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My sweet baby is turning 3 today! I took several shots of her this morning, but I loved this one because she does this all the time when she is acting shy. Usually her eyes are completely covered by her little arm, and I happened to have the camera ready when she peeked out from under it. She is getting way too big, way too fast. Happy birthday, Beth... we love you!
There has been a lot going on this week, so I thought I would make one larger post with lots of the highlights. The kids and I are all over the crud we have had, but Jack has been sick for the last few days. Hopefully he gets over it soon! The weather here has really been nice, albeit pretty chilly! I went the other day and bought all of us some sweaters and long sleeved shirts to help keep us warm. I didn't own any, and the boys only had a few each. I know I have been losing weight. All of my clothes are much looser.... in fact, I only wear the smallest ones that I have now, and even my belts are too big. But it still caught me by surprise that when I tried on the sweaters, I was two sizes smaller than the last time I bought some new shirts. I am looking forward to going and trying on some new jeans to see where things stand there!
Beth's eye was watering the other day, and she wanted it taken care of, so I gave her a cool washcloth to hold over it. I came back in the living room a couple of minutes later and found her sound asleep with that cloth carefully balanced on her face.
Soccer: Faith and Kyle started soccer practice Thursday. They both did pretty good, and we are going to spend time practicing at home too. Their first games are this week.
Football: Matt played two games this week. Unfortunately, his team seems to be on a losing streak, but there have been good things for Matt. He is playing more, and his position has been changed from Tackle to Noseguard. The cheerleaders made signs like this for all the players on Thursday and hung them on the gates. After the game, the girl Matt has a crush on waited outside the locker room to deliver it in person to him. In fact, she made his specially for him... LOL.
Here they are waiting for the other team to come back to the field.
Critters: We found this stickbug on the porch the other day. There are all kinds of these, as well as praying mantis and other cool bugs around the yard. I love the animals we see too. I was driving down our main road the other day, and six deer were running across a neighbor's property. Very cool to see. Jack found horse hoofprints in our yard this week, and a fox was standing in the road when I was taking the kids to school on Thursday. Maybe it sounds silly, but it still amazes me to see all the cool things the Ozarks have to offer.
We laughed the first time Jessica blew her candles out. I always take pictures of the kids as they blow them out, but she didn't know that. So she took a big breath of air and blew them all out before I could get the shot. So Jack and I said in unison... "oops... gotta relight them!" and she and Tony thought we were joking. Nope.... we relit them and got the pictures... LOL
Todd and Beth helped me wrap her presents, and Todd decided he was in charge of decorating them with some flowers I brought home from a show. Beth wanted to be in charge of something too, so she drew happy faces on the flowers. Jessica kept one to use on the scrapbook page she is making with the new supplies she got for her birthday.
Just a shot of Matt leisurely mowing the yard by the pond.
Chet didn't want to relight his candles, so he actually asked me if I had all the photos I needed before he blew them out... :0)
Since he can't play contact sports, he has been interested in taking up archery. He got a small compound bow for his birthday, and he has loved just practicing with it.
After all of Chet's birthday stuff on Friday, the kids stayed the night and we were planning on watching movies. Then the thunderstorms became tornado warnings, and our area was advised to take shelter in case a tornado formed. The power went out for a few minutes, which sent the kids into an uproar. I got all the little ones into the downstairs closet, and made them laugh when I got the camera. To keep them calm we sang some songs, and the warning was over within fifteen minutes. 
I thought this shot came out kind of cool, but I couldn't tell you how I got it. Probably had something to do with the big booming sounds the thunder was making around the house!
And this is one I caught at the beginning of the week when I saw Todd walking down our dirt road.
It is going to be another busy week. I will post again when I can!
We were running late this morning, so I am going to have to take Chet's birthday portraits after school today. I will change the photo when I do!
Today is Chet's tenth birthday!! LOL.. . he spent the morning reminding all of us about it, too! I am off to bake his chocolate cake with chocloate pudding filling (by request). Then I have to get his presents wrapped and decide exactly which meat to make with the mashed potatoes he wants for dinner... meat and potatoes with corn was another request. He has some friends coming over tonight to celebrate, and then they are staying up late watching movies. Happy birthday, Chet!!! You just get sweeter as you get older, and we love you!
