Sled riding and NEW PIGGIES!!!

Everyone had a great Christmas!  The kids got a Wii from santa.  They are having a blast.  I got a special present from my wife's parents in japan....PINK SPRINKLES!!!!   This is partially dehydrated salmon roe with seasonings.  It is awesome with buttered rice!

 A little present we had for the kids was a pool day down in West Virginia.  We took them down and stayed in a hotel overnight with a pool so they could play and swim.  We ate dinner at Mountaineer race track before checking in and then just spent the night relaxing.  We had a snow storm over night while we were asleep.

We got around 6" of snow.  This was the first snow fall that I have not had to plow in ten years.   It was so nice to get to experience it with the kids.  I have never been home with the kids when it is snowing. 

While I was in West Virginia Steven packed the sledding hill to pack the snow while it was in perfect packing condition.  As soon as I got home with the family he and his brothers came over to build a launch ramp at the top of the hill.   The ramp allows you to launch yourself quickly down the hill without needing pushed.  It is only about ten feet tall right now but as we get more snow over the winter we will continue to build it up to about 15-20 feet tall. 

Here is a picture looking down the hill from the top of the ramp.  It is hard to tell but the bottom is about 450-500 yards away.  There are two steep sections in the middle and top middle that speed you up as you go down the hill.   We have a pile of wood at the top of the hill for a fire.  We usually have a pretty large fire, big enough for about 15-20 people to stand around to warm up.  It is also a beacon for anyone looking for where we are at.   Also, anyone who has been following my posts for a while will also know that we use a trailer towed by the tractors for return trips up the hill.  As the night goes on and the temps drop the hill gets faster and faster till you actually go clear to the woods and curve back around to the road!  We have clocked sledding speed up to almost 40 mph before with a gps one of the kids had on their phone. 

 After we finish sledding last night at 1:30 am I headed in to check on Lady A who was getting more and more restless all day.  Shortly after walking into the barn I noticed she was in labor and was very close.  A few seconds later the first piglet was born.  So all the guests that were left from sledding piled into the barn to watch one be born. 

Tamworth x Berkshire piglets.

Steven's cousin video taped the birth.  I am posting because I think it is good to see natural birth whenever possible.  If you do not want to see just pass it up.  The one they saw, as well as many of it's litter mates, came breach (butt first), which is not the best way but as long as the feet come first is not a problem.  

As you can see they are quite active upon birth and will start eating within minutes.  The action of the piglets eating releases hormones causing the mother to relax and stay laying down till the rest are born.  

One of the new babies hiding in the straw!

 After a little while I realized I was missing a key part to the birthing process....DAISY!!!  She loves to play midwife and quickly cleans up all the babies and gets them dry and active and happy.

Daisy, our piggy midwife, waiting to jump in and help out!

 Today I took the wife and kids down to see all the babies.  Momma was laying down and feeding when we got there which worked out great.

 A closer picture of everyone cuddling close to momma.

All the piglets are a red color with black spots.  Some only have one or two black spots while others have a lot.  The first piglet born is one that I call a squealer.  It constantly is squealing like it is being stepped on or laid on.  This causes the mother to frequently think one of her babies is in danger.  She will try to wiggle a little to make sure she is not on one but if the squealer squeals loud enough she will jump up to protect her babies.  Sadly, she did that this afternoon and stepped on one of the biggest and most spotted ones.  It did not make it as a 550lb momma vs. a 1.5lb baby is no contest.

Everyone else is doing good though and the squealer is doing less and less squealing now so she is calming down some.  She should do much better on her next litter.  Her first litter she had one stillborn and eight live piglets.  After the one we lost we have seven left.  They are all quite large so that makes up for the low numbers.  Hopefully she will have more next time!!!

Goodnight everyone.  Tomorrow night I will do my annual new years post....provided I am not working!  : /

Kenny

Christmas Eve on the farm

Well, it is 8:45 and the kids are already in bed trying to go to sleep in time for santa to come!!  I dearly remember those days as a child and how much fun that was.  We also had a fun and busy day getting some firewood cut for our friend Willie, Steven, Grandma and Grandpa, and us.  I finally found a good trailer for the four wheeler today and brought it home.  The kids filled it completely up while me and the boys cut wood.

Alex didn't want to pose but Lisa jumped at the chance!

This was after they had it mostly full and Alex was ready for a picture to be taken!

