Cute Furry Walking Companion

When our puppies are old enough, I like to take them on walks with me.  They love romping through the woods and fields and my walks are always SO much more fun that way.  Who doesn't love a cute furry doodle puppy to keep you company?!

Come on puppy!  Let's go for a walk!

Here we go!

Ummm Puppy?  Are you tired already?

Puppy says, "that's a long long way to go!"

"Really Really long!"

"Hey! Maybe I will play with this stick instead!"

"Wait for meeeeeeeeeeee!"

"I'm tooooo tired to walk anymore"

"Will you carry me?"

"You will?!!"

"Oh boy!"

"This is sooooooooo much better.  I could walk all day like this!"

"Of course we always stop to smell the flowers!"

"And take a rest by the pond"

"Oh I love nap time!"

"Guess it is time to get going again"

"Home Stretch!!!!"

"Okay.....maybe I need ONE more ride......allllllllllll the way back home!"

Oh! She is 6 years old!

Yesterday someone asked me how old my horse Cheyenne was.  I immediately replied, "Oh she is 6 years old - she is my youngest horse.  My oldest horse is Buckwheat and she is about 10 years old."  I asked Mr. Yesteryear Acres how old he thought our horses were - and he came up with almost the exact same numbers.  Buckwheat is about 10 years old, Willow is 8 and Cheyenne is 6.  I then said, "I remember the day I got Buckwheat.  It was a lifelong dream come true."  I got Buckwheat for my 30th birthday present.  30.  When I was 30 years old.  As in NOT yesterday........
OH MY GOSH!  I AM SO OLD! Both Mr. Yesteryear Acres and I stood there with our mouths wide open when we did the math. Our horses have been healthy every single day. They are the easiest going, most loving, most awesome horses.  It seems like yesterday when we brought them here.  BUT IT WASN'T! My 30th birthday was almost 18 years ago!!!!! Buckwheat was 7 years old when we got her.  That makes her 25 years old!!!!!!!! We got Willow the very next year when Willow was 5 years old so that makes her 23 years old and Cheyenne was a mere baby when we got her. She just turned 2 years old the day we brought her home. Cheyenne is now 18!  How did that happen?  My horses are old! I just shook my head in disbelief.  Mr. Yesteryear Acres shook his head along with me.  I wouldn't say we were in denial BUT if you were to ask us about our oldest child........she STILL lives at home, in her room, which looks exactly like it did the day she left for the Naval Academy.......ALMOST 5 years ago!!!! Even though I know that right now she is trying to buy a house of her very own..in North Carolina........she still lives here! Oh my gosh.  Any day now, I will realize that my oldest child does not live here any more.  I will also realize my horses are much older than they were the day we brought them home.
Until then.......look at my cute horsey babies!

This is my sweet Buckwheat

Cheyenne - "the Doodle Horse" because she will literally follow you everywhere. Every step you take, Cheyenne is right there with you.  She would snuggle with you all day long if she could!   

I could spend all day out in the field with them

They like it because evidently I make the perfect scratching post

My son is almost too tall for our tallest horse!  He couldn't even reach her nose when we brought Willow home!

I LOVE the smell of horses. I love to pet my horses. I love to hug my horses.  They are so sweet and so beautiful.

My son just likes to hop on and take off. Willow doesn't even need a saddle or halter.  She goes wherever my son wants.

Suntanning......Yesteryear Acres Style!

Mr. Yesteryear Acres can never get enough horsey hugs!  

They are such nice, sweet and VERY young horsies!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh no you didn't!

Today my sister said fighting words to me.  She had an exceptionally good weekend as far as her step count goes. We have daily battles to see who has more steps in for the day.  The goal for each day is 10,000 steps. That is the minimum amount of acceptable steps for the day and anything over that is just gravy.  I mean it is good gravy - but still it is gravy. As long as you get in the 10,000 steps each day - you get a gold star.  Well this weekend my sister got in over 20,000 steps on Sunday making her the clear leader.  I graciously let her bask in her glory. I got in 13,000 steps so I met my goal and then some.  Then today, out of the blue my sister called me .......A SLACKER!  What!  How dare she insult me!!! I am NOT a slacker!  I am anything BUT a slacker.  I have been faithfully exercising EVERY single week since August 1st of last year.  I have not missed one single week's goal of weight lifting or cardio fitness in all that time.  Slacker!!???  Oh those are fighting words!  Right then I decided I would show her who was slacking.  I started walking.  I started walking and walking and walking and I didn't stop.  Steps for the day today? 25,000+ steps!   HA!  I walked over 12 miles.  I am in the lead!  WHO is slacking now????  GAME ON! Woot woot!

