Mothering with a Purpose

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A Week of Laughter and Excitement!

February 16, 2017 by Morgan Stevens 1 Comment

This week has been busy, fun, and exciting!

To start off, my aunt has been teaching me how to build a deck the past three weeks. This is her first time doing it too, but we have friends that give us good advice. Last week, we worked on the deck some more and fixed some things that weren’t quite right. We also built a wall, once we thought the deck was fine, to keep the geese from eating my aunt’s irises. Last year it was a wild hog eating her irises. This wall was free and not very time consuming.

morgan drill 2

While putting the wall in we had to remove a 15 foot telephone pole from the ground. My aunt was surprised that I could get it out of the ground and lift it up over my head. Next, I had to get it out of our way by dragging it several feet.

morgan pole deck

I am a 17-year-old girl and I did something a grown man could do with the same amount of effort. I am so proud of myself for that! This kind of goes back to the Farm Life is a Great Teacher subject.

That afternoon, my aunt told my cousins that they had to move the telephone pole out of the driveway. Aunt Allie and I laughed as her boys had trouble moving the telephone pole to where the rest of the poles go. That was what I call comedy!

Later, we started putting black, metal poles behind the wall to keep the cats and geese from knocking it over. While I was hammering a pole in, I barely missed the pole and hit the small outer layer of skin on my first finger. It formed a huge blood blister that was ugly, painful, and annoying.

Later that week, I had to scrape paint off the house and garage trimming. I had to hang over the edge of the roof to scrape paint and take down the gutters! Honesty, it was very fun.

morgan deck 1

Also, I am happy I didn’t die, because it was sometimes scary.

I kind of wanted to jump off the garage roof and into the compost pile that was six feet away from the corner of the garage. Aunt Allie told me not to–she must think I am crazy.

Honestly, I know she is really just proud of me. That makes me proud of myself.

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: country, country living, deck, diy, farm, farm fun, farm life, fun, girl, girl power, hard work, home improvement, homestead, kids, ldsyouth, parenting, power tools, pride, teaching kids how to work, texas

Fun Times On The Farm

February 9, 2017 by Morgan Stevens Leave a Comment

Depending on where you live the country, everything and everyone can be far from everything and everyone else. You can be loud and do almost whatever you want. Being a kid this comes in handy. I love to go outside and goof around with my cousins! There are so many ways to have fun times on the farm! I am starting to feel as though I’m getting too old for horseplay, as soon I will be a young adult going to college.

fun times farm life

One of the many fun things we kids like to do is play hide-and-seek in our back pasture. We enjoy building tree forts and what we call hobo huts. A couple summers ago, we pulled old, trashed plywood and carpet, wooden spools, and broken furniture to the back of our ten acres where it is wooded and built a hideout. We still hang out in it.

Trees are our best friends! We love to use trees to help us build our forts.

We also climb a lot of trees. Climbing trees is always fun. The trick is to be the first one up the tree. If not, you may get dirt, bark, small twigs, and leaves in your eyes from the person climbing above you. My aunt would rather not see or know how high we can climb.

fun times farm life

Our neighbors would rather not see the old chair my cousin, Ryan, strapped to the tree.

It’s been there for two years now.

When climbing a tree, the first thing you should do is make sure the tree is healthy and not rotting. Then check the tree for ants. My aunt says we should also make sure the tree doesn’t have any hornet, bee or wasp nests, however we kids never really do watch out for hornets, bees or wasps. We do, however, ALWAYS look for ants and rotted out limbs.

fun times farm life

Hide-and-seek was fun when it was summertime, because the brush would hide us from each other. We just had to make sure that we didn’t run into any ant piles. Ever been attacked by fire ants? They HURT!

I also try to remember to wear pants and a jacket, because when I forget I come back with lots of briar scratches. I use my pants as “armor.”

fun times farm life

One day while playing hide-and-seek, my fourteen-year-old cousin, Austin, and I decided to hide together in the car. Like a genius, he locked the doors with the lock button in the front seat. Then I remembered that if we tried to unlock by pulling the lock up the alarm would go off. So, after hiding for 10 minutes in the stuffy car we  made the decision to quickly open the door and run! So, Austin and I looked at each other and began the countdown…1…2…

“Austin… run for the side gate! No one will see us and we can say we were in the pasture the entire time!” I whispered with panic.

