In the sunshine

My Girl took these photos, during our family hike on Sunday.

You can't tell now, what with snow crusting the ground,

but Sunday was absolutely gorgeous--

sunny and warm enough to remove jackets while scaling the hills.

 She captured some peaceful scenes along the way.

I love that she loves to see and capture the beauty around her.

She caught us examining crevices in the bluffs...

 She got some good shots of her little brothers...

 ...and snuck some of me, while I snapped my own pics.... ;) ...

 So, of course, I did the same, and caught her taking pictures.

This has become a family affair, and I LOVE that!

 I'm trying to spend as much time outside as possible, whenever the weather permits.
Winters are so very hard for me. I despise being cold. I NEED sunshine in a serious way. In fact, I'm thinking seriously again about a way to leave here every winter. This area is amazing for most of the spring, all of the summer, and the first part of fall.... but the dreary wet cold winters are simply painful.
Thanking God for every sunshiny day we get, especially when the temps climb high enough for family fun like this.
Love this random pic, below, with my kidlings and Man, all looking and going a different direction. It was the perfect spot for our afternoon, with plenty of room to explore, climb, slide down, and dig for rocks.

My Girl

I need to take a moment to brag on my girl. This beautiful teen just accepted her first job, doing childcare for a church Bible study. She is officially on payroll. I helped her fill out her first-ever W2 (and held back tears until she was in bed.)

I am proud of her, y'all!

I'll be honest, the teen years scare me.

Perhaps-- cough, cough-- because I put my own parents through the wringer during that time. Sorry, guys! Granted, there were extenuating circumstances... yada yada, still, it scared me big time. (past tense now)  

At 13, my Girl is kind. She is sweet, caring, precious. She is responsible and thoughtful, hardworking, and courteous. I wonder what I did to get such an amazing kid (they all are!)

She confounds me with her introversion, though. I grew up in a family of introverts, and didn't find my extroverted footing until I was grown and out of the house....and, boy, let me tell you, when I found that footing, I planned a party right there and then!

I like people. In doses, admittedly (I'm one of those ENFP extroverts who also needs some serious downtime.)

But my Girl? She's all the way on the other side. Introvert supreme. She prefers quiet, individual activities, lots of alone time. She prefers books to people, a good deal of the time.

 

 

I second-guess myself all the time with this kid. Where's the line between encouraging her to go do activities, and pressuring her? I never want to make her feel like she's anything less than wonderful for who she is.  What's best for her? How do I nurture this amazing young lady?

With each child, I'm still learning, still in training, still unsure.

As I sit here typing, she's behind me, quietly reading a book, engaged in her other world.

Such a complex, incredible little person.

I'm so happy, so grateful for who she is and who she's becoming.

So grateful that, although she prefers time to herself, she still enjoys family activities and outings.

 

I'm so grateful for the miracle that she is!

 

Congratulations, My Girl, on your job!

 

bits of beauty

I don't want to take all of these little moments, little glances, little pieces of beauty for granted.

Lord, help me appreciate every moment I'm in, as the gift that it is.

Progression of a picture

My Artist has caught the Drawing Bug. :) She's been at it during her free time.
Isn't this great?? :D

And I've been taking picture requests from the kids.

Dash requested I draw this little creature, from the Spiderwick Chronicles book:

So, so, so glad that they'll all sit and draw pictures with me!

I don't think I could cope with winter otherwise.

All done with this one... :)

How are you holding up, through these cold months?

To the tracks we go

TheArtist is not only an artist, but also an extremely obsessed-with-horses little girl. From birth. Some kids might as well have just popped right out on a saddle.

When she was tiny and called everything "hosey," I thought it was just a cute little stage that all toddlers go through. Little did I know that, at age 11, she still points out every horse as we drive by. And draws horses, collects Breyers, daydreams about "her farm," reads horse novels, and writes horse novels. Yes, truly obsessed and proud of it.

We've been super blessed to receive weekly horseback riding lessons, as a free gift, from a friend. Oh, my, it's been amazing. Fred and I are also looking for other ways to nurture this little girl's dream.

