Stock Show and Rodeo

We had the privilege of going to the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo on Sunday with my parents. We don't do this every year, but it is always so much fun when we do it!

We started in the exhibitions and the little boys were amazed by the tractors!!


They got to see the inside view from a horse trailer . . .

Playing on the big digger thingy . . .

Next, we headed to the FFA Children's Barnyard. I LOVE this place!!! My favorites are definitely the baby chicks hatching. Here's the fam watching them in the different phases of hatching. There was one yellow and one black that had just barely made it out of their shells ... all wet and trying so hard to stand on their feet. There was another yellow and another black that had been out for a little longer ... so cute and tiny!!

I also love the little ducklings where they have the little pool for them. They're so cute to watch as they try to get a drink and end up sliding down the slide into the water!!

We then went to the barns and came upon these sheep that had just lost their wool!! They looked naked and cold!!

This young lady came up to us and asked us if the boys would like to pet some sheep. Of course they did, so we followed her over to her little pen. She let the boys come right in and put their hands all over the sheep!!


She really wanted Alex to come in too, but he was way too cool to go in and pet the sheep!! One of the best parts of the day was when she said to Alex, "What's the matter??? You CHICKEN????!!!" And then she starts flapping her arms like a chicken right at Alex!! The look on his face was priceless!!! What made it even better is that she's 11 years old!!!

She was a really sweet girl ... lives up near Gainesville ... and was really great with the boys. Even Landry enjoyed it and didn't freak out at all!!!

There weren't many rabbits to speak of but this one made up for it!!! He was the furriest little guy with the longest ears and pink eyes . . . he looked like a real, small version of the Easter Bunny!! So cute!!

Parker tried his hand at roping and did pretty well for his first attempts . . .

Next came the Midway and I can honestly say this is my least favorite part of any experience like this. There is no amount of money that will satisfy the desires this part brings. The games are rigged and the rides are expensive. And when you realize that the toothless man smoking a cig who hasn't had a shower since the beginning of the Stock Show put this whole contraption together, it doesn't bode well!! And it was nice and cold by this point!! Here we are huddled up, trying to stay warm!!!

We walked through the Midway telling the boys to find that ONE thing that would make this whole experience complete for them. After lots of contemplating and debating, the big boys decided on a fun house kind of thing. But this . . . was Landry's dream . . .

As soon as he saw it, he began to talk in his very loud, very excited voice!! OH! MY! GOSH!!! I. WANT. TO. RIDE. THAT. SLIDE. RIGHT. THERE!!!!!!!! Are you sure, I ask?? YES!!! THAT IS SOOOO COOL!!!! Ok ... that's easy! I like a boy who knows what he wants and doesn't waver in his decision! Poppy went to buy tickets and the other boys debated on the merits of one of the fun house options. I again ask Landry, "Do you want to do this one with the boys??" To which he answers, "NO!!! I WANT TO DO THAT SLIDE RIGHT THERE . . . THAT ONE BEHIND YOU!!!" Okie-dokie!! The boys do their fun house and we head over to the slide. We pay the man our tickets and begin to climb what seemed like Mt. Everest!! We get to the top, settle ourselves in right next to each other, get the signal, and GO!!! We slide down together and had, what I thought, was an awesome time!! We get to the bottom and I look over at Landry. He has the saddest, most scared look on this face!! He jumps out of his sack and into my arms and immediately starts crying!! Apparently, it was a little scarier than planned!!

Of course, I had to laugh because it was such a complete and total opposite reaction of what I thought I would see!! He'll probably never get on a slide that big again!!


We had just enough time to go through the petting zoo before the rodeo. This is always fun and the boys, especially the littles, had a great time here!!

I had to capture these two guys (with a little girl's hand!). We decided they must be brothers because they just kept at each other!!

The tears are gone and Landry loves petting animals, especially when separated by a fence!!! (I've definitely got some mad photo skillz!! Not everyone can capture random kids' hands and snap the picture at the exact time the eyes close!!) But the smile is what counts, right??!!

Lots of goats!!

And finally, we made it to the rodeo!! I didn't take any pictures with all the moving and lack of light. But it was, as always, a good show with lots of amazing stunts, tricks, rides, and feats. It is a totally different world but it is always a neat one to visit!!

Much thanks to Mom and Dad for a super fun night!!

A 14 year old???

Alex celebrated another milestone back before Christmas . . . he turned 14!!!

It just doesn't seem like 14 years have passed since I birthed that big ol' baby, but I guess it has!!

Here are some things you should know about Alex . . .

* This was the year he grew taller than me . . . I'm 5'8" and he's a bit taller now!

* He also caught up to me in the weight department . . . 120 lbs!!! HA!!!

* He gave up his lifelong dream of being a professional football player after one year of playing middle school football and this year, chose the less-traveled path of tennis!! He did quite well for having never played before. We spent a bit of time at the tennis courts and learned some things and had some fun!

