Westward Ho!

Today is Trails West for the kids. They dress in (sort of) period clothing and act out the trail rides west. They have been just about bouncing off the walls for the last week because they get so excited about this. All four of them just love doing this and everything about it.




Abigail didn't bring her costume home.


They have to earn points with good behavior in order to go. Then after they get their points, the classes draw to see who gets to be an Indian. As you can see, my blonde daughter is the only one that got to be an Indian. Since she looks nothing like the part she's devised a story to go with it. She told me this morning that her name is Mary and she was taken by the Indians when she was small. :0)

Can you guess?

Can you guess what these have in common?






What was your guess? Really. I want to know. Did you guess that we used dog treats to lure homeless dogs and shot them? Did you guess something worse?!





Well, they describe our weekend.

Saturday Addison & I made dog treats. She even insisted that we cut them out in shapes (I guess the dogs prefer them that way?)

On Sunday we took the to the closest animal shelter and fed them to the dogs there. Of course the kids wanted to bring another dog home and were not happy that the answer is NO!!! :0)

After the stop at the shelter we headed into Austin to the gun show. I found a little pistol that I really liked and it fit well in my hand but they wanted $875 for it. Yikes!! Needless to say, they can keep it for that price.


When we left the gun show we stopped and ate at Golden Corral on the way home. We haven't been there in ages and we certainly ate like it too. Everyone was misserable on the way home because we all ate far too much.

I hope your weekend was close to the excitement of ours.

Ugh!

So I had to go buy one of these for one of my daughters:







I'm so not ready for this. How do I stop it?



{cringing with my head in my hands}

Old Home Movies

Dax was looking through some video stuff the other day and came across this. It's from Christmas 5 years ago. I think the kids had just turned 6. Kirsten is the one pushing the box at the beginning of the video and then Addison gets started. We just died laughing at Addison in this video and both wondered why we didn't even remember this happening. Thank goodness for video cameras.

Mother's Day

I hope everyone had a happy Mother's Day. Mine was nice. The family let me sleep in. Dax got up with the kids (and pets) to keep the noise level down and the arguments contained to the part of the house that isn't right outside our bedroom door. (That's where they usually like to fight.)

They usually make breakfast for me and yell at me if I get out of bed too soon. So... I laid there for quite awhile waiting. Finally someone came in to see if I was awake yet and to ask if we could go to the cafe' for breakfast. HA! Figures. So we all got dressed and went to the cafe' and it was nice. We went home and opened gifts.

I got lots of goodies.



From Kirsten I got a cute chicken print for my kitchen. I've looked at these about a hundred times but never wanted to spend the money (and they weren't even expensive.)





From Abigail, I got seasons 1 and 2 of Seinfeld. Woohoo!! (I'm pretty sure her Daddy had a little input on that one.)




Addison got me some Turtle Chex Mix. Love that stuff!! Chances are I won't share either. :0) She also got me a 2009 Debbie Mumm date book. It's very cute.



(Do you see the poor dog getting squished in there?)



And Wyatt got me the next book in the James Patterson series. I think he's come out with #8 so I'll have to be sure to remind them of that when my birthday rolls around.




The rest of the day was spent pretty leasurely and that's just the way I like it.

Ooohhh! The humanity.....

After the garbage men had been by the other morning they left this poor soul in the street. Where in the world is the rest of him?







The best part though was the commotion from the kids when I got to the end of the drive and said, "Oh my God, there's half a body in the street!" The seat belts came unfastened so quickly it sounded like an airplane pulling up to the gate. I'm not sure if they were relieved or disappointed to see that it was only a doll -- I mean action figure. But, we left it in the street and they were thrilled when they got home from school to find that he had been run over and was in several parts.



Kinda' scary if you think about it.



Oh, and by the way, this is post number 100. Woohoo!!

They grow up so fast.

My babies are just growing up so fast. Just look at this...






Wyatt decided that it's time for him to have coffee every morning. After he finishes his breakfast, he sits at the table sipping his coffee until 7:00, when it's time for him to go get dressed. Now Abigail has decided to have coffee too. Only, she usually goes to get dressed while her coffee cools a little and then forgets about it. :0) Next they'll be wanting the car keys!


Oh, and don't worry. It's decaf coffee with cream and sugar. Nothing too bad.

The good, the bad, and the ugly....

The good.

On Saturday we adopted a cat from the shelter. No, I absolutely do not need another cat. So, yes, I must be crazy. He's an older cat and I don't know why I was drawn to him but I had been in there at least three times before Saturday to look at him. I guess he was waiting for me...that's what Dax says anyway.

We've named him Gibbs. He's about 10 years old, very friendly and loving, and weighs about 20 pounds. He's huge!!





The bad.

In the wee hours of Sunday morning I had to have my dog put to sleep. His stomach had twisted and after trying different things to correct the problem, surgery was the only alternative left. Because of his age (13 years old) and severe arthritis in his hips I decided that it was best for him to have him put to sleep. I know it wasn't best for me because I'm heartbroken. He was a good dog and a good sport when the kids messed with him and I miss him terribly.




The ugly.

I don't really know if this qualifies as ugly or not, but it's the best I could do. Mostly, I guess it's a lesson on how not to sit when you're out in public. I was going to say that you shouldn't sit like this in a bikini, or by the pool, but then I realized that I couldn't really think of the time or place in public that it might be appropriate.




Besides, you never know who's got a camera and a blog. Mmmmwwwaaahhhaaahhhhaaaa!

Turning point...

I knew this day would come, but I really wasn't quite ready for it. I thought we would have a few more years before it became an issue. I don't know what to do. I may have to pull the kids out of public school and home school them. (Of course, I would have to hire someone to come to my home and school them. lol)




What's happened to bring this on, you ask?




Wyatt informed me yesterday that he is aware that the shirts he's been wearing (and buying with his own allowance) are not real Under Armor shirts. Another kid at school has pointed out to him the difference between name brand and what's on sale at Target!!!




Can you see now how horrible this is?




I'm sure that eventually he'll tell his sisters about this too.....then it's all over. We'll be done for.




I guess it means that they won't buy into this being a cool look either.






Do you think there's any hope that off brands will become the next cool thing? That's all I have left to hope for.

Concert

Last night the 4th & 5th graders had a concert at school. A recorder concert!!





It was really fun and the kids really enjoyed it. (Wyatt was there but not in any of the pictures because he was hidden behind the teacher.) Although, I have to admit that during the first song I had to turn my head the other way because it was so awful that I got the giggles and I didn't want them to see me laughing. I made Dax take the video camera and tape it though because I felt like the grandparents should have to suffer, uhm, I mean get to enjoy it just like we did. To give you an idea of what this was like, when they practice at home the cat bites them. lol

I do notice though that there are usually only of handful of kids that participate in these types of activities and it's always the same kids. Kinda' sad.

On another note, last night at dinner Wyatt was talking about in PE that he would have been one of the top 5 runners but he slowed down to let someone else in front of him. The reason....because if he was one of the top 5 he would have to do special things to work harder at improving that thing he was good at!! GAAH!! There's nothing like having your son point out that he's underachieving on purpose. *sigh*