Did your mother ever do this to you?

Sound of Music curtain dress?

Do you like our big bows?

I'm the older one,

The Bug's the cute one.

Weird Hair

I went through a weird hair period in high school.

It did some really weird things.

Hormones.

From my soul to your sole.

Every summer, a large part of our family flies and drives to the Texas Hill Country, deep in the heart of Texas, to renew our souls.

I grew up on a ranch here. My memories and my heart will always have a home in the country.

And this week, as we drive six hours to the Guadalupe River to swim and be with family, we will once again pass this familiar landmark...the fence of boots.

My mom stopped one year and took pictures, so here they are to share with you.

This isn't something you see in many other places...

Which is your favorite?

I've seen lamps made out of boots and purses made out of boots,

but fence art is pretty unusual.

Inside out?

Remy, my 6-year-old, asked me first thing this morning, "Can you turn a sheep inside out? With magic?"

Ummm, excuse me, can you repeat that?

I don't even begin to know how to answer this question.

Sheep: He said what?!

Treasure Hunt

Every now and then I get the creative bug, and I come up with an idea. I decided to make up a treasure hunt for my boys.

First I made up clues...silly, rhyming phrases to help the kids guess where the next clue was hidden.

I'm not going to share all of them, because that's slightly embarrassing, but here's the first one:

We’re going to play a little game,
Because watching TV all day is really lame.

To find the treasure, follow the clues
And play fair, or everyone will lose.

The next clue is where Mama blogs,
Is she the guiltiest of being a computer hog?

Here is my pile of clues before I started taping them around the house in hidden places.

Here are the boys with their first clue, ready to go hunting for treasure! They were excited and even willing to put up with me and my camera for the occasion.

One clue led them to the mailbox.

another to the bird feeder.
and even to the recycling bin in the garage. I think I had about 15 clues in all.
Culminating to the final clue,

This is the final clue you’ve been waiting for,
Head to the place you get water on the floor.

A treasure awaits you, if you’ve been good.
In the place where you bath often, or at least you should.

which led to the master bathroom, where I had hidden the treasure in our big tub. Most of it was silly stuff from the Target dollar section, but a few bigger things, like Lego kits and the TV show Two and a Half Men on DVD.

They had a lot of fun (and so did I)!!

Answers

Potatoes!

Cookie cutters!!

Saucy Chef

I woke up this morning to find out I'm a Saucy Chef today!!

Woohoo!! Click on the logo below to see what I'm talking about:



If you haven't discovered SITS yet, you really need to stop by and check it out.

SITS stands for The Secret is in The Sauce

and was founded by Tiffany and Heather.

They have brought together the community of women (and men) bloggers in a fun way.

Check them out:

And, they're having an awesome giveaway this week, for a Apple 4G iPod Nano in Silver! Seriously cool.

More Mystery Photos

What could these be?

These never work right...

Stupid crystal rock-growing kit.

King Kachi - Camera Critters

I was reading Lane Boyz Mom's blog the other day, KooKoo For Cocoa Puffs, and she had some posts about her cats, who were apparenting starving and letting her know it...and once she bought them food, they dissed it. They're food snobs!

Anyway, this reminded me of my mom's cat, Kachi. I love cats but we can't have any in our house because my hubby's allergic to them. So, Kachi is our adopted cat...we love him when we go visit.

Kachi is weird though...in a way that all cats seem to be. If he can SEE the bottom of his bowl, he starts complaining, LOUDLY. Even if there's still food in it, just a hint of the bottom peaking through causes instant upset.

He is housemates with a big black lab...and totally king of the castle. He's in charge of the dog.

He loves to escape outside...for about ten minutes, living dangerously in the bushes...

then he's back at the door ready to come back in.

He has to drink bubbly water. He drinks with his paws. It's the strangest thing I've ever seen.

I could go on and on...one of his nicknames is Alarm Kitty. He's hilarious. I laugh from afar, because I don't have to live with him...

We totally love King Kachi.

Grab a camera and a critter and join in Camera Critters!

Ask...and I just might answer

I noticed that most bloggers seem to do something special to recognize and celebrate their 100th post or their 200th post.

Well, I think I just had my 200th post, so I'm going to do something I've seen others do.

I'm opening up for questions. You can ask me anything.

I may or may not answer. hehe

And, I'll answer honestly...although that may be hard for me...being a writer and all, we like to make up stuff. Embellish a little. But, I promise I won't.

So, here I am in all my glory. Ask away.

My Homage to Tequila.

I know I promised more family introductions and photos, but I had a sudden change of heart. I felt the sudden need to leave behind the G-rated little kid posts and throw in a little healthy R-rated action instead. Shocking, I know.

Let me say, first of all, that I never drink. Seriously. Practically NEVER. However, I was in Mexico with my husband and NO kids, at a Mexican wedding and there was tequila being passed out like it was water...and we had a huge bus to take us back to our hotel. I didn't know it at the time, but I was a goner the minute I got to that wedding.

Two years ago, our good friend John was marrying a beautiful girl in Mexico City. My Texas Homeboy was asked to be a groomsman, so we flew down there for the wedding. We left our cute boys behind because we heard children get kidnapped a lot down there.

The wedding was gorgeous and held in some 16th century chapel. It was elegant and amazing.

And then the real party started...and the second band showed up.

They started handing out costumes.

and clowns on stilts start mingling in the crowd.

(and, at this point, the photography goes seriously downhill folks because the photographer, who never drinks, had one too many tequilas. Make that ten too many.

Ok, I admit, I lost count.

And lost time...

Someone else may have had my camera for a while even.

In fact, the rest of the night was pretty fuzzy.

Wait, I know these guys. On the left is my Texas Homeboy.

At this point I have my camera back, and this is my abstract art photo of the night...

Behold, batteries on the table!

These are some of our friends.

When you've had way too much tequila, everyone's your friend.

And things get really weird when everyone has masks on...

I might know this guy.
I think he's had too much tequila as well.
Yep, he looks familiar.
We didn't make it back to our hotel until the party was over...

at like 5am the next morning.

It was one helluva a wedding