* He's still holding on to his dream of being a professional basketball player. I do encourage him regularly to at least give a Plan B some thought . . . you know . . . just in case!! He has yet to do that!!! :)

* The boy can eat his body weight in Snickers and Dr. Pepper!

* He started to stink this year!! Well, maybe it was last year, but still . . .

* When Alex is home, there's ALWAYS a game of something going on . . . basketball on the driveway, football in the backyard, soccer in the house. The boys is always moving and usually dragging his brothers along for the fun.

We went to eat for his birthday at Spring Creek and here's the little ray of sunshine himself . . . doesn't he look so happy it's his birthday???!!

Yes, this would be ipod #2 and the last one that will be purchased with my money!! Emily and I gave up one-and-a-half hours of our lives on Black Friday for that and that is not something I will do again!!!

When I asked Landry what we should get Alex for his birthday, he immediately said "deodorant!" (See above!!) So, deodorant is what we got!!

Emily got he and Reagan tickets to watch 2 basketball games at the American Airlines Center . . . both Baylor and A&M were playing that day, though not playing each other. Fun time for the boys!!

Basketball cookie cake

Landry wasn't feeling so good this night . . . poor guy!!

After much begging, pleading, and threatening, the birthday boy finally

put a semi-normal (?) look on his face and took a picture with his Momma!!

Happy Birthday Alex!!

Just an average Fall day

Thanks Emily!!

Countdown to Christmas

Most of the boys LOVE Legos! So when December rolled around, Emily found the perfect way to count the days till Christmas . . . enter the Lego Advent Calendar!!

This really cool gadget had 25 little "doors" that we carefully cut open. Inside was a little bag of Lego pieces and a picture of how the pieces went together. This was Day #1 . . . a snowman!

Here are some of the creations . . . skateboard ramp/skateboard/helmet, dude with sword, piece of machinery that I can't think of the name of, and the snowman.

The boys really looked forward to doing this every day. It was cool to see what would be behind the door!! Very neat idea!! Thanks Emily!!

Out with the old . . .

I've had this chair for a really long time. It was tired. It was dated. A lot of the time when I looked at it, I thought it was ugly!!

Lucky for me, I have a friend who is amazing at taking ugly things and making them beautiful!! So, she took my chair, spent some quality time with it, got into a fight with it, got injured by it more than once, but ultimately prevailed and made it beautiful!!!

And comfortable, apparently . . .

And who, you might ask, could do something so incredibly amazing????

Well, Shellee, of course!!!

Thanks Shell . . . . awesome job!!!

Arrrggghhh!!

Trying to change the blog design . . . isn't working . . . frustrating!!!!

The flu has come to visit . . .

He's praying that he'll be better before his basketball game on Saturday!!!

Crazy Landry

Here are a couple of funny Landry moments . . .

Me: I need to take some shoes back to DSW really quickly then we can go do our other stuff.
Landry: Do they have a drive-thru??
(ummmm .... no!)

Me: Do yall wanna go to Toys R Us?
Landry: Yes, but can we please go look at the toy section?? I really wanna see the toys!!
(ummmm ... I guess!)

Landry: How old is Ms. Estes?
Me: 28
Landry: (big, surprised face) And she can drive a CAR????!!!!
(ummm ... yes!!)

Silly boy!!

Gratitude Poem

Luke does a really good job at school. He has a really great teacher this year and takes his work pretty seriously! He brought this home in his folder last week and I think he either didn't understand the directions or was having a little trouble focusing!! Either way, it made me laugh!!

Gratitude Acrostic Poem

G- Grandparent

R- Rangers

A- A guitar

T- Texas is the biggest state

I- I LOVE TCU Horned

T- Turkey is good

U- U are my friend

D- Dog Town

E- Eating is asome

I think we definitely need to revisit the gratitude concept!! :)

Letters from the past

Several months ago, my mom gave me a cardboard box of all things Kristy. It included my Kindergarten workbooks, several school projects, lots of report cards, and a few random items.

Today, I finally transferred it all into a big Rubbermaid box so that it would stack easily in the garage. And as much as I wanted to look at everything single thing, I just didn't have the time. But one envelope with the word "Mom" scrawled on it grabbed my attention and I opened it to see what was there. Here's what I found: (I'm guessing I might have been an early teenager?? Mom??)

Mother Dear,

I just wanted to let you know that I have, in fact, done something useful today! For example:

1. Made 55 cookies
2. Washed all dishes whether they be mine or someone else's
3. Folded 1 load of clothes
4. Ran dishwasher
5. Made 1 pitcher of tea
6. Emptied ice 1 time
7. Cleaned my room
8. Made Ryan 2 glasses of tea
9. Cleaned out my purse!
10. Put stuff in my scrapbook (you need some more rubber cement!)
11. Talked on the phone a little!

