So I said to the guy, "I don't even like cheese!"

Hello All! October has brought chilly days and chili days. How glorious! It seems like with each change of weather, we come down with colds. So out comes the Kleenex's and that grotty nose-sucker. On a less sucky note, I found out today that my sister is going to state golf! So proud of her! (SHOUT OUT!!!)

























 This little man has a farmer's-heart. He loves the outdoors and gets really excited when he gets to ride with Dad in the tractor or combine. He loves to take over the wheel, which is not encouraged, thus a tantrum happens in the 2 square feet of the tractor floor. Yeah, that's a good time... (Sarcasm at it's best.)

Trevin seems to say a new word every day and it amazes me how easily he remembers. Some of the recent words that make me laugh are the following: at-ta-ta (spatula), ah-meh (Ah, man), and ay-ben (amen).

 We had the Honken cousins over to play last week! They had a blast and definitely kept Trevin busy!

With cooler weather, we haven't been able to play outside as much, so we've gotten desperate for activities. We're working on the coloring often. Straws through a colander? Why not? And a paper towel tube to put a ball through, yup.

I'm excited to show you our new entryway furniture! The room is finally starting to look complete. We still have trim left and we have to touch up some paint. I had first thought that I was going to put up wanes coating behind the bench, but after looking at it, I think I'm going to paint the wall a chevron pattern on the inside of the shelving unit. Thoughts? (If you are a man, I don't want your input. I'm secretly just wanting everyone to tell me it's a good idea. Women will do that, no problem. Men won't.)

Look who already loves climbing in the cubbies. What a monkey.

 Had a little fun at Aunt Brooke and Uncle Joey's house! Just hanging on a beam! 

 And then we found the kitty. This kid freaks whenever we come across any animal. I don't like animals, maybe I've mentioned this before. We don't have any pets and we won't ever. At least that's my wish. But Trevin loves them. (I'm wondering to myself if you can sponsor a pet. Maybe we can just get a picture in the mail of an animal and send a few bucks and call it good enough? Sounds like a good pet to me. Cue Sarah McLachlan and some sad puppies, "In the arms of an angel, fly away from here!")

Here's a bunch of crazy Germans. That is all. 

So I said to the guy, "I don't even like cheese!"

Stitches came out last Wednesday and now it looks like this:

I haven't been wearing the brace the last few days and I seem to be doing alright. I do manage to over-extend it on accident usually making me cry. But I'm a wimp, so that's not really saying much. It's a pretty sweet scar, if you ask me. Eventually I'm going to have someone ask me what happened to my wrist and I want to have a good story. I've found that "I had a cyst removed," isn't the most rad tale. If you have any suggestions for a thrilling story, I'm all ears.

Last week we got almost 3" of rain, putting a halt to harvest. Thankfully we were able to finish up all of our beans before the rain. James and I took our first official "rain date." Meaning, if it rains, we celebrate and seize the opportunity to be together. We dined at Red Lobster, a first for us both. We tried the crab and lobster. I'm pretty sure we looked like fools trying to eat our food. I was totally clueless on what to do! After we left, I told James that we just jumped up in social class. Sophistication. (But notice James' Duck Commander shirt...that's more like it. HA!)

Rain dance to get rain dates, growing on the farm... 

Good thing I'm right-handed.

Surgery recap: A couple days before surgery I felt a pop in my wrist and and after the initial soreness, the bump had gone down. I was told to show the surgeon before they hooked me up to anything, just in case I had broke up part of the cyst and to see if I would still need surgery. After they took be back to get prepped I had to wait for an hour and a half just to see the surgeon before they could start anything. Keep in mind that I hadn't eaten since 9:30 pm the night before, and it was now almost 2:00. After he came and checked it out, we decided to go on with surgery. I was then hooked up to an IV and given some "sleepy meds." Then they gave me a numbing shot in my armpit; that was weird. I couldn't feel my left arm from my bicep down. The nurse asked me if I felt like I had a couple cocktails, and I informed him that I didn't know because I'm not 21. As I started to feel a little loopy I would giggle at everything. They started wheeling me into surgery and I asked if I could watch, the nurse told me that I couldn't because they didn't want me trying it in my garage. (I don't know if this really happened, but I think I remember it.) One nurse was from the Aurora area and I asked her what her last name was, she kind of avoided the question, so I asked her 2 more times. She told me, but I can't remember what she said. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in recovery and my arm is already in a splint. I think they tried showing me the cyst that they extracted (I had asked to see it) but I can't remember what it looked like because I was still half asleep. I'm pretty bummed about that. I asked why my fingers were colored and I didn't listen for the answer. My arm was still numb so I felt pretty good. After they brought James back I started to feel nauseas from the anesthesia. Just about lost it. I was soon able to wiggle my fingers and I quoted Princess Bride, "You just wiggled your finger. That's wonderful!" Then we left and the numbing started to wear off. I was in quite a bit of pain that first night. I went to bed at 8:00 and by 10, when James came to bed, I had woke up 7 times. My pain meds weren't keeping up and I was miserable. By 11:00 I moved to the couch to try and change position and not keep James up all night. I was waking up constantly because of the pain. Finally, by 2:00 I had fallen asleep and slept until 7:00. We had arrangements for Trevin the rest of the week, so I laid in bed and watched Netflix for hours. (Just go ahead and judge me.)

