Barn pics

Just thought I'd share this album that shows the progress of the barn. Not much has changed recently, but John is slowly filling in the gaps between the roof and the walls and making progress on the inside.

Barn

Slow February

Still don't have much of anything new going on. Last weekend, the only time we left the house was to go to church Sunday. Friday night I brought home Pizza Hut pizza and we watched Leatherheads and Saturday was a clean up day and John & I finally got around to putting things away in the office and I did our taxes (so happy that's done!). It was kinda nice not going anywhere! Sunday we found out that Colten will have his first communion on May 17 (hopefully), so mark your calendars! We ate band turkey dinners with Roseline and then headed back home to finish laundry (there was a lot!) and get ready for the week.

Ashlyn had her last basketball game Monday which they won and she got to play during the normal game. It was in Menard, though, so we missed it!

This weekend we still don't have a lot going on, but it is Valentine's Saturday so we've been busy getting ready for that. Poor Colten was up past 9 last night doing his because he wanted to send one to all 3 classes of 2nd graders - he was tired of that when he finished, but he had to bring them to school today, so he had to get them done! Colten informed us that he has two girls fighting over him. They always want to sit by him and chase him around. He says that's weird and doesn't like it much. I think it's hilarious :) I'm sure he'll change his mind about that soon enough!

Hope everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day!

Just a quick update

We haven't had too much going on lately, but I thought I'd post a quick update anyway. Saturday, John & I went out to celebrate our 13th anniversary with dinner and dancing at the Peanut Mill. Before that, we went out to the rocks in the pasture to set up the game camera I got for John as a gift (he got me some James Avery earrings to go with the necklace I got for Christmas!) and while we were there we enjoyed some wine while sitting on the rocks. It was a very nice evening! Sure glad there were no heifers about to go into labor this year!

Sunday after church we went to Frances & Dennis's house to celebrate some birthdays and had some yummy chicken enchiladas and were completely stuffed before we even got to the Super Bowl party we went to in Mason. Of course we ate more while we were there and mostly didn't watch the Super Bowl. The kids had fun there playing with some kids that ride their bus, and I got my baby fix :) We left after the 3rd quarter so the kids could get to bed at a decent hour and managed to see the best part of the game at home!

Monday, I didn't have to drive to Austin (YAY!) since my boss had taken the day off. Ashlyn had a home game that day, so I was happy I'd get to see it. However, they played the extra people quarter before the game this time and I missed her anyway. So did Omie & Opie & Rena... very disappointing! That was her last home game and after next week, basketball will be over. She wants to practice over the summer so she can be better next year. Hopefully she keeps up with that! Next is Tennis, so we'll see how that goes!

Parties & Stuff

We had a small birthday party for Colten Saturday and had a couple of his friends come over. They mostly played on the Wii since it was so cold that day (of course the day before and the day after were really nice, but that's Texas for you!). Even Omie A played for a little while.

Here are some photos from the party (click on the pic to see the album):

Colten's 8th Birthday

Sunday afternoon we went to the library to see one of our neighbors talk about a book her now deceased husband wrote about his life and his struggle with ALS. I don't know if the kids got anything out of it or not, but John & I really enjoyed it! Here's a link to an article about the book if you're interested.

Monday, Ashlyn had a home basketball game and I made it just in time to see the extra quarter that the extra girls got to scrimmage against each other in. Unfortunately, they lost the game against Irion County ISD and Ashlyn learned that they weren't taking the whole team to the district tournament this weekend and in particular not her and she was pretty upset. She thought she'd been doing much better, and she has, but that's life! I told her to keep up the hard work and maybe next year she'll get more play time. I think she was OK with that. Colten had Boy Scouts that same night, and he got his prizes for selling popcorn which included a "master jack knife" as he calls it. He feels very privileged to have a knife now and he and his daddy have been going over rules of owning a knife, in particular absolutely no taking it to school - he was kinda disappointed about that! We got home about 7:30 that night and got a bite to eat, just before the power went out. We certainly weren't expecting that, so I called the power company and they confirmed that it would be out until about 10 due to some repairs that were being made. So we found some flash lights and lit some candles and finished homework to candle light. Of course it was too dark and too quiet and scary for the kids to sleep upstairs so they got to sleep downstairs. It was sort of an unexpected adventure!

