Tbug: I’m going to get Junior ribs but I bet they’re not as good as JL’s.
Hubby: We’re talkin’ about Pryor… Tbug: ooooooooooo JL’s
Hubby: You can eat the ribs with your fork. Tbug: Awe, where’s the fun in that dad?
Grandma (my mom): What theme are we going to have for Christmas this year? Tbug: Red birds!
Ok so some explanations: JL’s is a rib place that we ate at back in April when we headed to Texas to pick up Squirty. We’ve eaten there many times but Tbug had only eaten there the once. On our way home from Texas she asked if we could stop there again. All anyone has to do is say Pryor and she’s all over it like stink on rice. She’s even told us we can’t go there without her.
And the red bird thing… It’s a joke around my house. My parents have a red bird that has pecked on their windows for YEARS! So my grandma said that red birds mate for life. The bird comes around when my mom’s home and leaves when her job takes her out of town. It’s hilarious… so every year we buy her a red bird something. So there’s the details 🙂
A week ago Saturday the family loaded up and headed to Springfield to watch the PBR. Yes, I’m a bit behind… things happen and at least I’m sharing these fabulous photos with you, right? I only had 1,208 photos to weed through :).
Then they had opening ceremonies. They lit the arena on fire, there were fireworks and they introduced the riders.
And then the Top 5 bullriders were introduced.
Your Bullfighters You know, those guys who keep the riders safe!
It looks like the bull is frolicking 🙂
Doesn’t it look like he’s holding the bulls head?
And not every dismount is graceful, unfortunately.
I swear this bull looks like a statue.
He was invited to dance up there with Flint if he rode for 8 seconds… what do you think happened?
This gal lost about 86lbs (give or take, I can’t quite remember) just so she’d win the fan of the night award so she could wear her belt buckle.
This was such a fabulous night. I love watching on TV, but nothing beats live! Now I’m ready to head to Las Vegas to watch the PBR finals! Hey dad, are you ready?!?! Hubby and I sure are 😉
So Friday about 4pm, the special weather announcements went on over the radio and said we were in a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. I looked out the window and this is the sight I saw. Then one of my co-workers and I went out the north door (the storm blew in from the North) of our building and the wind was so strong we almost didn’t get out. It was NUTS! We went in before the major part hit, don’t worry, we used common sense :). Weather.com says we got 1.11 inches of rain. Get this, I actually had to mow my lawn this weekend! Woohooo my lawnmower didn’t have to feel abandoned anymore. Praise the Lord!
When we got home from work we decided to head to my parent’s house since dad said Mini Me hadn’t been doing well that morning. Luckily, he was chipper when we got there!
My parents took us out to dinner at Olive Garden and then hubby and I came home and played a round of Rummy. Sad to say, he kicked my butt. Don’t worry, I got my revenge on Saturday night.
Now in small town America we don’t have a Starbucks, not to worry though, a few weeks ago I learned that McDonalds of all places has a Mocca Frappe that is Pretty Darn Good! When I posed this on Instagram though, I made Lourie want a Chocolate Shake. Sorry Lourie!!
Saturday morning I noted that I wasn’t sure what the plans were. I had the possibility of going to a cattle sale, a horse sale and a wedding. Well as you can see here, we wound up first off at the Long Horn sale at the MoKan Salebarn in Butler.
Sadly, we weren’t back in time to see Momma Vix get married, however here’s a gorgeous photo I saw of her on facebook. Momma Vix is like a second mom to my husband.
**note I didn’t take this photo, I stole it off her facebook, but being on my blog I tagged it so it wouldn’t get stolen :)** You’ll note on my facebook page that I had someone stealing blog posts of mine and claiming them as theirs. It may have been spam blog but when I saw my photos on another blog, it was quite scary!
After Dad, hubby and I grabbed lunch at Iguana Azul on our way home, we ran down to the sale barn where the horse sale was that night. There at the sale barn they also have a Tack & Feed Store so dad ran in and bought shavings for the horses stalls and then we went to the tack portion and looked at boots. I saw these two pair and posted on instagram which ones?
