Long Time No Blog

Wow, I haven't blogged in forever.  I was inspired by  another new blogger, Jessica Hughes, to update my little blog.  You should go check her out at thegroundedgypsy.blogspot.com.  I love her post about sisters.  Her post is about using the term sister, not always meaning that you were born of the same parents but has a term of endearment.  I have even taken up calling people sister even though I have a true-blue, red-blooded, wonderful sister of my own. 

Okay, let me catch you up on what has been going on in my small but busy world. 

1.  Reagan had a great stock show season.  She had the overall reserve grand prospect pig at the County Show and then placed 4th at The Star of Texas Rodeo in Austin.  Our pig we took to Austin was named Chad - you know after Chad Knaus the crew chief for Jimmy Johnson.  (We all know that is all about Chad.)  Chad was actually supposed to be our Houston pig but he decided that he wanted to stick around for a bit longer and decided to start limping like 3 days before we were supposed to leave.  Therefore, Reagan and I spent many hours rubbing his legs with Ben Gay, doctoring his feet, and whatever else we thought would make him better.  Of course Henlee was in the big middle of it too and we did it.  Our last pig left the barn about 2 weeks ago.  It was bitter sweet.  Every ending is the start of new beginning right?

2.  Softball Season.  Reagan wasn't sure she wanted to play this year because last year was such a disaster.  On the last day that we could turn in her form, she told me she wanted to play.  Then her coach calls and says "hey will you help me coach and by the way we need a pitcher."  We have a girl that pitches for a select team but one is never enough.  I asked Reagan to try it and if she didn't like it, there was no pressure to go forward with it.  She LOVES it and seems to be pretty good.  We spend about 5 days a week at the field pitching and then practicing with her team.  She has a great coach that really knows what he is doing.  Also, this is a very young team.  Almost all of the girls are 5th graders like Reagan except for 2.  They are playing against 6th and 7th graders.  They are doing great.  Say a few prayers for us tonight because I think she is going to pitch in her first game.  (Mom is waaaaayyyyy nervous.)

3.  Henlee is bound and determined that she is showing a red-cross pig this fall in jackpots.  This girls loves her pigs and actually knows what she is doing.  We shall see but it looks like we will be hitting some jackpots this year.

4.  Henlee's speech is much better but there is still room for improvement.  My sister and I both said that we should get her into a German language class before she gets "fixed" because some of the words she says seem to have a German sound to them. 

5.  Rylee is almost done with her first year at A&M.  We are so proud of her.  She just recently got a job driving the bus that transports students.  She had to pass her CDL first which was a big accomplishment in and of itself.  DW jokingly asked if she wanted to come drive a truck for Bottlingers this summer.  She politely declined.  We are excited to have her back home for the summer.  She will be working at the Fort Worth Zoo and taking a few classes.  I am sure that she will be ready to be back in College Station and for some Aggie football by the time August gets here.  We are also doubly excited that she will have new roommates this year.

6.  Bryce is loving him some soccer.  He played for Weatherford High School this year as well as select ball.  At the high school level he started on the Freshman team but was moved up to JV.  He is now if fully blown select ball and is also playing indoor soccer for the first time.  One weekend he had 3 games in one day.  Lisa is staying very busy being the taxi driver.

7.  My brother has come and helped me on the weekends put some color in our house.  We still have 2 rooms to go but it is looking much better.  My brother is a one-of-a-kind guy.  He has the biggest heart. 

Well, I think that hits most of the high lights.  I hope to be a better blogger but I make no promises. 

Yea Me and Positive Thoughts

I fixed my blog without having to call Shelley or someone else. Here are some things I am looking forward to since I am not looking forward to school starting:

1. Spending the weekend with my family at the river in Waco celebrating my niece's 17th Birthday. What sweet and blessed child Rylee is. Poor DW has to stay at home and work.

2. Reagan's August Birthday Party. Reagan had asked me back in the Spring if she could have her kids party in the summer. I said, "Shoot yea!!" This make it way easier on me in December since so much else is going on then. She will still have her family party then but at least she will get to do something she likes for her party and with friends - swimming.

