Pee-Wee Swine Showmanship

Imagine this: A livestock arena. Dust in the air. The noise of hundreds of anxious parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles all crowding around. Twenty preschoolers, all dressed in their best cowboy (or cowgirl) gear. Eight pigs. One very nervous Braden:
Ready, Set, GOOOO!

This weekend was the annual Brazos County Youth Livestock Show, and our boys "participated" in the Pee-Wee Swine Showmanship yesterday afternoon. They did this last year, too, and this year was pretty much a repeat.

Kyle went into the show ring with them, and they hung close. Braden hung very close:

Most kids chase after the pigs. Here's Garrett's attempt (can you see him? He's in the bottom left):

Once the pigs (and kids) are sufficiently riled up, the judge (here in the blue, kneeling down) calls all the kids over while he talks to them about showing pigs. Kyle is with our kids on the left side of the pack here:

Notice all the spots on that picture? The best I can figure is that is the flash reflecting off the airborne dust.

This year, they ran out of trophies, so our kids received "participant" ribbons on their way out of the arena. They are supposed to mail our trophies to us.

After the Pee-Wee Swine Showmanship event, the 4-H and FFA kids show their pigs. This is Braden watching his babysitter, Victoria, show her pig:

It's Texas. It's March. That means...

Bluebonnet pictures!

A little thief in the night

Last night Kyle fell asleep on the couch with the TV on and lights on. Like most nights when he does this, I left him there and enjoyed the quiet of my king size bed (Kyle snores, you see). Sometime around 3 am, Garrett woke up, like he does most nights.

On his sleepy journey across the house into my room, he stopped, noticed Daddy on the couch and decided he, in fact, needed the A&M blanket Daddy had over him. And he needed it right then.

He tugged and tugged on the blanket, waking Kyle up. Kyle held on. Garrett tugged some more, threw in a few whimpers, and was victorious in the battle for the blanket. When I woke up this morning, Garrett was in bed with me with the A&M fleece wrapped around him. Kyle was asleep on the couch without a blanket. Poor Daddy.

Momma's got a new running buddy

I have a new running buddy. Sorry April and Ryan, but you might be replaced by Braden on bike! He went for a 35-40 minute run with me this evening (I'm not exactly sure how long we ran/rode because I stopped to chat with a neighbor). It was GREAT interval training for me. I had to sprint on the downhills to keep up with him! He wanted to stop for water a little too often for my liking, and he began complaining that his hands hurt, but he was a little toughie for the most part. I took this picture when we got back because I thought he looked so cute with his sweaty hair:



















Braden wanted to take a picture of me, too. It isn't the most flattering, but here it is:

Garrett wanted in on the picture-taking action. He's saying "cheese" but in a very deep voice in this picture:

Daddy's not-so-little helper

Things were oddly quiet this afternoon inside my house: I was able to grade seven papers in a row! Concerned, I went outside to investigate (where where those children, after all? Their job is supposed to be to keep me from grading!). Here is where I found Braden:

He and Daddy were washing my truck. Yes, that truck is mine. Kyle drives a car. I'm the badass with the Dodge Hemi. At least that is what I like to think...


Braden decided he wanted a picture with his shirt off. I tried to get Kyle to take his off, too, but he didn't even consider it. Someday, when Braden is 16 and is outside washing his first truck shirtless, I'll take a pic and use that one and this one in his senior ad in the yearbook. There aren't any pictures of Garrett because he was, at this point, naked. He prefers nakedness and, since he is two, I let him.

Not only do we grow boys...

(I've been thinking of creating a new blog solely for my gardening pursuits...in the meantime, I'll just continue to post here).

Early last spring we completely redid the flower beds in front of the house. It was a major undertaking and we were very proud of the results--so proud, in fact, that one of my earliest blog entries was about the flower beds. http://tractorstrucksandtrouble.blogspot.com/2008/03/ive-got-fever-too.html

I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of the beds one year later. Wow, things sure did grow!

Mom's memory garden

If you know anything about my family, you know that we like to work around the house (and by "we" I really mean Kyle). The one thing I really do like to do is landscaping and gardening.

For the past year or so, I've had in mind a perennial garden on the right side of our front yard. There is a couple around the corner who garden, and we've always admired their perennial garden (for those of you unfamiliar with gardening, perennials are those plants that usually bloom once a year and then die back, but return the following year). We've mastered the regular landscaping bed, and we were ready for a new challenge.

After mom died, the garden really took shape in my mind. I wanted a purple color scheme in honor of her favorite color, and I wanted an arbor and a decorative fence to serve as a backdrop. Tom sketched out an arbor design and then built it a month or two ago. He and Kyle installed it in our yard, and Tom and I installed the fence pickets. We moved an existing birdhouse (built by Tom) so that it anchors one side of the fence.

Today, the three month anniversary of mom's death, we finished her memory garden (and by "we" I mean mostly me). I've spent the past two days digging out the grass around the arbor and fence. Two and half yards of "bed mix" fill the bed (thanks, Kyle). The plants include an existing Natchez white crape myrtle (just now leafing out), a lorepetalum (we have two in the beds around the house and I love them), a rainbow Knockout rose, a climbing rose, and lots of perennials in shades of purple, pink, blue, and white: lavender, blue daze, spider flower, lily of the Nile, cone flower, society garlic, blue hill sage, Mexican bush sage, Shasta daisies, and verbena. I then planted a several varieties of bulbs: freesia, hardy phlox, gladiolus, and liatris. I'm a little unsure how the bulbs will do, and I really hope the rabbits don't eat them. I put a few little annual flowers (petunias and something else) just to fill in for now. I transplanted some Mexican heather from the front bed to the backside of the fence. Maybe one day I will grow confident/brave enough to plant a variety of roses back there.

One of my favorite things is the wind chime that I added under the arbor and the flagstone steps that lead through the arbor. This is a picture of the society garlic, not the windchime. I can't figure out how to get pics where I want them.

We topped it all off with a yard of black mulch. So pretty now, and I can't wait to watch as it fills in.