The Pottery Ranch

While my mom was visiting we took her out for some local entertainment. Fortunately for me (and her too, I suspect) I had a little bit of say in some of our other activities. It wasn't all shootin' and cow hoof stealin'. We also went to the Pottery Ranch to get in touch with our artistic sides.

This is our pottery before we got started. The two square dishes were my mom's. Her plan was to create planters for her cactus plants. The plate was Chase's and the bowl was mine. You can't see Kenny's project in this picture. He decided to make a mosiac tile instead of painting pottery.

Here's Kenny's tile when he was just getting started:

Chase working on painting his plate:

Kenny gluing his pieces onto the tile:



This is what our projects looked like when we left them at the Pottery Ranch. We had to leave them there for a week. The pottery goes into a kiln for firing. I have no idea how long the process actually takes, but to simplify things the Pottery Ranch just tells people to wait a week before they come back. Kenny's mosiac went home with us that day. We had to wait a couple of days to make sure the glue was absolutely dry then we put grout on it to complete it.

Here are our projects now. We were a little surprised at how much darker they were, but still happy with them.

So with this in mind ... if you were thinking of visiting, but we scared you away with THIS POSTING, keep in mind that we have not gone totally off the deep end. We won't force you to go 4-wheelin', shootin', and cow hoof stealin'. Well, if we do, we'll at least take you to paint some pottery when the day is done. Promise.

Friday's Feast

Appetizer
Invent a new flower; give it a name and describe it.
"Sunshine" -- big, bright, yellow, and in bloom all year long

Soup
Name someone whom you think has a wonderful voice.
Corinne Bailey Rae

Salad
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how clean do you keep your car?
4

Main Course
How do you feel about poetry?
I just spent two weeks studying it in one of my education classes so I will say that I have a recent appreciation for learning and teaching poetry. Honestly -- I don't really enjoy it, but I know that as a teacher I am going to have to open my mind to more than what exists in my small self absorbed world!

Dessert
What was the last person/place/thing you took a picture of?
Penelope (see yesterday's posting)

Dear Grammy

Dear Grammy,
I miss you already.
I miss playing outside with you.
I miss sharing your wheat chex with you.
I miss having a personal seamstress.
I miss sharing your ice cubes with you.
I miss getting new pony tails every day.
Most of all, I miss having my hair combed every day.
Please come back!
Love, Penelope Jean

Wordless Wednesday -- Miss You Already!

Expensive Projects

We have a front yard that was once nicely landscaped. The previous owner of this house was not only single (no kids or pets to wreck the grass), but she was a college professor in the Agriculture department. I am assuming she knew a thing or two about keeping the lawn looking nice. Stereotypical of me, I know...but the lawn did look nice. Then we moved in. And when I say we, I mean two adults who don't care for doing lawn work, two boys who prefer to trample the lawn playing football rather than pull weeds, two dogs who pee all over the place, and three cats that do God-knows-what on the lawn when I am not looking. Needless to say the yard has taken quite a hit since we moved in. Last weekend my mom and I decided to tackle couple of projects. I wish I had taken some "before" pictures, but we were so busy working I didn't stop to think about it. Here's an "after" picture of one of the bigger projects:

And here's a smaller project we did a few days ago ... I didn't mean to be in the "before" picture, but my mom took a picture of PJ helping me when I sat down to start pulling weeds.

Here's what it looks like now:

After buying 25 bags of lava rocks, landscaping paper, landscaping sand, and two large pots for the plants in the front we decided to borrow the cactus plants we needed to finish the project from the natural Texas terrain. I don't think they'll be missed. At least I hope they aren't missed too much ... this particular plant in on an airplane heading to NY right this very minute!

And this one is on my front porch. Isn't it cute?!?

The next phase is attempting to turn the grass green. I am thinking that might be more of a job for Brian. I will stick to stealing roadside cactus plants! Just don't tell anyone.

Fashion Show

My mom made two dresses for Penelope while she was visiting. I love them both and since Penelope can only wear one dress at a time ....

Before & After

Panic in the Neighborhood

This is our house. It's on a corner lot with no houses behind it. Our entire neighborhood (like many neighborhood in this area) is arranged so that the garage is in the back of the house. It's great because we have an alley that we use for the garage and the garbage. The kids love it because they can play basketball and ride their bikes in the street with very little traffic.

When we first moved here the field behind our house looked like this:

Brian and the kids spent an entire weekend clearing a large area so that we could use it as an extension of our own yard. Now it looks like this:

This is the start of the 4-wheeler/dirt bike track that Brian made. It also leads to the area that the boys and their friends play in and build forts and hide-outs in:

It might look messy, but to a group of 7-11 year old boys it is heaven on earth. On top of that, I am really grateful to live in a house that isn't surrounded by 500 other houses. Our neighborhood is small and quiet and safe.... just the way I like it.