This morning we were lead to believe we would have a blanket of ice keeping us from going anywhere, but unfortunately, we were mislead! School was even postponed 2 hours, but I don't think it really needed to be. There was some ice on the fence and steps at the house, but that was about it. A few places on my way in were icier than others (for example, Hill Top, where there was a collision between two 18-wheelers this morning), but I had no trouble getting in.

Colten's 8!

Colten turned 8 on Friday! Since we postponed his party until the following weekend, we gave him his gift that morning - a new bb/pellet gun! He was ecstatic and couldn't wait to try it out. He had been using John's old bb gun until now, but had a hard time pumping it. This one's easier for him and shoots pellets to boot. He's been practicing on cans and is a pretty good shot so far :)

Here he is on the morning of his birthday - don't you just love his bed head?

Here he is trying it out

Saturday, Ashlyn had a basketball tournament in Llano, playing Llano and a team from Austin (St. Andrews). Both of these teams are in much bigger districts than Mason, so it wasn't too pretty for them. The scores were both in the range of 18-36 or so. I guess it was good practice, though. Ashlyn's team did win their game last night against Cristoval and she's been getting to play more. She was so excited when she told me that she'd been more aggressive during practice and was now in the 2nd group of players instead of the last and is now playing more than a quarter as point guard. Way to go Ashlyn!

Here's Ashlyn in her basketball get-up during the break between games

While we were in Llano, Mom, Rena, Roseline, Ashlyn and I got to have a nice girl's lunch at Stonewall's (pretty good place). After we ate, Ashlyn & I drove to Fredericksburg to finally get her a hair cut. She was needing one really bad and she wanted something a little different. I think it turned out very nice!

Stock Show, etc, etc

Well, we got through the stock show and although it was a bit disappointing, we're glad it's over and we no longer have to remember to feed pigs. Ashlyn placed 5th with her pig (even though everyone that saw it thought it would at least win it's class) and Colten didn't place. They said they were fine with that and are ready to go again next year, with two pigs each, so I guess that's all that matters... they're still interested! Everything went off without a hitch (except for Colten getting an awful cough Sunday night - I'm sure it's related to the stock show), which was nice because we worried what Ashlyn's pig would do when we took Colten's pig out of the pen for the show. Every time we split them up for washing, clipping etc, Ashlyn's pig would go nuts and try to jump out of the pen... scary! Thankfully, that didn't happen when they showed, but Ashlyn's pig did pretty much just sprint everywhere when she showed it, which probably didn't help :)

Here are some pics from the show (click on the pic to see the album):

2009 Mason County Stock Show

Sunday, Ashlyn went with her friend Jayde to help sell desserts for Kids Against Cancer at a fund raiser for a family that lost the dad to cancer. We're told that Ashlyn was an awesome salesperson and got almost everyone to buy something. I can see that... she can be very persistent! I was glad that she got to help out and use her sometimes annoying "skill" for something good :)

Funny Colten-ism: On the way home from church Sunday (without Ashlyn - she was at the fund raiser) we were talking about Ashlyn and I mentioned that Colten was going to have a teen-age sister soon. He said he knew that, but wasn't worried, "I think she'll still be bright-hearted, not like goth or anything." How random!

Ashlyn had a home basketball game last night that I made the 2nd half for. I got to watch her play for a couple of minutes and she even stole the ball once, so I was happy. It was a pretty exciting game... the score was close most of the time and they won 24-21, or somewhere close to that anyway.

And here's a random album for your viewing pleasure. I got a new scanner for Christmas and scanned in a bunch of old pictures of the kids. Enjoy!

Fun with my new scanner

The holidays are over

I can't believe we are already in 2009. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year! Ours was good and quite busy. The kids were super excited to get to hang out with their out of town aunts and uncle and cous-dogs. They spent several nights at Omie B's to spend as much time as possible with them. Of course leaving the Wii at Omie B's house several times didn't have anything to do with that ;) They got several new games for Christmas so we did let them play a little more than usual.

Highlights of the holidays included a trip to the Rockbox for all of us from Omie B, sausage making, BBQ & game night with a seriously fun game of Apples 2 Apples, El Gallo's and more Apples 2 Apples on New Year's Eve, several family get-togethers and tamale making/eating. We never did make it to go ice skating and we were reminded of that several times :)

Here's a slideshow documenting all of the excitement :) Click on it to see the full album:



Overall it was a lot of fun and a very nice couple of weeks and it was extremely hard to get back into the normal routine! Now on to the stockshow this weekend... wish the kids luck with Porky & Oreo!