 Then, after a lot of hard work in the field it was time to finish Christmas cookies for them selves and Santa.  Unfortunately Alex ate most of the ones he made!

Before I came in for the night I gave all the animals a little treat...the pigs got extra feed tonight, the cows got a special bale of hay and Mario got some of the pigs feed for a special treat and some scratching!   Lady A is almost ready to pop, she will be having babies any day now!

I will write another post tomorrow after everything calms down, for now, a little couch time with the wife to watch a movie before Santa gets here and then off to bed!!!


Goodnight all and Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!!!

The Merrick Family!

Some views from the hill and new Ear Tags!!

Since we are having such mild weather I decided to got for a 4-wheeler ride yesterday and took a couple pics from on top of the hill.  Everything looks so bare and open without leaves on the trees!

I do love the large oaks that are left at the top of the area that I cleared off.  It looks so much different now than when we moved in!

My last pic was looking down the hill from where we start when sled riding!  Quite a ways down there!

Lastly, my new tags for all the cattle came today!  I am so excited.  I have been able to tell them all apart till this year and now I am getting so many full black and full brown/white ones that I cannot tell them apart without seeing them with their mommas.  So we ordered custom tags for the farm.  The purple ones will be for all the Momma cows and the orange ones are for all the steers.

If you look closely we have our farm name right on the tags!!!  I can't wait to see them on the cows.  Will be so nice to have solid easily visible tags to know who I am looking at!

On another note.  It is a week before Christmas and we just had a weekend of 55 degree weather with light rains.  It is good to get caught up on our water that we didn't get over the summer.  As long as the ground isn't frozen it is soaking right in.  Furthermore, the manure that I have applied to the fields already is being taken into the soil by the rain and the grass is already greening up from it!  I am partial to a mild winter.  However, it would be nice to get a couple of big big snows that stick long enough for some awesome sledding.  We didn't get to do much at all last year so everyone is looking forward to it this year!

Also, next week is our annual herd check.  This is when we pregnancy check all the momma cows and vaccinate and De-worm everyone.  This is also when we castrate all the bulls that will be raised for meat.  This will hopefully be the last one we have to do in the old cow shed.  By this time next year I plan on having a fully functional concrete floored barn to feed in and care for the animals.  The current situation was nice when we had less than 15.   However, with almost 30 they don't all fit in the barn.  I am going to need to get some new heavy gates to add to the pen for this checkup.  Lets hope for 11 out of 11 bred!!!

Kenny

Finally got a feed bin set up for pig feed!!!

As most of you will already know we raise our pigs here on the farm as naturally as possible.  However, they still need some supplemental feed  to keep them healthy and growing during winter and during things such as the drought we had this year.  For the past year or two we have been getting a grain based supplement in bags.  However, over the course of this past summer the rodents and birds discovered this fact and have been getting into the feed.  So the decision was made that we needed a feed bin to store the feed for the pigs.

I prepped a site and formed it for concrete and a few weeks back the neighbor got concrete delivered for some areas in his barn and had enough left over to put a pad in for a feed bin.  It had a bit too much calcium in it and set up way to fast to finish nicely but it has a rustic look that kind of matches the old barn so we are just gonna run with it!  I need to make the step a little bit bigger but all in all it is almost perfect for size.

I took a week of vacation around thanksgiving to get it set up.  I traded the neighbor some of the baling work I have done for him for his old feed bin that he is was not using any longer.  I got it down and moved here and ready to repair and set up by the weekend following thanksgiving.   However, the parts needed to finish the repair did not arrive till after my vacation was over.  So I had to finish the repair and install after they arrived at the end of the week. 

We had to assemble the parts inside the bin because after they were assembled they would not fit through the hole in the bottom.  To be able to install the new bottom in the bin my wife and I had to stand it up on the pad and stand inside of the base to put it all together.  Below is a pic (albeit a bad one) of my wife  crawling down and out of the bin to allow me to get in to drill the new holes needed to complete the repair and installation.

Here is a pic of it completed and filled with feed.  I could have shortened the auger but I decided not to as it was much easier to add a drop pipe to the end of it to get the feed into a bucket.   Before the bin I had to get one ton of feed at a time.  This fed all of the feeder pigs, sows, and the boar for about three weeks.  I had to have it bagged and I would drive 35 minutes to pick it up and then hand carry into the barn and stack in the mall where the mice and rats and birds would proceed to rip open the bags and spread the feed everywhere while eating it!  Now I can get about 2.5 tons of feed at one time.  This is enough to feed all the pigs for about two months.  It is protected from rodents, dry, and delivered for me for less than what it cost to have it bagged, let alone the travel costs to pick it up!

