Christmas in Dixie

This afternoon we are loading up the Honda and heading for the homeland for a nice long visit with the family. Even though traveling at Christmas can be stressful at times, I don't care. It's all worth it to me.

I am so excited to see everyone and get to visit for more than a day. I am even more excited for Marisa and Rusty to share in our Christmas and to see Ella on Christmas morning. This is the first year that she actually understands the concept of Santa so we should be in for a really good time!

If we don't get to see you this next week, I would like to wish you a wonderful Christmas filled with family, piles of delicious food, lots of twinkling lights, a special gift under the tree that is just what you were hoping for, a chill in the air and more joy than you can stand. I would also encourage everyone to try and make it to a Christmas Eve service at your church of choice. They are always so beautiful and will remind you why we are all celebrating this wonderful time of year.

Christmas in Dixie. It doesn't get much better than that.

Mallory's Party

This past Sunday we celebrated Mallory's 3rd birthday (which was actually the day after Ella's) with Strawberry Shortcake!

Happy Birthday to Miss Mal!

Mal didn't quite know what to think about the duck that sings and dances!

Aunt Pam can sure make a great cake!

Little Big Girl

Ella got this sweater from Angie and Scott for her birthday and we thought that she looked so grown up in it! (I didn't have my camera at home so I had to use my phone cam - sorry for the poor quality.)

Presents

A few pictures from this morning when Ella opened a couple of gifts that we kept out just for today. She can't not open presents on her birthday!

Big 3

Happy Birthday to Ella!

My baby girl turned 3 today! Just three short years ago David and I were blessed with the most wonderful gift that we could ever imagine. Right before I went in for surgery I was on the phone with Mom and she told me "Your life is about to change forever". How right she was. Not just in the way of changing diapers, losing sleep and the huge responsibility that comes with parenthood. I have easily gotten used to the extra work.

What I still can't seem to fathom is the immense amount of love and concern that being a parent brings. Sometimes I am in awe of how one little girl can make my heart feel like it's too big for my chest, bring me to tears at the thought of her enduring an ounce of pain and make me willing to go to great lengths for her happiness and safety. Now I know why David always said he would rather tangle with a bull than take on a mama cow with her calf. It's nature at it's finest.

Three years ago at this very minute I was flying on some good drugs, basking in the new mommy glow and beginning the greatest, wildest, most fun and rewarding ride of my life.

Then

and now.

Bath Laugh

Kristina gave Ella lots of bath time goodies for her birthday. I was very excited for her because I'm not the one who normally gives Ella her bath. David, on the other hand, was a little less thrilled imagining what kind of a mess he was in for!

Spray foam soap

Ella likes to have cold water poured on her, for some crazy reason. It makes her scream and then laugh so hard. I just had to capture a little bit of this madness with a little movie. Click here to see the bath laugh movie.

Party Girl

We had Ella's 3rd birthday party Sunday afternoon and it was a great success! It was Wildcat themed and eveyone was asked to wear purple. I may have gone a liiiittle overboard but hey, it was the theme and I ran with it!

Party girls




The spur leathers that David made.



Queen Kristina and the girls



E wasted no time ripping into her gifts.



Ella and Uncle Jeff



The girls and the three ELLA cups she got. (Notice they all have on dress up slippers - thank goodness we had three pairs!)



Check out the fancy cake I made!



Chowing down


The Princess Tree that Grandmama & Jim sent

New 'Do

Chic Chef

Cooking in heels. Where'd she learn that?!

The casserole must be done

"And then..."

She did all that in just a few moments time!

Take me drunk, I'm home!

Notice the mention of beer in the last post? Yep, David and Scott took advantage of the bowling alley bar and shared a few pitchers. On our way back to Angie and Scott's house we were taking note of all the lovely Christmas decorations of their neighbors. One of which had some light up deer. Who looked like they might need to be rearranged into a more 'natural' position. Together. And so our naughty little minds started to think in devilish ways...

One of A&S's neighbors across the street, Shawn, is a poker buddy of David and Scott's. And a state trooper. Here comes the devilish prank: Let's go over and unscrew some of his lights to make the whole strand go out and then he won't be able to figure out why they're not working! Tee hee hee! So over to Shawn's we go. David and Scott work their magic on a few strands and then unscrewed all of the bulbs they could reach in a small tree so that there were only 5 lights left at the top.

Just as we turned to leave, up pulls a county sheriff patrol car. Oops. (Did we look suspicious?!) Turns out they knew Shawn, thought that our prank was pretty funny and told us to have a good night. We took that as our cue to go home instead of going down the road and making the deer mate!

6 and counting...

Saturday was our 6th anniversary! Six years, huh?! Wow. I say it sure has flown by but David thinks he has lived every second as five! He's such a goober.

We were treated to a night out with Angie and Scott, sans little girls. It was so nice to get to go out with them and not have to worry about the kiddies. They treated us to supper and then we went bowling. Bowling! I say people don't go bowling often enough. Every time we go I end up beating David and having a really good time! (David's game seemed to get better with each pitcher of beer... hmmm...)

The computer measured the speed of each ball thrown and would post it up on the screen by your score. You can imagine that David and Scott saw this as a challenge and were really zinging some lightweight balls down the alley with no regard to aim. Ah, boys. Of course, we didn't use our real names on the score screen so Saturday night, lane 15 was Chuck, Flo, Jo and Hank. Think, just for a moment, of all of the things that rhyme with those names. Yeah. There was some niiiice heckeling going on.