Well luckily everyone said right because those are the ones I wound up with :). Some have a weakness for fancy stiletto’s and I like them too, but I have a weakness for boots! Just sayin!
After we looked at all the horses for sale we went home, cleaned stalls and fed our current horses. And shhhhh don’t tell Tbug but I rode Aloha without her.
Then we decided if nothing else we’d head to the colt sale for Saturday night entertainment. What’s really awesome is the owner of all the colts that sold, donates one sale of one colt every year to a local school district. Since his daughter is a senior this year he allowed her to choose the horse and then decided if she wanted it to go toward Graduation or the FFA chapter. She chose the FFA chapter so they got $600 donated to them.
Sunday was a day to recoup, or so I thought… Dad had a shock break on his truck so hubby took the tractor to my parents house, then dad and hubby went to town to get a shock and replace it for dad. After they were finished we ran into town and while there went to the farm store and I saw these cute little girls boots! Makes me want to be a kid again. LOL. or maybe not but still, very cute!
Then we came home, watched the Lorax, went to Sunday Night Dinner, went home and crashed. I swear we should get Monday’s off just to recoup from our weekends!
One of the perks of living in the country is you generally tend to have a longer driveway. Our current driveway is 1/10th of a mile long. That’s actually pretty good. Just think 5 laps up and back is a mile. Yes, I’m a nerd, yes I clocked the length on my car odometer… moving on!
So one day last year I pulled into the driveway when Tbug was with me. I put the car in park and told her to get out and come here. At first she thought I was going to make her walk to the house, ha! but I didn’t. I put her in my lap and let her “drive” down the driveway. Of course it was hubby’s Tucson he had so he asked her who let her drive. Anyway… So there are a lot of times I allow her to drive down our driveway. She’s getting good at making the curves and not hitting anything, YEY! Now usually I’m running the gas/brake. But there have been a few times that she’s backed my car out of its parking space so we can do something. Usually someone sits in the passenger seat with our hand on the E-brake so if it gets away from her we can stop it.
Anyway… all of this was pre-curser to telling you this story.
Sunday Tbug got to come to our house on an off weekend. We were out working with the horses and my dad took his truck out to the round pen. Around lunchtime we all decided we were hungry and mom decided we should go to town. When dad went out to get his truck, Tbug went with him and drove it over to the house, sitting on his lap.
We left and went to lunch, yada yada. Once we headed back to my parents’ house Tbug started asking grandpa if she could drive down the driveway. Grandma was giving Tbug fits saying that she’d have to get out and walk if grandpa let her, etc. So this got Tbug to yacking away about, well honestly I don’t know what she was talking about.
So dad (grandpa) got to the driveway and Tbug is still just yammering away about something. Dad slowly creeped in the the driveway, mom is looking at dad, hubby and I are staring at dad through the rear view mirror, we’re all just looking like….. um…. are you going to let Tbug drive. Then all at once Tbug quit talking and sat there.
Finally hubby said, “She never even noticed.” and dad still slowly moving then all at once Tbug yell’s “OH GOSH!” Hubby and I were in the backseat so we couldn’t see her face, mom said it was hilarious but we were all cracking up at the Oh Gosh comment. Just then she realized that we were in the driveway and she wasn’t driving. Dad stopped and she crawled over into his lap to drive up the driveway.
Sorry, I’m a day late on sharing my Proud Mommy Moment, but yesterday’s post needed to be said. It was what was on my heart.
Last weekend I woke up every morning (remember mini vacation) wanting Biscuits & Gravy. Finally I’d had it. I couldn’t take it anymore. First thing Sunday morning I got up and started making biscuits.
After the long night at the drive-in, I didn’t make Tbug take a shower when we got home at 1ish-am. So when she got up first thing Sunday morning I made her take a shower. When she got out of the shower she came into the kitchen to see what her daddy and I were up to. I was walking around gathering the ingredients and she wanted to help. So Miss Tbug followed the directions and made biscuits. Very very little help from me. In fact, I showed her how to press the dough out, but for the most part, she made the biscuits.
Once we placed the biscuits in the oven then she asked if she could help make the gravy. I told her that was her daddy’s area, she had to talk to him. She jumped in right in and started helping.
