Ft. Worth Stock Show

It's that time of year again - the Ft. Worth Stock Show...

Bailey showed an Black Angus Heifer this year and did a great job. She placed 4th in her Class, which is quite an accomplishment when you walk through the barns and realize just how many hundreds of youngsters and cows are involved in this show. It's really very amazing that these kids devote so much time and effort to these bovine!

Here's a picture of the prize heifer.
This one doesn't have a name, we simply refer to her as 59U, but in a very affectionate way. Most of the time I hear Bailey calling her 'stupid' for stepping on her feet! LOL

I can assure you that the hair on this cow is softer than yours or mine! Bailey bathes, shampoos, and conditions this beast EVERY DAY!
Here is Bailey escorting 59U into the Show Ring. She looks like a pro at walking a cow...I wonder how fast her heart was beating?






Here's a cute picture of Bailey with her cousin, Gavin holding the ribbon for 4th place!
Bailey and Gavin are tight!!


This was a great learning experience for all of us and we did have a great time!

Stay tuned for more pictures of Bailey and the Calf Scramble - more fun in Rodeo arena! :)

The Year of THE SNUGGIE

Oh admit it! You secretly want one!

Well, this was the year of the Snuggie in our house, whether they realized they wanted it or not! :)

You can see from the varying expressions, that it wasn't as well received by some as it was by others! Oh well - they all soon grew to appreciate the gift and we've got snuggies all over the house.





Well...maybe Brit wasn't too excited about her Snuggie, but Briley was more than happy to model her's for everyone!



For you viewing pleasure, I thought I would show you the 'remains of the day'....


Obviously our festivities weren't exciting enough to keep her awake.

And one last picture of my girls - don't they look innocent and almost angelic? Yep, that's the facade of digital photography - everything can be edited!

Tree Decorating - Family Style

The Christmas of 2009 - (glad it's over!)

It all started on a Sunday afternoon when the girls and I were putting up the Christmas Tree. Easy enough? Right? WRONG! It was a unanimous vote by all of those living in my house which fail to financially support themselves, that WE needed new decorations for our tree. We NEEDED an entirely new theme. Hmmm??? You can guess what the next words out of their mouths were... "MOM!!! We need some money so we can go buy new ornaments."

Okay really, I had to agree with them; I was sick of the same ole' hodge podge mess. I know, I know...it really wasn't a mess, it was more like every ornament that the kids had made from daycare through the elementary years at school and any other mismatched ornament that fell into the 'eclectic' theme.

Not long after the decision was made to buy new ornaments, we all took off to the store in search of our new theme. Luckily the girls were mostly interested in using the same color of ornaments and not so much a theme that would break the bank. What's even better, I just turned them loose in the Dollar Store and after a mere $50 we had new ornaments and lights that would make us all happy! I guess that means we are just cheap, easy to please, and low maintenance! Or we are always pinching pennies so tightly that I have taught my children to have low expectations! LOL

It was a family function in our house! Everyone had a job to do - and Brittany was there to make sure we all did it right... uh... uh... I mean her way! :)


Brittany was in charge of the light placement - so she had to squeeze in and out from around the tree! Ok, so maybe she's the only one skinny enough to do it?




Bailey and Briley were charged with the task of putting the hangers on the new ornaments and following all of the orders that Brittany was barking out as she went! Oh yes, it was definitely a joyful occassion! Or Not!



At one point, they girls had to wrangle their dad into helping with the lights because for some reason we couldn't have twinkle lights. It was imparative that we have solid clear/white lights.
After about 3 hours of family togethernesss and a few close misses of a thrown ornament here and there, the tree was finished and my living room looked like a cyclone went through.




Well there you have it, our glorious Dollar Store themed Christmas Tree!
Whew.... we made it through that without any injuries!

Good Things To Come

I promise - New blogging ideas and stories on the horizon! Oh who knows? I might just get energetic enough to redo my blog and add new pictures and graphics? No promises, but you just never know what frame of mind I am going to be in from one day to the next.

First I must apologize and beg for your blogging forgiveness - I know I have left you all in a lurch and wondering what on earth has happened to my tales of woe, grief and total hysteria living in a house with teenagers!

Never fear, my life is still full of hysteria and continues to serve up portions of woe and grief! I'll be back soon with a recap of the holidays and the pictures of the favored gift.

The only good excuse I have for neglecting the blog world is just simple boredom - with ME, Myself and I! I don't do well at the holidays and I absolutely despise January, so I guess I just wish I could hide away in a closet in my PJ's and fuzzy slippers. Sadly, I can't hide - each year the Holidays roll around and wouldn't you know it, January is right there too serving up the cold, wet, windy weather! UGH!!!

