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!

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and give one last update since I probably won't post again until after the holidays.

The kids have had a great week at school. Colten was really excited because he got to wear his pajamas to school yesterday for their Christmas party which included watching Polar Express and a gift exchange (did you know how hard it is to find a cool action figure for $5???). Ashlyn says they'll be watching movies all day today and then they get out early and are off for two weeks. We were super proud of her for bringing her history grade up to an A (after some questionable grades on some papers earlier) and having a 100 average in math this 6-weeks. Both kids have been getting all A's on their report cards this year (except one B the first 6-weeks for Colten). I'm really really proud of them!

Our fun starts Sunday with Christmas at Oma Reeh's house and the arrival of Jill, then the arrival of Judy, Mark, Baloo and Otto and our family Christmas on Christmas Eve and then we'll be at Frances' on Christmas Day evening. We plan to do lots of fun things throughout the holidays and hopefully get together with friends as well.

Hope everyone has a wonderful & safe holiday!

Basketball & Ice Skating

Ashlyn had a home basketball game last night and Colten's boy scout troop was going ice skating and out for pizza, so we had to split up so everyone could do their stuff. John went with Colten ice skating (and had to be outside on one of the coldest days we've had in forever) and I went to Ashlyn's game with my parents and Rena. The game was set up a little different this time since Menard was low on players due to grades (no pass, no play). They only had enough for one team of both 7th and 8th graders together, so Mason took the best players from their 7th and 8th grade teams to play against them and the rest of the team scrimmaged against each other - this is where Ashlyn was, but she still didn't get to play much, which didn't make sense to me since they weren't playing a real game. She did as good as most of the other players, she's just not quite as aggressive (she's also one of the smallest so I guess that doesn't help either). It would probably help her to become more aggressive if she got to play more, but I guess that's just one of those things. Hopefully she gets meaner (only when playing basketball) and maybe then she'll get to play in the games more :)

Here's Ashlyn on the bench with other not-so-aggressive smallish girls - one of which is her good friend Savannah - at least they could complain with each other!

And here she is in the game with the ball:


Of course I couldn't take pictures of Colten ice skating since I was at the game, but maybe we'll get to go sometime during the holidays and then I'll be there to take pics! He had a blast, though, and was telling me about all the cool moves he did to avoid crashing. Oh boy!

Party Party

Firstly, I had to mention that I actually finished Colten's stocking in time for St. Nick night. I think it turned out nice... just don't look at the details!! I wrote Colten's name with green glitter since it probably would have taken me at least until Christmas to sew it on. He was very happy with it, so that's all that matters!

Here it is (before I added the name):

This past weekend we had 3 Christmas parties to attend and now, with the gifts from these parties combined with St. Nick gifts, the kids have hit the 100 Littlest Pet Shop mark. I can only hope that now that we have hit this highly momentous milestone, I will stop getting asked for them... yes I know I'm delusional :)

Ashlyn had her Christmas band concert Tuesday night, but, gasp!, I forgot my camera... not sure how that happened! Anyway, I was very impressed by how much better they had gotten since last year. We also got a special treat since Oma Reeh came along with my parents to see it.