Raising Boys...

 How cool is this?  Colt got to play with one of our guests last week and they took a liking to this old (authentic) chuck wagon  in the barn.  I would have LOVED this as a kid!  We used to play the oh so politically incorrect game of 'Cowboys and Indians' and this would have been the featured prop for us.  Good times!

 Here's my fam.  Love love LOVE them!  The good Lord decided it was going to be all boys for me and you know what?  I'm kinda honored.   Yeah, I miss out on pink and ruffles but who needs that when there's lizards and snakes?  :)

 Precious times.  Looking at this picture I realize how much he's already changed.  He was a tiny (ok, who am I kidding) little guy and now he's almost five months old, trying to sit up, gut laughing, amusing his big brothers, cooing, rolling, and completely enamoring me.  Oh to hang on to this time!  But it gets better, right?

There's that trademark little grin of his.  Sigh...sometimes I get nostalgic and wonder if I truly want to be done with babies...and then I remember the pregnancies...the deliveries..and the all nighters...there, all better, no more nostalgia.  :)

Mountain Man in Training

I walked into the living room early this morning to find my two year old (Landon) with his face pressed against the back window, intently peering at something. I went to inspect, as we've had plenty of 'visitors' back there in the past three years (bears, turkeys, raccoons, etc.). Landon excitedly filled me in, "Mama, dere's a yady buck out dere, eatin' our apples!" Sure enough, a pretty doe was munching on the fallen apples right behind our house.

Landon is soooo intrigued big bucks, bigger bulls, and naughty bears and wolves. His most popular question for any guy around here is "Where's your pocket knife?" or "Where's your gun?" This little man is going to be one heck of a hunter or at least wildlife enthusiast when his time arrives.

p.s. I love that instead of a doe, he called it a lady buck...makes sense, right? :)

November...

The belly gets bigger...the hormones get raging-er...the anticipation gets greater...Dear Lord, please bring this baby healthy, safely, and SOON! (ish)

Amen.

Baby Blues

Alas, I do hate to fail at things...and it seems especially unfair when my body betrays me and there's no studying or prepping I can do to bypass it. Just took my gestational diabetes glucose test and got a big fat FAIL on it. Which means I get to go on a strict diet for three days, then fast for a day, then go in at the crack of dawn to the doc's office and drink some highly unsavory syrup they call fruit punch, and then get poked four times in 3 hours. And pray like CRAZY that I don't fail this test or they'll send my off to the specialist and make me do all kinds of unpleasant things until dear baby Bledsoe comes. Seriously, this is one of my most unfavorite things about being preggo. It happened last time, too, but I squeaked by on the second test.

I know I'm ranting...I know I should just be thankful to have to opportunity to be pregnant again (and I am) but darn it, this part sucks!!! Ok, done! Moving on. Peace out.

The Beginning of the End

I'm nesting...I just barely entered the third trimester...I have three, yes THREE long months left, and yet I nest. All the baby clothes are now sorted and currently being washed. I have sorted and organized Colt and Landon's clothes, and now trying to figure out where new baby's belongings might go. With all three Bledsoe boys sharing the same room, this could get interesting, given the fact that I am not known for my amazing organizational/tidiness skills. Maybe I'll learn, yet? Better still, maybe one of my offspring got the recessive gene for ocd and will take over that department for me. One can hope, yes?

On another note, I'd like to make a confession. D.R. left for the afternoon/evening on another hunt, its raining outside, the boys are inside creating chaos, and I was feeling like an out of breath, out of shape, beached whale. So let me ask you, what do you think I turned to? Exercise, maybe? No, instead, if you were to peek inside my house not 30 minutes ago, you would see me plopped on the recliner, feet up, balancing a GALLON container of vanilla ice cream on my shrinking lap. I really should think before I admit things like this in writing. It will never happen again!!! (namely because all the ice cream is gone...) :) Here's to the third trimester!

End of the summer

Whew! I'm normally a 'summer lover' but I'm afraid this summer we nearly bit off more than we could chew...currently we are hosting our last official summer group at the lodge...they arrived Thursday and will depart Sunday evening. I seriously want to throw a huge party to celebrate the close of this crazy busy season! And even though I am a hunting widow the months of September, October, and November, hunting season has never looked so good...cooking for only one or two guests instead of 8 or more sounds divine. And although hunters are the ones that pay the big bucks, for the most part they don't make any over the top requests...well, except to get a good trophy buck or bull, but that's acceptable and entirely D.R.'s terrain.

This weekend, as mentioned, we have a full house, its 90+ degrees, no a.c., Landon's birthday, and he gets the flu. Yesterday was a comedy of errors: I'm getting the boys ready to head over to the lodge and start dinner and Landon starts ejecting the contents of his tummy onto the kitchen surfaces...as I clean it up, I follow suit (pregnancy and a weak stomach don't make a good vomit cleaning combo). I give up, throw a towel over it and dump half a bottle of pine sol on top, then head to the lodge. Fifteen minutes after arriving, getting in to my cooking groove and saying a silent prayer of thanks that apparently it was a one time thing for Landon, and I hear 'the sound' and turn around to see my son covered in an indescribable array of colors and chunks, as well as most of the lodge kitchen floor. To make matters worse, Colt yells at the top of his lungs, "mama, Landon PUKED EVERYWHERE!" So much for keeping it a secret from the guests in the next room. Alas, it all worked out~a dear neighbor came and scooped the boys up and took them home long enough for D.R. to get home and take over as Mr. Mom. I still don't know which one of them cleaned up the pile of towels, pine sol, and puke, but it certainly wasn't me. One day down, three more to go...here's to summer's end!

Colt and Landon sticking popsicle wrappers on their bellies on a hot summer day.

Summer evening looking over the pond in front of our house...mid July.

The boys on 'Ol Blue, riding solo (duo?) for the first time.

And Bledsoe's Carry on...and on...and on

Two things became clear today: I will forever be a mom of boys...that is to say, unless the good Lord has some surprises up His sleeve, I will not be a mom of a girl. Today we found out the little bun in the oven is indisputably male. And do you know what I felt? An overwhelming peace. Yup, despite occasional dreams of having a daughter, when the ultrasound tech gave us the news I was excited and at peace. I just hope my future daughter in laws like me because that's as close as I'm gonna get to daughters.

And the second thing that was made clear....I seem to be 'blessed' with fabulously large babies...this is not my favorite thing~ but I'll take it. My prayer this pregnancy is for a nice petite 8 pounder...anything in the 8's is fine, but Dear Lord, please, let's not go over 9 this time, eh?

All that to say we are incredibly grateful to get to be parents to three little boys~God is a fulfiller of dreams, that's for sure!!!