Three's Ultrasounds

These are some ultrasound pictures that I finally got scanned into the computer. You won't believe it, but Brent and I enjoyed a day of shopping on Black Friday! No fights or anything. We were able to pick up a new printer that prints pictures and scans....I'm sure we're way behind the times, but we're pretty excited about this one. We also picked up a video camera - yep, we're filming the whole birth and we're going to post it online for everyone to enjoy.....JUST KIDDING!!! This camera was a belated wedding gift from Brent's folks. In all reality, it was only belated because Brent and I kept putting off our shopping, but finally got to town and made the big purchase.

The ultrasound on the bottom was the very first ultrasound....Three is 11 weeks here. The one on the top is from 20 weeks....a good look at the little legs! The other ultrasound pics that we have are next to impossible to decipher, so I left them out. Enjoy!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

We stacked up all of the dog beds this morning....looks like Mika wanted to make sure she got a good one - wonder where the other two are going to sleep tonight?! You would think that she was the one that ate all the turkey at Thanksgiving. She was in bed by 7:30!

Here's the spread - pies first!!!

Isn't it amazing how you can cook all day long and then it's all gone (for the most part) in less than an hour?!

Belly comparisons - looks like someone had too much pie! :)

We hope that everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving!!! We definitely enjoyed ours! :) Missed being with more family (JW made it up to help put the hurt on our 20 pound turkey).

Are we there yet?! 14 days and counting....

Pics from the Cat/Griz game....what a blast!

These are my favorite pics - Brent and his 'driving gloves'....I swear he drives better when he wears them!! Ha, ha, ha....I have to say I had never, ever heard of such a thing. He says that you wear them when you're driving so that your hands don't get cold. Hmmmm....last time I checked all of our vehicles have heat - guess he grew up in North Dakota with no heaters?!

Ah yes....the belly - I know it's not the best view, but I can't get it to turn, so you'll just have to turn your head to get a good look at the ol' thing!

BIRD'S EYE VIEW.....NO TOES!!!! :(

Here's some of the room pictures. As you may notice, there are no handles on the dresser. Yes, pregnancy has only enhanced my laziness. It is full of clothes though and they have all been washed, so I haven't been a complete slacker.

We are planning to go to the playoff game this Saturday, but I suppose that will depend on Three. While grinding meat at Mike & Trina's house last night, it was cleverly pointed out that this baby will most likely make it's entrance on December 3rd. We'll see! I know one thing for sure - there's no more room in there for baby growth!

I have a feeling that this room is going to get moved around a few more times before it's all said and done. The dresser/changer finally arrived today and Brent surprised me by coming home from work early and setting the whole thing up, not to mention a wonderful meatloaf ready and waiting for me when I got home. What a great man! I couldn't have asked for better!

Pre bedtime update:

Three has officially had the hiccups for the past 5 minutes....it's the funniest feeling ever! Brent is off playing hockey. Turns out the team has had a few injuries: broken nose (I'm pretty sure that's what I heard), stitches and a bad knee or back or something from Miotke. Well, Brent has bravely taken up his skates and stick and has become the sub for the night (and probably many to come). Let's all pray that he comes home with everything in the same shape that it left in! Oh, and so much for having dog beds - Windsor has decided that our bed will be his for the night...hmmm....not going to fly. His last babysitters said that he only gets on the bed when asked.....boy was he pulling the wool over their eyes! Sneaky. Aren't 12 year old dogs supposed to be getting to the point where arthritis is setting in and they can't JUMP on beds? I'm thinking that Brent has his dog ages mixed up because that dog is as healthy as a horse and as far as I can tell, has no problem with jumping! :)

That's all she wrote...

