stock show pictures

Before the show, Sadie's cousin C.W. helped her walk her lambs and do a little practicing. He was a great help and had lots of questions for Robby.

Christmas--Part 4

Christmas morning, the kids woke up to a new Wii, complete with Wii Fit Plus. They enjoyed looking at their stockings and then we opened presents.

We gathered everything up, including the Wii, went to visit Nonnie, and then headed to town for the day. At mom's we enjoyed a great Christmas dinner. We spent the day playing games and the Wii.

When we returned home that evening, Robby decided to set up the Wii so we could play the next day. Unfortunately, Santa forgot to check to make sure that you could hook it up to our TV. We ended up going to Amarillo the day after Christmas to buy a TV. (Fun times)

Christmas Break, Part 3

On Thursday we woke up to a little bit of snow and a whole lot of wind. We were on the edge of the "blizzard." The girls were determined to play in it, but soon found out the wind and cold were just too much. They did collect a bowl of snow to eat.

We spent the day in town playing games and eating more. After church that evening, the boys treated us to chicken-fried deer steak and the fixings.

The kids hung their stockings and Sadie wrote Santa a note before heading to bed.

Christmas Break, Part 2

On Wednesday we went to Nonnie's for a pizza picnic. The girls impressed everyone with their tumbling/gymnastic/cheer skills. T.S. showed off his crab walk--all the way down the hall. That afternoon we made the cut-out cookies that Nonnie always helped us with. Jennifer and I were pretty proud of our efforts. The cookies turned out pretty good.

The girls went out in the weather (not exactly dressed appropriately for it) to feed.

We enjoyed an evening of games, cookie eating and fried catfish (courtesy of Cody).

Christmas Break, part one

Monday we enjoyed Christmas at my mom's house. My brother and sister and their families were all here. The cousins were really glad to see each other.

Tuesday we took Nonnie to lunch at El Camino.

We spent the afternoon on a photo shoot around Happy.

I bought myself a camera--I'm still shooting on auto, since I haven't had time to play around much. I can tell I'm going to really enjoy it, though. I wish I knew more about it--a mule deer was in the road when we turned off the pavement to our dirt road Tuesday night. I tried to take pictures and ended up with a really blurry deer. T.S. and I were amazed when it bounded over the barbed wire fence.

Today we have had a mix of rain, sleet and now snow. We enjoyed a pizza picnic with Nonnie, games and cookie baking (pictures to come).

Thanksgiving Recap

Here's a recap of our holiday. We were out of school early on Tuesday and enjoyed a day of not much on Wednesday. Wednesday evening we celebrated "Thanksmas" (Christmas the day before Thanksgiving) with the Tireys. The kids enjoyed bouncing in Shipo's barn. They exchanged ornaments and the adults had Chinese Christmas. We celebrated Thanksgiving Thursday with the Tireys and then were on the road to Aledo for more celebration with the Bows. (Sorry, as usual, got to the Tirey shindigs with no camera.)


The weather in Aledo was great. Robby and I went shopping Friday and the kids stayed with their grandparents and had a great afternoon of adventures with some of their cousins. We returned to dirty, tired, excited kids. They had worked all day on their clubhouse in the woods. PaPa has a treasure trove of items for clubhouse building. He let the kids paint, use the cordless drill, hammer all they wanted and drag stuff from all over to outfit the club--The Double C (Cousins Club). Meda and Sadie gave me the grand tour. The kids ended their evening around the firepit with PaPa.


On Saturday, we had the Bow Thanksgiving feast. More cousins were on hand for adventuring and improvements were made to the Double C. Sinks and cooktops were added. The kids had so much fun making their club. Some of the adults enjoyed more shopping and Sadie had a ball being a model so her aunts could get some photography practice in. A highlight for T.S. was "writing on the wall, because you never let us do it." Grandma has a wall that is waiting to be finished, so the grandkids get to draw pictures on it.


We arrived home today to this:

I guess it was our first official snow--we're back to the reality of Panhandle weather.

Fall Fun

C.W. came home with us after school today. Sadie, T.S. and C.W. enjoyed picking our "big" pumpkins (they aren't very big, though, because the gardener didn't water them like she should have).

The kids enjoyed counting the little pumpkins that I picked this weekend. Sadie was the official counter as the boys attempted to drop them in and count. The final tally was 77 little pumpkins, 17 white pumpkins and 27 orange pumpkins. The only question now is where to put them. I'm pretty sure that Annie will drag them all over the yard since she is such a helpful puppy these days.