Monday, November 29, 2010

One of the Neatest Things I've Ever Seen!



I ran across this video on the blog, Christ Centered Christmas.

I loved it so much, that even though I've been posting an awful lot of videos lately, I just had to share. That is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written - bar none!


"And He shall reign forever and ever!" 

Amen.

Happy Christmas Season, everybody.

Come Take a Ride....

A horse can lend its rider the speed and strength he or she lacks, but the rider who is wise remembers it is no more than a loan.  ~Pam Brown



I've ridden other horses bridleless before, but I guess I never imagined I'd ever dare ride THIS one without a bridle. We've just been following along our little Parelli pathway and one day, I just knew we were ready. 

"If your horse says no, you either asked the wrong question, or asked the question wrong."  ~Pat Parelli

 


Sunday, November 14, 2010



Amazing. Inspiring. This gave me good chills.

Happy Sabath - may we keep it holy.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Freestyle Riding - Parelli Style

I took these photos a while back of my friend Linda. She is my fellow horse trainer at the nation's largest no-kill animal sanctuary. We are both Parelli Level 3/4 students which basically means we know how to have FUN with horses!





I don't know why horses like stickery tumble weeds, but they really do. And I've heard they're pretty nutritious. I love Hanky's Billy-Bob tooth in this picture.



Look Mom, no reins!


Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Costume Craziness

I've said it before, but I hate yucky, scary, evil Halloween costumes. When my kids were little and I had ultimate creative control, they were always cute, fuzzy, cuddly little creatures - chickies, froggies, skunkies - you get the idea. Now that they're a little bit older, they seem to want to have an opinion about what they'll be for Halloween. And then I have to have a little talk with myself about how I need to pick my battles. For instance, Brynn wanted to be an "evil goth vampire princess". Well, I'm not gonna lie, that doesn't thrill me. I would hope she'd never want to be an "evil" anything, even for Halloween. But I took a step back and realized that mainly, she wanted to wear a wig and makeup. Her friend gave her a long dress with fishnet sleeves and a velvet skirt. So I decided it wasn't worth it to fight with her about it - I hope that was the right decision.

I put some makeup on her - exactly how she told me to:



I even put some mascara on her for the first time ever - she has such ridiculously long eyelashes, I've never wanted to. But she insisted on mascara and it made her lashes about 2 inches long. RIDICULOUS!




And here she is with her wig, ready to go trick-or-treating.


The boys, thank goodness, collaborated on a super hero theme this year. And the cute thing was that Jaxon decided to be Robin to Luke's Batman.

"TO THE BATMOBILE!"



Jaxon's costume was actually a men's size - he's getting so stinkin' big! And my, what big muscles he has these days!


And Luke. Seeing him in this little mask just makes me happy.




He asked me, the day after Halloween, if he could keep his costume out as a dress up suit and wear it everyday. I thought for a minute and said, "Why not!" He's the baby and no one is coming along after him to need the costume. And it brings me back to the time when he was 3 and I couldn't pry him out of his Superman pajamas. And frankly, I'm not ready for him to grow up - if he wants to be Batman everyday for 5 more years, fine by me!

I also had to include this photo:


This is one of Brynn's best friends and we let them go trick-or-treating together for a little while before we went as a family. This kid LOVES the movie, Avatar, so I wasn't surprised to see her dressed this way. But I was impressed by how great she looked - and boy, is that blue makeup fun to photograph!

I'm really trying to enjoy Halloween because the kids do and be a good sport about it. It seems like I'm getting better about it and Marty's getting worse. He was really a Halloween scrooge this year. But I figure it won't be very many more years before they will be too old, and then I'll miss it. Surely.