing the same thing to get home.

2. We bought a colt! Wright Club Lambs officially now has a cattle and horse division although I don't know if 2 heifers and 1 colt qualifies as "divisions." I will post a picture of "Dib" our almost yearling Quarter horse soon.

3. I think a pack of hungry coyotes made off with one of my chickens this morning:( Not really sure though since I don't actually keep a head count on our poultry "division." I just hunt down eggs in all the odd places they lay them. I guess I'd rather lose a chicken than a sheep though.

Beef and Other News on the Homefront

I love beef. Hopefully most of you know that by now. However, this delightful piece of protein is not something I desire to consume since becoming pregnant. Ahem, what did I say? Pregnant? Yes, you read that correctly, I am pregnant and due April 20! What a subtle way to sneak this HUGE news into a seemingly normal blog post. Hehe. Well, more on baby W and the havoc he/she is wreaking on my body later. Back to beef.

Did you know that the protein in beef helps you maintain a healthy metabolism? Even better news though is the growing body of evidence that the protein in beef may be helpful in preventing chronic diseases such as Type-2 diabetes and osteoporosis.

Back to baby now. I have known for about the past eight weeks about the delightful changes happening in my uterus and since the discovery I have been terribly sick with what I call "all day sickness" as opposed to morning sickness. I have been sick all day, almost everyday. Hope is dawning though, this past week has been semi-normal but I did stay home today. I am thankful for the end result and am praying for joy and endurance through the yucky days.

I hope all is well with you and yours! Eat some beef now:)