3. Ranger game with Amy and the kids.

4. Reagan's new teachers. (Even though I am not looking foward to the rigidity of a school schedule, I am looking forward to working with the people I am entrusting my child too.)

5. Getting our new pig barn. I just hope it is up in time for the new babies to come to our house.

6. Picking out Reagan's pigs for the coming stock show year.

7. Labor Day weekend. I want to be in Weatherford all weekend at my sister's pool but I am cathing a little flack from my niece Rylee and Reagan. They want to stay in Hamilton. This is the first year in a long time that HISD has taken Monday off and we could have 3 days of mean pool volleyball games.

8. My cousin's wedding in October.

Okay. I think that is enough to get me through for a while. One more thing that I need to brag about. My cousin, Jennifer McFalls, who played softball for A&M and then was on the Olympic Softball teams is now an Assistant coach at Texas. I don't particularly like the orange but it is a great opportunity for her.

Farmer's Bounty

I know. I haven't blogged in a VERY long time. I don't really know why except that I didn't feel like sharing. Yes, I was being selfish. However, this is my favorite time of year to get my camera out. HARVEST TIME. I blog about this every year but I love to watch our crop go from dirt to green to golden. Is there going to be enough rain? Will we get a late freeze and freeze it out? Will the army worms eat it all? Will a hail storm blow through just as it is heading out and destroy it? Or will God's light shine on us and enough rain will fall and we will reap a bountiful harvest? This year all the pieces fit. Our oats were beautiful and bountiful.

Every year since Henlee was born, I take pictures of DW with his girls right before the crop is harvested. If you are a regular to my blog, you see the annual picture change. This is the time of year for about 4-6 weeks that we see very little of our DW. He leaves the house early to check and feed our cows because he can't go at lunch, he gets home around 8:30 or 9:00 at night and eats a bite with us, and then he goes to bail hay until midnight or later. The girls get very excited when they see their Daddy and it also gives DW a little jump start to hear their squeals and laughter when he walks in the door. It makes a Mom/wife's heart melt.

Therefore, the title for my post - a Farmer's Bounty. I will let the pictures speak for themselves now.

Sisterly Love. By the way, Reagan is the best big sister Henlee could have ever hoped to have. I tell Reagan she is as good a big sister to Henlee as Lisa is to me.

Fire, Fire, and FIRE

Between the hours of 11:00 A. M. Christmas Eve and noon on Christmas Day, we managed to have 3 fires in our house and our house is still standing. Here is a little synopsis of each:

FIRST FIRE: If you will recall, it was very cold here on Christmas Eve so before DW left for work, he lit a fire in our wood stove. Now we love that wood stove and use it to basically heat our entire house which is a good thing right. Well, the only problem is when the wind blows 40 mph and it is wet wind, the smoke has a tendency to come back down and spill into our house. This is what happened on Thursday. I was at my Mom's helping get the food ready for Christmas Eve night and my sister has stayed at my house with the girls. She calls and says the house is filling up with smoke. I call DW and he heads home to see what he can do about it. Well, sometimes, if you can get the fire hot enough, it will take the smoke back so he tried adding more wood. That only seemed to exacerbate the problem so then he decides he just needs to get the burning wood and coals out of the house. (This is not his first rodeo.) My sister said when she saw a burning log on my kitchen tile, she quickly moved the girls back to the back room. Because also I think DW was spewing a few expletives. Anyway, he managed to get it taken care of but we smelt like we had been at a campfire all weekend and my house smelled like we hosted INSIDE the house.

FIRE TWO: Christmas morning I managed to start a fire in our oven. I had put together a breakfast casserole the day before and all that needed to be done was to bake it. Well, on the 23rd we had the girls' family birthday and our good friend Amy brought the cutest Frosty miramac (spelling ?) plate with fabulous banana nut bread on it. Well, you know how things get crazy and you run out of room on your cabinets so you sometimes put things in your oven just to get them out of the way? Well, that is all good and fine except don't preheat the oven and leave that stuff in there. You will have melted and burning Frosty all over your oven racks and the bottom of your oven. You will also have to scrape him out - which is no easy task, just ask DW - before you can cook the breakfast casserole. All turned out well in the end. Everyone loved the casserole but poor Frosty is in hard melted junks probably at the bottom of the dumpster.

