Introducing...

Cooper! I'm so sorry Michelle! My sister named him when I wasn't there and now everyone is calling him that and they won't change it!! I have tried all kinds of other names but everyone is calling him that and I finally just gave up. 

He is the sweetest dog! He weights about 3 pounds and isn't going to get much bigger. He is already my baby. We got him for my papa but I don't know if I'm going to be able to let him take him. He  has been sleeping with me every night and just loves to snuggle. :)

For about the first day he was very lethargic but now he is much more lively. He still sleeps ALOT but when he is awake he is hilarious and so much fun. I'm sure there will be many more pictures and stories to come of Cooper. 

First day home! 

He really is very tiny!

One of my Mom's friends at school had 5 puppies and she gave them all away except Cooper. She kept telling my mom she needed him but my mom thought differently. ha Well long story short a few weeks past and the lady ended up having to take Cooper to the local animal shelter because she couldn't take care of him. After about a week at the shelter my mom couldn't take it anymore and she went and brought him home. It was love at first sight for us all!

Welcome to the family Cooper!!

Christmas.

Here are just a few pictures from Christmas. I had a GREAT Christmas. It was so nice to be with family and just have fun, even if we did have to work! 

I have so many pictures to share but these are my favorites and really represent our Christmas! I got some really awesome gifts I can't wait to share with you guys! :) 

I hope everyone had as good a holiday as I did! We are preparing for New Year's now. It's going to be fun! 

busy day.

Thursday was jam packed with animals and food. Julie came out and we went out to the Busby's to ride horses. We also made Christmas candy and cinnamon rolls. Julie had to leave early because of bad weather but we still had a good time. 

I started the day off by giving Gus a bath. He smelled horrific! It almost made me want to throw up... he had rolled in something dead. 

He loves baths. Can't you tell?!

We made Christmas candy. My family loves this stuff. It is super sweet, but a delicious treat. Cooking isn't my favorite thing but the tradition of making this stuff seems to have fallen to me. It went pretty quick this time though because Julie helped me. Also, cooking is more fun to me if I can take pictures while I do it, so here is step-by-step for you guys. It is very simple and easy! So, make it for your family this Christmas. Don't even think about how many calories you are taking in though. 

Christmas Candy

The cast of characters (yes that is wax)

Get distracted and take a picture of your beautiful Christmas cactus that actually bloomed at Christmas this year.

This is my favorite cookbook. We made them and sold them when I was in grade school at Bristow Adventist School.  It's full of great recipes from our church ladies. (and our church knows how to cook)

So, here we go! 

Add 2 boxes or 3/4 a bag of powdered sugar to a bowl.

Then dump a cup of coconut in. 

Next, chop up some yummy pecans and add a cup of them to the mix.

Now things are getting fun. Find a can of sweet and condensed milk and go ahead and add that to the concoction. It's weird stuff, I know!

Melt a stick of butter and add that. Told you it wasn't healthy.

Now mix it all up. I always use my hands because, well, it's just more fun. It's a lot easier too because this stuff is kind of a weird texture. 

Once you have it all mixed up, roll it into little balls. I always make a variety of sizes. It doesn't really matter but I wouldn't make them to big because that's just a lot of sugar. 

After you roll them up, then put them in the freezer for about 30 minutes or so. Just make sure they are frozen before you move onto the next step.

This part kind of freaks people out. But add about 1/4 of a stick of wax to a pan. The wax isn't going to hurt you. It makes the chocolate harden much better and easier to dip. I use two pans. One underneath with a little water and then one on top that is slightly smaller than the bottom one. Unless you have one of those fancy things then you don't need this contraption. 

Once the wax is melted add a bag of chocolate to the pan and melt it. I usually end up melting more chocolate so you can go ahead and add about a bag and a half if you want. 

Once it is melted, use toothpicks and dip the balls in the chocolate then put them back in the freezer 'til the chocolate hardens then you can store them in the fridge.

We also made cinnamon rolls. I was feeling very Martha Stewarty. ;) I didn't really take pictures as I went but sometimes I have a hard time with dough rising so I had to take a picture of this. I was pretty excited about it! ha

 

I think they turned out quite lovely. I made p-dubs recipe. The coffee was a bit strong for my non-coffee drinking family but some of us really loved them. They were delicious! :) 

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas Eve! Lots of Christmas stuff coming tomorrow. 

Christmas cookies.

I got a bit behind on all the fun stuff that has been happening. Wednesday was a busy day. We have been having a lot of sick chickens so I took care of that. I had to take some chickens to Stillwater for necropsy and testing. (more on that at a later time) As soon as I got home, Macy and I headed to Aunt Mitzi's house to make Christmas cookies. I drove a total of 5 hours that day. It was a long day. 

We had fun making cookies though. Here are a few pictures of the fun!

Emma was "painting" cookies and she had a cookie she was eating. 

The finished project!

More Christmas treats and pictures to come! 

Liebster Award.