Chilly Monday

Happy Chilly Monday! Brrrrr! Mr. Yesteryear Acres actually had to turn on the furnace today. In the middle of May!  It is sooooo cold.  My nose was a frozen ice cube and I had on 3 sweatshirts until the furnace came on. The puppies were really good about going outside despite the chilly weather.  They are really getting the hang of going potty outside and they get their business done right away. That is especially thoughtful of them when I am standing in my robe freezing!

McGyver's Boy getting busy right away. He is such a good puppy!

"Hurry! Let's get done so we can go back inside where it is warm!"

"Let's find the perfect spot"

"Found it"

"Mr. Yesteryear Acres we are almost done!"

"Do we have time to play?"

 

"Yea! Mr. Yesteryear Acres always lets us have recess time!"

"That's what makes it so fun!"

"Awww time to go in already???!"

I can't leave out cute Sweet Pea puppy pictures

They are too little to go outside

But snuggling inside is just right!

Happy Monday!

The Greatest Gift

When I was younger, all I wanted to be when I grew up was a Mom.  People would ask me, "So what do you want to be when you grow up?" As soon as I said, I wanted to be a mom, the person asking always had to add, "what else?" or "No what do you want to BE as in a CAREER" or "That isn't something you want to BE - you have to want to be something more".  The truth is - no I didn't.  I didn't want to be something "more".  I wanted to be a mom.  No make that - I wanted to be a great mom.  I wanted to be a mom that was home for her kids, that greeted them when they came home from school, that baked homemade goodies, that brushed off their bumps and bruises, and would be there for them always. It is nice to grow up and be EXACTLY what you always wanted to be.  I have loved my children from the depths of my soul since the moment they entered this world and that love has only grown more every single day.  To say I love being a mom would be a gross understatement.  It has been the greatest gift of my life. I have 3 amazing wonderful children who I adore.  As an added bonus, they adore me that much right back. I am so blessed.  I am showered with love every day. Happy Mother's Day to my mom.  Happy Mother's Day to Mr. Yesteryear Acres mom. Happy Mother's Day to all moms everywhere. We all share these universal truths:
We never eat the last piece of pie if our child wants it

We never sit down to eat until everyone is served

We never miss an opportunity to hang a child's accomplishment/art work/picture on our refrigerator

We are never happier than our least happiest child

We never turn down a hug from our children

We never want the hugs to end

We never want our children to leave yet....
We always want them to grow

Happy Mother's Day. I hope your day is full of blessings and love.

Lilacs and Honeysuckle

I wouldn't call today's weather very springlike.  It is damp. It is cold. It is windy.  It feels more like "I am almost winter" instead of "I am almost summer".  Despite the dreary weather, my son and I had a wonderful day before Mother's Day walk together.  The lilacs are in full bloom and they smell SO good.  The second you walk outside our door, you are surrounded by the lovely lilac fragrance.  I love those purple flowers so much.  It is so beautiful and I smile every time I get a whiff of that sweet lilac scent.  Our woods are full of honeysuckle and they too are in full bloom.  With everything being so damp today, the flower fragrances filled the air.  The woods smelled delightful!  Our entire walk was filled with "Ahhhhh" and "oooooh".  It was really nice.  We also were treated to a major nature bonus! We saw a beautiful Summer Tanager high up in the trees.  He was so brilliant red.  My son and I just stood and watched it.  It was quite the sight! I couldn't believe the doodle doggies didn't scare it off.  We were lucky indeed!  After we got home, my son said he had an errand to run as his truck was almost out of diesel. When he came home.....he had gone to my favorite bakery and bought me a dozen of my favorite cookies! Awwwww.  They are my early Mother's Day present.  I LOVE cookies and am already making quite the dent in the bakery box. Mmmmm. Cookies.  Tomorrow if the weather cooperates, my son and I are going on a long Mother's Day bike ride! I am one lucky mama!!!!!

Special Delivery

This morning as I was washing the dishes I realized that this Sunday I would be without both my girls.  I have barely gotten used to being without my older daughter on Mother's Day but now I have to be without both of them.  I thought about the passing of time and how quickly my Mother's Day went from my little girls giving me handmade cards with beautiful crayon drawings to my older girls being far from home.  It all goes by in a blink of an eye.  I was just getting a little teary when the Fed Ex truck pulled into our driveway. Special Delivery for me?!
I opened the envelope and pulled out my card......

Awwwww. Sniff Sniff.  I love that girl!

Does she have perfect timing or what?

My beautiful flowers came with a vase and everything

My heart smiled with each beautiful blossom

Thanks for the special delivery! I miss you so much my sweet Marine! 

I can't wait until I get to see you again!

I love my flowers!

Sweet Pea

Introducing our Sweet Pea! Sweet Pea was born right here at Yesteryear Acres. Her Daddy is our awesome white golden retriever McGyver. Sweet Pea is just beautiful and her new little goldendoodle puppies are so adorable. My son and I took tons of pictures of Sweet Pea yesterday so that I could make a brand new webpage for her on our website. We took over 200 pictures and had at least 50 pictures that were perfect! The hardest part was narrowing down to a few favorites.....