I have a ton of photos from the last couple of days, but right now I really need to get outside and help move some bricks. Our neighbors have been watching us build the burnhouse, and then saw the kids and I working to clear the debris and misc wood etc that the last owners left behind. The other day, our neighbor came over and offered to tear down the barn that was collapsed on one of the corners of the property. Then he pulled out a dead tree. Then he burned the barn, buried all the rubble, and smoothed the ground to prep it for new seed. Then he took the backhoe over to the old broken down storm shelter, collapsed it, and buried all of it as well. Today he is helping Jack spread seed on all the smoothed ground, and tomorrow they are using another big piece of machinery to clear out the last two patches of junk that was left here. By Friday, the whole 5 acres should be looking like a brand new place!! I am so excited! Shane and his big equipment saved us months and months of physical labor! That only leaves us the one corner where the remaining outbuildings need some TLC, and then we can focus on re-graveling our driveway, building our gardenbeds, and sprucing up the outside of the house.... all the stuff that makes it pretty!
He had about 2/3 of the barn down before I took this photo. This was the last portion right before it came down.
The dead tree in the front is the one he pulled out. I love what these machines can do!
Just to give you an idea of the size of the pile that was burnt, that big huge dead tree was laid over the top of the pile for burning.
This is after he got it all buried, with fresh dirt on top, and smoothed. There is a cement slab that you can't really see here in front of that smoothed section. We left it because it is the perfect size for a half-court basketball court. We are going to put the jungle gym set where he cleared out the old storm shelter. I'll be back later with kid pictures! Matt has a game tonight, Faith and Kyle have their first soccer practice, and I have some other misc photos to post. TTYS!
We have officially kicked off birthday week! Starting out this momentous week is Jessica, who is 17 today! We have a pile of presents from us and my family waiting for her to open, I baked her a German Chocolate cake that didn't even fall apart, and I am making her favorite Chinese foods for dinner tonight. (orange chicken, fried rice, beef and broccoli, and I picked up some pre-made eggrolls) She has some friends coming over after school to help her celebrate.
Happy birthday, Jess.... we hope it is wonderful for you!!! We love you!!
The virtual crop over at Scrap Village has been a blast! These are the pages and projects I got done for most of the challenges from yesterday. There will be a bunch of new challenges today, and it's not too late to come join in the fun!
You can see the supply lists for any of these in my SV gallery. I just don't feel like re-typing it all here. :0) Please look past the stupid pink tint on the photos... that is just the scanner being colorblind again!
Challenge 1 - make a page using at least five different patterned papers.
Challenge 2 - use scraps from your layouts to make cards. I have only done these two so far.
Challenge 3 - Use a numeral as part of your title.
Challenge 4 - Create a "note to self" layout.
Challenge 5 - Use any rub-ons to create any project. I used them to create this necklace with Mat's jersey number to wear to his games.
Challenge 6 - Make a page listing 5 random things about yourself.
Challenge 7 - Create a 6x6 recipe card for soup
Challenge 8 - Make a page with lyrics (haven' done that one yet)
Challenge 9 - Make a page using layers of patterned paper.
Challenge 10 - make your own embellishments. (Haven't done that one yet)
Challenge 11 - Use as many leftover embellishments and prodcuts on a page as you can.
We are having a Virtual Crop over at Scrap Village all weekend long! We have challenges (with prizes), chat points to give out, plenty of fun and laughter, and we are announcing two new City Planners this weekend! Stop by and say hi!
The weekend flew by!!! We were so busy the entire weekend, but we had a lot of fun.
On Thursday, I picked everyone up from school, we gassed up the truck and then we followed this bus full of football players and cheerleaders to Yellville. It was a hard night for the Tigers... they took a big loss. Matt didn't get to play in this game, but I made him laugh when I said at least they couldn't blame him for their loss!
I grabbed this shot as he was watching the game. He is trying to grow his hair out, and I love how it looks curling out underneath his helmet.
Jessica brought the camera from her journalism class and took pics of the game for the school newspaper. I loved watching her take all her shots... think I am rubbing off on her a bit?
Faith did what she always does! We weren't there for five minutes before she had a group of new friends gathered up playing games and running around. I love how friendly and social she is!
Friday was a bit hectic as well. Twenty minutes before we needed to pick the kids up from school, Todd slipped on the bench I had just washed, and knocked his chin on the counter as he was falling down. It wasn't a serious cut, but I knew it wouldn't stay closed the way he had cut it. So I loaded everyone up and off we went to ER. Instead of stitches, the doctor superglued him back together. Really, I was just being fascetious when I said it was time to get to know the medical personnel... I didn't mean to be prophetic!
After gluing Todd back together, I took Faith to her dance class. I love this shot with her jazz shoes in one hand, her taps in the other, and wearing her cowboy boots, which are my preferred dance shoe. I have to find something fun to do with this picture!