This has been one crazy fun day! I wish I had time to share it with ya but all the fun wore me out. 

One quick thing though, my friend over at Ell-Oh-Vee (Thanks Elle! :)) picked my blog for the Liebster Award. It's an award to recognize up and coming blogs. 

I started this blog just for me to keep track of things as I go through vet school. I know my family enjoys reading it but I'm excited to have some new followers. So, if you want to get a small peak into the life of a vet student/farm girl, follow me! I'd love to have ya! 

Now my job is to choose 5 blogs that I think deserve recognition and have fewer than 200 followers. 

He That Liveth In Hope Danceth Without A Fiddle

Break & Bake

Murrill's Pearls of Wisdom

Mini Memoirs

DVM's Wife's Life

If you have been awarded the coveted Liebster award, here's what's next:

*choose five up and coming blogs with less than 200 followers

*show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them. If you are not already a follower of their blog, that might be a great way to show appreciation for the award ;)

*Post the award on your blog. Be sure to link back to the five blogs you selected so others can visit.

mad house.

We went shopping today. We just had a few things we needed to get for last minute Christmas presents. It was a mad house. I didn't actually get what I was looking for but it's okay I can get it after Christmas. We did have some fun in the midst of the craziness. Macy and I found these lovely hats... they cost around $150.00!! yikes! Who would pay that for one of these hats?! There was about 10 different options to choose from. Crazy! 

Ridiculously large hats... I don't think even Kate Middleton could pull these off.

As many of you know, I am not a crowds person so I'm completely drained and will not be going anywhere for awhile. Tulsa is off limits until after Christmas, and even then I'm avoiding it. 

presents.

Today was weird. I didn't have to study and I didn't know what to do with myself so I cleaned and wrapped presents. It was great!! :) 

I went a little crazy with the wrapping! It was fun!  Here are a few pics. 

We bought this paper and tulle stuff at the craft fair.

I started with this paper but decided the other went better with our tree. I got the idea for  this bow on pinterest. 

The colors are actually a lot prettier in person or on my computer for that matter. It was so nice to just relax today! More fun to come tomorrow!

extended family.

Last Sabbath a group of us went to Claremore to sing in a Christmas program with a bunch of other people. We had a blast! So, for church this Sabbath we sang one of the songs. I think it was better than the one with all the extra people. ha I tried to upload a video of the song but it was going to take approximately 4 hours so I will do it when I'm back at school if I remember. It's actually pretty entertaining. ;) 

Sabbath was actually quite a miserable day for me. I had the worst headache. My neck was so tight from studying so much the weak before it was giving me a headache. My mom massaged it for awhile and I put heat on it for awhile and it got a little better. Well good enough that I could go party. ha 

Saturday night we had a party at the church for Ernie and Sharon. (house warming party sorta) We had some really yummy food.

Macy enjoyed it thoroughly. She wouldn't let me put this on facebook so I'm posting it here. ;)

Mrs. Hottal is making a quilt for them. We each colored a quilt square and signed our name. I couldn't decide which of these pictures to put up because they are all just so sweet to me. I love my church, they are all family. (Most literally are family but that's beside the point)

Luke is preparing for the most popular event of the night in the background of this pic. ha

Mrs. Hottal ironed the squares when we were done so that the wax melted into the cloth and would stay. We all wrote down recipes and gave them to Sharon as well. For those who don't know, Sharon and Ernie's house burned down awhile ago and they lost everything. They are really special people and they mean a lot to me! 

After we finished with all that... we broke out the Dutch Blitz cards. We played pretty much the most out of control game of Dutch Blitz I have ever played. We started out playing with 12 people at a time. It was ridiculous! My mind doesn't work that fast!!! So we split into 2 groups. It was still pretty crazy. If you have never played Dutch Blitz, come visit, we will play. It is one of my favorite games! :) It was a fun night filled with family and friends! 

done.

Sorry for the rant the other day. I have moved on. All that matters is that I pass my classes. 

So I'm done with finals! It is a really weird feeling to not have to study and I'm really enjoying it. I have some big plans. I'm going to make a list of things I want to get done over break tomorrow. It's going to be a study free Sunday! Which is going to be so strange... 

Friday morning I got up early and took my final. The hardest one I had all week. I studied 15 hours straight for it and then got about 4 hours of sleep the night before. Not because I didn't try to sleep I just couldn't sleep. 

Friday evening was Aunt Caroline's graduation so we headed back to Stillwater. 

Yay! She is done! :)

I wish I was done. haha Yes, I do look half dead...  I had just been through finals week.

They have these signs for each of the colleges. I have a long ways to go... Someday. But for now I'm done with a semester and I'm going to enjoy every minute of my free time. 

bad mood.

