Santa Claus

We got to see Santa and Mrs. Claus on Saturday in Boling. What excitement. Our town of probably 1,000 all came out for the 'big' parade and to get their picture taken with Santa. We skipped the parade, but just had to meet Santa. The cool part is I got a polaroid picture of her with Santa. I think it's cool because that's how they did it when I was a kid and now they are doing away with polaroid cameras. So, this might be her only picture with a polaroid. What a classic!

We also had a good time with our friend's on Friday. I have to admit, after two evenings w/o Shelby I was missing her a lot! I was glad when the party started to fizzle out and left around 8:30 PM. I was also exhausted from a long day at work and sleepless nights with Shelby. She's getting so much better, but working full time and taking care of Shelby is a lot of work and makes me VERY tired. Ryan, of course, does his share it's just that babies are very demanding. Who would've thought??!! :)

Today was awesome too. Shelby was right on schedule with her naps so inbetween I went out and rode horses while she slept. Ryan stayed inside with her. I worked Mito and he did great. He's starting to learn how to stop straight, turn into the fence and lope off while I'm on him. Now, we still have some work to do, but I am pleased with our progress. The weather has been nasty so I've just beeing working horses at home. It's not nice enough weather to haul somewhere and take Shelby. She and Ryan don't like the cold. :) I also exercised Badger and ponied Romeo today. I'm so excited to start riding Romeo. He did awesome today when I ponied him. He went all the different speeds I asked of him. Sounds simple, but some horses get a little stupid and want to do their own thing. Once the weather is nice enough for Shelby to go outside I'll saddle him up and either Ryan or I will climb on him. I hope it's me, but Ryan may not let me so we'll see. :) I was trying to hold of until we had his teeth done, but I'm running out of patience so I may just leave the halter on him and make the leadline reins. We have a halter from Clinton Anderson so it has some pressure points on it which I think will work well with riding him in the round pen. I guess we'll see, huh?

Christmas is very near and we are all excited. Tomorrow we go to Rossy's house to do a white elephant gift exchange and eat dinner. That is always a lot of fun! Then Christmas Day Ryan, Shelby and me will open our gifts and enjoy the day doing who knows what. The weather is supposed to be nice, so maybe we'll get her outside.

Shelby is doing great. She is growing everyday and we are all figuring each other out which makes it so much easier!

Finally, Shelby has found her thumb...and sometimes her fingers or whole fist. How cute??!!

Lost Keys

We are taking Shelby to see Mrs. And Mr. Santa Claus tomorrow. I’m excited about that. I was trying to find a santa clause close to home. I got lucky….we are having a parade in our town (Boling) and they will be at the fire station after the parade. So, yea!! If we couldn’t find anything my friend said her dad, our pastor, would dress up if we asked him. So, I told ryan that b4 I knew about the thing in boling…so after he found out about both he said he’d rather do it w/pastor cause we know him and the santa is a stranger….arg…he is sooooooooooooooooo protective. Anyhow…too bad…she can sit on santa’s lap. I’m not going to ask pastor to dress up when there is already one in town.

Last night was fun. I had a party with some friends that I had worked with at my first job in FBISD 10 yrs ago. There are about 10 of us that get together every Christmas at a friend’s house. It is so much fun. Well, I was getting my things together to take in her house and I decided last minute not to take my purse. So, I threw it in the back seat, locked the door to my truck and went inside. It wasn't until 2 ½ hrs later that I realized I didn’t have my keys when I was trying to leave. That’s when it dawned on me that I had put my keys in my purse which was now locked in my truck. Man that sucked! I thought I was going to have to pay $60 to have someone come out and unlock it. I would also have to wait over an hour for them to get there. I knew Ryan was not going to be happy with me since it was already after 7 pm and Shelby was up and cranky. Luckily one of the ladies, Laurie, offered me to take one of her vehicles home and I could pick my truck up the next day and drop her car off. She happens to live next door to the friend’s house we were at AND they live in the neighborhood I work in. So, I took her car home. I walked in the door to hear Shelby screaming, the vacuum sweeper running and Ryan completely stressed out. Poor Ryan and Shelby. He was on his last resort so I guess I got home just in time. I took her and he went outside to gather his frazzled self and probably drink a few beers. She settled down and I had us both sleeping (Shelby and me) on our bed by 8:30. That’s where we slept until I woke up at 10:30 and put her in her own bed. She slept til 3:30 AM.