I wired everything myself including a weatherproof switch that is wired up and mounted to the leg of the feed bin.  It is so nice to just flip a switch and fill a bucket vs. carrying bags and having to deal with all the empty bags that I am not allowed to reuse.  I am now also able to weigh all the feed out to be sure I am not over feeding or underfeeding or wasting feed!


I wanted to add a little note about bedding.  I recently baled a bunch of corn stubble for bedding the barn for me and several of the neighbors.  Even though it is a little more difficult to spread I think it works better than straw.  This is due to the bulky dry stems being able to soak up lots of moisture and they bind everything together better.  I usually put a bale into the cow shed and spread it out enough that it isn't in a huge pile and the pigs and cows do the rest of the work for me.  The cows nibble at the stubble and play in it and the pigs root all through it looking for treats.  There is a surprising amount of ear corn loss when harvesting the corn.  When we rake the corn stubble the lost ears usually get raked up with it and end up in the bales.  It gives the pigs extra motivation to spread it all out!!

Here on the farm I am trying to introduce more organic matter to the soil to make up for what has been lost over the last century of conventional farming.  The previous owner rented it out to someone who didn't care for the soil as well as he could and continually rotated back and forth from corn and beans with no cover crop in between.  The soils here were very poor when we moved in and I have spent the last seven years trying to make them better. 

Using corn stubble helps me do this!  When the stubble soaks up the moisture and bonds all the manure together it is capturing all the nutrients I need to put back on the fields.  Furthermore, the bacteria in the manure immediately start breaking down the corn stubble into nutrients that the plants in the field can draw up through their roots and grow on!  If left out on the field the corn stubble will take a year or two to break down.  When I use as bedding and spread on the field during the winter it is completely broken down in the field by spring.

Due to the extremely wet year we had last year I wasn't able to spread manure like I did the year before and I could tell a huge difference between the areas that had manure and those that didn't when harvesting this year.  As soon as I finished my final cutting this year I cleaned all the barns and also spread the pile of manure I have had composting in the pasture for two years.  I still have the manure in the pit I made during the wettest part of last winter.  I cannot get it out without the use of an excavator.  I will work on that issue the next time dad or I rents one for some project around the farm.  I am sure that it will be soon and I am anxious to get it out as there is enough manure in that pit to cover one of my smaller fields really well!


I hope everyone is ready for the holidays!  We just got a Christmas tree yesterday and my kids and wife decorated it last night.  I haven't decided if we are going to do any lights outside yet as we have not gotten any yet to do so.  We are also getting ready for the arrival of new piglets starting at the end of the month as well as our annual herd check and vaccinations!

Have a great day everyone!

Kenny

Pearl got her brand today.

Well, I just got the update from David about Pearl's brand.  I want to update everyone and also share some more information on how and why this is done.

First of all here are the branding irons for my farm brand.  

Conser Run Farm Branding Irons

Here is a picture of the completed brand up close.

Pearl with her CRF (Conser Run Farms) brand up close.

Here she is after completing her checkup and branding.  She was understandably upset during the process but shortly after being let loose her and her herd mates were all back to playing and eating again.  

Pearl with her CRF (Conser Run Farms) brand!

Most of all animals in the west and upper west are grazed on range land.  This is public and privately owned land where the animals are allowed to roam and forage for food during the better months of the year.  In the beginning branding was started as a permanent way of marking cattle for ownership and to track who they were.  Several hundred years ago plastic and metal ear tags were not available.  Most brands started out simple.  However, over time, many different people needed to mark their cattle and the brands increased in complexity and size and number of characters. One famous one in the USA is the King Ranch which is the same W mark you see on the luxury package for the best ford trucks.

Here in Ohio most of all animals are well contained so plastic ear tags and simple neck chains with numbers will suffice.  However, if an animal does get loose and cannot be found and manages to tear the tag off then there is no way of identifying who the animal is or where this animal belongs.  A brand is a permanent, tamper resistant, easily identifiable way of marking an animal for owner ship and other identification reasons.  When animals are running on range lands they can easily end up in with someone elses animals.  Another problem is theft.  Before any animal, in states with branding laws, can be sold the owner of the brand has to sign off on the sales slip before the sale can take place.  This stops someone from simply catching someone elses cattle and selling them.

