Are You Affraid of the Dentist?

I love going to the dentist. I love having my teeth cleaned. I love knowing that there are no cavities. I actually wake up every morning and check my teeth to make sure they are all still there. I have to confess, I worked as a Dental Assistant for over 6 years, which has contributed to my tooth obsession. I always look at peoples' teeth. It is the first thing I notice when I am talking to someone. Teeth can tell you a lot. In horses teeth can tell you how old your horse is. Also, if a horse has bad teeth it will not stay fat and in the wild those horses would be the first to be picked out when hunted. When we bought "Pretty Girl", the new horse, I looked at her teeth. They were short. That means she has been using them for a long time. The man who sold her to us said she was 16. I had my doubts on that age. So, I took her to the vet for her shots and a quick look at her teeth.

Our vet is the best! He is very good at what he does. We actually go see him about once or twice a week with War Pearl trying to get her bred. We loaded Pretty Girl (which got renamed Daisy Rose Pretty Girl by the six year old and two year old) into the shoot. After her shots and blood work the vet got out his tools to look at her teeth. This is so cool. I have never seen teeth be floated like this before!! Floated is when you take a file and file down the sharp points on the horses teeth. Those sharp points can give them sores on their cheeks and tongue. And that can make them uncomfortable when having a bit in their mouth or when eating. So, it's important to get their teeth floated. So, any way, here is the new horse with her Dentist Halter on.

This Dental Halter has a mouth peice that makes them hold their mouth open. Oh, she is really drugged here so she is off in la la land. Now the vet can take a look in her mouth. But it is a bit dark in there so he needed to shed some light on the subject. The Vet put a light on his head and took a peak at her top teeth. He said she had a lot of sharp points and that she really needed the work. Then he took a peak at the bottom teeth. He pulled the tongue over and checked out her bottom teeth. This is so cool! I was so excited. I have never been able to really look into a horses mouth before. And now look how clearly you can see everything. After getting a full look at the situation it was time to get out the big guns. The DEWALT!!! WOW!! Look at that drill!! Now tell me you wouldn't freak out if your Dentist came over to you with that! It has a long shoot and on the end is a round file that spins really fast. That file then smooths out all the sharp points on her teeth. The dust was flying!It got pretty loud. But very interesting. He drilled a bit more on the top then had Paw Paw hold her tongue for the bottom teeth. I just think this was amazing. Daisy Rose Pretty Girl now has nice smooth teeth. She will now be able to eat better, gain some more weight, and be happier with the bit in her mouth. It really was amazing to watch. If these two wild cowpokes could stop running around to stand still and watch this for 20 minutes, it must have been really cool. Oh, and about her age. The vet checked her front teeth and told us that she is defiantly "Drinking Age". Which makes her at least 21 years old. A far cry from 16. But that is okay. Big Cowpoke needed an older horse.

Little Monkey

Cowpokette is on the move. She has started crawling. She has been scooting around now for about two weeks. But just about four days ago she started doing this.....
Don't make fun of her bed head. She is still in her pj's. But she would get up on her knees and rock back and forth. Then she would get mad, fall down, and scream. Girls!! A bit touchy!! It only took a couple days for her to get it though. She now is a little climber. I have found her under the coffee table eating magizines, under the piano pressing the peddles, and also doing this.....I just barely caught her climbing off the back side. She climbed on the bottom and went right through to the other side. I can't believe what a little monkey she is!! I am going to have to get those locks for all my cabinets!! "What? I was just playing here. Nothing here to be seen!!" She was really happy and proud of herself. I just couldn't get her smiling. She is a mess. So very different from my boys. They weren't climbers or diggers. She is a nosey little one!!

