A winter video...

This was a video made by my friend the day it snowed. You'll see me with Sophie in her coat at the end of it.

The kids were having such a good time!

The record snow fall...

So it started snowing early on the 11th and it didn't stop until mid afternoon. By the time it was all said and done, almost 6" of snow was on the ground. We lost many limbs from our live oak trees and we lost the entire live oak tree that was right off our back porch. I was very disappointed. It would have eventually been cut down as it was really too close to the house, but I sure didn't want to do it any time soon!

The horses were miserable the whole day. I felt bad for them...they wouldn't stay in the shed, they were soaked from the rain the whole day and night before, they were shivering and there wasn't anything I could really do about it. They got lots of hay though to keep them warm. Poor Napoleon got the worst of it as the other two wouldn't let him in the shed at all!

The kids really loved all the snow. They went through a ton of clothes since I wouldn't let them go back out in wet clothing. They don't really have proper snow gear, but that didn't stop them from playing until they could no longer feel their hands or feet..."we're fine mom"!

They made 6 snowmen, had tons of snowball fights and declared it the "Best day of their whole life"!

Jacob's other 'snow-woman'. It's supposed to be Britney and she has leaves for hair, LOL!

Tall girl and Napoleon....

These two are turning out to be quite a team. She just heads out there, pops a halter on him and away they go. Then she gets the grazing muzzle on him and he heads out to the pasture with the big boys.

And yes she's in shorts! It has been 75-78 degrees this week! Nice weather, but could someone from the north blow down some colder air. I would like fall to actually feel nice and crisp. Not warm enough to wear shorts outside and sunbathe!

Sci Port museum...

On the ferry taking us across the Mississippi. It was quite cold and windy.

On a bed of nails! Building a river...

The cool domino table...

Little Man...where's your body?!

Whenever we have to take any longer traveling trips, I like to try and find somewhere for the kids to visit as a break. When we headed off to pick up Napoleon, we stopped at the Sci-Port Museum. The kids really enjoyed it. They built a dam of sand at one exhibit, got to put together pieces in a body and they were able to launch themselves up in a chair. They really had a great time. I think the favorite of the day was the domino table. It took us about 20 minutes to completely set the table up and about 2o seconds for it to all come down! LOL. There were some kids and another adult helping. As Little Man said, 'That was cool'!

Yeah, it's sideways...sorry!

A really neat singer....

I took the kids to the library today for one of the summer programs that they have on shedule this year. Little Man whined about it a bit thinking it would be for 'babies' and he wouldn't like it. Well he was wrong that's for sure. He loved it and so did all the others that attended, children and adults alike.

The singer was Eric Herman. He is a hoot and the kids just laughed and danced along. He really involves the kids during his show. If you have the chance to see him when he's in your town then I highly recommend it. Also his CD's are cute and upbeat. We bought all four from him and Little Man's favorite so far is 'The Elephant Song' which has a cute kid video on You Tube that his wife did. They are a really nice family, traveling around in their cute RV doing shows across the country.

I plan to get a few more CD's for my neice this Christmas. She'll love them I'm sure.

Kids and horses...

I came back from a trail ride (down the road) yesterday and the kids were waiting for me at the driveway asking to ride ol' Pedro.

He is a 17 yr old, retired Polo horse that was given to me. He is a great fella, but was retired due to a paralyzed airway flap which causes him to 'roar' when he is worked hard for an extended amount of time. He does not breathe as well because of it. He could still run quick timed events and such if I did that sort of thing, but I don't, so he's living a good life as a 'kid's horse' and trail horse.

The kids got to ride him a bit in the back yard. It was too wet to do any real trotting after all the rain we had. The ground was still way too soft. They enjoyed it, though Jacob got a little timid after Pedro 'shook'. Jacob was like...can I get off now...mom, get me off please...mom, I'm done. LOL.

We had a crawfish boil at my neighbors house this evening! YUM! If you've never been to a real crawfish boil, then you don't know what you're missin'! They are good eatin'! They also threw in onions, garlic, sausage (deer and pork-these fellas are all hunters so deer sausage is plentiful around here...also very good stuff!), corn, potatoes and Steve's favorite, mushrooms...I eat only one or two very small ones-them suckers are way too hot for me otherwise! I choked up on one tonight.

