Many of you know, but in case you haven't met us or you haven't deduced this fact from reading my posts, let me help you out with a big, fat fact from our household (hopefully, someday, RANCH-HOLD): Daddy-O is the funniest guy he knows!!! We have had many, many times together through our almost 13 years of marriage when he will be driving us along a road and burst into these fits of laughter----out of the blue---no one has said or done ANYTHING---. He doesn't belt out loud laughs usually, but snickers, squeeks, gasps for air, and sometimes has his eyes so closed with tears sprinkling forth, that I can't be certain he can see ANY of the road ahead!!!
That important fact aside, I have to say that sometimes he can tell me what's funny, but sometimes, no, many times, he cannot. It's not that he doesn't want me to know....usually....but sometimes he is so cracked-up that he can't even get out what's so funny. It's usually nothing he has seen as we are traveling down the road, rather is it his mind at work, or at play maybe? Either way, he just gets tickled, and I start asking if I need to drive or if he can see or if we need to put on our flotation devices and prepare for a crash landing in a swamp somewhere down here!!!

Now you know how Daddy-O operates, you need to know what on earth a football bat might be. Oscar walked into the house with Garrett close behind him after a trip somewhere....Tractor Supply or Sacs probably.....and he calls back to Garrett about something and refers to him with the name Football Bat. Hhhhmmmm. We have had lots of nicknames for our kiddos over the years including Squirrel, Lumpy, Lumpy Lou, Chubby Cheeks, Sweet Baby Boy, Fussy Lump, Addie-Pie, Lou-Lou, lucy, Grouchy jr., Grumpy, Bubbles, Mr. Bubbles,  but never Football Bat. SO I had to ask, right?? I mean, this doesn't make any sense at all. It wasn't like Little Sluger or Star Quarter Back. It was FOOTBALL BAT????!!!!!! I asked, and I got the answer very concisely, as if Daddy-O read it out of a "How to Nickname Your Child, The Unusual Name" version. And Daddy-O says," Well, it just makes sense to me that Garrett is a Football Bat. It sounds like it would be a really fun thing, but it really doesn't make sense!" Then he started the laughing......again.....oxygen, anyone????

Daddy-O and I were settling into some office work and laundry-folding in our room tonight when we kept hearing this angelic giggle from the girls' room. Daddy-O and I were all smiles listening, so I had to go catch a photo of this great memory. They were playing those hand-slapping games and were just so tired that everything was hilarious!! I got two........

It has been 12 days since Garrett's repeat muscle biopsy. These are photos to show the location and size of the site. I thought about placing a ruler or tape measure near it so you can see the exact size, but I know he would get upset about that, so in the final photo, I place my hands near the site. I have small hands. I think this is a larger, but much neater biopsy site than his first one. He is walking and running almost normally now. He doesn't like us to look at it, and he will not touch it or let us touch it much. His first biopsy was stiched closed in what looked like a running stitch when a person sews. This one is very raised with the center sewn shut very neatly, but very raised. Then there is a stitch that looks like a small running stitch all the way around the incision stitching. I have not seen anything like it, but one thing for certain....it isn't going to open!!!

Addie has ridden a few times this year. She had her broken arm accident back in November and was not allowed to ride for a few months. SInce she returned to the saddle, we have noticed that her horse, Lucy seems uncomfortable. I rode Lucy in Addie's little saddle, and she was plain fussy while I rode her. We figured out some of it is the saddle, some is lack f respect, and some is that Lucy needs to get back into balance and shape. All of these things are very fixable, so we began that process this afternoon with the help of our sweet friend Mary. Here are a couple of photos of Addie loving on Lucy at dinner time.

Garrett loves, loves, loves, loves, loves riding his two battery-powered toys. One is a John Deere (is there any other brand???) lawn tractor, and another is a little 4-wheeler Santa brought last year. I was cooking some yumy spicy shrimp from www.thepioneerwoman.com site (love, love, love her site, recipes, homeschooling info...just a neat place to check out...oh, and the love story of Ree and her husband....almost as amazing as ours!!), and I looked out of my kitchen window to find that Daddy-O had taken one of our 4-wheeler ramps and made it an obstacle for Garrett's 4-wheeler. The funniest part isn't visible from a still photo, but as he was crossing the ramps, it was rather bumpy, and his cheeks were bumbling up and down at a very rapid rate. It was so cute!! Caught him on film.....