Road Trip

Thursday night I decided that we needed to take a road trip. I have been wanting to go and look at a horse over in Texas for about two weeks now, so, with Mr. Cowboy being off work I thought Good Friday would be a good day to go. So, we went on our road trip. Now I know I had a post a while back about needing to sell some horses, and oh my we do!! My father in law just bought a new one and we still have the 19! It's out of control. I have sold one pony and I am selling my yearling and one more pony. Then I will be good for a while!! But anyway, I needed to find a good horse for my son to ride while my mare was off with her boyfriend. So, Mr. Cowboy and I packed all the kids into the car and headed off to Liberty, Texas. That is 3 and a half hours from us.

The adventure started out with the DVD player breaking. So, we had to stop by Circuit City and exchange it. We always buy the extended warranty so we have not bought a new DVD player in about 5 years. When the old one breaks it is still under warranty and we go and exchange it for a new one. I really recommend getting the extended warranty. For 4 years it is only 70 dollars. And if my boys are playing with an electronic device, it will break!! So, we got a new DVD player and headed off to Texas.

It seems like it took forever to get there. Between lunch breaks, potty breaks, diesel breaks, and me breaking up World War Three in the back seat, it was about time for us to get there! The horse was a good girl. She is a bit skinny and needs a lot of groceries, but I think that will be an easy fix. She also was in a need of a good foot trimming. But other than that she was a pretty good girl. She has been used as a calf roping horse in the past. This was a plus since Big Cowpoke is all into roping. Mr. Cowboy rode her first and she was a good girl, so we switched to his kid saddle and Big Cowpoke rode her for about 2 minutes. She just walked and then turned and walked back. Big Cowpoke gets a bit nervous riding so it was good to see how mellow she was with him. But here are some pictures of her. They are the ones the seller sent to me so they are a bit small. The horse is also a lot fatter in the pictures than she is now.

They called her Pretty Girl. I am not so sure about that name. What do you call her? Girl? Big Cowpoke likes that name. But I am not so sure. She is 16 years old and she just might be used to that name so she might just be stuck with it. Poor old Girl. She is settling in well. She stayed in a stall last night and then this morning we fed her and then let her out in the big pasture. I wish I had my camera for this next part. She actually went swimming in our pond. She got in all the way up to her head!! It was crazy. All the other horses just stood at the edge of the pond looking at her. They probably were all like, "What is that new girl doing? Is she crazy?" It was neat to see her just walk right in the pond and make her self at home. I hope she likes it here.

A Much to do About Nothing.

There has not been much of anything going on here. We have been trying to stay at home to recover from our wild weekend adventure. Spring Break is now in full swing. It's really nice to have Big Cowpoke home. He is such a big helper. He and Little Cowpoke have been playing all morning long. We are going to be headed to the vet's office in a few hours. But other than that we haven't been doing anything. So, I thought I would take some down time to share some pictures we had taken over Christmas. We went to Utah for Christmas and to our "family" photographer. He is really great. His name is Robert Dyer. He is great. But I have said that already. I don't know how to use my scanner so I had to take pictures of the pictures so they are, a bit blurry, but here they are.
The family picture was fun. Little Cowpoke wouldn't sit still and Cowpokette was starting to get mad. It is hard to get everyone smiling at once. And holy cow I was a chunky monkey in that picture. I have lost 12 pounds since that photo. Thank goodness!! But I am trying to get Mr. Cowboy to go and look at a roping horse tomorrow. We will see if I can drag him over to Texas. We are looking for a roping horse that Big Cowpoke can ride. I hope we can go and look at the horse. Because we need another one! Come on like 19 aren't enough!! :)

Hospital Campout.

This past weekend was a crazy one. Mr. Cowboy and Big Cowpoke left on Friday to go to a cub scout camp out. They were so excited. It was a great weekend to go. The weather was 80 sunny and dry. Which is weird for Louisiana. Little Cowpoke was all upset because he wanted to go camping outside. But little brothers were not aloud to go camping. Little Cowpoke and I set up a the shark tent in the living room, so we too could go camping.