And that's it....hunting season has now come to a close for this family! This is a picture of Brent's bull from this morning. I'm sure when he gets home we'll have a few more to add and maybe even a story or two. Oh, and Dad got his big whitetail in Canada yesterday....hopefully we'll get a few pics of that posted when he gets home too!!! :)

Pics

No, I'm not a liar - pictures are just delayed at the moment! The baby room is finished as of last night (minus the handles for the dresser drawers, I'll put those on tonight), but it was officially done at 9:30 pm and this pregnant lady's bedtime is about 9 pm after working my 10 hour days - I only do this so that I can get my work week over with faster, I really just like to be lazy at the end of the week! Plus, Brent had everything all packed up and ready to roll for his hunting trip....he's leaving straight from work today.....and 'everything' included our one and only camera! He'll be home Friday and there will be pictures by the weekend, don't you worry!

I have to say that I'm very excited about how well the baby room turned out. Everything fits nicely and I like to think that I have it organized 'just right' for mom, dad and baby. However, since I know nothing about babies, it may have to be revamped come Three's arrival. We'll see what happens.....maybe my motherly instincts kicked in early?!?

Season's End

I thought I'd better just throw in a few comments regarding hunting season before it is all said and done. I think that most everybody knows that my Dad shot a nice bull elk last month in WA - unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but if you click here you can go to my brother and sister in laws blog to see the pictures that they have posted. Currently, he and his cousin Bert are hunting big whitetails in Canada. They had a 10 day hunt, no word yet, but I'll post information as soon as I hear! Oh, and last, but not least.....Brent is headed out for one last elk hunt with Jeremy in Bozeman this week. It sounds like this is it - a day of hunting Thursday and a Friday morning if needed. It sure would be nice to have some elk in the freezer (deer and antelope start to get old after awhile), but it's not like we're going to starve! He swears that he's pulling out the stops on this trip....cow or bull, he's hoping to come home with something. Wish him luck! :)

Baby update: as of my appointment last week the baby is officially head down and straight as an arrow - ready to come on out! Yikes! We're not ready, we haven't even put ALL the clothes away yet, I swear this baby has more clothes than Brent and I combined - spoiled before arrival. Probably a good thing. The plan is to finish the baby room tonight....I've been having contractions as of last week, nothing big, just practice for the big day. As my mom said, "Amy, you tried to throw up that baby for 5 months, I think that it has a pretty good hold in there!" - something like that - either way, tomorrow marks the official 37th week. This means that, technically, the baby is full term and can come anytime (you hear that Three?). I'll post some pictures later tonight of the baby room and the baby belly!!!

Big Jim

I finally got this picture today....figured we'd better get a picture of Dad with his buck!

North Dakota: more than just pheasants and flat roads!

Brent was extra excited to be able to have one last hunt with his Dad this year on his Dad's land in North Dakota, drawing this out of state tag will likely never happen again (Brent's pretty lucky sometimes, ya never know). After the first day of hunting I got the report that they had seen about 6 bucks and were going to go after them the next day....my response was, isn't it opening day, why wait? Turns out Brent and his Dad have a much more laid back personality than mine! Their plan worked out just fine, the second day of hunting brought these bucks out of the woodwork for the boys. Brent says that this is probably the biggest whitetail that he's shot (top photo). I've got to say, they're both (Jim's, bottom photo) a whole lot bigger than mine! Well done boys!!



I know that some of you out there might be getting sick of all of the hunting blog posts, but don't you worry, there's a baby on the way and soon you'll be sick of seeing baby pictures too. Guess our lives are pretty mellow....hunting and baby. Maybe we should find a new hobby?! With any luck Brent will be able to play hockey this season, so we should have some good entries from that as well.


Brief, first dating story:


I went to the hockey rink to watch Brent play for probably the first time since we had begun dating. I sat right next to the glass, just to the side of the goalie, by myself. I saw Brent skating around the back side of the goal and watched as some big man from the other team brought his stick right down across Brent's arm - which I later learned is called 'slashing' (I think that's right...). The second that this happened Brent exchanged choice words with the man and tells me later that all he wanted to do was take the man out, but worried that I would think he was some sort of macho man brute, so ended up letting the guy have it with his 'choice words' - which I won't include as a quote - then he skated away. What he didn't see (or hear) was me standing up on the bleacher seat yelling at him to take the guy out! Turns out there's no fighting in this hockey league...oops. I'm sure that all of the wives, girlfriends, friends and children that were there to watch the rest of the team play (without 'taking anyone out') were more than impressed with me and my antics! Sometimes I can't belive that he still married me. :)

Big doe, wait....Big Buck Down!