So on THREE we opened the door causing the car alarm to trigger. So we jumped out, slammed the door, and hauled our butts to the gate.

We weren’t scared at all, in fact, we were laughing so hard I was crying. To make matters worse Austin tripped and did a face plant right into the weeds which only made me laugh even harder. We were laughing so hard our bellies ached which only made us laugh even more. I have never had such a better time with my cousin. Just thinking about Austin crashing and burning is making me laugh again!

fun times farm life

In the end, the cops didn’t get called and none of our neighbors noticed…which is one of the many benefits of living in the country. To this day, this funny moment playing hide-and-seek with my cousin is my best memory with him. My favorite memories so far in life have been while living with my aunt on her farm in Texas. When I move back to the city for college it’s definitely going to be a change.

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: country, country living, cousins, family fun, farm, farm life, fun, fun times, funny, games, hide and seek, hobo hut, homestead, kids, life, lol, parenting, play, stories, teenager, texas, tree fort, woods

Boys: Prepare for the Unexpected

May 2, 2012 by Allie

The one thing that every mother of boys should know is this: Prepare for the unexpected.

Like why is there blood on my kitchen floor?

Bloody Nose 1

And in the grass?

Bloody Nose 2
Bloody Noses
Bloody Nose 4
Bloody Nose 5
Bloody Noses

Apparently he also did this at school to his teacher on Monday during recess. He’s been getting a lot of bloody noses lately. But so far, nothing quite like what happened last year:

bloody noses

Also I think I’m emailing his teacher this post. That boy is gonna kill me.

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: bloody nose, boys, family, family fun, fun, kid pranks, kids, parenting, prank, prepare for the unexpected

Burger King for Thanksgiving and Lessons in Mississippi

November 30, 2011 by Allie

Last week, my aunt and I took a road trip to Mississippi sans kids. It was really a great idea–I needed to spend some time with my aunt (who I’ve only known has existed for 5 years!) and the boys needed some guy time with their dad. I did feel badly about leaving the family the same week as Thanksgiving, until I called that Thursday evening and this is what they said:

miss6

Me: “How is it going?”

Boys: “We are having the best week EVER!”

Me: “Really? What have y’all been doing?”

Boys: “We went to the movies and store, rode our bikes, went to the park, we’ve been playing games, and we even went out to eat for Thanksgiving!”

Me: “Cool! Where did y’all go out to eat for Thanksgiving?”

Boys: “Burger King.”

And then I felt bad again.

My aunt said I shouldn’t feel bad because the it didn’t really matter what they ate for Thanksgiving as long as they liked it. I toyed with that idea for a few moments until I realized that at school their teachers and friends would ask them what they ate for Thanksgiving. Sorry, but Burger King for Thanksgiving is so lame.

My aunt and I had fun though and we had our Thanksgiving dinner at an all you can eat buffet…dude, they served rutabaga, black eyed peas, okra, collard greens, and just a few other favorite Southern dishes. My aunt has been wanting to go to some casinos in Mississippi and Thanksgiving weekend just so happened to be the only time we both could get together for a few days. I was nervous going to a casino seeing as I’d only been to one once in Detroit after eating at Wolfgang Puck courtesy of General Motors and Chevrolet…and that $10 got donated to the casino.

miss10
miss9
miss8
miss7

My aunt’s philosophy is that you don’t visit a casino to make money–if you do, you’re surely going to lose it. When you have expectations of making money while gambling that’s when gambling problems arise. When she goes to casinos she’s goes to have a good time and to get away. Personally I freaked out just a little bit every time the “make bet” button got pushed. Especially when she had me push the button.