The next day all Little Cowpoke could talk about was going to go pick up Big Cowpoke and Mr. Cowboy. He really wanted to go camping. But later on in the afternoon a few cousins came over to ride dirt bikes and Little Cowpoke soon forgot about camping. We tried to teach Little Cowpoke how to drive the little 50 dirt bike (it has training wheels on it). This is what it looks like. This is Big Cowpoke washing it after a ride. But Little Cowpoke was not a good driver, he ran into our flowerbeds and crushed two flower bushes. Now, if Mr. Cowboy ever found this out he would be so mad at me. But he never reads this so I think I am safe! After Little Cowpoke decided he didn't know how to drive we just took him for rides on the little 50. He was loving it.

The weekend was going great. All the kids were riding dirt bikes, there were four of them out here. We have 20 acres and a big 15 acre pasture that the kids were riding on. Then it was time to feed the horses. The kids were taking a break from bike riding and so I wanted to get in some riding time. So, Paw Paw and I went out to the barn and tacked up (that means saddled) three horses. I was going to ride two. Paw Paw beat me to the round pen with is four year old mix horse. Let me tell you a bit about this horse. I wish I had pictures of her. She is weird. She is a Tennessee Walker mix of some kind. Sorry to all you walking horse fans but I think they are funky looking horses. Tall, skinny, with funky heads and ugly tails. See the high head position and the tail thing going on there? This is just an example of a Tennessee Walker. They are good horses and a nice breed but just not my favorite. But that is just my opinion. To each his own. But anyway Paw Paw was working this crazy horse in the round pen. It was running fast and being normal, I guess.

*Just a quick note, the day before when Paw Paw was riding this horse it got scared and he fell off of it.* Okay now back to the story. Then he put my two year old on it's back. I was talking to a friend at this point and said, "Wait.....don't start the dirt bikes until Little Cowpoke gets off the crazy horse." Just then the horse went kinda crazy. Little Cowpoke held on for a bit but then he couldn't anymore and he fell to the ground. The horse then stepped on him three times and finally she was about to step on his chest when Paw Paw got her away. I was running over there but just couldn't get there in time.

I grabbed him and ran. We went to the emergency room. He had a bunch of x-rays and some head scans done and he was okay. No broken bones. A lot of bruises and some burns from the horse's hooves, but he was okay. The doctor did say that he wanted to keep him over night because his stomach and intestines were swollen. So, Little Cowpoke and I got to have a hospital camp out. He was excited we were going to camp out. Little Cowpoke was a trooper. The next morning he was running around and playing just fine. He was excited to show is big brother his cuts and bruises. Boys.

He is a real cowboy though. He went out to the barn yesterday and played while we fed the horses. He also tells us that he will only ride Pearl. He is a smart boy. I have been trying to convince Paw Paw to get rid of that horse. They bought if for an 12 year old boy to ride. I told them they need to find an older horse that has been there and done that. But nobody will listen to me, what do I know anyway? I don't have an Equestrian degree or anything. I didn't major in hores and I just don't know a thing. Oh, well. I just wish they wouldn't drag my kids into the whole unbroke horse world. Maybe some better judgements next time.

Disaster Strikes again.

I absolutely love Southern Living at Home. It is the coolest house decorating stuff around! You can't just get it anywhere either. You have to go to a party or host a party. I had hosted a party and it was huge. I got all kinds of stuff for half price and for free. It was truly exciting. One of my favorite things that I got from them was a vase. It so cool. I love it. This is what it looks like.

I have them all, but not the red one. I really want the red one. And really I have the old design and I love and need the new design!! Aren't they fabulous? I sure think so. But there is a sad side to this story. A very sad side. This is what mine looks like now.After a six year old boy threw a large exercise ball at my wall, knocked down my wall sconce broke my picture frame and then hit my vase and it all shattered on the floor. *wiping my tears*. Needless to say the boys stayed in their rooms for the rest of the night. I was very upset and mad. Yes it's just a vase, and it's material, but I am human and I was sad. That is how my day ended. But this is how it started. These moments far out weigh those other moments. I just want to grab those cheeks and squeezer her!! I think I need about 10 more of these!! They are such goofs. Moments like these just make me forget about that silly vase. Well, at least for a minute. Big Cowpoke was so sorry. He apologized and then asked if he could glue it back together for me. He really tried to make it all better. Kids make life interesting.