Come on Spring!

Don't leave me now .... blogging madness will continue, just as soon as I can remember to download my pictures from my camera.

This poster speaks to me....

I wonder why?

Turkey Day Hang Over!

The last four days have been great - sorta? We had a wonderful day with the In-Laws on Thanksgiving, but since then we've all been bedded down and in the house like we were hibernating? I don't know if we've had some sort of virus passing amongst us, but NONE of us left the house for 3 days!

I finally mustered up enough energy to go grocery shopping Sunday afternoon, but then I went right back to bed! We were all grumpy, achy, and just totally tired! I think Brit slept for almost 24 hrs straight - the rest of us slept for 12+ hrs straight each night, then up to eat and back to bed - quite odd for all of us! I'm glad the tv cable didn't go out - there might have been a revolt! Needless to say, we weren't hopping up to get to school and work this morning - it was a long slow process this morning! :)

I'm sure we'll all be back to normal by this afternoon - Yippee!!! (insert sarcasm).

I need to clean out the fridge from the holiday leftovers and do something with some left over ham and turkey I have. I also need to work on cleaning out and cooking some little stuff I have in the freezers...I should have cleaned this weekend, but I could barely get from the bed to the bathroom - quite pathetic actually!

Surprisingly, the house stayed clean - no one cared enough to drag much out - so that's a plus! LOL

Now to deal with work - luckily not much going on in the office. From now until the end of the year it's going to be pretty dull and boring around here - which makes for really long days but I won't have to drum up much brain power to get through!

Can you tell - I'm still not over my grumpiness?

More fun on the farm with Girl Scouts

It's safe to assume that Briley has mastered the art of RUG BEATING! This seemed to be a huge attraction and all of the kiddos I watched, loved being able to beat the tar out of something!

The girls loved the tractor and wagon ride - I gotta admit, I did sorta wish I could have hopped on too... my feet were killing me.

In this dutch oven was a scrumptious looking/smelling pineapple upside down cake - too bad when we made it back around, the cake was already eaten. Now Briley is convinced that we can do this in the backyard? UH???? I'm not so sure about that? I know it can be done, but I don't think I'm going to start cooking over an open flame and I know I'm most definitely NOT going to dig a firepit in the backyard! Let's just save that fun for Girl Scout Camp.

The girls got to try their hand at quilting... sorta? They made paper quilts with pre-cut fabric squares. Super cute idea and some of the girls were quite creative with their projects. Briley on the other hand NOT SO MUCH! She glued exactly 6 tiny squares on her paper and called it done. Oh well?

Next up was grinding corn to feed to the chickens. This wheel didn't turn as easily as expected, they had to put some muscle into it.


I really thought they should have given out chickens or at the very least eggs to take home in our goody bags! I really want some chickens.....




They even had a school house that the girls could go into and have a little spelling bee amongst each other! So creative! I tell ya', these folks really went all out to make this a memorable experience.

As promised....the cow milking adventure! I had wondered how they were going to get to milk a real cow? Well???? Not so much! It was a 'pretend' cow, but they really did get to experience the whole 'utter' thing and milk came out. So I guess everyone was pleased? The all walked away shaking their cream into butter and nibbling on fresh homemade icecream!



Due to the massive crowd at the Candle Dipping Exhibit and the amount of time it took to actually dip and cool, the candles the girls made weren't exactly what they had in mind. However, since they all showed such a huge interest in this craft, we are going to incorporate Candle Making into one of our meetings and hopefully we can come up with a few candles that are a little more viable than this...

You get the idea - it would eventually be a candle...after about 400 more trips around the hay stacks and 400 more dips into the wax! LOL

The day was ended by a ride on the wagon - pulled by the weary looking mules?? donkeys??? I don't know what they were, but they were hot and tired! (So were we!)

Girl Scout Road Trip

This past weekend, the Plano Heritage Farmstead Museum had Scout Day for the Boy and Girl Scouts in the area. This event was so much fun for our girls, I was pleasantly surprised at how organized and fun the day turned out. There were so many different activities that the troops could participate in with hands on experiences, and we didn't spend any time at all wandering around waiting for our turn or looking for something to do.

Here are a few pics of the day:
This is the front of the house which was the original homestead built on the property in 1891.




Here is a picture of the drawing room... my main interest was the quilt in the frames, of course. They wouldn't let us use any flashes in the house so my picture doesn't really capture the beauty of the quilt or of the room.

The girls were really stunned when the tour guide talked about how 'early' phones worked...I gotta admit, it did seem like a lot of work to make a phone call?
The next point of interest was the bathroom - I don't think my pictures do the bathtub justice - that thing was HUGE - I'm pretty sure you could have bathed three or four kids in there, at one time?

