just a glimpse

happy halloween!

twice in one week!

Blogging that is....   = )    

Today when I went to class I got so spend $1525, aren't you jealous?!  Got to pay to take my state boards, my licensing fee, tuition, and a background check.  Then tomorrow I go in and get finger printed.  Do you see what's happening here?  Yup my friends, my graduation is literally R.I.G.H.T. around the corner!  49 days!  My last day of school is December 9th and I graduate on the 15th.  The excitement is hardly more than I can stand!  All of my friends are planning their graduation parties but I'm not really jumping on that band wagon.  All I really want to do is walk across that stage, get my nurse's pin, and then drive away from that school and be absolutely DONE!  We can invite everyone and anyone, doesn't matter how many people.  It makes me sad that I don't have many family members here.  But I'm gonna make the best of this!  My immediate family will hopefully come (except for my older sister, I may end up telling her she isn't welcome) and I've invited my bestie Jen.  I just want to make sure that someone is actually cheering for me when they call my name!  Know what I mean?  So there is the excitement that's going on in my life right now.... tomorrow is our "pumpkin night" and I so excited!  Crock pot chili for dinner, carving pumpkins, and then watch Charlie Brown's The Great Pumpkin before bed!!!  LoVe it!

And the end to today's post I have a couple of blog friends that if you could say a little prayer for them, and if you don't pray at least keep them in your thoughts.  

Emily over at MrsEyeCanSee lost her mother last night, what a heart breaking loss that I pray not to experience any time soon.

and,

Libby over at don'twasteyourcancer will have chemo tomorrow, pray that things go well and that she'll be feeling well enough by Sunday to take little Ava out trick or treating!

fAnTaStIc night!

I got to hang out with all the men in my life tonight, and no interruptions!  Well scratch that, 1 interruption with my older sister being a rude bitty, damn she can burst a person's bubble!  But no more about that for the night!  We had a great dinner, chicken & stuffing with mixed veggies... mmm mmm good!!!! Oh how I heart stuffing!  Pretty sure I could eat that stuff daily without anything else!  Then we finished up my 6 yr olds first report for school, it was about whales... btw, did you know whales have hair?  See, you really DO learn something every day!  Finished our night off with a completely dark house (minus the amazing halloween candles I made) and watched Garfield's Holiday movies.  Really, does it get any better? 

Oh and my friends, I graduate in something like 50 days now... it seems absolutely unbelievable but I am sooo sooo ready!!!!

have a great week!

p.s. these Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are gonna be the death of me!!! = )

for my horse friends

after much thought, a few agonizing hours and nights, i have decided to sell my sweet mare lady.  please don't be mad, and please don't judge.  while this is a beautiful horse and such sweet ground manners, she is just not the horse for me and my family. i need a horse that i can pull in from the pasture, throw my saddle on, and just ride.  i need this to be a horse that can sit in the pasture all week or maybe even 2 weeks and still give me the same ride when i finally get out there to climb on. there have been a lot of incidents that have led up to this decision and i do it with a heavy heart but i do think it's something that is best for me at this time.  = (   failure... i know.  so, i have put her up for sale or trade whichever seems to work best for me and for her.  initially when i decided it was time to buy a horse again i knew exactly what i wanted... a gelding was a must, no sorrels, and had to be trail ready.  instead i got a horse who only had 12 rides on, a m.a.r.e. and def not ready for the trails.  so in the ads i've run i made sure to be specific, there are only a few things that i will accept in a trade.  here are a couple of the horses i'm looking into incase i can sell lady without doing a trade...  this first one is my fave.  even though i'm not always a huge fan of paints, and def not a fan of one with this much white!, the videos of him are a huge selling point! and the more i look at his pictures the more i fall in love with him!

here is another one... a 15yr old gelding, notice the trend with the paints here.... surprising!  he's used in the ranch horse competitions.  has lots of experience on trails and look! i could even stand on him if i wanted to! ha ha!

i personally feel that this person could have done a better job at trying to sell his horse... for starters lets put a shirt on please? mmmk.  there is another picture of him that does the horse a little bit more justice, he's not as skinny as this photo makes him look.  again, he's an experienced trail horse.

not much info here except that he's 8yrs old and good on the trails.  i like how stocky he appears to be, and love the color....

once again, a paint... and a whole lotta white again! i'll prob regret this decision first time a let the horse out in the pasture! lol  i don't remember much about him, he rides english & western, started on jumps, very experienced on the trails.

