Shout out to Cousin Keston

My cousin, Keston, made the totally awesome chaps Cowen is wearing in these pictures. Keston made them for his boys, and now that his boys are grown, he has passed them onto me until my son no longer fits them. Pretty awesome.

I don't think Keston quite realizes how deliriously joyful he has made Cowen. These aren't sissy-boy, costume chaps. Oh no, these are hand-tooled, full on working man chaps. Cowen knows this.

In fact, this morning I had to convince Cowen that he couldn't wear his working man chaps to shovel snow. While they are working man chaps, and Cowen loves nothing more than a working man's job, something about the heavy, wet snow and leather didn't seem compatible.

He did wear them to help Grandpa with the horses over Easter weekend. As we were driving home Sunday night after the festivities, I asked Cowen if he had a good time. He said, "No, I didn't get to work enough with Grandpa."

And if I still haven't convinced you that Cowen is a working man's man, just the other day he earned his first wage. From the neighbor lady whom my children adore (as do I--she lets my kids go over and play in her yard while I stay home and do whatever I want). We were all over there, chatting about this and that while the kids played with sidewalk chalk and the swing set. After about 10 minutes, Cowen walked up to Mrs. Merino and said, "Do you have any work?" Mrs. Merino said he could get the dead leaves out of her flowerbeds. Cowen yipped in joy, and dashed off to our house where he retrieved his garden gloves (his "work gloves") and happily went to work.

When it was time for us to go back home, Mrs. Merino gave him $0.50. He was thrilled.

So Keston, thank you again for the loan of the chaps. I'm sure Cowen will find many jobs to do (and a few sheep to ride) wearing them.