There are a couple of different ways of marking brands on animals that will be running on range land.  There are many different types of branding irons but the two main differences, that I currently have learned about, are hot or cold.  The brand is either burned on with brands that are dipped in liquid nitrogen and the burn is created by the extreme cold, or the brands are heated to red hot and the brand is burned in with heat.

Either way this is an uncomfortable event for the animal.  I would compare it to someone getting body piercings, tattoos, or other forms of body markings or changes.  The branding is normally done when the animals are young and only takes a minute or two to finish and they are back on their way without much discomfort afterward.  A cow's hide is much much tougher and thicker than human skin so the discomfort is not as bad and shorter lasting than it would be for us.  The brand only burns the first layer of skin and looks worse than it actually is. 

I know that many people disagree with this method of animal marking/tracking but I have not been told of or learned of a better way to date.  I know that there are different methods of using electronic tracking devices for pets here now but these can still be removed, replaced, or reprogrammed at will making them unusable in an area where theft can occur.

Either way, Pearl now has the only brand for an Ohio based farm in Montana, or at least her part of Montana and the only cow in the World with that marking!! 


Goodnight everyone and I wish everyone a great evening and and even better week!

Kenny

Happy Thanksgiving!!

First off I want to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  To those who are not from the USA it is a holiday to give thanks for what you have and spend time connecting with family you may only see once a year.  If you do not celebrate already I encourage you to start the tradition.  All you need is family, friends, and a lot of good food.  Then just eat, talk, relax and be thankful for all that you have and what you have accomplished!

It has been crazy busy here due to work and wrap up of some end of year projects and I haven't had the time to write.   We have been working long ours at work trying to wrap up some projects before the weather turns bad and with the short days and long nights it takes longer to accomplish tasks that require minimal time in the warmer months.

Some items that I am working on here on the farm are sending Pearl off to her new home in Montana.  Preparing for a feed bin to store the ground feed for the pigs.  Baling corn stubble for bedding and cleaning the barn to prepare for onset of cold weather and for piglets that will start arriving at the end of December. 

 In Montana you need to brand your cattle to give them a permanent, tamper resistant marking to be sure they are not stolen and can be sorted from other cattle when out on the range.  To send Pearl out she needed to have all her health papers and vaccines.  I also needed to register a brand for our farm that is applied after she has arrived and is inspected.  If done properly it will be a lasting identifier that she will allow her to live a happy life without worrying about her going missing or being stolen!

Conser Run Farms brand.

 Steven and his brother Josh drove Pearl to Montana while headed out to visit their brother, and my good friend, David for Thanksgiving.  They will be helping brand her and all his other momma cows today.  Here is a picture of her with her new pasture mates.  I cannot wait to see how she grows and matures out there.  I highly doubt she will ever complain about the weather here in Ohio as they day she left here it was in the 60's and 24 hours later when she got there it was about 10 degrees!

Pearl, charolais x angus heifer.

Sunday morning I needed to head to town to get oil change supplies for my work car and Steven's truck as well as some other stuff.  My wife and daughter headed to go grocery shopping leaving my son and I at home to do guy things!  So I asked him weather he wanted to take the Camaro (my work car) or the truck. Without hesitation he selected the truck!  So we got dressed and headed into town.  As soon as we pulled out of the driveway I turned on a local radio station and they had some pop song on and he immediately turned his hat around and started dancing in his seat!  So dang ornery!! 

Sunday night my wife fixed a wonderful meal.  She slow cooked shank cross cuts in a casserole dish with onions, carrots, celery, and some wonderful mix of seasonings!   Delicious!

Grass fed beef shank cross cut.

Monday after getting home from work it was time to send Pearl off on her trip.  My buddy David has a very hard time getting pork where he lives as the only place to get it is at the grocery store and it is not local.  So my wife and I sent him out a little pork care package with all the goodies in it like bacon (meat candy), ham, sausage, roasts, etc.  In exchange they will be sending back deer meat from their hunting expeditions this past week.  

 I wanted to part on a happy note.  Even our cats were enjoying Thanksgiving.  I found them cuddled up on the kid's bed Thursday before we left for dinner.  Gachan had his arms wrapped around Prissy enjoying the sunlight through the window.  I believe they were quite thankful for a warm house with soft beds and plenty of space to run and play, as well as the house to themselves for the next 6 hours while we were all at grandmas!!

Hope everyone is well and have a great day!

