Monday, November 25, 2013

"Real Fire"

Any one who knows Jason and I well, knows we love music. And we actually love most music. And lucky for us, we love nearly all the same music. That last statement always makes me grateful when I hear of a couple who despise each other's taste in music. How horrible for some women to have to listen to country music in hiding!!

In our cars and in our home, Christian music is listened to(almost) exclusively. It's a choice we made about five years ago, when Jaxon was born, and we've never looked back. And now we get all misty-eyed as we listen to our kids sing, "Our God's not dead He's surely alive!" or "Bless the Lord oh my soul...I worship His Holy name" or "...Take this world and give me Jesus". At home, we throw in a lot of old southern gospel with the contemporary Christian music and once in awhile, we stumble upon a country song that we love.

Just recently, Jason introduced our children to The Oak Ridge Boys. I could not be more excited about this discovery, as it takes me way back to my childhood. Every child needs to learn to do the Ooom Papas, right? Not surprisingly, they were hooked after their first exposure and now ask for "Oom Papa" regularly. As they were first learning the song, Jaxon sang, "My heart's on fire, a real fire" instead of, "My heart's on fire, for Elvira". We decided not to correct him, because children substituting words is one of my favorite things in the whole world. I think he now understands the song is actually singing about, Elvira, but for these videos, she hadn't been discovered yet. Enjoy The Riggs family singers.



Monday, November 11, 2013

Happy Halloween

This Halloween, we had an Air Force pilot and Snow White at our house. Both chose their costumes weeks (Jaxon chose his months) before Halloween. And both were costumes we already have in our costume tub, so it took little effort to get them ready. I did decide to get the Snow White wig for Dakota, because I think wigs on tiny humans is adorable. Dakota had a parade at her "school" the day before Halloween and we all went to Jaxon's school on Halloween for his school's parade and class party. That night, it rained quite a bit, but we were able to get around our cul-de-sac before the kids got too cold.


Waiting at Bubby's school for the parade to start.

Our handsome pilot walking in the parade.

Playing Pin the Nose on the Jack O'Lantern at his class party.

Bean bag toss!

Helping his Sissy play BINGO at his class party.

Jaxon's friend, Koen, was also dressed as a pilot.

Snow White and Captain Riggs
Snow White DID NOT want to smile because she was afraid it would mess
up her lipstick (she was super excited to get to wear real lipstick).


Horseback Riding

I apologize for my delay in blogging! School started and we got back into the grind of being busy with school, church, tumbling, hockey...


Back in September, we took the kids horseback riding. Jason had about 10 days between coming home from Little Rock and heading off to Puerto Rico for a month and a half. We decided to cram as much as possible into those 10 days! Some friends of ours own a horse riding ranch and we've been wanting to get the kids out there and on horses for quite awhile. The kids loved the horses and were begging to go back! They started by learning how to take care of horses (brushing, cleaning), then talked about safety around horses and while riding horses, then they got to ride a horse, and the class ended with a fun hay rack ride.


Our cowgirl and cowboy ready to ride. 


Taking turns brushing the horse.


Amazing! 

Riding the horses!

And how sweet of the leaders to suggest Jason and I get in for a pic!


As I mentioned, the ranch is owned by some friends of ours, so we stayed after the class to play on the ranch. Jaxon's buddy, Wyatt, got a four-wheeler for his birthday and couldn't wait for Jaxon to drive it. We weren't sure how he would do, but he tore off on that thing and never looked back. And can you guess what he's asking for for Christmas?




As you can tell by the trail of dust behind him, he doesn't know slow.

Sissy and her friend, Josie, got a ride with Josie's dad on his four-wheeler.