Today we drove to Will Rogers Downs in Claremore, to see the horse races. So, yes, we took our kids to the tracks. On a Sunday, no less.

TheArtist had never been to one before, and she LOVED it.

I'd say it was a great experience for all of the kids.

Each time we'd guess which horse would win.

Mine consistently lost. I'm not a "lucky" person.

NatureMan and TheArtist took turns winning.

LittleLad and Dash watched, whined about concessions, and rolled around on the grass.

Very neat. I don't know how the jockeys can stand to have their legs up so high!

Then we headed home-- bleh. Fussy kids, and Fred & I were both tired. We stopped for some food, and there was a BUG in my salad. No thank you.

I got my money back, and decided to go hungry, rather than order something else. ;/

So, back in the van.

I usually bring some kind of sewing or sketch pad with me (unable to just sit still.) Today I only had a mini-notebook in my purse.

So I drew my shoe, for lack of a better subject. Sketching with the pen laying on my middle finger is completely new to me. Try swapping around your grip, and you'll see.

I'm adjusting.

Horse-themed pre-teen party

Did you see that title? PRE-TEEN. Yes, it's an official description for my daughter now. She is 11...but not going on 18. My precious girl is sweet, innocent... still naive and natural. She doesn't have any interest in the latest bands or fashion trends. She couldn't care any less about make-up or jewelry. She has never been interested in baby dolls or Barbies. Her one true passion-- horses-- has retained its hold since she was old enough to say "hosie."

I let her plan this party herself, choose the colors, invite the kids she plays with. She didn't want to dress up. Okay. That's fine. She wanted to draw the horse for the pin-the-tail game. Great! She wanted to decorate with her own collection of Breyers, horse books, signs. Sounds perfect. She wanted to play Pony-opoly, have a horse quiz, have time to use the Playroom upstairs, and eat cake. Love it.

It was a small, sweet party. She invited 7 kids.

Love, love, love this girl! And she has the sweetest little friends!

11th Annual U of A Horse Festival

The Artist-child is slightly (ahem) obsessed with horses. I'm quite sure she would exchange our home and everything inside for a horse, given the chance to do so. Naturally, we had to take her to the horse festival, a couple towns over.

We watched the Mounted Fury Jousting Troupe of Cedar Springs Equestrian Center,

Equine Extremist Tommie Turvey (his "episodes" alone were well worth the cost of the show!! So entertaining!),

the debut of a champion Friesian stallion, Frederik the Great

(you can't even imagine the beauty of this horse!)

high speed drill teams
We also watched the Parade of Breeds, which included the Gypsy Vanner ($30,000 to get one,) Friesian, Arabian, Andalusian, many Gaited Horse breeds, Mustangs, Mules, giant Draft Horses, adorable Miniatures.

We watched dogs rounding up sheep,

horses dressed like sheep (**how embarrassing!**)

...and even itty bitty cowboys roping. This kid is 6-years old!
We walked through all of the vendors' booths and bought a book from an author there, who autographed it for my darling little girl.

The kids pet all kinds of horses outside the arena. This one belongs to the U of A.

To top the day off, The Artist-child was able to meet one of her pen-pals, a fellow horse-lover. :-)Thank you so much, Claudia, for your correspondence with my little beauty.

Woot, woot! So happy we had the opportunity to do something like this for our girl!

Live Performances

Yesterday I was able to go in to Isabelle's ballet class to take some pictures of the girls practicing. I left my camera in Julie's car on Wednesday, so Mom loaned me hers for these shots. I didn't realize until after the fact that she has it set to compress, hence the low quality shots. sigh. Oh, well.
You can still see Isabelle's graceful little moves. She certainly has the right body for ballet.

Aren't the girls just darling??

Then Sherrill and I took the Artist with us to "God's Favorite" play. The content was a bit much for my darling, but she enjoyed watching our sweet friend Rochelle perform.
Below, some of the cast, after the play.

Rochelle, you were awesome!~!!! The accent especially just blew me away.