Kenny

Pearl is getting ready for a big trip and other farm happenings!

I have a good friend, David, who moved to Montana a couple of years back with his wife.  He is the oldest brother of Steven, my helper with the pigs.  He and I have discussed several times me sending a heifer out for him to start a herd with.  This year he started buying cattle to start a herd.  His brothers both decided to head out over thanksgiving to see him and take him a horse.  So I decided to send one of my two heifers this year to join his herd and for me to start an extension of my herd in a different state. 

She will be making the trip in a week.  Yesterday she got all her shots and vaccines and paperwork for traveling.  Just like when a person decides to travel to other parts of the world and must get immunizations and such so must animals when traveling from state to state or country to country.  I am both happy and sad to see her go.  I need to grow my herd size here but I also want to expand and help my buddy grow as well.  This also gives me an opportunity to try something new and spread out the risk of farming a little as we will be doing this on shares.  I will get a portion of the money she generates and I will purchase any of the heifers that she has to continue to increase my number of momma cows.  They will sell any bulls from their herd as well as any she has.  I wish her a safe journey and lots of fun on the ranges in Montana.  We will definitely have to go see her out there next year!

Pearl : Angus x Charolais.  Grand daughter of 50 and daughter of Precious.

My daughters birthday is on Monday.  After seeing my brother Martin, her uncle, line dancing at my sister's wedding, she decided she wanted to have a party this weekend for her birthday and have Martin come teach her and her friends how to line dance.  So we set up the computer and speakers in the garage and he came down to teach everyone some line dances.  I used to know them and do them all back when I was in 4-H and college but I haven't done any for many many years!  It was fun watching though!

Line dancing in the garage.

I do not know if I mentioned before but my parents are finally getting the chance to remodel the house and fix it up right for the first time in their lives.  I am happy to help when ever I can and I haven't been able to do much due to the really busy year.  However, I took a few days off of work to get some priority things fixed before the snow flies!  

They have not had a kitchen on the house since June or July so they have been cooking on the grill or the wood fire all summer outside in the covered patio.  They also have been heating the house with the wood burner that I grew up with.  That was great when we were all younger but now it is to be more for pleasure and backup than a main heating source.  When we tore the kitchen and porches off for construction we disconnected all the gas and external water lines from the house.  My parents headed to Columbus for the weekend to go to The Ohio State Buckeyes game and stayed overnight there and then went shopping for house supplies on Sunday.  So Martin and I found the cut waterline and tied into it with a new plastic line and got it run up and into the old basement on the house for future plumbing work to get the water back on to the cows.  We also reworked the piping that was messed up at the oil well and re-plumbed all the gas back into the house.

When I was about 5 years old the first oil wells were drilled on the farms.  We converted everything over to natural gas at that time.  As a kid I helped dad install all the gas and water lines in the house and learned very young how it all works.  I have a decent amount of experience dealing with the various parts and stuff so I took the opportunity to pass some of that knowledge on to my younger brother.  In the pic below he is wondering why I am taking pictures of everything.  I learned a while ago that you don't always remember where you buried things and a quick pic is an easy way of not forgetting!   We had a lot of fun and I look forward to working with him some more in the future.  Depending on how the new deep oil wells turn out in the area this may happen sooner than later!

My neighbor and I are exchanging an older feed bin of his for a bunch of the baling I did for him this year.  I am having rodent problems in the barn and I need a place to store the supplemental feed for the pigs that the birds, rats, mice, racoons, and anything else that wants to snack on it can't get into it through.  So I prepared a pad for some concrete to put it on.  The neighbor is going to be pouring concrete in his barn tomorrow so he will be pouring this at the same time.  Will be interesting with the rain moving in as the pad is right under the drip line of the barn.  I am headed out to form it up after I finish my blog today. 

I wanted to post of pictures of the blue stone steps that I was finally able to finish at work. 

Natural Bluestone steps on toprock

I cut them in around all the natural toprock we stacked to retain the hillside to make it look like we carved the steps into solid rock.

They curved in a gradual arc all the way down to the pool deck.

A view from the pool deck looking up.

The steps leading up to the top patio were much bigger pieces.  The top one was 7' x4' and took 5 guys to get into place.  They look awesome though!  Some day I want to do something like this at my house.  Will need to build a new house first!

Well, I got a lot of stuff to get done today so I better get to it.  Have a great day everyone!!

Kenny

Another fall Nature Walk, farm pics, and a Wedding!!