Don't Cry Over Spilt Root Beer!

The other morning Little Cowpoke insisted on having root beer for breakfast. I told him no over and over again. He actually stopped asking for it. It got quiet and I figured he just gave up on the fact that little two year olds do not need root beer for breakfast. But what do moms really know? Everyone needs root beer for breakfast, it's not just good but good for ya!! Well, that was what was going through Little Cowpokes brain. He wanted it and if I said no he was going to get it himself. And so he did.

And when he did it spilt all over the fridge. All down the side an inside the of the drawers. It was everywhere. But never fear, Mommy's little helper is here! Little Cowpoke said, "AH OH I made a mess!"He grabbed a towel and started to clean. He got the bottom.And he got the sides!! He is such a good helper. When he was all finished I took out the drawers and got the way back all clean. It was so sticky! I just the the "I can do it myself" age. It's fun to see your little baby grow up into a "big" boy.

Rodeo Update: Well, the rodeo was a disaster. It was so crazy and there were about 150 people signed up for each event and my poor 6 year old just sat around waiting for his turn. On top of that his horse, Pearl, hit her leg in the trailer and cut it. Her leg was all swollen and she was favoring it. Then she was acting like she had never been to a rodeo before. Then she came into heat, which is a bit distracting for the horse. Big Cowpoke tried to ride her in the barrel pattern and she just wouldn't cooperate at all. He ended up going around the second barrel and was bawling. He was so upset. So, then I got on Pearl and she acted like an angel. I just don't get horses sometimes. She must have known I meant business. But we have another rodeo on March 29th, hopefully that one will be better! I didn't take a single picture. I was too busy trying to figure out when everyone rode and what was going on. There were just too many people and kids there!!

Making Babies!

I have been trying for over a year now for a baby. Not just any baby though. I want a special baby. I would like it to be big! With a large rear end and a nice looking chest! I want it to have four legs and a mane and a tail. I want a foal! That is a horse baby for those of you who don't know. I have been trying to get my Thoroughbred mare bred since last year. She had a baby last April and after that I tried to get her bred. But she never would take, so we didn't have a baby.

She is a very special mare. When I first bought her the people who sold her to me laughed at me when I said I was going to ride her and we were going to jump fences. They laughed! Well, I brought her home and my Father in Law said, "That is the ugliest horse I have ever seen! What did you do, cut the ears off of a Mule?". But those comments didn't change my mind on what a wonderful horse she could be.

I began to ride her. My sweet husband built me jumping standards and bought me some jumping poles and off we were. She loved it! I started to show her in a club called CHC. We competed in English Equitation and in a small hunter/jumper class. For a horse and rider that got laughed at about 6 months ago, we were sure winning some blue ribbons. We ended up getting Champion in the jumping class and we won our first belt buckle! I was so excited. She is a gentle loving mare. I can trust her with anyone.

Here is Big Cowpoke at 4 years old leading her and holding her for some pictures. She is just really laid back. Here they are together bareback and in a halter and lead rope. They are so cute! She is such a good girl. Here she is with my sister (who will probably kill me for posting this picture). My sister has ridden about maybe 3 times and look what a great team they made. My sister didn't want to go fast so they just walked, very slowly, around the pasture.

Any way, I have two babies out of her already but I wanted something more. I wanted something big! I had found out that she is a great granddaughter of the great War Admiral, he was a big time race horse. That is nice to know that she has a great pedigree. So, I went on a hunt to find the perfect boyfriend for my girl. And this is who I found. I was in love!

