Well, he's officially here!! Taegan Allen Crisp (TAC) was born Dec. 20th at 6:06 pm. I wasn't due for 3 more weeks, so it was a little of a surprise. In fact, Al was actually gone for the weekend!! That morning when I went into labor he was still at the deer lease (if you can imagine!) ---in Leakey, 5 hours away!! To make things worse, his phone had died and he had forgotten to take a charger with him, so I had no way of reaching him. God was definately watching out for us, because Al decided to skip the morning hunt and come on home. He stopped in San Angelo and bought a charger so he could call me. I guess he could hear panic in my voice because when he got home he met me at the door with roses! He loaded me up and to the hospitol we went and by that evening we had a 6 lb 5 oz, 18 inch healthy baby! We had him home for Christmas and everything is going great. Thanks to all the wonderful friends we have that made his birth and time in the hospitol so special. Thanks also to everyone for helping us finish up our season and to our customers for being so understanding while we were out. We finished on Monday, with a grand total of 23,963 bales. What a great year! We got to take a week off, so today was my first day back at the gin, and besides being really behind, it went really good. At only 8 days old, Tac is getting an early start on learning to run a gin!

Taegan's first Christmas!!

We introduced the dogs to Tac officially on Christmas morning. Poor Buster- he's been with us through all the many animals that have come through our door, and as he sat there watching Tac cry, he had the most disgusted look on his face that said, "Well great. You brought home another pet." I'm not for sure that Buster doesn't think he's a rabbit. Ruger just wants to lick him all the time and steals his pacifier every chance he gets. I guess everyone will adjust!

We had a sonogram last Wednesday, so I thought I'd share a few pics. The little stinker was VERY uncooperative, and would not move his hands from out in front of his face. He's probably gonna be one of those kids that won't let you take his picture. You can see his fat little cheeks and lips though! He is extremely healthy, showing a weight of 5 lb 8 oz already!!! The doc also said he has long arms and legs and a big head. We're not sure how that happened exactly. I attached the picture below to show everyone the hair that he already has!! With long legs and hair, Al is convinced that this can't be his baby. The only discouraging news that we got is that the baby is still breech, so we are asking for everyone to please pray that he'll turn. As of today, I am exactly one month away from my due date. That still seems like forever, but I do atleast feel like we're in the final countdown! We will keep everyone updated- thanks for your prayers!!

This is Al's mule deer that he got this past Sunday. He was soooo excited and has had a blast showing it off. We just haven't really agreed on where it's gonna go now.

These are some of the maternity pics that my sister-in-law, Crista took for us. She did such an amazing job!

Baby shower

These are pics from my baby shower, which was AMAZING!! Becca and Marla decorated in a cute pirate theme, and really outdid themselves. It was such a wonderful shower and we were so blessed by the love we were shown. Thank you to everyone for all that you've done for us!!

As of today, we are just under 18,000 bales and have a few weeks left to go. Maybe we'll be done before the baby arrives after all!

Okay, I'm not much of a computer person and I try to be on the computer as little as possible, but I'm going to give this blogging thing a try, so bear with me as I figure it all out!
Just to let you know what's going on with us, our life right now is the gin and not much else. We started our night crew, so we are literaly 24/7 now! We've ginned a little over 5000 bales and are running as well at the beginning of this season as we did the end of last season!
Also to add to our busyness, deer season opens this weekend. The taxidermy has opened some neat doors for us and let us experience some really cool things. We've already gotten lots of exotics and the kills from bow and youth season, so I have to admit I'm a little overwhelmed to think that it's going to step up a notch come this weekend! At the bottom of the page is my bobcat from the state competition. It was my first year to enter so I was in the amateur division, but I brought home a blue ribbon and was voted People's Choice Award!
As for baby news, I am at 30 1/2 weeks and gaining weight like crazy! Al says he's ready for me to have the baby because he's gaining right along with me! For those of you who don't already know, it's going to be Taegan Allen Crisp (aka- Tac). All is well and he is an extremely active baby-- we may be in trouble!!

Our new wild moving billboard! We wanted something that would get attention, and I think it definately serves it's purpose!!

Tac's room-nearly done!

So let me tell ya'll of my crazy experience last night-- I took the dogs out walking when I got home. We went out behind the house, made it to the burr pile and then out in the field. When we got out there, I saw a coyote in the distance run off. I thought he was gone, so the dogs continued to run and play. Then I looked up and saw the coyote watching us. He started toward the dogs and I got scared. I was running toward him yelling and waving my arms. He kept coming and would circle from one side to the other trying to get us cornered. The dogs never saw him, which was a complete God thing, because if they had've the fight would've been on, and I don't think Team Crisp would've been the winner. I was screaming and getting scared when I had a revelation-- I had my phone in my pocket. I called Al, and in the time he was able to get a gun, get in the car, drive down there, and get in the field, the coyote continued to follow us. Al shot him (my hero!) and we're all fine. In all of Al's hunting coyotes, we have never seen one this aggressive. I could just see the coyote sitting there thinking, "Okay, I'll start off with those silly dogs, and then I'll have the fat one for dessert."

Abner the Antelope- This was my first antelope, which I got the beginning of October. It was a neat spot and stalk hunt. As we were sneaking up a hill, Al whispered, "You're gonna have to belly crawl up the hill and take your shot from the top." Belly crawl? yeah, right.

Baby's 1st dove!

Our homegroup from church gave us a wonderful baby shower. Thank you Erin and Beth and all our LifeHouse family!! I think I've outgrown the cake!