ten happy things friday

one

This little cutie is crawling! At her 6 month check up the doc was very impressed with her being ahead of several milestones (by the way, don't let anyone stress you out about those timelines, Mamas, babies are all different- some are over achievers/show offs and others could care less about impressing you with anything other than how loud they scream or big they smile.) Anyhow, we knew she would crawl early and she was sitting and backing up and this week she got the legs and arms working together to go forward. Our lives will never be the same now.

two

I can't take a picture of this guy not smiling. In just about every single picture that I take at swim Ry has a huge grin on his face. While he's diving, when he comes up for air, when he's practicing kicks and floating on his back. Also, how awesome is that picture of him jumping off the diving board? He has no fear.

three

My D-Man. I'm so proud of him. I know he was nervous about jumping off that board, but he did it. I loved getting to watch both boys have so much fun.

four
The C25K program. I'm almost done with week 4. So I am half way! I'm happy with my progress- especially because at the beginning I thought week four was impossible. Honestly, every week I look at the next week's training and think it seems unlikely that I can do it and then every week I surprise myself and do it. It's not always perfect, definitely not "easy", but I never quit. I'm running for me, but having the family there at the park (there's is an awesome track there) really encourages me to keep going.

five
The blended iced coffee I made the other afternoon. 2 cups hazelnut coffee, two scoops Dulce de luche ice cream, handful of ice and a splash of vanilla almond milk. It was a great pick-me-up (and a nice indulgence).

six

Sisters. Rose is so sweet and such a good big sister.

seven
Fresh basil, rosemary and cilantro from our garden.

eight
Sleeping until 7am. On a weekday!

nine
The bbq ribs I made for Father's Day.... can't wait to make them again.

ten
A big birthday shout-out to CLB- Happy 30th!!!!

the P.S. is more important than my weekend

Hi there. It's another Monday which means it's time for the weekend update. We got to see our friends, CLB and Holly (as well as our Goddaughters) on Sunday. I loved getting to see them again! Their baby, S, is just shy of a year old (she didn't remember me- big sad face) and she cried when her parents left to do some shopping and get something to eat. I finally got her settled down when I took her outside to watch the chickens run around. It was a little chilly for her so after about 10 minutes I came back inside, she was not thrilled at this turn of events, so I found some Elmo videos on Youtube and she was so content she fell asleep. I thanked God for that, because I honestly can only take so much of Elmo. (Although I will admit, I'd rather suffer through Elmo than Barney and (cringe) Baby Bop- I swear she teaches children the whiny voice.)

We gave S her birthday present and the boys showed her how to play with it (a shape sorting picnic basket) and then promptly took off with it to "have a picnic". They were begging us to let her open it and now I know why. (Clever children I'm raising.)

Of course, like 95% of all Sundays, I made pizza and we watched the Sunday night football game. I even made it past half time and watched it in it's entirety. It was a quick game. I was also preoccupied with reading funny websites and getting ideas about where to continue my Christmas shopping... so maybe I didn't watch it in it's "entirety".

Back up to Saturday. I can't remember what I did. Let me think.... oh, we slept in and I made pancakes for breakfast. I know, riveting information! My mind is drawing a big blank right now. I also made lasagna for supper. I don't know why I can't remember anything else except for what we ate. Oh well. I guess I just cleaned up and watched Ratatouille for the millionth time. T was helping CLB do some clearing/cleaning up so when he got home we ate and then watched Lonesome Dove. D said it was his favorite movie and I had a huge burst of pride from that. All three of the kids like it. D and Ry find their cowboy hats and pretend they are Gus and Woodrow and Rose says yeehaw every time there are horses on the screen (so, pretty much all the time.)

Friday night we all went grocery shopping. We bought Forrest Gump and watched it when we got home. (the kids didn't watch it all) I even bought popcorn for the occasion. I don't know when it happened, but popcorn is like a special treat for us now and I rarely buy it. I don't mind, it's one less thing to put on the list.

Well, I guess that's enough about us. I'm sure more fascinating things will happen to keep this blog alive for tomorrow.

