A friends giveaway

My friend over at Surrounded-By-Boys is hosting a giveaway. She will be giving away two beautiful dish towels that have some embroidery on them. Here is a little peak at what one lucky person could win.

Enter here.

Reflections

I have heard a lot of people say, "Wow, this year has flown by". In some ways it seems like it has but in other ways it seems like it has been a very long year. I've reflected on this year and all the changes that it has brought for our family. This year has been a year of trusting and having faith, even when we weren't sure about things. Back in July when I posted about us moving and being anxious about the move, particularly about how we were going to make it with us not having a job lined up. Well God provided and is still providing for our family.

Chuck completed his first semester of school at the beginning of December. He made three "A's" and one "B". Next semester (which starts January 21) he will be taking 5 classes, continued prayers are needed.

Tyler and Kaelyn are doing very good. Tyler has kept us busy this semester,  playing football with a 5-1 season. He has also been very active in FFA. Tyler has adjusted to the public school life and is a straight “A” student. Kaelyn made all A’s the first nine weeks of school. After much prayer we decided that Kaelyn would leave the public school system. So in October we began the journey of homeschooling. She has adapted very well to this and is still an “A” student.   

 I'm looking forward to what this new year will bring. Hope you all have a "Happy New Year".

Pumpkins, Candy & Festivals

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere. If you know me very well or have been in my house, you know that I just love pumpkins. From pumpkins in my living room, to pumpkin scented hand soap and candles and lets not forget the scent of pumpkin muffins baking, pumpkins are all over my house. These two even made an appearance at our house (for a few days anyway).

These are the only “before” pictures I got . Here they are getting all the “guts” out.


and finally the “after”

Kaelyn decided that her pumpkin needed to be puking. I know “GROSS”!!! Tyler had a different pattern started on his, but a change a plans when the cutting didn’t go quite as planned. That’s okay though we made it work. They had fun scraping all the guts out and planning how the faces would look on their Jack-O-Lanterns. We took them outside (minus the puke from Kaelyn’s) and put a candle inside of them.


On Tuesday night the BCM put on a CANDY LAND event for the BCF students, faculty and staff  and their families at the Heritage Village. They decorated like the Candy Land game.


We took our kids but most of the activities geared for younger children. Kaelyn did stop in at the face painting booth and got a ladybug painted on her face.

For Halloween night we went to the Autumn Fest that was held outside of the Civic Center. There were Churches from the community there giving out hot dogs, sodas, chili,  popcorn and cotton candy. Kaelyn and I had cotton candy while Chuck and Tyler had some popcorn and a cup of chili. They also did Trunk or Treating. There were different games for the kids to play and even had a clown making balloon animals and swords. There were several cute costumes that we saw. One couple that we know had there little boy dressed like a bunch of green grapes. He was so cute, they blew up small green balloons and attached them to his shirt. Then we saw another little boy dressed up as a red dirt devil vacuum cleaner. Wish I could have taken pictures of them. This was such  a neat little event for our community. Afterwards we went to Sonic for the $0.50 corn dogs. Of course you can’t go to Sonic without getting tots and a drink.

FFA and the Panhandle Youth Expo

With moving to a new city, and a new school comes opportunities to become involved in activities/organizations. This year Tyler has done just that. In the past he had never shown an interest in anything related to agriculture so it really surprised me when he wanted to join FFA and told us that he would like to show his FFA chapters Beef Heifer in the Panhandle Youth Expo.
He started showing this interest when school started and one of his classes is Agricultural Science. I really didn’t think that he would be very interested in this class, that it would be just another class he had. Would do the work, make a good grade and that would be it. Well to my surprise he would come home after football practice and talk about what they did that day in Ag Science. One of the things that really helps out for this class, is that they are not just sitting in a classroom all the time. The teacher (Mr. Mauldin) takes them outside for a hands on approach and they LEARN.
So a few weeks into the school year, Tyler informs us that he wants to join FFA. So he gets his money turned in and then a couple of days later he came home telling us that the girl that was supposed to be showing the FFA chapter beef cow wasn’t going to do it, and he had been leading the cow around some and everyone kept telling him that he was doing real good. Well long story short, Mr. Mauldin talked with Tyler and it was decided that Tyler would be the one to show the cow. He only had a few weeks to work with this cow before the show.
On Monday, (the 8th of October) Tyler was up early to get on down to the fairgrounds. He wanted to get checked in and get started with this cow showing business. He showed the cow on Tuesday afternoon for the Beef Showmanship Contest. For it being his first time, he did really well. While he didn’t come in 1st or 2nd place, we were very proud of him. He actually came in 4th, but they only acknowledge 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. He did get a participant ribbon though.


Wednesday they had the Breeding Beef Show. There were only four cows in the group that Tyler showed in on this day. His cow came in fourth place. One thing that the judge said about his cow (and some others in different groups) was that it looked to “cowy”. That night after we got home, Tyler was like, “how can a cow look too cowy?” He said he was fine with it, but really I think he was disappointed.