Yesterday morning we heard a monstrously loud noise coming from the back field. For the last two days there has been a man clearing the field. Looking down my alley to the left this is what I see now that he has finished his second day of work:

This is the view from the other side:

I am telling you, we are in a panic. A major panic! What if we lose our field? What if we lose our dirt bike track? What if they build 500 houses behind my house?!? One of our neighbors told me that they cleared it completely two years ago. I was shocked that the growth that the boys think is a forest for building forts was only two years worth of growth. Here's hoping they decide they have done enough already. Here's hoping we don't lose our dirt bike path/fort building forest/private back yard. Here's hoping my kids don't decide to go through with their plan to sabatoge the man's brush hog the next time he rolls down our alley.

Friday's Feast

I woke up a little too early today and instead of being productive decided to spend my time playing around online. I can't really wash dishes and vacuum while everyone else is asleep anyway, right? While I was looking around the blogosphere I came across this site. They have a bunch of different blog prompts. The one I liked the best is one I've actually seen on some other blogs. It didn't involve a large amount of creativity like the "let's write a haiku" prompt and it didn't have a bunch of personal/offensive questions like the TMI Tuesday site. So here goes ... my first Friday's Feast. We'll see if I stick to it. My Wordless Wednesdays have been lacking lately!

Appetizer
What does the color dark green make you think of?
shamrocks

Soup
How many cousins do you have?
30

Salad
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how honest are you?
9.5

Main Course
Name something that is truly free.
the way my kids love me

Dessert
Using the letters in the word SPRING, write a sentence.
Stupid People Really Inspire Nothing Good.

Egg Decorating Contest

Every year for Easter my Aunt Kathy and her daughters go to a friend's house for Easter dinner. Everyone participates in an egg decorating contest. This is my Aunt Kathy's entry for this year:

Here's Abigail's entry:

And here's Emily's entry:

I don't have pictures of the other entries and this is one of those "everyone wins a prize" contests, but I'd be willing to bet Kathy's was the bestest!

Redneckville 101

Yesterday we decided to treat my Mom to her first (and most likely only) lesson in redneckery. In her 50-something years on this planet she had never before used a firearm. Until yesterday. Here she is getting a 2-minute tutorial from Brian.

And here she is blasting through every single beer bottle we set up for her. She's a natural Annie Oakley!

Here are some photos of the boys and I taking our shots. I just love the way Kenny holds the 22. His arm isn't long enough to go all the way around it yet. I think he looks tough & cute at the same time.

Here's Mom taking a business call. Funny that she was chatting away about the caller's bulldog while we were shooting in the background. I wonder if he was worried for her safety?!? Then I heard her laughing and telling him what she was doing. Of course he didn't believe her at first. She had to say it again and I heard her say, "No, really, I am in Texas and I am on top of this big dirt hill shooting at beer bottles! Really!"

After we ran out of ammo the boys wanted to do a little 4-wheeling. Mom and I decided to be the official photographers. It isn't like we were scared to get in the truck or anything. No, it wasn't that at all. We were just thinking of the boys and how they might want pictures. It was a totally selfless act on our parts to stay out of the truck while they climbed hills and blasted through mud puddles. We were doing it for them. Really.

After the boys got done playing Brian pulled up and hollered, "Ok, you women hop in the back, Chase it's your turn to drive." I was a little nervous, but he did great and it was a lot of fun for all of us.

Until we saw this ...

Yes that is a dead cow. And what happens when my kids see a dead cow? They yell, "Stop the truck! Stop the truck! Let's get some cow hooves for Sammy!"

Chase stopped the truck.

Kenny jumped out and started kicking at the dead cow.

And returned with three cow hooves. They are $2.29 each at Petsmart so he was pretty excited about saving us a whopping $6.87 by having no regard for this poor dead animal's remains.

This is the reaction I got when they were both back in the truck and I was saying things like, "I can't believe I just saw my own child doing that."

Anyone else ready to come visit us?

He's Like a New Dog

We took Sammy to the dog wash this afternoon. It is just like a car wash. You go inside, put $4 worth of quarters into the machine, and the 8-minute timer starts. There's one nozzle and you push the buttons that you want, just like when you wash your own car. Here's a sign with the list of options that are on the buttons:

We washed him as best as we could in 8 minutes and then made him ride home soaking wet in the bed of the truck so that we could dry him in the back yard. It didn't take long, but he smells a lot better and looks so handsome.

My mom is a groomer so she was curious about the cost of the self service dog washing machine. We came right home to check it out. If we wanted to invest in one for her shop we'd only have to shell out $15,800. What a bargain!

Celebrate!

This is my 200th blog posting. Look at how excited Chase, Kenny, and Penelope are: