I am the vine

Since I'm a slacker mom and all, I haven't gotten Baylor's 18 month pictures taken. She turned 18 months on the 1st. But, I'm glad I waited. Brier needed his 3 1/2 yr picture done too. I love these pictures. They make my heart happy.

The grapes belong to Don and Renee Hill and they were kind enough to let us take pictures in them.

Remember Higgins?

Remember Higgins from here. He was so cute and little and look at Brier's chubby little face.


Well, he celebrated his half birthday on Friday. So he's 6 months old. Keep that in mind when you see him today.


While, I'd love to tell you that I've been the Dog Whisperer and Higgins is this great puppy that will do amazing things, I can't. He does do amazing things like sit and shake and all that good stuff. But, I had under estimated myself and controlling Higgins, Brier and Baylor was difficult and Higgins got to where he'd knock the kids down A LOT and hard. It wasn't his fault he's a puppy and look how big he is. I didn't really have time to train him and comfort the kids so Higgins went to Uncle Jody's boot camp and he's still there and they've made a close bond. So I don't know if he will come back home or not but him and Brier still get along really good and Brier can now ride him.

Lake Fun v2

We got to enjoy a couple days at the lake and it was perfect until the kiddos got sick running a temperature but luckily it was short-lived or else the ride home would have been no bueno at all.

Brier figured out how to wear his hat backward. How come all little boys figure this out on their own sooner or later. Of course he used persuading skills to get my dad, Russ, and even Kegan to all turn their's around too. I think in this picture, we were teaching him how to cross his arms and say, "what, you want some of me." Not really I'm hoping he will be very laid back easy come, easy go kinda guy.

Taking turns driving the boat. Pops and Russ are so good about sharing and taking turns. hehe

Baylor heading to the pool carrying all her gear.

Then the diva side of her kicked in.

I need to go clean out my car

I was a splishin' and a splashin'

Brier and Baylor were so excited to get these "water boots" at Target on clearance the other day and who would have known it wouldn't have been a moment to soon.

We call them water boots because that is what Pops calls his boots when he used them to go turn off all his water in his field because it has rained so much. Which is a huge blessing.

Please note little miss priss splashing around already in the background.

This picture is a little blurry but I love the mud splashing up from Brier jumping.

Raisin' Chitlens

This is so good and true.

Raising Children
by Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief.

I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast.Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like.

Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon, and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages, dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, and finally what the women on the playground, and the well-meaning relations -- well what they taught me was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything.

One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome.

To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

I remember 15 years ago pouring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made.They have all been enshrined in the "Remember-When-Mom-Did " Hall of Fame.The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs.The times the baby fell off the bed.The times I arrived late for preschool pickup.The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp.The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1.

And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top.

And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity.

That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me awhile to figure out who the experts were.

This made me cry and laugh until I cried because of the drive-thru. I’ve actually done that. When I realized it of course my first thought was “OK, they’re a 3 and 1 year old. They won’t know the difference if I just go somewhere else and get food. I looked in the back seat and they were both just starring at me like “What the crap, mom”. Luckily, no one else was in line so I just swung back around and picked it up. I shrugged and grab my food from the boy-crazed 16 year old girl and thought to myself, “oh she’ll understand someday”.

I never told anybody that story ever because frankly, it is embarrassing but now that I know other moms do it, what the heck I put it on my blog for everybody to know.

Lake Fun

We went to Possum Kingdom for the week of 4th of July, my parents have a house there so its nice to get to go enjoy a little R&R from time to time.

I swear I put Baylor in swimsuits at the lake but none of the pictures I have of her she has one on. hmmm, but luckily for you I had mine on.
Brier thought it was cooler to pretend to drive the boat than to swim.

Baylor watching Dusty roll up the ski rope. You can just see the wheels turning in her head, can't ya.

This is PK (Hell's Gate), luckily for us our house is close so we can scout over there to see the happenings and let me tell ya, there's some stuff going on there that would make your grandma blush. So we usually cruise around a bit and then hightail it back to out of there. There's probably hundreds of boats in there.

This guy right here flies over the boats giving rides. Which I know I'm a little old but this seems just tad bit dangerous to me when you think about it. Sooner or later he's gotta crash in there. He's been doing it for years, his luck has got to be running out. I have a lot more pictures I will try to get put up soon.


Here is Baylor's tribute to Michael Jackson. Now let's get thing cleared up. I'm not overly distraught or anything about his death. You didn't see me wearing my sequence glove or moon walking into work on the day of his memorial. But when Baylor came walking out with my lingerie on her head the day after he died. I chuckled out loud. Guess she had been seeing it on TV a lot. That's the most action that lingerie has seen in years.