I absolutely fell in love with this quaint little kitchen - I realize it was small, but oh how warm and inviting....

Check out the coffee grinder - fresh ground coffee! This was obviously before the Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts starting popping up on every corner.

Next, it was time for a little laundry...I don't think I'll see Briley adding this to her daily chore list? She was impressed for about 2 minutes, then the water and the mess of it all quickly turned her interest to something else. :)



Soon it was time to learn how to tie knots! This is not something that I have ever been able to excel in. Just give me a pair of tennis shoes to tie and that's about where my personal skill level ends. Luckily, I don't have any real 'knot tying' needs in my world!

We'll end today's post on one last note.... Bathroom Break Anyone?

Be sure to stop back by my blog tomorrow, as I share our adventures in cow milking, candle dipping, and oh so much more!

The Culinary Talents of Bailey

Who Knew?
Little did I know or realize that Bailey has an interest in cooking!! This is an awesome discovery - what's more awesome is that she made cookies following a recipe -all by herself. She was home alone and had a hankering for something sweet, so what's a girl to do?

Disclaimer: I had no idea Bailey knew how to read or use a measuring cup/spoon - so this was a huge accomplishment! Up until this point, Bailey is the TV dinner queen and is quite happy just eating whatever jumps out at her and is easy.

Much to my surprise, Bailey went to the trusty Better Homes and Garden, red and white checked cookbook and found a recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies.

This is the very same cookbook that I learned to cook out of as a child and when I married 20+ years ago, I received my very own copy to grace the shelves of my kitchen. I've used it for so many basic starter recipes. It really has become a staple in our kitchen. I guess Bailey has seen me drag it out enough, that she decided to give it a try.

She only needed to call me once to ask 'What is granulated sugar?' .... I guess she thought that was something magical, so when I told her it was just plain sugar she was even more excited that we had all of the ingredients she needed. Away she went, measuring, scooping, and stirring! I did warn her to check the oven before she turned it on - it's my hiding place for skillets and usually dirty skillets that are filled with left over bacon grease - why do I hate to clean those out? Oh well that's a story for another post. Other than my one warning, she went on her way and starting whipping up a batch of cookies.

When I arrived home an hour or so later, Bailey greeted me with these lovely treats...


I couldn't believe it - they were perfect! No smoke filled kitchen, no mess in the sink - It's a Miracle! AND... they tasted great! (Ya' know, I did forget to ask her if she washed her hands before she started...with her ya' never really know?? Oh well... not gonna worry about it!)

She did tell me her arm was tired from mixing the ingredients. I looked puzzled at her and asked, "Why didn't you use the electric mixer?". Her reply, "OH, it didn't say to in the recipe, and I didn't know we had one?" LOL... I guess that big white thing is the Pantry is just decoration? Oh well...live and learn!

Peanut Butter Cookies? Anyone? (And she used Sugar Crystals for an extra zip!)

I'm a Blogging Dud....

Yep...That's... DUD.... not DUDE!!!

Sorry my blogging buddies, but lately I just haven't had much to blog about? Or at least nothing that sounds noteworthy to me?

Just super busy with work, trying to convince myself that Christmas is coming and nothing I say or do will stop it! Our Thanksgiving plans are already in place and you know what that means... yep... the tree goes up next!

Bailey has finished the softball tournaments for the fall and now we are leaping into showing livestock. As a matter of fact, she has a Jack Pot Show this weekend and that will start up the Heifer/Pig season for us until the big County show in the Spring. Along with High School Softball starting in February!

Briley is busy busy with learning multiplication tables - not so much!!! Let me just say this - they don't teach math the way I learned it, 30 yrs ago! Whatever happened to learning one family of facts before moving on? This is so frustrating to both of us. So, this cranky know-it-all mother is taking multiplication into my own hands and WE are going to learn them one fact family at a time! Geez?? It's flashcard time at our house each night - no excuses - Briley is going to learn/memorize this stuff, if it kills us! Well, you know what I mean? LOL

Brit is less than 12 hrs away from having 1500 hours for a completed Cosmetology Course! That means that she 'should' officially be finished with class by 5PM tomorrow??? Keeping my fingers crossed - with her - anything could happen!
Woo Hoo... I feel like I have personally done each and every one of those 1500 hours with her - or at least I've stressed over her completing this course for 1500 hours or MORE! Now the next big step is to pass the State Board Exam, (which I'm sure she will) but I just don't know what her level of enthusiasm is to get this test scheduled and completed!

So there you have it - nothing exciting - just plugging along with life!