4:00 pm: Long johns, coats, tags, binos, boots, gun, oh....and bullets, lots of 'em. Check.

4:05: Pull into hunting spot, chat with land owner, lace up boots for long hike.

4:10: Long hike over, first shot.

4:12: Second shot.

4:12:30: Third shot hits!

4:30: Dragging deer to truck.

4:35: Chat with landowner, drive to JW's to hang deer.

5:30: Deer hung, skinned and headed home.

6:30: Clothes washed, pajamas on, eating dinner and watching football.

Ah, yet another hard hunt for the pregnant lady! (yes, this is a buck, you have to look close to find the tiny little nubbins!)

Tagged....Round Two

Okay, I have been tagged again.....with this tag I am instructed to list 6 things that people probably don't know about me and are super interested to find out. I think this one might surprise a person or two....we'll see....keep reading! :)

1. I HATE ketchup. Yep, I think I ate too much as a kid. I'll eat a tomato no problem, but the ketchup bottle is Brent's domain.

2. I have more nicknames than one girl needs. Seems that everywhere I go I pick up a new one....I'll list what I can remember and feel free to add any that I forget (I won't count being called by my last name for the past 10 years, I swear nobody ever knew my first name!)
- Shorty
- Stumpy
- Boots
- Wildthing
- Rowdy
- Hobbies
- Tater
- AEOSpeedwagon (thanks to marriage)
- Brat
- Hoover (I was a catcher in high school, no ball got past me! I know, it's not the greatest nickname to have during your 'developmental years'...)
- Calvin
- Skip
- Beetle
- A2
- Preggers (this one will not be missed once Three arrives!)
I'm sure there are more....

3. I have always wanted to have a desk job. Having my own desk seems like such a big deal; I could have my own little coffee cup, a picture of my family and animals, listen to my radio, have all kinds of organized folders and drawers and I could wear snow boots to work and tuck them under my desk where I would switch to my cute work shoes in the winter. Yeah, I know, probably will never happen and I question just how happy I would be with the work - you never know though, the desk alone may cure me of all other needs and wants in life!

4. I hate it when someone asks me to get an itch for them (on their skin, not so much through clothes). For some reason I am completely grossed out by the idea of getting dead skin cells stuck under my fingernails....this must be the underlying reasoning for ALWAYS having short, short, short fingernails! I will give out the complementary scratch, but immediately afterwards I will run my nails across my jeans (or whatever material is handy) to get the 'gunk' out. Weird, I know.

5. I am planning to train for a triathlon. I volunteered at one in September at Frenchtown pond and was ready to start training, but Three wasn't as ready as I was, so I'll hold out for just a little bit longer.

6. I am the worst driver ever (some of you may already know this....Brent is reminded once or twice a week when he lets me drive in town). I hate driving in traffic and find that I am constantly reminding myself to calm down and quit cussing. I drive too fast and only drive faster when I'm mad (which is usually everytime I drive)....I have yet to get a speeding ticket after being pulled over multiple times and no, this isn't from crying or using any other type of 'pitiful girl' tactics....I just don't get tickets. I'm knocking on wood as I type. **one hand on bible, one in the air** I, Amy Olson, do solemnly swear, to be a more cautious and calm driver for the rest of this pregnancy (41 days and counting) and double that for when Three arrives!

So now is where I tag someone else....and now would also be a good time for someone else that I know to start up a blog! Maybe if Heather's sister reads this she can do it. I know that Uncle Dave has a blog....if he's not too busy, maybe he can throw a few answers out.