P.S.

please keep

CLB's family 

and 

Christine's family (especially her little boy)

in your prayers. 

normal and much less personal

Well, well... shall we start with yesterday? I had an hour in the middle of the day Tuesday all to myself and miraculously all three children took a nap. (At the same time!) Rare as rare can get these days. I let myself think some seriously deep thoughts and this happened. Apparently I made some people cry (sorry) and honestly I could barely proof read it with the darn eyes tearing up. Thanks for your lovely comments. I was a little-okay, a lot- worried about publishing something that is so personal. Sometimes I forget that my friends, in-laws and husband read this. Oh, and sometimes my dad. It was really scary all of the sudden when I thought of that, because even those who I'm close to in my personal (non-Internet) life suddenly knew some things I went through and I didn't talk much about.

and now on to less sappy things

This is how I found Rose last week during nap time. Her picture book was opened to the page with Daddy on it. Just thought it was cute.

We opened our yard gate and let the cows and horses feast on green grass. They mowed it down pretty quickly.

I'm seeing more of this than I want to. Should I start harvesting?

I'll probably lose this list before I'm done writing this post. I will probably do 2.3 of these things and I'll let you guess which ones they might be. Don't you like how supper has question mark? I like making lists but I hate following them. I think this has something to do with my dislike of being told what to do. I'll see if I can cross some stuff off, though.

Also, yesterday was my friend Holly's birthday. I hope you took my advice and had something with sugar. You are awesome and I hope you had a great day!

My sister-in-law is trying to unleash my real name and identity on her blog. How dare her. (she is hilarious and super talented, go say hello to her.)

 Stay classy.

I heart you & random things from this week

First of all, I loved your comments yesterday. It was a little scary hitting publish since I'm not really the type that easily shares my feelings and gets all personal. I know it wasn't super personal, but if you know me well then you understand that was huge for me. So, thank you for commenting, it really means so much.

Yesterday I got my scissors out. The hair was just ridiculous. I was a little nervous at first but I went ahead and snip! it was laying on the floor. I'm talking about the boys' hair! I trimmed it up over their ears and necks... and now they will look so handsome at their great grandpa's 96th birthday party on Saturday. It's a surprise so don't be spilling the beans! 

 Where is Ry? I'll have to get a picture of him later.

I didn't even come near Rose with the scissors. Be proud because she climbed on the stool and said, "Hey cut?" (and also her hair looks like this 80% of the time because she pulls out her clips). Alright, maybe I brushed it in her face for this picture, but it really does hang in her eyes! She's still adorable so she wins. I didn't attempt to cut my split ends off (am I really talking about this?) because what if I mess up? Then I'd have to get a real haircut with someone I'd have to pay and make an appointment with. So, I'm just going to be nice to my ends and give them some deep conditioning therapy until I can, you know, afford my stylist. (It's been 16-ish months since my last hair cut, I hope she still works there.) Alright, enough about my hair already.

Earlier this week Beard-O called me (he was helping our friends move) and told me about how a certain someone labeled their boxes of movies. Hysterical, I tell ya! Ah, a joke for years and years to come.

I experienced an (extra small sized) miracle yesterday in my living room. There were toy trucks and trains scattered all over and the kids were in a different room entirely so I asked them to pick them up so I could vacuum. I walked away and about five minutes or so later I walked back through that room and noticed that something looked different. The toys were gone. All of them. I called the boys back into the living room and said, "You picked all your toys up?! The first time I asked? Y'all are so awesome!!" Really. And I picked each of them up and swung them around in a big hug and gave them a big kiss and told them I loved them. (I am hoping they remember how genuinely happy I was about this so they will continue this wonderful thing.) What a shock! Usually I pretend to almost vacuum their toys up so they will actually move. Hmm, I wonder if that was what worked? Does that make me a bad mom? I think I need my sink.

That will be all for now. I'm looking forward to a semi-relaxing weekend with family. Maybe we'll go crazy and rent a Redbox movie! Who knows?

The Weekend Blurb

Let's start with Friday night. We rented two movies and I made hamburgers (they were delicious) and stayed up too late. I actually didn't even make it through the second movie (it was around midnight). It didn't have enough action during the first 20 minutes to keep me from "resting my eyes".