On Friday night I let Matt and Jessica go to the Senior football game with a group of friends. I sent my little camera with Jess, and she got a couple of shots that turned out. Tony... keep your hand out of your face when the camera is working!! :0)The churches in town take turns hosting a "5th Quarter" game after every home game, and they all went to that after the game and had a lot of fun.
The other day this girl, Teeka, asked Matt to "go out" with her. He was honest and told her he can't date until he's 16, but that they could hang out at school and games and stuff like that. She agreed, and here they are. I am glad she will actually smile for the camera!
On Saturday James and Tony came over and helped us clear out a pile of junk the last owners had left here. (See the car fender they left behind???) We were able to burn most of it in the burnhouse, and there is a great deal of satisfaction in getting a big chunk of the outside work done that we need to get taken care of. By next weekend we want to have the area around the barn completely cleared out so we can focus on getting the barn taken down. There is still a lot of work to do, but once we get it all done it will all really look good. You can see some of the trees that line our property in this shot as well.
Faith spent Saturday afternoon playing with her friend Lauren across the street. She and Lauren had fun riding the 4-wheeler around the pasture for a while, then they came back to our house to jump on the trampoline.
The rest of these are pictures from the fair the other night.I really like the one of the girls on the heart ride, even with it being blurry. I like how it captures the motion, but you can still see Faith holding on for dear life, and Jessica laughing as she spun it a little faster.
Half the kids were sick and stayed home from school today. They all seem to be feeling a bit better tonight, and I am hoping whatever bug this is runs its course before the weekend. We have another weekend with plans for games, activities, and work coming up, and the week after that kicks off what we call birthday season around here! Jessica, Chet, and Beth all have birthdays in the same week, so I have some prep to do to get ready for that! We are all busy, but we are loving it!
Read a quote the other day that I love.
"Wealth isn't measured by how many things you have. It is measured by how many people you have to love."
I am filthy rich... :0) Talk to you soon!
We had a good time at the fair last night, and I have photos to share from that, but Blogger is taking forever to upload the images right now. I will post them tomorrow if I get a chance. Tomorrow is an away game, so we are following the team bus to the town they are playing. We are all wearing red, and I might even make myself a "football mom" necklace before we go.
I am posting this quote here to use on a page soon. Between Faith and Kyle starting soccer next week, and Matt in football, I should be able to find a perfect photo for it by the end of the season! Before you can score you must first have a goal. Proverb
I did want to share a conversation I overheard last night... thought you might get a chuckle out of it, and I want to create some type of layout about this later!
I sent Todd and Kyle in to go pee before we left the house for the fair. The ensuing conversation followed.
K - Todd, you didn't flush.
T - Yes, I did.
K -No you didn't.
T - Yes I did.
K - No you didn't or I would have heard it flush.
T - Yes I did... I just told it to whisper.
We had a busy day today. We got up and moving and headed out to the parade on the square. Before we left I asked Matt to take my picure for an upcoming projec I have. He did a good job framing it... I only had to crop some of the top off of it.
We picked up lunch at the grocery store to have a picnic on the square while we waited for the parade to start.
Beth was really enjoying that Reese's cup that came in her lunchables...
Matt and Chet gave me identical cheesy smiles.
Right before the parade started, Faith's teacher came over and said hi and invited us to come stand by them to watch the parade. Her daughter and Faith are becoming really good friends. We headed over there just as the parade started. It wasn't a huge parade, but we had a lot of fun. Almost all of the Republican candidates including the man running for governor were in the parade. The Democrats were duck hunting. (I am not making that up, it was in the newspaper... LOL)
I have no idea who this kid is, but he and his girlfriend were standing next to us, and he kept hollering out to the cars that were going by in the parade saying "hey, there's starving kids over here... they need candy!" And boy did people throw candy.
The kids had a blast picking it all up, and by the time the parade was over my purse was full to the top with the stuff. We've had Halloweens where there wasn't that much candy, and this was a small parade... less than thirty minutes. The kids thought they had hit paydirt... they don't get candy like this very often!
When the parade was over we came home and built a big fire in the burnpit. It only took me about 14 matches before I could finally get the flames started, and then we all began the really corny "burn" jokes. The kids stood there singing a twisted version of "Kumbaya" (something's burning, Lord, kumbaya), then they started in on a group rendition of "Ring of Fire." We spent most of the afternoon outside because it was so nice out. The parade is the kick-off for the county fair, so tomorrow night we are heading out to the fair to see the exhibits and ride some rides.
I am off to bed now. Night!
