Picture time!

They grow up so fast. While I love to see the changes from year to year, it's also a bit sad to see your babies grow up. Today, I had them put on their "nice" clothes and we climbed through the barbed wire fence to take advantage of the great pasture and views behind the house. These are some of the many wild flowers which grow in the cow pasture behind our house.....

And these... .these are my babies... SIGH.

Sniff Sniff... I think they grew more while I was writing this!

Summer time sledding.

Just because it's spring/summer, that doesn't mean you can't still sled down the hill.....In fact, this was a GREAT use of the snow disc that had a crack in it and was headed toward the dump.

Mother's Day gifts

I am at a point where I don't have need, use, or space for a lot of foo-foo stuff. I would rather my family spend time together than money on each other.

Dale gave me a really sentimental card. He doesn't do mushy often.... so when he does.... sigh.....

LD also gave me a card, one of those ones where you can record your own voice in it... he said "I love you momma." I melted......

And Beth, she gave me this really cool picture of herself - in a frame she made. LOVE it. Love the sepia treatment. But... I  HATE that she's so grown up now....

I hope everyone enjoyed their Mother's Day as much as I did!

Gray hairs? At five???

Today as he was enjoying an apple, I noticed something:

No, not the freakishly large, out of proportion, alien-like head (that's for another post entirely)..... That, right there...What's in his hair....Looks like maybe a gray hair to me.... what do you think? Here's another shot:

I grabbed at it and it came away from his head quite easily. I also noticed that it had a much more coarse texture than LD's hair. His hair is coarse - like his daddy's. But not THIS coarse. And it's a little longer than the rest of his hair... and really more white than gray.....

Now... do you notice a guilty look on this dog's face? Oh I do.....

The gray hair wasn't a gray hair at all... but a DOG hair that LD picked up because he spends so much time rolling around with THIS dog... 

 

This dog, who happens to enjoy taking his naps on the couch... and on LD's pillow... and anywhere else he can find that's soft.

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How many kids do you have?????

When asked that question, I often reply, "none, baby goats are hard on the upholsetry."

But I know, they really mean, "how many children do you have?"
And the answer varies. I, personally, have given birth to two babies. My first: She's beautiful, sensitive, funny....... and a girl, through & through

Because her father & I divorced when she was 3, the amount of time, and consequently number of photos, I have with & of my daughter are fewer than those I have of my second born.... my boy child...  and he's ALL boy.... he's also a ham, has his daddy's easily frustrated nature, and LOVES to snuggle:

Brother & Sister..... what more can you say?

Along with second marriages often come step children. Step children can be challenging... and when they become teenagers...... well, you finally understand why some animals eat their young.

My life as a step parent was VERY challenging. I tried to always look out for what my boys needed. And I tried hard to balance that with what my daughter and then son needed as well. I tried to be fair, and I tried to make sure that EVERY child in my home knew I loved them. Sometimes I succeeded. Sometimes I didn't. I made note of the successes, and the failures, committed them to memory, and learned from them.

My step sons are 18 and 16 now. Ryan is off doing his own thing. Devin is back with his mom, because that's what he needed. Decisions we made, right or wrong, led us to where we are today. And whenever I wonder if we did right by these boys, here's a few "memory lane" items...... I look and them and I know exactly what it was that we were thinking:

This was the last picture we had taken of ALL of them together... 

Don't they look like they're up to something?

And the last of the three boys together... at lest in a studio....

Ryan enrolled in Grizzly Youth Academy. It's a federally funded program, run by the National Guard, for at-risk youth. It's an AMAZING program. 

Dale and his boys (minus LD cause he was too tiny to do this) spent an afternoon hiking around Upper Bidwell Park

Kids, Children, Offspring, Parasites, Punks, Ankle-Biters... call them what you will. 

We love them, even if they do ruin the upholstery.