I was worried for a minute that I might get invited to be on the Women's Pro Bowling Association tour, I was doing so good. But, since I didn't want to keep my name as Flo and cut my hair into a mullett, I started throwing some gutter balls. Damn this natural talent and skill.

Birthday Wishes

Here's a big

Happy Birthday!

to David's mom, Peggy. Yea!

Birthday kisses!

Bookworms

I stumbled upon a blog with a great idea for a post. Since entertaining my people is what I'm all about, I'll throw caution to the wind and blatantly steal her idea.

Find the nearest book and turn to page 123. Find senetences 6-8 and submit them here. I think it will be interesting to see what books people have handy and also to see phrases that are out of context. I'll go first.

It was late in the afternon of parade day, and the Queens were taking their only break from pleasing the crowds. We had gone into Hal & Mal's, previously identified as the official restaurant of the Sweet Potato Queens, chosen a table, and advised our doting waiter that we would be having everything fied on the menu, plenty of it and plenty quick. He scurried off.

The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, Jill Conner Browne

Your turn.

Who you callin' an ass?

Queen Kris inspired me to write an informative post regarding mules. I know, just what you wanted to learn about was mules, right?!

Mules are made by breeding a horse with a donkey. Technically, mules are out of a female horse bred to a male donkey (jack). This is the most common mating since the offspring are bigger. The offspring from a male horse and female donkey (jennet or jenny) is called a hinney. Confused yet?

The thing about mules (beyond their ears!) is that they are sterile. No mule bloodlines to be had. Therefore, it's hard to perpetuate a really good horse/donkey cross since each one is terminal. I'm sure that makes for lots of headaches in the mule making world!

Kristina's family has draft horses for pulling. They recently sent a few of their mares over to a jack to get bred. Can you imagine these big draft girls and the considerably smaller donkey?! I hear he needed a little ramp to get the job done...!

Royalty

Last night our very most favorite babysitter, Kristina, came over for some free food. The girl is from South Dakota and had never had chicken and dumplings! David and I needed to remedy that, pronto! (Kristina worked for David at the horse unit for several years and is now a very busy vet student.)

Over a bowl of chicken and dumplings Kris divulges that she used to be THE South Dakota Draft Horse and Mule Queen! Twice! I asked if she had to do some serious gyrating and posturing to garner the title but no, it was just an election. Of course my next question was whether her crown had big mule ears on it but no to that too.

Ella just loves Kristina and tried to monopolize all of her time at our house.
She roped her into reading Cinderella but doesn't look too thrilled with it:

Ella in the presence of royalty.

Happy 100th!

This is my 100th post! Happy Posting to me!

We had a nice, calm Thanksgiving. We went over to Angie and Scott's and celebrated with them and some of their family. I had cooked our standard fare so we were able to enjoy leftovers in addition to being with friends! Scott smoked the turkey and it turned out bee-u-ti-ful (and delish)!

Yum!

We went and picked up the boots that we ordered for Ella's birthday. I was pretty excited about seeing her in them so we let her decide to get her present early. Keep in mind that Ella picked these out herself a few weeks ago. As much as I tried to push the red ones, she was all about K-State purple!

These make a statement, don't they?!

Other than that, the long weekend was pretty uneventful. I think that may be in preparation for all of the madness of birthdays and holidays that looms ahead!

We Are So Thankful

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow. I hope that it is filled with people that you love and who love you, family or not. I hope that you eat so much deeeelicious food that you beg for mercy from the waistband gods. I hope that you all take the time to truly count your blessings. I hope that the thought of all those blessings brings tears to your eyes. I hope that there is a nap in your future, post feast. And I hope that you get to bed early enough to be at your elbow-throwing best at 5 am at the Wal-Mart.

I thought about starting a list of what I am thankful for but decided that you and I both would be here a while. If you read the blog you can tell what I have to be thankful for. And there is so much more beyond that! I am, indeed, a lucky girl. I'm sure that next Thanksgiving I will have even more to be thankful for, beyond what I can imagine. And I'm thankful for that, too.

Let the eating commence!

(Oh, one thing that I am extra thankful for is being in possession of the recipe for the best damn Southern Cornbread Dressing that a girl could want. David and I will eat it 'til it comes out our ears!)

Turkey Time

Last night we got artsy and painted up some wooden turkeys. Ella LOVES painting and is pretty darn good at it. I helped her with hers about 10%. All the rest was pure E. I went the classic route while David decided to create Tom the Turkey Commando.

gobble gobble

Sunset

Kansas is home to some of the most beautiful sunsets. They seem to pop up (or down!) more during the fall and winter.

Last night

Congratulations!

Last night we heard from the infamous Wingnut (Andy) down in south Georgia. He and his beautiful wife Beth are expecting a bundle of joy next April! Yea!

I have a feeling that no matter what the sex of the baby is, it will be hotrodding and getting in trouble with his/her daddy. (David is a prime example of the fact that it's hard to hang out with Andy and not do something crazy!)

Please join me in congratulating Andy and Beth (Andy is a faithful reader, he'll see your kind words).

And let's all hope that the baby looks like its mama.

Fall Trees

Berries left on the tree

A few leaves still hanging on

Vibrant red outside my office

Short Haired Cowgirl

Good ol' Scoot

E yelled "watch my hair bounce!" as she rode off. How funny!

(Believe it or not, I actually rode Scooter once around the arena! I can't remember the last time I was horseback... 5 years?!)