Surprise!

April 22nd was my little brother Tommy's 20th birthday. We had a surprise party for him. He was kinda suspicious of it, but I did have one total surprise for him. 3 more of our brothers got to come for the party! Ben, Sam and Dan got here Thursday after Tommy left for work. Dad, Mom, and our other brothers were not able to make it, but we had fun anyhow.  We had some friends from church and work there also. Happy Birthday Tommy, I hope you enjoyed it!

And because I don't feel like downloading them and editing etc right now you can go wade through the pictures from their visit here. Even though I can't explain all the goofyness in the pictures that way. Oh well, here is an overall caption...our family is weird. The end.

Pickups, Horses and Training

Isn't it nice how one little thank you can make all your hard work pay off? Well that plus having relatively obedient children. The other day while Stephen and I were in town I was going to stay in the pickup and feed Kimber while he and Tyrel went into AutoZone. (Shhhh, don't tell Mom, she works at Oreilly's) Anyways since Tyrel was sitting behind me and Kimber behind Stephen he was going to her her out and hand her to me and I got Tyrel out so he could go with Daddy.

I got out and unfastened Tyrel from his carseat, set him on the ground, and told him to go stand at the front of the pickup on the sidewalk. Then I got back in the pickup and didn't think twice about it. Stephen handed me Kimber, glanced out the windshield at Ty and said "Thank You". I just looked at him and said it was no problem, he was on my side I didn't mind getting him out at all. He said "No, for training our kids so well."

I looked out at Tyrel and was indeed thankful myself. I mean, how many 2 1/2 year olds can you tell to go stand still on the sidewalk and then not even have to think they may run off across the parking lot. I told him what to do, and he obeyed.

This is certainly not because he is a compliant child by nature. Tyrel is about at stubborn as they come,(His name even means stubborn. Really) and has taken LOTS of HARD training. But it is paying off. I often just see the things that need work still and don't notice all that we have accomplished. So it was nice to have a perspective change also.

Anyways, on to other matters.

My brother Tommy purchased him a pickup. Yay Tommy! It is a Ford Ranger. He really wanted an F150 but this met all his other criteria and was a great deal. He wanted a Ford, 5 speed, under 150K miles, for under $4000 dollars. Well he got it with money to spare.

He even has some of that money to spare after purchasing a secondary form of transportation. Horses. Yes. 2 of them, with saddles. He is going to give/sell me the dun which is 12 years old and already a gentle riding horse. And he will keep the 3 year old green broke sorrell. They are both mares. The old cowboy we bought them from is going to help him train his horse also. He is a really good friend of ours, which is one reason we got such a good deal on 2 horses and saddles.  I names "mine" Riata. Stephen and I have a funny story about that name. See a riata is a long, leather, mexican kind of rope. (I think, if I'm wrong Stephen will correct me and I'll change it.)

Well anyways, when we were going to one of the local cowboy churches one time not long after we were married, we were standing in the back row singing during praise and worship. In the middle of a song Stephen looked kind of excited as he tried to see someone/something at the front of the church. I asked him what he was looking at and he whispered "That's Arianna!" I had never seen him so excited to see a girl before and it raised my jealousy hackles a bit. I tried seeing if this Arianna was our age, pretty, etc. While asking him "So who is Arianna?" He said don't worry about it, I'll tell you later. That got the hackles up even more. "No, who is Arianna?" He laughed and said "Do you see that leather rope hanging from the cross at the front of the church?" "Well yes, but WHO is Arianna?" "Well that rope is a riata". OHHH okay. That's cool, you'll have to tell me about them later.

And all was well. The End.

A Title :)

Not sure why some of the pictures are scrunched up and weird.

Not a lot really. I have some pictures from a week or so ago, but nothing recent. It has really greened up around here since then. Even the mesquites are greening up, and they are always the last thing. I love the spring, except for one thing. Storms. I have a love/dislike relationship with storms. They are awesome and beautiful to watch. But they can get pretty severe here in West Texas. I sit up at night when we have a chance of storms praying and reminding myself that God has not given us a spirit of fear but a sound mind. Then the wind starts blowing harder and I can just see tornadoes ripping everything apart. Then I move our babies into our bed where I can keep my arms and eyes on them. All the while my husband snores away. Until I wake him to say I am going over to his parents to check the radar. If it looks bad on there I can sometimes convince him to go with me to his parents house for the night. A real house, that doesn't shake in the wind. It doesn't help that a few years ago our roof blew off of our trailer. Twice. Within a month. Once while we were in bed asleep. Well, I wasn't asleep, but he was. It was rather scarey. And so I pray and pace and pray and listen to the radio and pray and check the radar and pray.And then feel silly in the morning when everything is fine.  But really I do love to watch storms and would love to see a tornado from a safe distance. Hmmm, I hadn't gotten on here to ramble about storms.

So here are some somewhat recent pictures.

Sunset over the big house (Stephen's Parents)

Mud on her face from Mama watering the garden.

Towels blowing in the wind, and some already blown off.

Walking the Concho River. Our favorite way to waste time in town without spending money. That is not the river, but a drainage ditch or something near it.

Crossing the river.

Looking down at the ducks.

Bran.

Playing at the park by the river.

Peek a boo Kimber.

Wallowing on the bed before baths.