Cowgirl

It's Rodeo Time!!!!

My Daisy

Okay, just a quickie because I have 4 hours of 24 waiting for me on the DVR an it's already 11pm. Jack Bauer should NEVER have to sit unwatched on the DVR, shame - on - me!

Today was Ryleigh's first Girl Scout meeting. Of course I forgot to fill out all the medical release forms until I was sitting in a Quck Books class this afternoon. I raced home and got them all filled out digitally and then my printer wouldn't work so I just knew that I blew my kids first meeting because I couldn't find time to fill out 4 forms over the past week. Damn tequila.

Anywho, she got to stay for the meeting so it was all good. I think she enjoyed it. She seemed a little disappointed that it wasn't just a big playdate, but they did some neat crafts so that made her happy. THE moment for me was when they said the girl scout pledge, you know, the one where you hold your three fingers up? I felt like I was in the ol' Girl Scout hut in Monahans saying my own pledge. Come on Monahans girls, you remember the green and white hut...and the tree we ALL climbed and at least one girl a year fell out of and broke their arm? Awwww, the good ol' days. Camp Mitre Peak flashbacks to follow....

So she is super cute in her Daisy vest but no, I haven't taken a picture. We still have a few more pins and patches to get on it before I do that. But I will definitely post for all to see!

And....YES! We are selling Girl Scout cookies!!! And we will deliver! You know you want some Thin Mints, just go ahead and email me your order!

To Ryleigh and Avery

Dear Girls,

I just wanted to take a moment and write to tell you how incredibly special you two are. Each in your own unique way, you light up my every moment of every day. You are not only the most beautiful little girls, but your boundless energy and cleverness lifts me up and makes me feel whole in this world. I made you, with daddy's help of course, but I carried you, I delivered you and now I stay home and take care of you. It's all been lots of hard work but when I see you Ryleigh read your books to me and show me all then numbers you can add and when I see you Avery say a new word and do your little dance in the living room I KNOW that I have brought two very special and awesome new beings into the world.

Ryleigh, you are doing so well in Kindergarten. You are one of the most compassionate kids in your class. The teacher always sits the new kids with you because she knows that you will make them feel welcome and of course, tell them exactly how things work in your classroom. You are still a very picky eater, but I'm starting to see signs of improvement in this area. Your hair is finally starting to grow longer and get thicker, much to your delight. I don't think it's going to be down to butt anytime soon, but I can at least pull it back into a ponytail from time to time. You have started making your bed everyday, many days without prompting. You are also starting to grasp the idea of money and very soon you will be starting to get an allowance, in exchange for a few household chores. This isn't a problem though because you are my little helper, always eager to please. You are very gentle with your sister and I can see your own little heart break when she is in any sort of pain. The flip side of this characteristic is that she runs you. I'm sure at some point you will learn that she will not break and that asserting your authority with her is okay. She is after all the little sister, and as such must be taught that you are her elder and should be respected as such. Just ask your Aunt Becca, she understands this concept perfectly well. You are growing so quickly and here recently have started protesting your sister's silly cartoons since you prefer Hannah Montanna. Avery got you a new Wii game for Christmas and so you have taken to the Wii and run straight for it after school. It's just almost unbearable to see how tall you are getting. Long gone is my first baby and quickly emerging is my very big, brave, gorgeous and smart "little" girl.

Avery, you are my little sidekick. You tag along with me through all of the day's activities so effortlessley. I never worry about how you behave when we go anywhere because I'm my book you are pretty much perfect. Even when you run away from me in Wal-Mart, and I mean run-a-way. More than once I have had to abandon my cart, grab my purse and dart across the store to catch up with you. You like to run away from me at home too and most recently you have realized that you can run around the couch faster than I can and so you just keep changing directions until I figure out how to get over the couch fast enough to catch you. I laugh the whole time. I just love it all because someday you won't want to go to the store with me because you need to talk on the phone to someone or catch some show on television. And someday I won't be able to get you up off the couch so I gladly let you run around it now. Our house is your playground, another thing I don't mind one bit. During the day we play kitchen, color, play dolls and other little activities all over the house. Your favorite shows right now are Micky Mouse Clubhouse and Dora the Explorer. I don't know what I'm going to do when you start going to preschool let alone Kindergarten. Okay, so maybe I'll get more pedicures and spend less time at the grocery store, but I know that without you by my side all day every day things are definitely going to be a whole let less exciting.

