I can't HELP but laugh.

I quiz the kids regularly on which river we're crossing at any given time, seeing that we live next to the Pedernales River and the next town north is bounded by the Colorado River. Everyone's great at knowing which is which, but Zoe had a brain freeze the other day while crossing the Pedernales.

"Zoe, what river is this?"

"Uhhh...the...Avocado River!"

Then she was embarrassed when I laughed. How can I not when she's so dang cute?

Speaking of cute, she says the word "grilled" almost like "girled". She was telling me today that she wanted a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, and Deet piped up. "I want a BOYED peanut butter sandwich!"

My hero!

Early in the morning, Sophie saw a roach. She's as scared of them as I am (yeah, I did a great job there) but instead of freaking out, she grabbed a shoe and went to TOWN. Beat the living daylights out of it, and actually managed to kill it.

She burst into my room with a HUGE grin on her face and excitedly shouted, "Mama, I killed a roach! I'm a roach killer girl!"

Now any time we mention it, she just gets all proud and says happily, "I'm a killer girl."

Ah, to be that brave...

Twin-isms

Sophie: as we passed a truck pulling a trailer, she said excitedly, "Mama, there's no horses in the horse cave!"

And Deet: he and Daddy saw a car with a bicycle on the roof, and Deet said, "Look! There's a bicycle on that car's head!"

Deet did something that made me mad, and I was talking to Erich about it as I brushed Sophie's hair.

I said, "It just makes me mad enough to spit!"

Sophie twisted around in alarm and said, "Why do you want to spit on Deet??"

Twin-isms

Sophie was reading a label on a bottle and said, "Mama, look! I reading to you! 'S, 1, 2, 3.' That spells SOPHIE!"

Later, Deet was outside with Daddy and noticed something with the letter S on it. Excitedly, he exclaimed, "Daddy! DADDY! S! S is for BOOPIE!" (Which is his best effort at pronouncing Sophie's name.)

Ride 3/31/10

Pretty good ride today. Went out in the evening to try to avoid the sun, and stayed in the shadows as much as possible. Captain was his usual sweet self even when I had to get off and readjust the saddle three inches forward (which means all buckles undone, saddle up and forward, then settle back slightly to smooth the hair and buckles redone).

He repeated his tricks when I asked him to trot (or rather, when I started posting), so as an experiment, I let him move out in a nice, swinging trot and sat it the whole time. He was willing to keep trotting as long as I let him, but when I started posting, he pinned his ears and stopped again.

~sigh~

I'm not sure what it is. He's not a mean or deceptive animal, so my posting must be uncomfortable to him in some way. I think I'll try the other saddle on him again and see if it helps any.

So instead of more strenuous work, we concentrated on flexion. He gave me some lovely shoulder-in at the walk to both sides. I got him to turn on the forehand fairly well, although it needs work. And we both bombed on the turn on the haunches, so I guess I need to brush up my technique on that one.

We also did some sidepassing and some halfpassing up the field, and then rode down the road a ways, but he HATED the new rocky road so we turned back to the soft grass.

I was pleased with our progress, though. After, I hosed him down (which he loves - he closes his eyes and stretches out his neck so I can thoroughly soak him) and then after I scraped him off, I let him graze awhile.

One sweet horse + one tired mama who needed some time to herself = a much happier tired mama. :o)

Gotta give her points for creativity

Sophie just came to the door (after being put to bed) in great distress. "Mama! I smell...there's a bad...I SMELL MONSTERS!"

When Erich and I managed to get our laughter under control, I asked her to explain. She said, "There's a monster in my room and he SMELLS BAD!"

She couldn't describe the smell, sadly. But she insisted, hand on heart, that she smelled monsters.