Post-surgery report:

I'm doing much better the last few days and get to wear this life-saving splint. It prevents me from moving my wrist. Last night, by reaction, I tried catching a ball that was thrown in my direction and I bent my wrist in the splint. It was terribly painful. I think I'll keep this thing on for the next 7 months, because I don't want to feel that again. I've been adjusting pretty well to life, I've only got stuck in 2 shirts, so that happened. I have to apply a new band-aid every day to the incision, but that's really it. I have 4 stitches that will come out on October 2nd. I've been spoiled by friends and family this past week. Meals, babysitting, prayers, and more meals. They've made it way too easy on me. So THANKS!!! 

These ladies brought us an awesome meal and then joined us for an evening of much-needed social hour, (along with their husbands!)

James and I had tickets to go to the Husker game this past Saturday, and we weren't going to let a lame wrist stop us from going!

So I wore a long-sleeve shirt because it was new and I didn't think it was going to be that hot. Well check out that awesome tan-line above. 

James recently went dove hunting with some buddies and ended up with a few birds. He grilled them up and we had them for supper one night. I was certainly nervous to try it because I've never had dove before and I had no idea what to expect. According to Jase Robertson, "Doves are the filet mignon of the sky." So I guess that I was more than curious. (And to answer your question, Yes. We watch every episode of Duck Dynasty. And then we watch them again. It is the only show that James thinks is worth watching.)

I was shocked at how good the dove tasted. I know most of it was my husband's cooking skills, but I was very impressed. I told him he could go dove hunting anytime he wanted, as long as he makes it for supper. :)  Trevin didn't get any, not that we didn't try, but because he won't stick anything in his mouth that isn't fruit or sweets.


Farm life is moving along as normal. Harvest is just around the corner and the crops are looking great. We've finished up irrigating and I tried to help out when I could.

We also went to Husker Harvest Days (Trevin and my first time!) It poured on us, but it was still a good time. :)

I'm not going to lie, George has gotten us through the last few days...

Healing up, growing on the farm...

Floors, Flies, and Football

To continue with my last post's theme, I'm going to tell you what happened next in my embarrassing life. It was about 4 days after my 'house project day' from hell, and I decided to mow our lawn. I usually mow when Trevin is down for a nap but this particular day, it wasn't working out right so he rode along. We just got a brand-spanking new Hustler mower. Like it's maybe a month old. And that baby can fly. It goes so fast and I love it. Anyways, I was given specific instructions to "Be careful and don't drive too fast." James has zero faith in my self-control when it comes to mowing. I mean, they make full throttle for a reason, right?! So I was mowing along, with Trevin on my lap, and I slowed down to drive in between the power pole and the guide-wire. I looked to make sure I cleared the guide-wire, and kept driving. Well, I didn't clear it. Next thing I know, the front end of the mower is off the ground and the wire shoots back and the front end smacks down. It freaked me out, so I stopped and hopped off for a second to regain composure and make sure Trevin was ok. I got back on and finished mowing without giving it much more thought. When I finished, I opened the door to the house and it was hot, and dark. Weird. So I went to the fridge for a drink and no light there. The power was out. PANIC. I felt so terrible for doing this to James AGAIN. (A little more back story: James had a pretty awful week himself. A pivot crashed into a tractor, another pivot broke down, his 4-wheeler died for good, he ran into his Dad's 4-wheeler, and the axle on a trailer busted. Along with a million things that needed to get done that week.) I called James, no answer, and sent him a text saying, "Please call me, it's a semi-emergency." He came home and ended up calling the power company and they all worked on it for over 2 hours. We were all happy to have to have the week over with when Sunday rolled around... But now I'm known as "pole bender" according to my father-in-law. So that happened.