I'm not bringing up the $20 again, I'm just letting you know I can be useful!
Love,
Kris

Apparently, my mom didn't think she was getting her money's worth out of me!!

Pumpkin Guts and Fun

Today was a great Sunday . . . church, out to eat with Nana and Poppy, and pumpkin carving!!

Here are our attempts with the carving . . .

Well, I thought I took a few more "before" pictures, but apparently, I took a lot of "after pictures!"

Choosing what we wanted to carve was a bit of a challenge. Everyone wanted to go with the traditional jack-o-lantern until we looked up some different templates online. I figured Parker would really want to try something crazy, but he told me that he thought he should go with something easy because we hadn't had a lot of experience doing this!! Ha!! Finally, after looking at a lot of options, we settled on a spider (Parker), a kinda scary face (Luke), a kinda happy face (Payton), and a guy screaming with his hands on his face (Landry). I tried to convince Landry to go with regular eyes so it would look a little more real, but no can do!! He and Payton teamed up to give him some awesome triangle eyes!!
And the nighttime view!!

So, I must say, this little project wasn't one I was really looking forward to just because I knew my patience limits might be tested a bit! But, after all is said, done, and the seeds are roasted, it was a super fun time and I think I might even do it again . . . but not for another year!!!

Gutter Diving

The boys were outside playing catch with the football one night and as luck would have it, the football fell down into the gutter. Eewwwww!!!

Alex, Reagan, and Parker were playing and Alex felt certain it was Parker's fault (of course!!). So, we got flashlights, we strategized, we plotted and planned, but neither Alex or Reagan were willing to risk life and limb and dive into the gutter!! (Parker had given up on it by this point and was back inside!)

Alex, still certain that since this was really Parker's deal, he should be the one to go diving, continued to plead his case. Finally, I told Alex to go get Parker because this kind of crazy thing would probably be right up his alley!! Sure enough, he came out, we explained the situation, and he was happy to help!! We lowered him down, he grabbed the ball, we pulled him back out!!! Here's the last-minute picture of proof!!

I still stick with my original statement ... EEEWWWWWW!!!

Fall has . . . . .

. . . . Fallen??

What does Fall do exactly??

Here are a couple of pictures to prove that cooler weather is here and maybe the changing of the season is just around the corner.


Acorns on the little baby oak tree!

Ok . . . only 1 picture! I think my camera might have died. I have put 3 sets of new batteries in it and it just can't do it!!

This whole post was started in my mind because my awesome friend Shellee made a really cool Fall wreath for my front door. We had talked about how easy it would be and that Hobby Lobby had everything on sale and that it would be so easy and did I mention that it would really be nothing at all to make??

So, I head out to Hobby Lobby on Saturday and immediately find myself surrounded by fall leaves, berries, pumpkins, flowers, beady things, corn, and so so so much more stuff to make a wreath with. (Be careful though . . . you might accidentally run into the Christmas aisles, already filled with stuff!!) I immediately text Shellee with a now-what-exactly-am-I-looking-for text and she, thankfully, agreed to meet me there! As we walked the aisles, she easily picked out things and stuck them into the grapevine wreath. By the time we got to the register, the wreath was made and we tried to convince the guy that the whole wreath was just $4.99 (the price of the plain wreath!). He almost believed us!!

So, to my good friend Shellee . . . you certainly have a gift!! Thanks for sharing a little of your creativity with me and my front door!!

Now if this post actually had a picture of that wreath, that would just be awesome!!! Will somebody drive by and take a picture and email it to me?? That'd be great!!!

Updated to add . . .

Yay for Emily . . . she did a drive-by and got this picture!!! Thank you thank you!!!

Happy Birthday to the Greatest Grandma and BigPa!!

Birthday wishes are in order to two of the greatest people on the planet . . . .

Grandma's 80th birthday was today and BigPa's 81st is coming up in the next few days so we headed to the Silver Fox for some amazing food and a really good time together!!!

Here's my food . . . a 6oz petite filet, mashed potatoes, creamed corn from off the cob, and snap peas. Wow . . . it was so incredibly good. I didn't get a picture of the III Forks Salad which is famous, according to the waitress!!

And for the birthday boy and girl . . . 5 layer chocolate cake which they were so kind to share!! One of my favorite lines of the night was when everyone was so incredibly miserable from eating so much and Grandma and BigPa were trying to finish their cake. Grandma says to BigPa, "Wayne, now you know you don't have to finish all that cake." To which BigPa says immediately, "I will!!" And he did!!

Here are my dinner mates and amazing family . . . Dad & Mom, BigPa & Grandma, Deb & Jeff.

Thanks to all of you for an awesome night of awesome food and an awesome time together!

BigPa and Grandma, you mean the world to me. Thank you for giving of yourselves so freely and for loving so deeply all these years!! Love you both!!