Wow, one of these days I’m going to be able to have her cook and I won’t have to do anything. How cool is that. She did a great job and she’s becoming a GREAT cook in our kitchen!
Well I had told my parents/husband I didn’t need anything for my birthday. I knew it wouldn’t happen, but it was worth a shot. I really didn’t.
Well my husband had plans of meeting up with my mom on Sunday morning while I was at the house helping Earl decorate a cake. Tbug was given the option to stay here at the house with me or to go with him.
Truthfully I figured she’d choose to go with her daddy. It’s generally what she’s always done. But I guess he didn’t even get the chance to tell her what he was doing, she just blurted out, “I’m staying at the house with mom.”
Wow!
It so looks like she’s cocking a hand gun here… LOL
Then… she was telling us something that her mom said to her. I don’t remember any part of the conversation or even the word Tbug used, but she looked at Earl and said, you know, the S word. Of course Earl egged it on and asked her, What’s the S word. Then she said, “Shhhhhiiiiiiiiii” and looked at me and finished with the ending T sound. What could I do, Earl egged it on. I looked at Tbug with a straight face (although I was dying inside) and said, “That’s not really a word you should be saying or have in your vocabulary.”
THEN…..
She made all the icing (with our supervision of course) for the cake. I pulled out a tub from the fridge from the previous week when I made Earl’s birthday cookie and we decided we’d make that into the grass. Boy Tbug wanted to dye that green.
Ask her how happy she was with me over this!?!?
I told her I’d let her decorate the grass. She cracked me up because everywhere she went, she carried that tub of icing. I kept telling her that we were ready for it but she carried the icing and already had the green food coloring out and ready.
Hubby said it’s probably because she didn’t want to miss out, she wanted me to have to ask for it so she knew when it was time. I’m not sure how many times I said, not yet.
So I’m completely torn if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Let me explain…
As I’ve pointed out many times I started dating my husband in late July 2009. He proposed in February of 2010. We bought our first house in (well started) April (finished in June).
Prior years to us dating, his dad’s side of the family used to go to an aunts house at the lake for the Fourth. Then she sold that house and I guess they didn’t get together, I’m not sure. So when we bought our house in 2010 he asked if we could host the 4th party. I said ok. Since then, it has been at our house every year.
My {step}daughter goes to camp every July since I’ve been around way off on the east coast. Every year she has missed the party due to driving to camp or actually being at camp, etc, and this upsets her every year. In fact, last year before camp she said she wasn’t going because she’d miss out on the party. We told her the party was just one afternoon and she’d probably have way more fun at camp. {This is a camp her mother sends her too, not sure if that’s relevant, just clarifying :)} And it’s true, she always comes back from camp talking about stories.
I guess back in January she started hitting her mom up and complaining that she misses our 4th of July party every year because of camp. Her mom contacted hubby and asked when it would be; she said that if her husband didn’t have to work that they’d try to work it out for Tbug to come out to the house for a bit before they absolutely had to leave for camp.
All things worked out and Tbug got to be at the house for the party until around 9:30. She was super excited.
Ok so sorry for the lengthy lead up… now to the moment….
People started showing up around 3-3:30 and Tbug put on her swimsuit and jumped in the pool as guests arrived. By about 7 or so she was complaining about being cold/tired. (Yes, it was 100+ but you have to understand our pool is always freezing. I think it stays around 65 degrees) I told her that if she was cold and done swimming to go in the house and put her clothes back on, that her daddy would be getting ready to help her set off some fireworks before long.
So around 8:15 one of her cousins showed up (another split family thing, her dad came to drop her off with her mom) and Tbug decided she wanted to get back in the pool. She had been waiting on Cass all day so when Tbug asked if she could get back in the pool, I knew her mom would be there sometime between 8 and 9, but I told her that’s fine, you better hurry though.
So around 8:45 hubby got all the fireworks out, said we needed to hurry so she could set some off and said, “Can you get Tbug out of the pool? Memaw tried and didn’t have any luck, maybe you’ll have better luck.” I said sure, went and hollered at her to hurry up and change so she could shoot off fireworks and she was up and out of the pool and dressed in record time.