Tonight I am having my friend’s watch her so I can go to a White Elephant party with some friends from my department and another technology department. It should be a lot of fun.

Christmas is Near

I thought I should let you know that I will not be sending out Christmas Cards this year. With everything going on I decided that was the one thing I could skip this year. :) I'm sure you understand.

The weather has been cold and yucky here. It's weird weather too. One day it is 36, cold, dark, and dreary (much like Michigan) and the next it is sunny and in the 60s or 70s. Then, a couple of days later it dips down again. There is even talk about some snow next week. That would be cool.

This week or weekend I hope to get pics of Santa and Shelby. I am trying to find a Santa in our area. My friend, Mel, is helping me as well. So I hope to have a pic to share with you soon.

I hope to get my gifts out today in the mail to MI andNM. Hopefully they will get there b4 Christmas.

Tomorrow I have a party at my friend's house. There are a few of us who get together. It's always so much fun. I won't be able to stay and do the Christmas Lights Tour, but it will be fun to see everyone for a little bit. Then, Friday is another Christmas Party with some friends at work. We're going to Sam's Boat. We're going to do a white elephant exchange. THat's been a joke with us all week. Some of them have sent pics of good/bad gifts...hahaha...it's been entertaining. So, now I have the pressure of making sure I bring a 'good' gift.

I'm looking forward to that too. I already have the babysitter lined up. I decided I was going to go and if Ryan wants to join me or do something else then he can do that and have a break from Shelby. He doesn't like going to new places or hanging out with new people. So, sometimes I have to drag him but once he gets there i usually have to drag him out. Ha!

Feet

I thought this was a cute pic of Shelby's foot verses mine. :)

It's supposed to be cold again. It was so nice yesterday and now another cold front.

One more week of school and then two more weeks off. I'm looking forward to it.

I made cookies this weekend. Man those Sour Cream cookies are so good. Probably not a good thing to make but it's Christmas so why not?

I have to get my Christmas packages in the mail this week. I can't believe Christmas is next week. Where does the time go?

Click on Shelby's link to see more pics of her.

Pretty Moon

I noticed how pretty the moon was this morning when getting ready to leave for work. Thought I'd share.

This is looking out to our backyard from our house.

Snow Day in Texas

Yesterday was exciting for us southerners. It snowed! North Houston got a lot more snow than us, but it was still fun to see the small snow flakes falling down. We went from tshirt weather on Tuesday to snow on Wednesday. Crazy weather! I took a brief video of the snow while driving home last night. You can't see it that well, but it is there.

This morning I took a picture of a lady's car because it had snow on the back of it still.

Cold Weather & Young Horses don't mix :)

UPDATE,....Here is a pic of what Michigan looks like this morning...I guess my cold weather isn't so bad after all...

The weather has changed drastically since yesterday. It's about 30 degrees colder today than it was yesterday. Brrr....and it's raining...yuck...there's even talk about snow....but unlikely

Yesterday I picked up Shelby and rushed home. Ryan had two horses saddled for me. I passed Shelby on to him and then went and changed. I only had about 30 min before it was dark so I had to hurry. I got on Badger and loped him around for about 15 min. He just needs exercise to get the extra weight off at this time. The cool thing is while I was riding him you could see the big, dark clouds rolling in and then came the northern wind. It amazes me everytime a blue northeren blows in. It's something you have to experience to believe. One minute you are in a tshirt and you are fine. Five minutes later the northern blows in, the temperature drops drastically and the wind picks up. It's amazing. Yesterday was super cool cause the clouds were so big and dark and they rolled in. So, as I exercised Badger I watched it blow in.

I then had to work Mito. He's still very green so I was a bit concerned about his behavior. That cold weather can make them frisky and the young horses can get broncy. Anyhow, I warmed him up in the round pen and then got on him just to work on his turns on his back end at a walk. Then the rain started to sprinkle...cold weather, rain, and young horses do not mix. I knew that could end up bad so I got off before I wanted to. I can't afford me to get hurt at this time.

So, today I get dreary, rainy weather...at least I have cell group for church tonight. I hope it will be nicer tomorrow so I can ride again. My goal is to ride on Tuesday and Thursdays during the week. We REALLY need to sell Mito and so I REALLY need to stay on him and get him going. I hope to sell him by spring as a patterend barrel horse. We've got to down size. This economy doesn't look good so we need to set up ourselves so we can ride through the wave.

I have added new pics from MI. Here's one of Skylar's deer...congrats Skylar.