Big week for Maddie

It was a very eventful week for Maddie. First, she mustered up the courage to ride Yankee after Claire's lesson on Monday. This is a HUGE deal for her, as she is terrified of horses. She didn't even want to pet the fuzzy miniature horses at the county fair. But as Claire was riding this week Maddie told us, "Me turn," over and over again until it was her turn to ride. Here she is:

From 2008-09

Her other big accomplishment is (drum roll, please): she's learned to use the potty! We're still in the early phases and we have some issues at nap time, but she is done with diapers. Woohoo! I can't believe what a big girl she's becoming. So big, in fact, that she's turning two in less than a week. Seriously, where does the time go?

An evening storm

A little late summer storm blew through about 15 miles north of our place. Our view across the fields let me take a few decent shots -- I won't try to compare to the weather experts' talents though.

Happy Anniversary

Today was our 7th wedding anniversary. Not wanting to let such an occasion just slip by, we thought we'd get a babysitter and go to Altus' finest restaurant. OK, OK, seriously now. After reviewing our dining choices we decided to cook at home so we headed to Walmart to pick up the fixins for surf-n-turf. Don't judge us; I'm pretty sure it's the only gig in town that sells lobster. Maddie helped Phil pick out a lobster from the tank (I was across the store. I can't contribute to the murder of those poor critters) and some yummy bacon-wrapped filets. When he was done grilling it I think we had a pretty nice meal:

We also served the girls some fine cuisine. Here is their mac-n-cheese a la peas (it was the nice 3-cheese variety):

I'd say we had a pretty nice anniversary!

Hurricane in OK?

Southwest Oklahoma = Hurricane? Oh my.

All joking aside, we hope this blows over and everyone stays safe.

Riding lessons

After all of that rodeo excitement last weekend the girls decided they wanted to be cowgirls when they grow up. They've been yee-haw'ing and galloping all over the house. Lucky for Claire, I had already scheduled her to start horse riding lessons today. Maddie made sure I didn't get confused and think she wanted lessons by reiterating all morning long, "No me pet neigh." (Translation: I don't want to pet the horse).

Claire will be learning some horse basics (like don't get your feet stepped on and how to not get kicked) plus she's getting to actually ride the horse a bit. If Maddie ever warms up to them then she can take a lap around the ring at the end of Claire's lesson until she's old enough to have her own lesson.

The horse's name is Yankee, and he's actually the very same horse she rode at the 4th of July party. He's quite a nice horse and didn't seem to mind getting led around this morning instead of enjoying his usual pasture time.

Here she is getting ready to catch her horse:

She got him!

Comb him while having a water break:

Look at our girl go (do ya think she's having fun?)

What's more American than...

...a parade down Main Street?

Today Altus had the rodeo parade. It went right down Main Street, then down 62 to the rodeo grounds across from Bar S Foods (no, I'm not making this stuff up). Pretty cool. Claire loved the horses; Maddie couldn't decide if she liked the "neighs" or if she was afraid of them. They both really liked the candy. In fact, Claire informed us on the way home, "Well, I really liked the whole thing, but my favorite, favorite, favorite part was the CANDY!!!"

Is that the sound of... a cattle drive?

We live in Oklahoma. They have rodeos here. This is a new thing for us, aside from a very brief trip to a rodeo in San Antonio when Phil and I were dating (and it was really more like a carnival than anything else). Anyway, they really rope and ride at the rodeos around here. Unfortunately most of that ropin' and ridin' starts at 8pm, which is a bit late for our little cowgirls. Lucky for us, though, there are some events that take place during the day. Like the cattle drive. You know, the one that goes through the base and right through housing! Crazy? Yes. But it's true.

The girls were in school & Mother's Day Out when the cattle came through housing, but I managed to get them back in time to see some steers (or are they cows?). Claire now officially wants to be a cowgirl when she grows up.

I didn't have my camera with me, and I'm still waiting on photos from a friend who was there with hers. In the meantime, you'll just have to believe me that we had longhorns and cowboys here today!

Guess where we're going

Can anyone guess where we're going right now?

Claire's uber-excited for her first dance lesson; Maddie's dressed up for moral support!

No lazy Saturday for Phil

Phil has been putting in some really long hours for the last few weeks. And it looks like there will be a few late evenings at work yet to come, so I kind-of guilted him into a nice new swingset for the girls. After all, if I'm going to have a couple of extra hours during which I need to keep them occupied every day then we have to add something cool to the arsenal, right? Thankfully Walmart had just marked down a nifty swingset, so we picked it up and poor Phil had his work cut out for him.

Of course the girls knew he was up to something when he started banging around in the garage. Claire joined him a bit to "help Daddy with his project" and it didn't take her long to announce that her daddy was building her a PLAYGROUND! We really had her going for awhile, trying to convince her that it was actually a shelf for my plants. She got pretty exasperated with us and started talking to us slowly like we were 3 years old, "No guys. Mommy's plants would slide right off of that slide. It's a PLAAAAAAYGROUNNNNNND!"

Phil built the whole thing himself (I occasionally held things in place when he ran out of hands) and the girls thought he did a great job.

He started in the garage:

Then moved to the backyard:



Then (after a short rain- and lunch-break) he put in the final screws and the girls got to play!

Now for the unending chorus of, "Mommy, come push me on the swing!" or, in Maddie-speak, "Mommeeeee! I 'unt fwiiiiiing!"

School begins

One could almost hear an audible collective sigh from the moms around the block today, as all of our kids went back to school. Mother's Day Out started today for Maddie too, so I was kid-free for a couple of (short) hours.

Phil was home this morning because he's flying tonight, so we dropped off the kiddos together and -GET THIS!- went out to breakfast. By ourselves. With no children. And we ate leisurely. Sure, we were eating Altus-diner-breakfast-food, but no matter. It was nice.

Of course, a photo of the kidlets (and more if you click on it!):

Hopscotch

As you can see, Claire is learning the art of hopscotch. Yes, we've finally had a few days in a row where it wasn't 105 degrees so we actually ventured out and did "outside" activities, like draw with chalk on the sidewalk. Maddie tries to hopscotch too, but she was napping when I took the video.



And HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAWPAW!!!

Hot Enough for You?

If only we could push some of this north...