FIRE THREE: After the fire in the oven and before opening presents - my girls sleep late no matter if Santa has been there - DW decided to add more wood to our stove. As he was doing this, a coal fell out onto his oven mitt and managed to burn a hole through it.

I have pictures of my oven fire that hopefully I can post sometime but if you want to come by and smell my new parfume -Smoke`you are more than welcome to but I don't suggest you buy any for yourself. It is way overrated.

By the way, DW is a fire bug and has always loved fires but I think he maybe had enough this weekend. Happy New Year.

Turning 40 in Vegas

Finally, proof that I actually did take DW to Vegas for his 40th birthday and proof of how much FUN we had. We laughed and we laughed and then we laughed some more. Thank you Doug, Tammy, Dave, and Beck for making this a birthday to remember.

O, Lordy, what kind of surprise awaits DW?

There is a background story here. When we were leaving Sunday, these two came out with the same shirt on. Well, when they were little boys, their Mom always dressed them alike and of course, they hated it. I'm not sure they looked as adorable as they used to though.

Tambo is the next one to turn 40 but she doesn't think she wants to go to Vegas, she is thinking

blue water, sand, and cabana boys.

Pig Boots

" Wait for Me!!!"
The sisters and their pig boots

Headed to feed - oh yea, they don't walk, they ride the gator. Mom and Dad do the walking.

Putting the bucket up for the next feeding.

If you haven't already guessed, the pigs have made us spend lots of time together as a family -not that we didn't before, but feeding time has created lots of good memories for us.

Meet Buiddy and Patches

These are the newest members of our family - Buddy (the brown one) and Patches (the pink one with gray "patches"). Back in the middle of September we went to pig sales and purchased these prize pigs for Reagan to show at the County show in January. We are very excited and nervous pig owners. There is a lot a person needs to know about pigs.

1. Pigs get sunburned - especially the pink or white ones. Therefore you put sunscreen on them daily and you also call your brother in a panic to come help you put up tarps to protect these little creatures skin.

2. Feed your pigs eggs so their their skin will be pretty for showtime.

3. Their feed is more expensive than what you feed your own children.

4. Pigs sometimes have to eat yogurt because their digestive tracts are as sensitive as ours.

5. Pigs like toys to play with in their pens. Patches likes the rubber ball to push around with her snout and also the rubber ducky because he squeaks. Buddy isn't much into this but he likes to watch Patches play.

6. Each pig has their own personality. Patches likes to run. She runs around the back of the barn and back around and waits for you to tell her go. She constantly bites your boots and sniffs your legs. Buddy on the other hand would rather eat, drink, and sleep. He is your typical pig except that I do think he likes baths. This weekend we loaded the pigs in the trailer and Reagan and I scrubbed Patches and Buddy. We had a loofah sponges, Suave, and Joy. Reagan chased Patches around the trailer but Buddy stood quite still while I scrubbed him from snout to tail. (Of course he is a boy pig.) They were so shiny and beautiful after we were done. It was a lot easier than I anticipated.

7. You have to have pig boots or your entryway will smell like pig. All of us girls now have pig boots. I have to say I love to see Reagan and Henlee in theirs. I will try to get a picture and post it because it is the cutest thing ever. I will spare you the picture of me in mine.

8. You have to have good people that help you learn about pigs and don't mind when you call 5 times a day because your pig has diarrhea and is throwing up.

Yes, we love our pigs and I can't even tell you how responsible Reagan is with her pigs. She feeds every morning before school and then at night. She knows how many pounds of feed puts a pound on a pig. She knows that flaky skin will not show well and she baby oils them up. She knows that Buddy is a bit lazier and may need more walking because he is not as self-motivated as Patches. Life is good with our pigs and they are "some pigs". (Remember Wilbur from Charlotte's Web?)