so what do you guys think?  i had also looked into a grullo gelding but he has already sold.  for all of the above horses i went ahead and emailed the sellers to see if they are interested in trade at all or set on only out right selling.  can't hurt to ask right?  the picture of the 2nd horse, that seller is looking for another horse to train.  while my horse needs hours she doesn't necessarily need trained persay, so that might not work out.  but once again, let me reiterate incase you did not understand... i.l.o.v.e. horse #1!!!!  he has worked cattle, done lots of trails, pasture rides, videos of him crossing water & home made bridges... very impressive!

my celebrity ramble

I'm very sad that these 2 celebs have split.  And even more sad that David has to act like such a child!  Jeez! Come on, let's just end this with a little bit of dignity?

and this one.... oh my, I'm sooooo (can't express enough how sooooo) tired I am of hearing her songs.  I'll give it to her, she has talent, she's cute, but S.T.O.P. over playing these dang songs!

and these 2... well, I've saved them for last cause they're my fave....

I hope that they will last forever!

so, who are your fave celebs, and un-fave?  What do you get so tired of hearing about?

10 minutes of panic

Friday morning I woke my son up at 7a.m. and helped him get ready for school.

at 7:30 my sister came and picked him up and drove him and her 3 kids to school.

at 10a.m. the school called me to check and see why Logan wasn't in school today.

my heart dropped and panic set in.

according to the school Logan wasn't there.

the panic must have been relayed through the phone so I got put on hold.... for 10 minutes!

finally his teacher came on the line and apologized over and over again.

the child who's name is under his on their class roster was absent today and she accidently checked Logan's name instead of the child who was actually absent.

that was one of the most terrifying moments of my life,

the longest 10 minutes ever.

I imagined myself being on the news pleading for someone to bring my child back to me.

I felt pity for the Utah family who still has no answers on their son.

I am so thankful that this was just a mistake and my son is still smiling and playing and life is wonderful for him!

busy weekend, day 2

we spent Saturday morning at a soccer game but after that we headed to a pumpkin patch to gather the perfect pumpkins!

This was the best pic of the boys we could get, neither one wanted to sit and smile, plus the sun was in their eyes

dad and the boys looking at the chickens

the boys racing to see the goats!

I love this picture! I have one of Sage & Logan about 4 years ago just like this, it's so cute!  Can't wait to get this one framed & hung up next to the other one!

oh and on our way to the pumpkin patch we passed a yard sale that was selling this baby! $20 and we've had hours of enjoyment from it!  Hubby moved it to the "man cave" so he is constantly going down to shoot some hoops!  Last night all 3 of the boys were down playing games, it was nice to have me and the t.v. all to myself! 

also, today is my special day

happy birthday to me!!!!!

#29 - wow, 30 is so close!

fajita dinner tonight with my family, can't wait!

day 1, part 2

part 2 of our Friday was to go to the local high school football game

Logan had his first buddy spend the night with us so we took the boys to the game,

and then afterwards my dad put together a bonfire for the family

 Logan is in the red shirt

 here's some of the grandkids and a couple extras

 me with my awesome parents in the background

 the kids playing football

busy weekend: day 1, part 1

once again we had another busy weekend but it was a fantastic one to say the least!  

On Friday I slept in a bit, trying to catch up on some much needed rest!

This is what the little man was doing while he was waiting for me to wake up, cute huh? lol

we headed up to the local military base so that Riley could see the geese.  I grew up an "army brat" and some of my favorite memories of that base were when we would go up and feed bread to the geese.  So, you can imagine my disappointment when I saw THIS!

not to worry, but I went ahead and fed them anyway!  It just wasn't quite as exciting as I had remembered.... I broke the bread up and threw it all at once for fear of getting caught! Lol

Regardless they appreciated it!

we took Riley to look at the Buffalo Soldier Monument

and more geese for Riley to play with

most soldiers come to this base for the college, that's the college in the background, pretty huh?

stay tuned for more of the weekend!

my fair lady

I've talked about my horse before, "Lady"

If you'll remember I ended up naming her Lady simply because nothing else sounded right, 

it's in my nature to call all mares (girl horses) Lady as I'm tickling their muzzles so I figured we'd just name her that, what the heck right?

Well about a week ago I moved her from one ranch to another, this new place is only 5 minutes from my house, vs the 35 minutes I drove to the other.

Lady loves the new location, stalls where she can see the horse that's next to her, flakes of hay thrown to her randomly through out the day, and two open sides to the barn so she can watch the world as it goes by.

On Thursday I took her out for her first ride here, I'll be honest I was nervous!  When I rode at the old place I was in an arena and she still was as unpredictable as could be.  Here I was out in 65 acres of openness, plenty of space for her to ditch me and leave me for the birds.... luckily she was kind enough to let me stay on her and we had a fabulous ride!

I took her out again yesterday (Sunday) and the ride wasn't quite as relaxing but there was no bucking and no taking off with me, and I stayed on top so I consider it a success!