So a few weeks ago I posted a blog about Ainslee bursting out of the bathroom back into the kitchen/school work area, where she shouted, "My panties are made in Turkey!!" Well, I love to tell anyone who will listen (as well as some who are not listening but humor me) about the funny goings-on in our home because it's really funny sometimes, and the world is WAY, WAY, WAY too serious these days, in my correct opinion! SO I was telling a friend about how we used Ainslee's panty origin discovery and turned it into a geography lesson series, and my friend said, "Geez, better check to see where my panties are made, because if it's a really big country, that should tell me I need to lose weight!!" SO I have to share that because that was finny!!

But more from Ainslee. Last week she shouts from her throne in the bathroom, "Mom! Everybody! My panties are made in ty-wahn-eeeee!!!!" Took me a second before I burst into crying fits of laughter as I realized that was Taiwan. Way too funny!!! Then Addie announced that her panties were made in Bangledesh that day. So yes, curiousity got me...mine were made in Shri Lanka. Back to the map!!!! Hope that's a really, really small place!!!! 

Our big boy rode in 2 of the 4 lead-in classes last Friday night at our local saddle club. Addie and Ainslee have competed there for three years now with both girls starting out in the lead-in classes like Garrett did. In lead-in, the parent can be leading the horse, although as the girls progressed with their skills in their first year, we backed off more each week until the end of the season they were riding alone with no help at all from us!!! Addie was so proud to have Garrett ride her mare, Lucy, and have Daddy-O just "help," but when Lucy got a bit goosey after the first barrel, she traded spots with Daddy-O! Garrett had fun and LOVED it when he heard his name announced!!!
Ainslee rode in one event and placed second, but then decided Ernie felt a bit too strong to ride more. Addie swore she would not compete, then changed her mind and wanted to just try the barrel racing class, but then backed out. She is still nervous after the broken arm incident. We pray she will grow in confidence, and we will be riding  her mare more this spring and summer to be sure we have the right horse for her. Enjoy seeing our big boy ride more......

Garrett took his ride down to Mary and Scott's on Ernie today while I led him and he held the reins. We have done this four times in the past two weeks. He has always loves the rides on his little tractor and little 4 wheeler because he has control, and now he has control of Ernie, he focuses on it and likes to ride. Before this past couple of weeks, riding wasn't much fun to him. After his ride with me leading him, we took Ernie to the round pen, which is a small, fenced area where he and Ernie cannot get more than 15 feet from me at any given time, and he rode about 5 minutes all by himself. Ainslee walked ahead of Ernie some to get Ernie to walk as Garrett isn't big enough to use his legs much. Luckily, Ernie always wants to go....so not too much encouragement is necessary.
This is huge to me because it means real progress for Garrett. He isn't scared of being way up high like he was in the past. He has interest in the horse and the control. He has the hang of how to go, stop and turn, and LOVES to back up!! He usually beeps like a dump truck when he walks backwards or makes his vehicles go in reverse, so I fully anticipate hearing him beep on Ernie soon!!!!

Garrett was up way before his sisters. They watched a movie until way too late while I had a dear girlfriend over to hang out since Daddy-O was working. So Garrett went along with me in his footed jammies and cowboy boots to feed. Addie was outdoors a little later and added to the entertainment, and then the Killdeer birs's eggs hatched today, so I got a quick shot of them....SOOOOO CUTE!!!
Nina is flying in tomorrow and will be riding with Garrett and me on Monday for his repeat muscle biopsy in Houston Tuesday morning. Please pray we have safe travels, the anesthesia and procedure go well, and we make it home safely. Also, pray that this new biopsy will give us ANSWERS!!!

Notice anyone missing...besides Daddy-O who was working? Yep, Ainslee, because she was SLEEPING!!! It was a peaceful morning and nice and cool.

My sweet, sweet friend Vicki and her father take lots of great photos with their ooooo soooo nice camera (jealousy oozing from my pores here!!!) when Vicki's daughter takes riding lessons with me weekly. Then Vicki shares these amazing photos with me. I hae a few of our kiddos I will be sharing over time.

This series of three was very near. It shows Ainslee dismounting after riding Ernie. They make me smile!

Okay, planned to leave it at that. but I can't not talk!!! So I cannot not type more!! What hit me in these photos is that my Ainslee, 7, is all grown up sometimes!! She doesn't need help dismounting. and this past week she has started loping/cantering Ernie....that's like a slow run for you non-horse-in-your-blood, very unfortunite people ; )
So you can see no one is near her to help her. Now I will say Ernie is HUGE, so she cannot get on him alone.....yet....but that's coming when she figures out how, and I can promise it will not be a conventional method of mounting her steed!!! Even though Ernie is a hand-me-down from big sister Addie (who has Lucy now as her horse), Ainslee gets along really well with him, so we plan to keep this relationship going. Ernie is 18, happy and sound, and Ainslee is happy!!