Should've Been a Cowboy

Howdy folks,

Manual labor while remodeling the house is leading to an intense appreciation for my day job.  Thank God for college education.  Most everything we accomplished over the past few days was fun for about 10 minutes.  Then, no matter what tool or destruction or manly feeling, it dissipated into the thick cloud of dust and mundane monotony.  Here's the a dusty "before" picture taken from the den looking towards the kitchen.  The interior looks extremely shabby right now, but this is the destruction before the rebuilding.  I look forward to the final product 12 days from now.

I've been a ghost for the past week as far as Easton and Layla are concerned.  Nary a single bath/books/bed routine and my bedtime is past midnight consistently.  That may work for some guys, but not this sleepy head.  It's only temporary though so I can make it through anything for a few days or weeks.

The total quality time with the twins is about 20 minutes per day.  Kendra says the lack of quality time manifests itself in their "acting out" which I take to mean disobedience, rebellion, etc.  I'm not worried though because 3.5 years of continually pouring into their lives won't be negated by 2 weeks of chaos.

One other picture from last Sunday afternoon is this one of Layla.  The flower on her face was painted by Tam at church.  The Kinects pieces in her hand represent a pretend flower I gave her while we were playing dress up with Layla and  Kinects car building with Easton.  Anything can be a flower with enough imagination.

Kendra's friend Susan posted this excellent list of "50 Rules for Dads of Daughters" http://lifetoheryears.com/50rules.  My favorite is #18: Tell her she’s beautiful. Say it over and over again. Someday an animated movie or “beauty” magazine will try to convince her otherwise. If you have a daughter I recommend reading the list.  Consider it a baseline test to determine how you measure up.

The weather is perfect this time of year and when it gets this way we open the flood gates of park trips.  Here we can see the twins digging up pretend dinosaur bones in the Duck Park playground.  I tried to capture a candid shot, but they were both face-down focused on their archaeological find.

Kendra spent a morning at the watching wild boar and playing on the statues. Playing on the huge elephant gives them a real-life, tangible way to grasp the concept of size comparison.

 Easton looks comfortable on the statue, but he's obviously never seen a rodeo.  Of all the things he can be in life, I'm doing my best to steer him away from Cowboy as his profession.  I'm on the opposite side of the Toby Keith song that says, "I should've been a Cowboy, I should've learned to rope and ride, Wearing my six-shooter riding my pony on a cattle drive".  Ha!  as if he'll ever want to do that...

Oh crap. Mary?  Aunt Mary!  I need to have a word with you about the cowboy hat and six shooters gift.

Just kidding. I'm not concerned a bit about him playing cowboys with cap guns.  On the contrary I'm very happy he is getting some exposure to the concept.  All of us played with cap guns as kids and we're not cowboys or crazy mass murderers.  Then again, our parents thought it was a good idea for a 5 year old to sleep in the back window of a Cadillac without a seat belt while driving across the desert at night.    OK, I guess it was just me.

Anyway, I'm out of bullets with only 6 hours to reload and start shooting again tomorrow.  Yee haw!