"Oh boy! Time for a walk!"

"Do you have my favorite green froggy toy?"

"Oh yes! Oh yes you do!"

"I will just wag my tail and wait for you to throw it"

"How about now?  Do you wanna play fetch now?"

"What if I sit and pose perfectly?"

"What if I wear your favorite hat?"

"YEA! That was a fun game of fetch!"

"Time for a break"

"Don't leave! You can rub my belly if you want to"

"Yea! You are coming back!"

"I love that boy!!!"

Hey, I did laundry

 Today I got caught up on the mountains of laundry that was becoming increasingly more menacing.  My son wears at least 2 pairs of jeans per day.  One for school and one for working at Yesteryear Acres.  Sometimes he needs 2 pairs for working here.  He definitely works hard and definitely goes through a LOT of clothes. Instead of bringing the dirty jeans downstairs to the laundry room, he hoards them in his room and starts making a mountain size pile of laundry.  My son is not a little boy.  He is super tall and has super tall clothes that make super tall piles. Once a week I start hauling his mountain tall pile of dirty clothes downstairs.  I need one trip just for the heavy jeans!  Now I am sure you are wondering why I don't make HIM bring down all his dirty clothes! Well it is because he is always working here.  He never has time off. He never sits down and watches TV or plays video games or anything relaxing.  He is always working.  Most of the time he is working to help me do things I can't get done by myself.  SO the least I can do is have clean clothes for my hard working boy. So today was laundry day. All of my tall boy's clothes are clean.  All Mr. Yesteryear Acres clothes are clean. All the puppy towels and blankets are clean and all of my clothes are clean.  This can only mean one thing......tonight... is... FOLDING night.  I have MOUNTAINS to fold.  Hey what did you do today? I did LAUNDRY! I know. I know. You are so jealous. I have all the fun!

The Bad Guy Never Had A Chance

Well we had QUITE the excitement here at Yesteryear Acres. First off - let me say - we live out in the country.  We live on a nice farm and our farm backs up to another farm that has almost 100 acres. It is peaceful out here.  We all know our neighbors and we love the country life.  Nothing much in terms of crime occur out our way....except....for....today. Evidently the police were arresting a guy way down the road and he slipped out of their grasp and ran off.  He ran all the way down here and started running up into our woods! I immediately called the police and Mr. Yesteryear Acres started preparing for the chase. He got the gator out of the barn, took off the watering system, took off the doors and was ready. There was a bad guy in our woods!!!  The doodle doggies were sounding the alarm, "Stranger Danger! Stranger Danger!"  The police arrived and had their tracking dogs ready. The police officers and dogs jumped into our gator with Mr. Yesteryear Acres at the wheel. One police dog was just finishing his training and immediately jumped into the back of the gator and was ready for action. He made his trainer so proud. Mr. Yesteryear Acres and the officers took off on the chase. Between our doodle doggies and the police and the police dog - the bad guy was captured! As the police were escorting him from our place in handcuffs, our doodle doggies all said, "That's right! You never had a chance here!  We are the doodle patrol doggies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  They were quite pleased with themselves.  Mr. Yesteryear Acres was quite pleased with himself.  The police were quite pleased as well.  Hero Doggies to the rescue!!!

Rainy Monday

Today was pretty much a dreary rainy day.  If I could have it my way, I would have stayed in my pajamas, crawled right back into the covers and stayed in bed all morning long.  Oh how I would love to do something like read a book, or take a nap, or watch a movie! That would be heavenly.  Of course that didn't happen. I was up and dressed by 6:30am and haven't spent much time sitting. Duty calls!   The puppies however.........

Snuggled in blankies

and

Cuddled together

and

Said, "We will watch a movie!"

and

"We will stay in bed all day long"

and

then 

one 

puppy 

said

"Pppbbbt"  

"Is this how you felt at 6:00am this morning?"

And I said "YES!"

Good little puppy!

New Auntie

I met the nicest group of people today.  We hit it off right away and just talked for hours. One of the men in the group had suffered from a stroke and was in the recovery stage.  He nearly died and we were immediately bonded by our shared near-death experiences.  Almost dying definitely changes you. He is filled with a renewed sense of joy and happiness and appreciation for life that is stronger than ever.  I can say the same.  There is never a day that is taken for granted. There is never a day that isn't filled with gratitude.  The man I met summed it up perfectly, in the end, all that matters is love.  I couldn't agree more.  I love life. I love Mr. Yesteryear Acres. I love my children. I love my doodle doggies.  I love my family. I love my home. I love each and every day. When we were saying our goodbyes, one of the women in the group was almost in tears. She said she didn't want to leave and she would remember me forever.  She lives very close to where my older daughter will be stationed next.  The Marine Corp will be moving my daughter this summer.  My new friend has now appointed herself my daughter's new "Auntie".  She said she would cook for my daughter and look after her any time my daughter needs it. She has a new home away from home.  How nice is that?  She really meant it too.  I guess my family just grew by one!  Welcome to the family Auntie!

