cowboy up birthday girl

Today Daria celebrated her 14th birthday. 
She is the one who made me a "mom" for the first time.
She is definitely a spark in my life and I feel completely blessed to have the priviledge of being her mom every single day.


We celebrated on Monday by going out to her Auntie Buffy's farm and riding horses.


I hadn't realized that Daria had never riden with her auntie (what a neglectful mother I am).  My younger sister is an Animal Health Tech at a Vet Clinic and a pro with horses.  I totally stand in awe of how good she is with them.  She always has been.  I've tried.....really, I have......in the past......to (pretend) to love horses, but I just can't get myself over the fact that they are huge & powerful & beyond me.  But, Buffy.........she's the perfect one to teach Daria how to ride.

So.....we went for the afternoon and Daria & Buffy had a fantastic time riding in the pasture.  Buffy even had Dare doing some barrells.......all-be-it very slowly.

I love this photo of Buffy with one of her horses, Sue.  What a beautiful moment.  There is something in Buffy that lights up whenever she is around animals.  This is definitely something I wish for for my children too.

This, on the other hand, is totally staged.  Buffy had to go back to the house to get another set of reins (I won't share with you "why" b/c I promised her).  Anyway, she asked me to hold onto Sue....yes, just her lead rope, so she wouldn't go anywhere.  I think I prayed the whole time that Sue wouldn't even move.  She's HUGE!!!  And, frankly, although I think she is one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen.............I'm a little intimidated by her.  I'm more into the size of, let's say.......St. Bernards & Great Danes (that's my limit)......oh, yeah.......and little horses named Roger.

So.............thank you, Buffy, for giving my daughter the love of horses, and a birthday she will never forget.

{from the farm},

j.

Good Morning Grade Sevens.......

This morning (or afternoon; I'm not really sure of the timetable yet), my daughter is presenting my blog to her classmates in her Speaker's Club class. Her assignment was to choose a website and present 5 interesting topics about the website. She chose my blog (pretty cool, considering they are so many websites to choose from). So......I'm going to be chatting to THEM today in this post.

Hey Gr. 7ers & Mrs. Taylor -

Hope you are having a fantastic day and enjoying all the fun you are having in Speaker's Club. By now, Daria has talked about some of the features that you can see here on my blog. This is a space where I can kind-of "sell my scrapbooking style" to some of the scrapbooking companies that are out there in the industry. Through this blog, I have been able to meet (well, not meet face-to-face) a ton of people and it's even landed me a few Design Team jobs. Presently, I am on 2 different design teams and I've been able to discover friends from the United States, Germany, Singapore, UK & many more countries.

So.......I wanted to share a scrapbooking layout with all of you this morning. It's one that I created a while ago (and I've probably even shared it on my blog before), but it's a good one for your class to see.

Mud:
Sorry, Adam & Daria................I just had to do it!!!!!! This photo was taken last Christmas when Daria received a chocolate mask in her stocking at her grandparents. Somehow, Daria talked Adam in trying the mask and, of course, I quickly snapped a photo of them. Sooooooo glad I did!!!!!

(hey guys........don't give Adam a hard time today about this..........it made his skin silky soft.......don't knock it 'til you try it)!!!!!!!!!

I wish I had a goofy layout of Brianna & Daria as well, but I'll have to save something for next time.

Hope you all have a great day...................and good luck on all your speeches.

snickering {from the farm},
j.

Hard choice

Daria's school photos didn't quite turn out the way she imagined, so yesterday after school we ventured off around our farm to take a few photos. This is what we came up with.

Couldn't decide on ONE favourite so, of course, I had to post a few.

Now she has to decide her favourites and we'll print them out for her friends.

Comment on your favourite so you can help her decide.

I am a mom to a beautiful girl .

{from the farm},

j.