The kids had a blast with the other kids there. They played in my neighbors huge pile of river silt/sand that she'd had brought in to fill low spots in the yard. They dug tunnels, buried each other's bodies, tossed a bit around and got really messy! The silt is so fine that it just sticks, plus there is a bit of clay in it that makes you look very tanned! They played hide and go seek in the dark using a friend's four wheeler as base. They were slap wore out when we finally went home to get them in the shower.

Till later.....

This is what happens when a certain colt gets a little too big for his britches...

I was heading out to feed the animals and looked out the back door to find the shed looking like this....from what I can tell, Charmer got on Pedro's bad side at some time and Pedro must have kicked out at him. Charmer can really irritate the crud out of him...I caught him that morning with his little head stuck in there just stuffing his face with hay. The Brat...

So we gathered some tools, some scrap wood, and set out to fix it. J helped cut and drill, B just wanted to play in the hay and then with the goats.

Then the kids had to get silly after we had the boards up. Don't they look so tortured?! The life of a farm kid.

Here's the hole fixed...unfortunately that's the way it'll have to stay for now. Some paint would be nice, but that mean's I'd have to paint the whole thing another color since I don't have green paint and it's so faded...but it's more than I want to deal with right now. Hopefully they won't put another hole in it!

Thanksgiving...

Some things we are thankful for this year:

• Our good health...well, that was before we got the colds...now we're thankful for cold medicines, echinacea, Ricola throat drops-you know you want to sing the name...go ahead! LOL. Prednisone shots that take care of the hives received from said cold medicines and someone to take care of you since you don't want to do anything while nursing said cold and hives!


• Our home


• Family


• All of our pets (thanks B)


• Swords and Nerf guns (thanks J)
  
• Hubby's job...the fact that he has a good one and that he's working on getting his bachelor's degree and will be finished soon!


• Our Church family and the gospel. For the peace that it brings into our life.


• My little brother who showed such patience during the holidays while all his nieces and nephews terrorized him!


• Working vehicles...though I wish it wasn't so much to fill the gas hogs up.


• Neighbors willing to watch this crazy farm when we leave and willing to doctor a sick goat and take care of a depressed 145lb Great Dane who is acting like a big baby because we left her behind at her own home for the holidays! Goofy dog...


• The free Christmas tree we got this year for helping out a family by finding and taking care of their dog when she'd run off.


• Finding those 'perfect' gifts for friends/family during the holiday.
  
• Kids that are thankful, grateful, who know how to listen to adults how to treat animals properly, how to be polite, and behave...that's a whoooole 'nother post in itself!

We headed to Georgia with J sick and came home with B and myself sick. J was fine after 3 days! We had taken Maggie beagle with us and she did great in the truck. Not a peep from her and she slept most of the way. She wouldn't ever use the restroom while we stopped, but there were no accidents so....

We had yummy food as always: turkey, sweet potato casserole, homemade mac & cheese, cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, waldorf salad, peas, whole green beans, rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy of course, and my favorite deviled eggs. I'm sure there were a few other things that I can't remember.

We met my sister's new boyfriend...he's very nice and definitely has more manners than she does...we all loved his little girl. She was just so sweet and well-mannered.

Maggie beagle and Rusty (my dad's dog) were too funny. Rusty was sooooo jealous of Mags being there and would bark and bark any time Dad would pet on her. It cracked us all up... well, except Mom! LOL.

J was baptized while we were there. He was so excited to be getting "Bath-tized" and that his cousins would be able to see it. Poor Steve had to hold him under the water a bit because J almost popped his toes out when he went under!

We headed home on Saturday morning and I was feeling like crud. We stopped on the way home a few times to see if any stores had the Nintendo Wii's ...we were casually looking for one for the kids for Christmas...no biggie if we didn't find one since I already had their shopping done and we both refuse to get caught up in the bidding wars on ebay for it. Parents get way overboard on stuff like that...it's silly really. We didn't find one, which we didn't think we would, but that's ok since a friend that works with hubby sold his to us...

Here's a few pics of the vacation:


Some of the ladies responsible for the reason we were all stuffed with so many goodies!