I decided to spend $10 in the slot machines, plus one casino gave me $5 in free play money and guess what–I lost it all. So my lesson learned is the house always wins. Always. That’s the last of my gambling days, especially when my aunt and I had to decide whether or not to pay tithing on the devil’s dues:

miss6

The hotels we stayed in were nice–rooms and all. However, I’m still shocked at how much everything cost. Another lesson I learned while in Mississippi is that you should expect everything–and I mean everything–to cost at least TWICE to three times what it normally would. Like the buffet at $20 per person. Like I said, the house always wins.

miss5

Other things I learned on our Mississippi road trip:

    • There’s a run down church on every corner.
    • “On the river” means really on the inside of the levy. You don’t really have to have a river view to be on the Mississippi River.

miss3
miss2
Miss1

    • I can eat junk food and greasy meals and still lose a pound. Probably because the grease works as a laxative.
    • Convenience stores sometimes also work as head shops complete with fancy pipes and bongs.
    • Casinos like to keep it cold–probably because the alcohol most of their patrons are drinking keeps them warm. Me? I just wore my coat or jacket everywhere.
    • Casinos like to have their waitresses wear skanky clothes. I was thinking the one girl with the overflowing chest probably could have used her boobs as an additional cup holder.
    • Mississippi is awesome because they still have Piggly Wiggly. I grew up next door to a Piggly Wiggly.

miss4

  • It is possible to stay up until 3 am and not even realize it’s so late.
  • It is possible to drive for hours, arrive home at 4 am, and not even be tired.
  • It is possible to stay up for 37 1/2 hours and then crash. Even after your oldest gave you a “welcome home” by accidentally giving your youngest a bloody nose by karate kicking him in the nose.

It’s so good to be Home Sweet Home.

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: fun, gambliing ms, gambling, gambling in mississippi, girls night out, girls trip, goldstrike casino, road trip, roadtrip

Everybody Needs a Really Good Friend That’ll Make You Wonder Why You Rode 10 Miles on Your Bike

October 6, 2011 by Allie

Something that anyone can use is a few minutes every once in a while with a really good friend. Whether that friend is the kind of person that you are confident would never tell anyone your deepest secrets or that friend is the type of person that makes you laugh so hard sometimes you think you’re going to pee your pants, everyone needs one.

Connie10

In fact, sometimes I think that if the Wicked Witch of Walmart (the evil greeter) in my hometown had a really awesome friend, then she wouldn’t be so friggin’ uptight. Sometimes.

Well, I have one of those friends.

And her name is Connie.

This is My Good Friend:

Connie riding
Connie

By bike, to the left:

Connie having fun!
(I have no idea what Connie is doing.)

What’s cool about this friend is that it seems every time we go out together something amazing always happens. Not the kind of amazing where the heavens open up and Jesus appears, but the kind of amazing where the heavens open up and it suddenly starts raining on us–in the dark, with lightening all around, three miles from home. That kind of amazing.

The other day was no different.

You see, we decided we’d go on a ten mile bike ride which is something I don’t think either one of us has ever done. She had just bought a brand new bike the very same day and I decided I’d take my Auntie Em old school bike with no gears and pedal brakes on this ten mile hilly journey. I mean, how bad could it really be? I mean, how out of shape could I really be considering I’ve LOST 20 POUNDS in the last two months? How bad? So bad that my legs and knees hurt for three days afterward.

But we had fun! That’s all that matters!

One of our stops on the ten mile bike ride included a port-o-pottie.

Connie10

Which really, really stank!

Connie11

Then we turned onto a newly opened, large road with no sidewalks that apparently not many people realize exists so we thought we’d have some fun. So I carefully pulled my camera out of my Toto basket while Connie…

Connie12

By then the sun was going down (can you believe how early it’s setting now?) and we decided we’d take the long road home. So after convincing my friend that I knew a shortcut to the same bike trail she was talking about we made our way towards it. Once we got on the trail it was a carefree ride home.

Connie13

Except for that part when we passed the guy with his dress tucked into his panties. But it made for some really good laughs with passing families out for evening bike rides.

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: bike ride, flower mound tx, flowermound, friends, friendship, fun, girls night out, good friend, tx

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