I feel so blessed to have you both. I feel even more blessed to be able to stay home and make your care the number one priority in my life. The sand in the ol' hourglass seems to drop more quickly every day, reinforcing my life's mantra to make each and every second count. And I couldn't ask for a better family to make me want to make each second count. Love to you both...and daddy too...Family Kisses! Family Kisses!!

Bugs are for Squashing

Yesterday I had a run-in with the pregnancy bug. I had a few friends over for a playdate, aka Operation Destroy Jennifer's House. One of my friends is 39 weeks preggers and showed up wearing one of my maternity shirts I had loaned her. I wasn't expecting what happened next. She is lots more pregnant than the last time I saw her and it was one of my favorite maternity shirts. That combined with the fact that we have made the decision that our family is as large as it needs to be which means I will never wear that favorite maternity shirt again added up to me losing it. I made my friend leave the room I was in so I could get my cry out and then I was fine. I'm fine, really, I do NOT want to be pregnant again, I know this from the depth of my soul. Pegnancy sucks, not being able to lay down for four months sucks, pushing a baby out of my body sucks, sucks, sucks. Not gonna happen, capt'n.

Then the girls and I went out to dinner last night with our Canadian friends that just moved her. They have an eleven week old and she is gorgeous. She snuggles and rooted all over my neck which just about made me start lactating all over again. When we left the restaurant the mom mentioned needing to nurse in the car before they left for home. A flood of memories came back recalling countless nursing sessions in the car, just me and my babies and our little bit of time together while the world just passed us by. That part doesn't suck. Not at all.

Jeramy leaves for the rig tomorrow...already...*sigh*. I wish he had about another week before he had to leave. I have some light bulbs I would like changed...and it would be good to have a few more evening to hang out on the couch together. This hitch home Jeramy spent the first week in the office covering for a coworker and the second week and then some out in West Texas for the holidays. This is our third night home from our trip and it's just gone by too fast. So tonight I thought I would make an extra nice meal for his last night home.

So, how exactly is a beef tenderloin supposed to look after it's cooked? I read a friend's blog last week and for Christmas dinner they had a beef tenderloin which sounded amazing. So I found a recipe and followed it exactly and it still turned out as basically a big hunk of raw meat with a cooked exterior. I was able to salvage it by slicing and then cooking the slices in a pan, but I'm pretty sure that's not the point. So, off to research and figure out what I did wrong. Maybe I should just stick to casseroles and stir-fry.

The house feels a little vacant tonight, we already put all of our Christmas stuff up. It was either do it today, or it would have to wait until Jeramy got back. I don't think I could take another 3 weeks of stockings hanging from the fireplace.

Until the New Year, Peace be with you and your family.

The Day Mom Missed Christmas...or at least the part where she has to cook and do dishes.

The children, even 33 year old ones, were all nestled and snug in their beds when 8am rolled around and Grandpa started banging on the door. What five year old isn't up at the crack of dawn to open presents? Our five year old of course....she was tired.

We invited my grandparents over to watch the kids open presents and I figured that Ryleigh would definitely be up by 7:30 or 8 at the latest, but since we all stayed up so late on Christmas Eve we were all snoozing away well after the sun had peeked above the horizon. It was all good though, we needed to get up and get after it, it would be a long day ahead!

Everyone received more than enough in gifts, especially the girls. We may have to rent a U-Haul to get all this crap, I mean gifts back to Katy. Ryleigh was delighted to find that she had indeed been good enough to get her DSLite from Santa. The same dumb Santa had a DSLite back in Katy but left it in the top of the closet and therefore had to procure a second DSLite and sincerely hopes that the first DSLite can be returned without hassle. Along with the duplicate Sleepy Time Dora that Avery received. Dumb Santa.