Opening day of elk season

A successful hunting trip on more than one note! Jamie, Jason, Jeff and Joe all came out of camp with elk. Don't know what happened with the other J, but Brent was destined not to get an elk at the J camp this year! J's are bad news, right Brent?! :)

Brent and JW both had lots of laughs....not to mention that JW came home $34 richer. All in all not a bad opening weekend, well done boys! Brent will be going to North Dakota to hunt white tail with his Dad in a few weekends and then plans another elk hunt on the return trip in Bozeman. Oh, and Brent and I are going to take our rifles for a hike behind the house this Sunday and see if we can't find a doe that wants to go in our freezer. Lots of hunting season left!!!

The Big Loper Hunt of '08

Well, here it is - the weekend we had all been waiting for. Turns out my amazing paper shooting skills did nothing for the actual hunt. Like I told Brent, anyone can hit paper, but when it comes to hitting an animal.....hmmm....Brent's got it down though!

Everything said and done, we managed to come out of Big Sandy with 2 antelope in the cooler. JW had promised me a 1/2 mile hike with a nice easy shot and boy did he come through. The only problem was that I didn't come through on my end of the deal....killing an antelope Sunday morning. I was not able to lay on my belly to shoot (which would've been nice, given the situation) so we watched the antelope COLONY - no joke, there was at least 70 + lopers - move from 30 yards to 75 and further. After I had somewhat calmed down and laid my rifle over JW's back to help steady it, the first shot of the season rang out. BANG! Nothin'....damn. I'll blame it on JW. I used his back as a rest and I'm pretty sure that he was breathing too hard, or was that me?! I was so excited and nervous!

The race was on....antelope running everywhere, a little cussing and packing up for the long haul. As we crested a hill we noticed that the herd had sent out a "satellite doe" to check on the whereabouts of the humans with the guns. That little doe is now in our freezer thanks to Brent's pinpoint accuracy. The weekend continued with more hiking and another shot from the old 270 and yet another miss. By Monday afternoon we had officially turned our 1/2 mile hike into a 10 mile death march. The cold had set in and I'm pretty sure that I had pulled every muscle at this point....I thought all that cycling and working out was doing me some good, but I guess I should consider getting my money back, that YMCA is a bunch of liars!

Late Monday afternoon the buck finally went down....I will spare those of you who aren't big into hunting and just tell you that the whole fiasco involved Brent RUNNING down a mountain and up another one, I think it might have been 2. And to think I'm the one that's been training for a marathon, next year it's going to be him. JW and I stood and watched in awe as 2 long legs overtook the mountain in maybe a minute....it was deja vu for me, the day before Brent and I had watched JW do the exact same thing. Oh, what I would give for long legs! The afternoon also involved JW running down a hillside, back up another and going for a free antelope ride. Finally, it all came to an end with the boys hauling out two packs full of meat and me parading off the mountain with the head in hand....I never knew just how bad antelope smell, I couldn't wash my hands enough to get that smell out. We made it home around 12:30 in the morning and then it was back to the daily grind....thank god!

The meat is now cut, ground and in the freezer (with help from our new FoodSaver, our early xmas present to ourselves). I think that I will call it a hunting season and just help process meat from here on out. Here it is, Friday morning, and I still feel like I've already gone through labor....yep, last weekend was the start and the finish of this girl's hunting season. The boys are going to shoot a few pheasants this weekend and then they still have elk and deer coming up so I'm sure we'll have more exciting stories to post!!

Annie Oakley at her finest!

My rifle is ready to roll....look out lopers, here I come! :) I also included a picture of my belly - you will notice that my head is cut off. That was done on purpose. After a long day at work and feeling like a fat, ugly pregnant lady I decided that I don't need my face posted all over the web! Don't worry, there'll be some pics added from this weekend. Mom and Dad are here for the weekend and Mom gets to go to my last baby shower on Sunday, there should be some good pictures taken sometime in there. Thank goodness for pregnancy hormones!

It's officially hunting season!