So, I have one more day to get through. I thought I was doing really good. I had set a good pace for all the material I needed to cover for my last exam... Then, my "totally awesome" teacher goes and gives us a bunch more information this morning that we need to learn by in the morning. Oh, and he doesn't teach it to us, he just posts it on Moodle (like blackboard or something like that but for vet students). I was mad. But that's not all. Back up to Monday (2 weeks after a test we still had no grade for) he gives us a little piece of paper in our mailbox that has our grade on it. I had a 77%. I was actually really excited about this because I seriously thought I was failing the class because that's just how ridiculous his tests are. Anywho, so we get an email Tuesday saying our grade is being recalculated. My grade went up to a 79%! I almost had a B so I was determined that I could get a B in the class. Back to real time now. I just checked my email and he says that he is going back to the first grade. I won't go into super detail about why this makes me mad but our second test had 2 parts. (one from each teacher) I did really well on one part and bad on McCann's part.  They said they would be weighted equally but they were not and McCann's part was worth more. This man is ridiculous! This probably made no sense but I AM FRUSTRATED to the point of tears. It just needs to be Friday morning at 10 am. 

In summary, this day is not starting out good and will be spent studying. Teachers need to figure there stuff out. I'm in a real bad mood. Tis all...

P.S. sorry to those who had to read this, I needed to blow off some steam. 

are we there yet??

So... my first final is tomorrow afternoon. I have 5 finals next week, one is take home that is due Thursday, and I am already about ready to have a mental breakdown. I hate finals! I feel like I have already been tested on this stuff and don't care to remind myself of the torture it put me through the first time. Anyway, please pray for me throughout the next week. I am having a hard time focusing and I need to do good on all my finals to keep my grade up. 

In summary, sorry I have been absent lately. Studying for finals has taken over what little life I used to have.

Good luck to all my fellow students! We can do this! I'll pray for you and you pray for me!

Thanksgiving.

I had such a great break! There were a bunch of people at the farm and we had a blast. This post will be mostly pictures because I have a lot of pictures. Thanksgiving morning was eventful as always. We worked cows. There was a lot of people there this year and a lot of people who had never done anything like that so we had a lot of eager helpers. I think everyone had a good time and no one got hurt to bad. (Besides some bruises and scratches)

I will let the pictures tell the story of how the morning went. :)

It was a bit foggy as we started rounding up the cows.

Elisa giving an injection. Pro! :)

I feel like Andrew, Luke and I are really making a fashion statement in this picture. ha There are a lot of funny things in this picture to me. I have a "stylish" knitted ear warmer over my redneck, camo hat. Luke's hat is tilted quite humorously. Andrew has a very stylish hat on, and is holding a shepherd's hook. (we are working cows not sheep, but it does work good to get the cows moving) I'm not judging anyones wardrobe just amused. ha

I believe this is Sally smashed in with a wild cow. Poor Sally... Elisa is consoling her.

Macy's friend Julie came all the way from Tennessee to join us for Thanksgiving. 

Wild Cow!

She got stuck...

They had to cut her out!

It was quite exciting!

She made it out fine! Thank goodness she wasn't a wild one.

I <3 cows!

Macy even helped out this year.

Julie, working hard! 

I had to put this up because William cracks me up in it. I literally laughed out loud.

Andrew doin' a jig.

I'm unsure what is happening her but it looks serious.

Action!!

Such a cutie! 

Add caption

"Maybe he will just fall over if we push hard enough." LOL

I didn't actually castrate anything but I did help Luke search for what I'm going to say was a distended testicle.  

Weirdo's dissecting a testicle.

I don't have any normal people pictures of Thanksgiving because my camera got filled with cow pictures and old pictures so I have no pictures of the amazing lunch we had or the fun stuff we did the rest of the weekend.

After we finished up the cows we headed home to feast, and boy was it a feast! :) We then went over to the farm to show Julie's friend Lindsey and Macy's Julie around the farm. We climbed the grain tower and then headed home for a crazy game of Dutch Blitz. It was one of the craziest games of Dutch Blitz I have played in a long time. It was so much fun! Between Steven and Macy it was very hard to concentrate but we had a GREAT time. It was great to have everyone home and spend time with family.

Friday, my mom and I braved black Friday. Not really, just Atwood's. We got some really great deals though. :) Kody came over Friday night and we all spent the evening reading Christmas stories. (more like me reading and everyone listening, except my dad and Kody falling asleep. ha)

Sabbath, I taught the Sabbath School lesson on the spur of the moment, cousin Steven was there (very happy about that) and I had to talk for part of the sermon. (yikes!) It was really a great Sabbath.

Saturday night we had a hayride. It was pretty chilly and very windy! It was fun though! The "younger" people played sardines but I didn't play because I didn't want to make Kody sit there by himself (he has a hurt knee that doesn't need to step in a hole in the dark.) We had fun singing around the fire. We headed home and were going to play games but instead I completely passed out on the couch. ha 

Sunday was back to reality and studying. Boo! Only a little over 2 weeks left. Crazy! 

This is pretty brief but I need to get back to studying anatomy. I have a test Friday! 

Hope everyone of you had as great a Thanksgiving as I did! I have so much to be thankful for.