After gifts come lunch and my Mom is in charge of lunch for about 30 family members from both sides of the family. Becca and I usually help and I was glad to be able to help more this year because for the first time in 6 years I was neither pregnant nor did I have an under two year old to care for. Freedom is good. But brownies that carry bad pecans are not and apparently that's what got served on Christmas Eve and those of us that ate them paid the price. First Jeramy who went to bed at 9pm on Christmas Eve, then me who was up in the middle of the night and finally mom. Two hours before everyone was due to arrive and about the time all final preparations needed to be made for lunch she was down for the count. In bed with a bad tummy ache. Fortunately for everyone my mom raised a couple of girls that aren't scared of the kitchen. Becca and I furiously started whipping up pies and deviled eggs, we got the tableware all out and set, brewed the tea, made grandma do the gravy and we were all good to go. Poor mom missed the whole dinner, she didn't get to say hi to a single guest. By the time she emerged from her room at 9pm, everyone was gone and the kitchen was clean.

Mom did make it out for our annual tradition of watching the VHS tape of Christmas from 20 years ago. Christmas 1989 was a special year filled with gifts of sweat suits, Scattergories, a pool table and godzilla. It was the year that Curtis got a mini pool table which my sister and I discovered at 3am and decided to play with until my parents heard us and sent us back to bed at around 3:30am. I got a race track and declared that I shall open no other gift so that I could just play with my race track. The best part was when my 8 year old sister opened a gift that was not marked for anyone. Inside was a nice ring which she declared as her own. Steve promptly scolded her for opening to her mother's gift to which she was deeply sorry because the Beckanomics 2nd principle of "finders keepers" had be thwarted. She then went back to the pile of gifts and found one clearly marked as hers, read the lable to all so that all would know and then went about her business of opening gifts.

Without a doubt this has been an eventful year. Some really awesome events and some not so awesome. There were many moments during the last few days that I just had to thank god for my family. Of course my fantastic husband and beautiful girls, but the extended group as well. I'm glad that we all have each other and that the sane can balance out the insane.

I hope that 2010 will be a year of no moving, a year of growing and a year of understanding. But most of all I hope that 2010 will bring us all more love and happiness than we ever thought possible.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

Out West

Friday Ryleigh got out of school at noon since it was the last day of the 3rd six weeks. We are now officially halfway through Kindergarten. Yeah, I'm totally stunned. I can not believe how fast it's all going. First grade, here we come!

So on Friday since Ryleigh got out of school early we loaded up and headed to Austin to see our friends Karen and Jeremy and their adorable little 12 month old, Autumn. Karen and Jeremy met at our wedding, they actualy walked down the aisle together as bride's maid and groom's man. Hmmmm, wonder who made that happen...:) It was so awesome to see them and little Autumn. All three girls took a bath together Saturday morning and it was just unmeasurable cuteness to see them playing together in the bath.

Saturday we made it the rest of the way to West Texas just in time for the Wood family Christmas event at my Uncle Wayne and Aunt Kelly's new house. I love having to walk around a big ol' pile of horse crap on my way to the front door of a house. And of course, the evening wouldn't have been complete without the dog getting sprayed by porcupine quills. But hey, the food was awesome and the company even better. It's always nice to see all the cousins that I grew up with, especially now that we all have our own little families.

So we've already eaten at Habanero's and had the midnight munchies chimichanga from the gas station, so that's pretty much it for decent non-hamburger type food in this town. Jeramy ventured out to the new Chinese place today for lunch, but I'll stick to my sandwiches thank you very much.

Tomorrow Santa has to make a trip to Odessa for some last minute gift buying because Santa is an idiot and left the Santa gifts in the top of the closet back in Katy. Santa is really hoping there will be no problems trying to return the DSI sitting in Katy since a second DSI has been purchased to take it's place Christmas morning. Stupid Santa.

Today is Jeramy's birthday and I'm glad we still have friends in this town because I'm laid up on the couch with a sore throat and slight fever. He just headed out to go hang out and I think I will be heading to bed shortly after the girls. Cheers NyQuil!