Brent, Joe and Jamie had a great week of hunting, cribbage and funny stories. The boys were hunting for a total of 8 days and did get into the elk - just turns out that you need an act of God to get a bull elk to turn broadside at 20-40 yards! Nothing to worry about though, we still have at least 2 more months of hunting season to go.

Bear Season

Wednesday night was a night of firsts. It was the first time that Brent had a night to sit and relax after 8 days straight of elk hunting, it was my first night bear hunting, but it was definitely not the first time that JW had Mom and Dad worried about him.

Overview:

JW decides he's going to go bear hunting, by himself....he calls Dad to tell him that he had shot a bear, twice....it wasn't dead. Dad gave him the rundown about how you don't go bombing into the brush with a wounded bear sitting in there. JW gets done talking to Dad - is ready to go find this bear - puts his phone into his UNZIPPED coat pocket that was not ON his body.

I talk to Mom around 4:00 that afternoon, nobody had heard from JW at all at this point. So of course I call Brent and now we're bear/JW hunting....until MIDNIGHT! As you might have guessed, JW lost his cell phone right after calling Dad, so all of our calls and all of our messages meant nothing to the kid. We put about 200 miles on Brent's pickup and added a few character scratches to it (JW will be buffing those all next week). At midnight we show up at our house and who is sitting in our kitchen, eating everything in sight? You guessed it, the kid that went bear hunting by himself, lost his cell phone and didn't have any food in his pack. For those of you who know JW, you know that this is a typical hunt for him. It is not one bit surprising that he decided he could pack the bear out on his own, nor is it surprising that he was out all day with no food and lost his cell phone. All in all....a productive day. Congrats JW!!!

A 6 ft, 10 yr old boar

Week in Review

Well here I am, sitting at home, eating everything in sight and watching "Failure to Launch"....what a funny movie! Brent is off putting the big sneak on elk and with any luck today is much more productive than the past 5. Yesterday I took my friend Doug to the Griz football game....we watched the worst 1st quarter of football ever, only to be followed by a 46 point run by the Griz. Whew, they pulled off another win. I sure hope they get their ducks in a row BEFORE the 2nd quarter next weekend. Brent called to let me know that the hunt is still on....probably at least 2 more days if not more. That's okay by me, I haven't had a chance to go to my girlie movie and eat loads of popcorn yet! :) The baby is doing great, kicking away throughout the day.

The other weekend Brent, JW and I went grouse hunting up behind the house with what we like to refer to as our "hunting dogs". We saw no birds, but we did enjoy a nice rain shower and we did manage to pick up more cockleburrs than I thought existed....who's brilliant idea was it to create bird dogs that have long hair? Hmmm...

Nursery Time!!

It's finally arrived! We got our crib just the other day and spent 2 nights putting it together. It sure is beautiful....thanks Mom and Dad! What a great gift for all of us to enjoy. Now we're patiently waiting our separate purchase....the dresser and changer. I'm thinking that Three is already spoiled. Oh well, guess it's bound to happen. I was so proud of myself for hauling stuffed animals around all these years because they are FINALLY being put to use. Ha, everyone thought I was nuts! This proves that theory wrong....doesn't it?!?

Flatlanders in Montana

Brent's folks made it out to visit at the end of August and boy did we have a fun weekend! We spent Saturday riding 4 wheelers up in the mountains and picking huckleberries. Mmmm....huckleberry pancakes - we thought of that the next morning when we were sitting down at Eugene's eating breakfast! Oh well, they kept just fine until the next morning. Sunday was Dad's birthday and we declared it a B.O.S. day (bag of s&!$ day)...a nice relaxing day after a night of farewell at Joe and Lisa's house...our good pal Hanna has taken a job working for the state near Red Lodge. Best of luck Hanna and watch out for snow bunnies!

The dogs fared pretty well that weekend too....I don't know if they could have possibly put one more treat in their bellies or have taken one more brushing or extra round of loving! Spoiled a little? No.....lucky little things! Three had a great weekend too....we were surprised with many gifts for our little one. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

There's music on this little video - you'll have to pause or mute the music at the bottom of the screen to hear it.