This is him. His name is Final Review (Casper). He has his own web page!! He is a big boy! He also has beautiful big babies! Well, last year I tried to breed my mare to him with no luck. She just didn't take. Casper was way up in Maryland and we were down here in Louisiana. The long distance relationship was just not working for the two of them. But good news. Casper moved to Texas. So, now we are going to take her to visit her boyfriend in person. Or would that be in horse?

Today I took Pearl to the vet to check her and to do some necessary blood work. She is not anywhere near ready to go and "see" her boyfriend. But at least the process has begun. I am so excited for her. Not that she knows what is about to happen, but I just can't wait. I am so excited to have a big chunky baby!! Am I just totally weird to be so excited about this? It almost consumes all my thoughts and free time. Well, except for when I am messing with the kids. But the rest of the time my head is in horsey dream land! It's a sick disease I have! But I love it! Good Luck Pearl!!

Also, just a rodeo update in case you haven't been able to sleep not knowing what was going on with our rodeo schedule. We are going to our first one on Saturday! I will take lots of pictures!!

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, No It's Sweet Potatoes!!

Yesterday afternoon I was feeding Cowpokette some sweet potatoes. We don't have a high chair, so I put her in her bouncy seat and feed her there. I put the bouncy seat up on the counter so I can stand and be the same height as her. I really need a high chair. She loves to eat. She gets all excited. But yesterday while I was feeding her I was also trying to talk to a customer service representative online. The customer service rep. told me to hold on. So, while I was holding I would feed Cowpokette. But then suddenly she came back to chat some more. So, I put the sweet potatoes down next to the bouncy seat and turned my back for about 1 minute. Then it happened. I heard the small jar hit the floor. The potatoes went everywhere. All over the floor. She was so proud of herself. She can sit straight up in her bouncy seat and reach over the sides and grab everything. I learned this yesterday. So, I cleaned up the floor and our cabinets while she laughed. Then I saw this. Yes, some how they sweet potatoes flew and hit our ceiling!! Can you believe that 1 Stage One jar of baby food could fly that high? We have 9 foot ceilings!! And there was a lot up there!! I had to get a ladder and a sponge and clean the ceiling. I was terrified to climb the ladder!!Then there is the innocent little girl, "What did I do that? I haven't seen any sweet potatoes. Not me!! I would never do such a thing as to toss the jar on the floor and make a huge mess!" She plays the innocent card well don't ya think? But I did have to laugh. I mean how often do you have sweet potatoes on your ceiling?

You Dirty Dog!!

I have these two wonderful dogs. I really do not know how I ended up with such mellow, laid back animals. The kids can climb all over them and pull their ears or tails. The dogs just put up with anything. They are both inside dogs. When they come inside they just lounge around the house. They must sleep about 18 hours a day. But for those few hours they are awake, they are always looking for an adventure. The other morning I went to the back door to let them back in and this is what I saw.
Isn't that pathetic? Come on!! Could he have gotten anymore mud on him? Really!! And do you see the blood? What in the world was he doing? "Can I come in? Come on Mom, let me inside!! I am c-c-c-cold!" He can give you those looks. This is the most expressive dog I have ever known. He is very emotional too. Then you see Bear in the background he looks like he is saying, "He did it, he made me run in the mud, I didn't want to, it was all him!!" Yeah, here is Brodi's sidekick, Bear. He didn't dare press his nose against the glass wanting to come in. He didn't even come up on the porch. He knew he was a mess! And that is a yellow lab not a chocolate lab. It looks like he just was dipped in the mud. I came to the conclusion they were coon hunting! Brodi got pretty beat up. He is a sissy dog and I do not know why he bothers to pick fights. He always looses!!Here Brodi is shivering. Not because he was cold. He is just a sissy. I think that morning it was about 65 degrees outside. He really wants you to feel bad for him and then let him inside the house. And for all you who are concerned about his cuts, he is on pain pills and some antibiotics! When will he learn to leave those wild racoons alone?