So now that you think rather poorly of me, I need to make some stuff up that will impress you. I canned some salsa and tomatoes... I actually did. Our garden is over-flowing and I can hardly keep up.

For my long-time followers, you'll know that we've been in the process of re-modeling the entryway. So we got our door, but they sent the wrong window for it. We managed to get this, uh, unique, star window instead... We removed it because, "Y'all, we ain't from Texas!" Our window is on the right.

James put in the new door and we eventually got the window swapped out. Check it out. 

AND the floors are finished! We hired out, so it was very little work for us! Next will be the trim and putting in the bench/shelving unit. Finally making progress...

About a year ago, I started feeling pain in my wrist off and on. I would have it one day and then not for another couple weeks. It felt almost like a sprain, so I just kept ignoring it. The last two months or so the pain has been more constant and I've stopped using it for some things. I noticed a lump on my wrist and wondered if it was maybe scar tissue from a previous injury. I would feel pain in it when I pushed the shopping cart, opened a push door, or carried bags in my hand. And I couldn't crawl on the floor and play with Trevin. To be honest, that was the one thing that put it over the edge for me. If I am unable to get on the floor and play with him, something needs to be done.  So a couple weeks back I went in and had it checked out. They were pretty sure that it was a cyst and sent me for X-rays, just to make sure it wasn't something more serious.  Then I was sent to a specialist to talk about surgery, and it turns out that the cyst is sitting right on my tendons and that's why I'm having issues with it. I'm scheduled for surgery next week (Sept 18th.) It's a pretty basic and routine surgery so nothing too alarming. BUT I am concerned about the recovery. I'll have stitches in for a couple weeks and a splint to limit movement. This means tending to Trevin with one arm. Folks, I would have a hard enough time chasing him if I had 3 arms, but one?! Could be interesting. If you think to pray for me in that time, it would be mightily appreciated. 

Trevin Tales:

• He is officially obsessed with dipping. Fries in ketchup, meat in BBQ sauce, vegetables in ranch... (Who am I kidding, I can't get him to eat vegetables...) He has started to tip his sippy cup upside down and pour milk/juice/water onto his tray and then dip whatever he's eating. Funny, but messy. 
• While we were putting in the new door an entire colony of flies moved in. We've been battling them for days and just can't seem to put an end to them. Trevin has taken interest in the insects and he crawls onto the ottoman by the window and will watch them. He has started to catch them. He pinches them in his fingers and comes over to me with his hand out. The first couple times I couldn't tell what it was, so I took it from him. Sometimes a dead fly drops into my hand and sometimes a live one flies right out of my hand. Either way, he's pretty amazing, I mean, I can't even get those suckers with a swatter! I'm just glad that he's bringing them to me and not eating them... (that I know of...)
• Trevin has known how to flush the toilet for a while now, but he's kind of just obeyed. (Weird, right?) Well he seems to have forgot what "obey" means. One evening I was cleaning up supper and James was trying to get back out the door to finish some irrigating. We had a quick conversation about plans for the following day and James suddenly realized that Trevin was not in the room, we walked to the bathroom and saw Trevin throw his shirt in the toilet and start swirling it with his hand. Freak out moment occurred and then I noticed that the tank of the toilet was still running, meaning someone had flushed in the last minute. And of course Trevin's shorts were no where to be found... James had to fish them out and we weren't too thrilled about this accomplishment. 

• You've all seen the electronic letter boards for little kids? Each letter is on there and they light up and teach you the letter name, sound and how to spell small words. Well we have one. I crack up every time Trevin pulls it out because I'll hear this from across the room, "Welcome to Alphabet Town! Let's spell 'boat'. 'B'" "B" "O" "O" "A" "O" "T" "O" ....He likes to say "O" 

Trevin got his head stuck in the chair and wasn't too impressed that I was taking a picture instead of helping him. Call me a bad mom, I'm just documenting his every embarrassment. It will come in handy some day, I'm sure.

My sister is a senior this year, (I don't want to talk about it..) And I cheered her on at the Pep Rally! Made me miss high school a little. 

Husker football started!!!!!!!! That is all. 

We celebrated my Grandma's birthday (a couple months early) by going to the Lincoln Farmer's Market. When I think Farmer's Market, I just see carrots, turnips, and watermelon. But that's a stereotype that I have dismissed. So many vendors with all sorts of really cool things. I had a great time with my mom, sister, aunts, uncle, and grandparents. 

Here comes fall, growing on the farm...