Also the pasture fence got finished yesterday so after my ride Lady was allowed to go out and graze and just be a horse! I'm pretty sure she loved it!

Here are some pics of Lady...

just inside the gate... it took her about 30 minutes to realize if she just turned the corner  she'd have a huge salad bar waiting for her!

Lady & Zig, he really wanted to be friends, she, well not so much

pictures from my ride on Thurs, inside the fence

Thursday again, from the top of the back pasture

more Thursday ride, this was Lady's first look at the neighbor cows!

yup that's me! I had to text a super cheesy pic of me to my husband, so now you get to see it too!

Miss Lady after our ride Thursday... I know she's skinny but we're working on fixing that!

my try at creativity

Last year I won a blog giveaway and got a years subscription to Woman's Day magazine

quite honestly it's one of my most favorite things! 

The amazing recipes that come from it.. mm yum!  And then I get some of my artsy fartsy stuff from it too, remember my watermelon cake for 4th of July?  Well see here if you need to be reminded!

Here are my newest fall decorations.  I shared most of it here in this post....

I L.O.V.E. this wreath, it's creative and unique!  The best thing about it is it has some red leaves hidden there that match my accent wall that is diagonal from the fireplace... it looks great in my living room!

yes, that is a candy corn garland.  The hubs and I had decided to celebrate that I passed my test last week by making some home made nachos, drinking some beer, and watching a movie of my choice!  Well we got close..... we made nachos (my fave!), drank some beer, he watched football and I worked on my garland.  Some couple hours later I had finished it, I love it!  Would I do it again? Heck no!  I have so many little holes in my fingers from the needle, so not fun! lol

the happenings

The past 2 weeks, well let's be serious the past 8 weeks!, have been so damn stressful.  I've mentioned before that I'm in nursing school and this is my last semester.  Well as of yesterday I successfully passed my first course of the semester!  Amen!  I can't even begin to tell you how hard this course was and I'd love to tell you that I'm passing with flying colors, but mama taught me to never tell a lie!  Today I slept in until 10:30 am, that was some much needed sleep.  I spent the day with hubby & our little guy, it was fantastic!  We started out by heading to see the horse and playing with her for a little bit.  Then we went onto the local Fort and visited the geese... fun fun!  Riley loved feeding the ducks and thought it was so fun to chase them and make them "talk".  Afterwards we picked up Logan from school, along with one of his friends and 2 of my nieces.  Tonight Logan is having his first friend sleepover!  Is it weird that I think I'm more excited for this than he is?  The kids are playing down in the man cave then we're making pizzas for dinner and heading to the local high school football game.  After the game my parents are having a bonfire so we'll head that way... seriously could tonight be any more fun for a sleepover?!  I've got some pictures to share from the last 2 days but I can't find the dang adaptor for the camera!  Oh... and last Sunday I moved my horse to a new barn.  She's only about 5 minutes from me, it's heaven!  Hope you all have a great weekend and hopefully by Monday I'll have some pictures to share!  :-)

pictures of our life

I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to keep up with the blogging much.  Still don't have a lot to "say" right now but have a million pictures to share!  So reminder of our busy last month or so.... soccer games, Riley turned 2, wedding, Renaissance Festival... and of course things not pictured are school, school, more school.... less than 80 days until graduation though!  December will be a G.R.E.A.T. month!  So, here are some photos... and also, want to give a shout out to Shannon, check her out over at Living My Life On PurposeLiving Life On Purpose  Check out her blog, super cute!  I've followed her for awhile and she has followed me but for some reason she could never comment... well my friends I have finally FIXED that problem!  So everyone give it a try!  Comment your little hearts out!  

my awesome husband grilling up food at Riley's b-day party... eat your heart ladies! :-)

some of the party guests

Riley's cake, thanks to Shannon (above link) for the inspiration!
p.s. I'm not sure the link is working for me  :-(

opening his many presents!

Riley being afraid of the candle, he wouldn't go near the cake until we blew it out! lol

Sage & Logan getting ready for a wedding

my handsome boys!

please pretend my arm isn't the size of my thigh.... once again, sorry - he's taken!

Riley & daddy

we're playing around with a new camera... Logan wouldn't stand for a family picture, he was way too cool for us!

Logan & 2 of his cousins at the Renaissance Festival

yummy turkey legs!

this may have been my favorite horse there that day!

or maybe this horse? This big guy weighed a mere 250 lbs! Oh how I ♥ Mastiff's!

the big kids riding an elephant

Riley trying to be brave!

this little guy was waiting for me to finish cooking dinner last night... too cute!

Logan and his pup, Bella

Living My Life On Purpose