Cupcakes!, 1920 Tobacco Barn Rehab, & the Scary Squirrel

Good morning from the Mother Ranch!

In the adoption world, they call the day your child was placed in your arms, their "Gotcha Day." Rayn, my heart horse, had her Gotcha Day this week, we've been together for 9 years now! This picture was taken that day, when both she and Michael were 5. She's nearly white now!

Speaking of adoption, September 16, 2007 was our 14th anniversary of our match with Michael and his twin sister Maddie. A magical day to learn we were having twins! Always a moment to reflect on what it would have been like with both of them and overwhelmingly grateful for Michael. For those that don't know, Maddie passed away in November 2007, before we were able to get there.

Here's Michael, 3.5 months old, from our first set of photos. My heart! The title of this picture in my iPhotos album is still labled, "BabyBeingFed" because I couldn't yet tell them apart! In Ethiopia they didn't have a pink and blue thing going on so the babies could be wearing anything. We finally realized that Maddie had more distinct eyebrows lol

And here they were at 4 months. My beautiful babies!
Here is what Facebook reminded me of Thursday morning:

I thought you'd get a laugh out of Tessa and what she now calls her, "nightly ordeal." where she has to go outside and guard, "those stupid goats." Just imagine me clipping on the leash, standing there and pleading with her to get up and go outside ;-)

"Mom! I don't waaaaaaaanna!"

And, just so you know she's not horribly abused, here she is with her new toy!

She got a new bed that same day and as you can see, loves the rainbow rug more. Also, both she and Lucy swapped toys almost immediately—Tessa proceeded to destroy Lucy's squirrel toy and Lucy promptly hid Tessa's octopus and we haven't seen it since!

As always, thank you all for your thoughts and prayers for my mom. Her back surgeon appointment was moved up and after the consult, they scheduled her surgery for September 27th! Her degenerative and debilitating back issue is actually worse for her than the stage 4 cancer if you can imagine. We are all hoping and praying for this to be fixed and for the pain to go away! Please join us in praying, sending positive healing light to my mom, the surgeon, and his whole team on the 27th!

And finally, I will leave you with this sweet picture. I didn't realize that this wispy bush by my back patio was a hydrangea! Lucy thought it smelled yummy!

I've decided to post my longer YouTube videos on the first and third Fridays of the month instead of weekly. There will probably be some YouTube "shorts" thrown in during the middle of the week though and I do believe I'm going to invite you into my kitchen and teach you how to bake my amazing cupcakes soon! It's a cake box hack with to die for homemade icing. I think the Apple Breakfast Cupcake will be the perfect starter since I'm pining for fall :-)

This week's short is here. Hope you enjoy the hysterical laughter! :-)

And the longer video (4 min) here! Join us in our deep dive into rehabbing our two 1920s tobacco barns into fabulous barns for our horses, donkey, and goats! This week we found rot, a scary squirrel, and termites! Ack!

 Love to all from the Mother Ranch,

Julia