Blog Award And Nothing In Particular ...

HELLO Friday!  Nice of you to finally join us ... if you don't mind.  Come around sooner next week, mmmk?  Thanks.  I hope today finds you all fantastically well!  I really have nothing to talk about (cue the bathroom break and gathering of food and water, you're in for a long one folks) but I'm SURE something will hit me along the way.  I DO, to start off with, want to tell you that I got a blog award from miss Maria over at Two Hearts Made Four.  Thank you Maria!  Isn't this a cute one bythaway?  I think so ...

This weekend we don't have much planned.  Just a date night with the hubs.  Poor guy has to work his little (cute) fanny off.  I'm not going to lie, I always have a little bit of guilt while my mister is working his fingers to the bone, ON A WEEKEND, and I'm running errands (ahem, shopping) with my mom and lunching with the girls ... don't get me wrong, I get over it.  But I still feel guilty.  This weekend is also my step-dad's birthday.  Happy birthday Richie!

(I know I already put this pic up, but I had to again - this was when the twins were a year and a half, about 10 yrs ago, and my step-dad hasn't changed ...)

{Disclaimer:  My mom will hate this picture of herself.  Because she's squinting.  But I didn't have any more recent ones ... Sorry momma}

See?  I told you - he's age-less.  But I think all men are.  Can we talk about how this isn't fair?  We women just get older and more haggard looking and they just get more sophisticatedly handsome.  Not. fair.  For that, and our monthly visitor, thanks Eve.  Thanks.

  Anyways, back to Richie (and PS I'm pretty sure he hates it when I call him that, but I love it, so he's gotten used to it).  My mom and Rich met when I was 10 years old.  Let me start by saying that after my parents got divorced neither Clay nor I were ever the "make our parent's new love interest's life H-E-Double Hockey Sticks" kinda kids.  We always were nice to them and gave them the benefit of the doubt.  Before Rich, my mom was dating another man.  We shall call him "he who shall not be named" because Richie doesntsomuch like him ... N-E-WAYZ (remember when you used to spell it like that when you were "writing notes" to your friends on PAPER and passing them back and forth between classes?  BEFORE text messages (GASP) and before having a phone that was used ONLY for emergencies (and was the size of your face) because if you called ANYONE it would cost you $82 a minute!?!?  Right, back to Richie ...) N-E-WAYZ ... so when we met Rich he was first off, 7 years younger than my mom (GO MOM! You little cradle robber you) and really. REALLY. loved her.  You could see it.  And that was numero uno importante for this first born.  But also, he was SUPER cool to Clay and I. 

And he has a love for Labradors like no one (besides myself) I've ever met.  Which automatically made me like him.  Any man that doesn't like dogs sets off HUGE red flags with me.  And he had a big yellow one named Dusty.  And she was his main girl (before my mom)  Sadly, we lost her on my mom's birthday a month before the twins were born.  That's when we got Baylor.  Yep, my mom had twin babies, got a LAB PUPPY and sent her first born (muah) off to college ALL within 3 months of each other.  And she's STILL sane, can you BELIEVE IT?  They even got ANOTHER puppy 4 years later (Rigley, i.e. Rigs) and she's still got her sanity (well ... most of it, sometimes it comes and goes like when she leaves her keys in the freezer or tries to stick her credit card in the gas tank, but shhh let's not give her too hard of a time, we'll leave that up to Rich and my mister ...)  And even though we lost Baylor this past October.  They still have two little blondies in their house, and I have no doubt they always will if Rich has something to say about it.  Rigs and Rigs' new little sister, Bentley.  And they're already best friends (Rigs took it pretty hard when Bay Bay died ... as did everyone else) ...

(I mean seriously, can you STAND the cuteness!?!?)

But right, back to Rich.  I will never forget, when my mom broke up with Rich (because she was crazy and "wasn't sure" ... pshhhh, if she'd just asked ME, her 12 year old daughter, I would have set her straight ... I mean since I knew so much about life and love then.  Duh) to go back to "he who must not be named" I YELLED at her, told her I was mad at her and went in my room and (very dramatically) slammed my bedroom door.  I then (and this is borderline PSY-CHO) took a picture I had in my room of me, Clay, Rich and my mom (at Midevil Times, HECK YES) and put a heart around Rich's face, JUST so if she brought ... "he who must not be named" back into the picture (which truthfully he was a nice guy, Richie is just notsomuch fond of him) they would both know I meant BIDNESS!  So, once my mom finally came around to her senses, she married Rich with me as her maid of honor (oh how I WISH I had a scanned picture of this - my mom has the POOFIEST sleeves, as do I, and I'm in an all purple, POOFY sleeved dress with EQUALLY poofy hair and an EQUALLY poofy ... physique ... no seriously, I was 30 lbs heavier than I am now in early high school.  It was NOT. CUTE.) and he has been loving Clay and I as his own ever since.  Providing for us emotionally and financially, when he didn't have to.  Telling my mom that they didn't have to have kids because "Clay and I were enough for him" (lucky for us all, God had different plans for them and blessed us with the twinkies) and has been loving and providing for my mom ever since I was 12 years old when he swept her off her feet.  Thank you Richie for loving my mom, thank you for loving Clay and I like your own and thank you for KILLING the stereo-type that is the word "step-dad".  Cause I've got the best one EVER.  And I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

Happy Friday and HAPPY BIRTHDAY RICHIE (tomorrow) I love you!!!