Puppy Play Time

Spring weather is just so perfect for letting the puppies outside for puppy play time.  We consistently bring all the puppies outside every 2 hours so they can go to the bathroom and have some fun romping around for a little bit.  During the winter months, the outside time is usually relegated to just the necessities.  Open the door, the puppies run outside, go potty, and then run back inside. On nice days the puppies really don't want to come back in.  It is a constant counting game for me to make sure all the puppies stay in the backyard area.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5...where's number 6?  Oh there - under the bushes! I spend most of the time making sure all the puppies are accounted for and having fun.  Mr. Yesteryear Acres and I just bought a new puppy play pen so the puppies can play a little longer without worry of them getting hurt or getting lost. It is really great.  Of course the first thing the puppies all did was to run around the perimeter again and again saying, "HEY! WE CAN'T GET OUT!!!" and "HEY!  WE CAN'T MAKE YOU COUNT US CONSTANTLY!!!" I have to say, I love the new playground area.  It has a half-door to the gate so I can walk into the playpen without the puppies all running out.  It makes it so much easier to keep the area clean and it is pretty easy to move it to lovely shady areas as the sun moves.  Mr. Yesteryear Acres put up our really nice big sun umbrella for the puppies so the whole area is just the perfect temperature. Yesterday when we brought the puppies in after their long play session, they just crashed.  They were out cold.  If you looked closely, you could see little smiles on their faces as they dreamed about how much fun they had for the day. Night Puppies!

Happy Tummy

I know everyone deals with stress differently. For me, I just kind of plow ahead with blinders on, just putting one foot in front of the other trying to get through the day.  We have had a bit of stress these past few weeks and that last week, I was feeling overwhelmed to the point that I couldn't eat.  I know some people really overeat in times of stress but I am the complete opposite.  I just can't enjoy food while people I love are suffering. Nothing sounds good and I have trouble eating anything at all. Well now that we had a perfectly normal day and it looks like the dark clouds have lifted, it seems I am making up for lost time.  I have been SO hungry!  I am eating everything.  I had the biggest lunch today and then.....chocolate happened.  Oh how I love chocolate and someone made me fresh baked chocolate chip cookies!!!!  How could I resist?  We already know I am a cookie addict! I think I ate a dozen cookies.  And a big glass of ice cold milk. And more cookies.  And now my tummy says WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO ME but I am smiling.  I know why I did that. Because things are better now. Because I am happy.  And of course because chocolate chip cookies are SO delicious!  Dear tummy - I am so sorry .......do you want some ice cream so you feel better?! Yes?!  OK!!

Hurray for Normal

Today I had a completely normal day.  Nothing spectacular happened. Nothing dreadful happened. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.  A perfectly boring normal day.....AND I LOVED IT!  We had no emergencies.  We had no one become ill. I did things like - play with all the puppies in the beautiful warm sunshine. I washed all our laundry.  I finally made it to the bank. I actually went to the grocery store - for us - and bought groceries.  I have cereal!  I have my Greek Yogurt!  I have all the staples that we have been needing to stock up on for weeks.  I got homemade ice cream supplies too so now I can start making ice cream again.  It felt so wonderful to have a normal day. It has been so long I forgot what normal felt like.  I can tell you - Normal feels WONDERFUL!  Hurray for Normal!!!!!

April Showers Bring May Flowers of HAPPINESS

Right at this very moment, Mr. Yesteryear Acres and my son are at Mr. Yesteryear Acres parent's house because......................THEY ARE BOTH HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  YAY!  Mr. Yesteryear Acres Dad got an awesome report from the Doctor.  His heart is now working GREAT and HE IS HOME!  And Mr. Yesteryear Acres Mom is HOME!  I can't believe it!  I am SO happy! They are so happy!  Everyone is so happy. Mr. Yesteryear Acres and my son will probably be there most of the day.  They are helping his parents settle in, cleaning up a bit, mowing the yard and all the things that need done so that they can just sit back and rest. My son was so happy to go see his grandparents.  He was counting the minutes until school was out so he and his dad could get over there as fast as possible. To say that our April was FULL of April Showers - would be an understatement. I think we pretty much had one horrible thing piled on after another but today starts a new month! Today is the First of May and with it brings renewed peace and hope and happiness and goodness.  HAPPY MAY FIRST!  May your MAY be full of Happiness and Joy!!!!!!!!!!!!!