Last weekend was a beautiful weekend.  It started off on Sunday a little chilly but ended up being awesome for the week!

We went on another nature walk as a family to see the cows and the fall colors and get some good exercise.  I took some pictures of a few of the calves while we were out.  First up is my Angus x Charolais x Shorthorn bull calf that was born the day before we left on vacation.  He is an awesome looking calf and is growing so fast!!  It was like he was posing for the pic.  He looks like one of the bulls you would see in a catalog for A.I. (artificial insemination) bulls.

Sorry for quality, it was a little dark and my camera phone is messed up!

This is a picture of the famous Pearl.  She is the first grand daughter of Fifty.  I have decided to send her to live on my good friends farm out in Montana near the end of November.  He is married to a great veterinarian and they moved out there to start up their own business and farm when they got married.  His brother is partners with me in the pig portion of my business.  He wants to grow his own herd of cattle out there with a Longhorn x Angus cross.  Originally I was going to just send him a heifer and then he would send one back some day.  After some long days in the tractor thinking things through I decided I wanted to invest in his herd and business instead and help him grow and grow our business as well!!!   I am very excited thinking about what the future will hold for all of us.  If we do this right great things can happen!!!

Pearl, Angus x Charolais.

For our nature walk we all decided to go south this time and go see the cows and let them back out into the extra pastures to eat the grass that finally came back with the rain.  It was a little chilly but we all had fun.

While I was on the south corner of the farm I took a panorama shot looking north.  At the top and mostly right side you can see the hill that I took some southerly pictures from on our last two walks.  I love this photo as it shows the last of the fall colors and a great shot of the whole farm.  

After opening the gates we crossed the small stream on the property line to look at the neighbors corn field on our way back to the house.  My wife decided to walk across a downed tree to cross instead of jump like the kids and I did.  I was waiting for a good pic of her getting wet but she got across without incident!

Later in the day I piled up some leaves for the kids to play in.  The pile is much bigger now but with the rain I doubt they will be much good for playing in for much longer!

 You can see her head in the middle of the pile above.

 I took Friday of last week off from work to get some things done around home and get a much needed break from work.  I also have this coming Friday off as well.  I hope to get some more done then as well.  After putting my daughter on the bus I went over to check the cows since it was sunny and 70 degrees out.  I had a chance to take a picture of Koyuki's little boy   He is looking quite good as well.

Koyuki's Charolais x Angus bull calf.

After getting back from spending time mind clearing time with the cows I stopped in to check the pigs and found them enjoying the mild weather as well.  They are looking great.  I can't wait to see how they finish out!  I was so happy to have the day off as I am guessing this is probably the last T-Shirt day we will have this year.  I like the fall colors and all but I am a warm weather person and I get depressed when winter starts to set in.  Lets hope it is a snowy one so we can at least have some fun this winter!

Our Tamworth x Hampshire x Duroc cross pigs.

Yesterday was a great day for the family as we witnessed my sister and the love of her life starting their lives together with their marriage.  This was quite different for me as I feel kind of like a second father as well as her brother.  She is nine years younger than I am and I remember when she first came home, I was getting ready to take my first calf to the fair, and then helping raise her throughout the years.  I know we have had some really big fights and disagreements but in the end we are still family and it will be quite strange not to have her around as she has always been here for the last 26 years.  The great thing is she has an awesome husband who cares for her and I know that they will do great together.

I do not have any good pictures of the wedding.  I will post some later after I get into my wife camera or grab them off of Facebook.  I do however have an aftermath picture of the second star of the wedding, Alex!  He was the ring bearer and my daughter was the flower girl.  It took us three hours to get him dressed as he has never had a shirt that buttoned to the neck on before and wanted nothing to do with a tie.  They both did perfect at the wedding!  Then, after pictures, we all headed to the reception.  Shortly after eating our food my son got up and started dancing in front of the crowd to the music.  So, the DJ threw on Gangnam Style and he really started getting down!!  In the end the entire group of groomsmen got up and danced with him.  He ended up dancing for about an hour before we got him to sit down again. 

The wedding, reception, and my sister and brother in law's home town are all about an hour away.  So not too long after getting in the car to come home he was asleep.  I brought him into bed and he flopped down like he was hung over from a frat party!  It is scary to think how quickly those days will come.  In the meantime we will try to enjoy every minute we have with them while they are this age because some day they will get married and move away as well.  I just hope we raise them right so they can enjoy a long life of their own.

Kenny