Saturday we got to sleep in until 7:30 (yes, it was amazing). Then Beard-O took D with him to drop something off for work and came back with donuts. Then we hung out at the house all day and watched a few football games. (Our Longhorns didn't have a game this week) That evening we loaded everyone up and headed to our friend's engagement party. It was pretty late for the kids (around their bedtime) and they were on a ball entertaining people. The boys wrestled and Rose charmed anyone that looked her way. And then Matt (Mr. Engaged) pulled out the game of Life and the boys were entertained-quietly-for the rest of the time we were there. We had a great time and got home around midnight. Late night, yes. Dunkin Donuts coffee on the way home? You betcha. Oh, almost forgot! At the party one of our friends asked me what I had been posting on Facebook during the wildfire... It was something like Mama's little something... OH. I might have turned a pretty shade of red and said something along the lines of oh, that's my blog... it was just pictures that Beard-O took. It's really nothing. I sometimes write there. I sometimes write there. Like it was a place I travel to once every few years and vacation. I was a little bit caught off guard. I didn't expect anyone to there to ask about it.

Sunday we got to sleep in again! How very awesome. I made a big breakfast in celebration of Beard-O's upcoming birthday. Pancakes, eggs and sausage. We stuck a candle in his pancakes and sang Happy Birthday to him. Actually the kids left me hanging and I was singing all by my lonesome. I stopped, oh so briefly, in the middle on singing only to have Beard-O give me a look that said "you started this so you better finish it". I bought him a song on iTunes for his birthday. I know. I also made him a cake that was delicious and is staring at me right now begging me to eat a piece for breakfast. We shall see, cake, we shall see.

I dug out some old cowboy boots for Rose that one of her brothers wore for approximately one week. Here is the darling helping me out with the chickens.

I think that's all I have for today. Nothing super fancy, but it was a good weekend. Thanks for stopping by!

Finally, something without a weather report

For those of you that want to know about the pumpkin muffins I made yesterday I got the recipe here and I also have a link to it over on my "In the Kitchen" page. Cause I be fancy like that. And how were they? I had to hide them from the kids (okay, and myself) so we wouldn't eat them all at once. Beard-O thought they were really good and ate a few (three) himself last night. Altogether I had three as well. So, thumbs up and delicious and I like the fact that it called for a regular can of pumpkin so I wasn't using only 2/3 of a can and then trying to figure out how to use leftover canned pumpkin in my spaghetti sauce. (Which is what we had for dinner last night. without pumpkin.) You should definitely try them! I got 15 regular sized muffins out of it.

my sign of approval

I'm hoping I didn't come across as really grumpy this week. I have been (this is for you T) strug-ga-ling with my mood in the mornings. Several mornings while I was trying to find something to write about (note the amount of times I thought weather was good topic) I was so frustrated and irritated. It literally took me three hours to write yesterday's post. I know. I know. Of course, by the time I was dedicated to it (I deleted many. many. paragraphs) all the kids were awake and I was even more frustrated with myself. As soon as I hit publish and walked away I felt so much better. Mood was elevated about seven thousand notches and then I wondered what was wrong with me. Here's the thing: some mornings I just want to read blogs and pretend shop on Amazon and just don't feel like writing but I force myself to and try to rush through it and it puts me in a really awful mood for a tiny little while. Then the afternoon rolls around and I feel inspired by someone or have just thought of something good to write about and since I've already posted nonsense that morning I just go on about my day. Why are you telling us this? So you won't be alarmed if I don't post in the morning. It probably means I'll post in the afternoon. Wow, all of that just to say I might post in the afternoon. (I used to do that.)

Our friends came by last night (they are moving next week to the land of Far, Far Away.) When they were leaving H (can I just use your name?) said, "Well, goodbye. We probably won't see you again." I know she meant she won't see us again before they leave but it made me sort of laugh. Of course you will see us again. You can never get away from us that easily. Muah ha ha ha. (that's supposed to be evil laughter; I probably messed it up.) Anyhow, we're going to miss you guys while you're living in the strange land of Rock Yards. (Maybe you can make some pet rocks to put out there!!) Geeze, I make myself laugh. Like I said, find the best Mexican food out there and we might come visit. It has to be comparable to Maudies, alright? I have high standards when it comes to enchiladas.

Have a fantastic weekend!