So my concern comes when my MIL couldn’t get Tbug out of the pool, but she did what I said immediately. I’m not sure if I’m mean or I just explained things differently. I can sure tell you I don’t want to be known as the Mean ol’ Mom or better yet, the Mean ol’ Step-mom!
So I remember back in the day when we all grew our bangs out so we didn’t have them. I was about 8 or 9 years old even. It was right after the big 80’s hair craze! Now bangs are becoming cool again, but a lot of people either have the long swooping bangs or no bangs at all. A couple years ago before I was in Tbug’s life I guess she decided she didn’t want bangs and her mom let her start growing them out. But the bad thing then and even still today is she constantly has hair in her face. It drives me nuts!
I’m constantly telling her to get her hair out of her face and once I can’t stand it anymore I tell her to go pull her hair up in a ponytail. And when she says she can’t see things, it’s generally because she has hair in her face, so at that point she has to pull it up into a ponytail.
i.e.
She is such a pretty girl as long as she doesn’t have hair in her face (ok and even then she is pretty but come on, the hair in the face doesn’t help).
So anyway the other day I had my hair half pulled up (you know the sides up, the back down). My bangs aren’t quite long enough to stay back or tuck behind my ear but almost. but my hair generally stays out of my face. I’ve been without short bangs long enough I know how to keep them out of my face and they are fairly trained to stay back. If that doesn’t work out come the bobby pins.
So we were at dinner over the weekend and my bangs fell to just even on the side of my head with my eyes. Like so (maybe a bit further toward my face, but not in my face):
This is generally where they tend to stay; remember if they fall in my face, I pin them back etc. But Tbug looks at me and goes “Get your hair out of your face.”
We all just about died laughing. I guess we know what I’m constantly telling her. Although mine is nothing like hers!
I get teased a lot about being the Queen of Random. Yesterday at work probably was no different!
I walked into one of my co-worker’s office’s and asked her if she had photos of her with her grandkids.
To most people, that’s totally random and out of the blue. Heck if someone walked up and asked me that I’m not so sure I wouldn’t look at them like they had flipped their lid. BUT… It might not be random to them. Let me walk you through how I got there… Shall we?
Sometimes the joke in our office is my boss is the phantom. He’s in his office one minute and the next, he’s gone. Almost like he vanished into thin air. So our big boss, R, came by to talk to him, D, and of course D wasn’t in his office. He walked off for a few minutes. In fact, sometimes I’m surprised they don’t run into each other in the hallway. So eventually D came back to his office. I got up and was walking down the hallway and I saw R. I looked at him and said, “He’s in his office. Run!” And of course R laughed at me. In my head I was thinking, Run don’t walk. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. Get to his office now or he’ll be gone. {I hope you realize that do not pass go, do not collect $200 is in reference to Monopoly.} So I continued on my way down the hallway.
But that got me to thinking about playing Rummy. I love that card game. I used to play it all the time with my Grandma S. And now I’ve taught hubby to play it. So I was thinking that we need to play it again, soon! We’ve talked about playing it with Tbug but he’s not sure she has the patience to learn it. I point out to him that I was playing that at her age, but he thinks we should start with Go Fish first. But back to the story at hand… thinking about my Grandma S. And me, being the picture person I am remembered this picture.
And Sadly, I got to thinking about how few photos exist of me and my grandparents. All 4 of them. I still have one grandma left, and probably out of all my grandparents, I have the most photos with the two of us together, partially because we share a birthday so there are a lot of birthday photos of us. And truthfully there are very few photos that exist of my grandparents in general.
Then I got to thinking about Tbug. My mother HATES having her photo taken. Really, there are very few photos around of her. I took this recent one of her, and she’d probably disown me if she knew I took it, but sometimes, you have to sneak them in on her.
So when I asked my co-worker if she had many photos of her with her grandkids, that is how I got there. Very strategically.
So I guess my point to this whole post is, even if you don’t like having your photo taken, Sometimes you need to suck it up so that your kids and grandkids and great-grandkids can all know who you were.
Remember Trisha Yearwood’s uncle said it best, “Pictures aren’t for today, they are for tomorrow.” I agree Uncle Wilson!
