Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you Happy 13th Birthday dear Collin... Happy Birthday to YOU! Collin's birthday was both long and short this year. It started back in August when Chris took him to get his birthday present... a shotgun. Today he had a total of 30 minutes for pizza, cake and presents after football practice & before mom had to leave for supervision and Chris was harvesting. So the kids played and watched a movie while I was gone.

It has been very rainy in KS lately which means there is an abundance of mud and thus muddy kiddos!

Fortunately Hans' glasses were not stratched, but I was worried!

When kids are cranky from being inside after too much rain, this is a good alternative. Although they did have to shower in the icky basement shower and hose off before coming inside! Plus they had to clean up the floor outside the shower and put their clothes to soak in a bucket. Still worth it! I know this because they did it 2 days in a row.

Content

Anyone who has asked me about work lately probably got an earful! I have been all torn up inside about how my hours at work have been cut and how that will make it take forever to get my independent license and on and on and on. Sadly, I must confess, you may not have heard me say how blessed I am that my working outside the home is a choice. That the Lord has blessed us in that I do not NEED to work outside the home. It has also paradoxically been a relief to have more time at home, since our afternoons and evenings have been full with activities. And even though the independent license is a desire of mine it is not a need and even though the exam at the end frightens me, I need not fear for God is with me.

Chris has been so quiet about what I should and should not do in this matter. Yet we had a really good talk yesterday and I can finally claim contentment in waiting. I thank my blogging friend Mosey for a link on her blog that reaffirmed this, just hours after Chris and I had our conversation! http://toomanykidsinthebathtub.blogspot.com/2009/09/keeper-or-captive.html

My thanks to my kid-hosing husband and these dear women for speaking truth and wisdom.

As for Erin she was entirely too muddy after playing with her brothers and needed an outside shower!

Thank you all for the fun responses. Lindsey or should I say Lugene, yours takes the "into it mom" award. I simply waved and Chris thought that it was embarassing! He should have been there at the very beginning of the first game (altho he was there soon after) Anyway, Collin caught the opening kick off, had a really good run and his name was announced. You know I had to whoop that up !!! Erin was mortified! Life is good!

A POLL

This is a scientific poll. In your comments please respond to this question. If a football player LOOKS at his mother while he is on the side line before a game should she:

a. Wave

b. Smile

c. Yell, 'HI COLLIN, LOVE YOU!!!'

d. nothing

e. a, b, and c

f. take a picture

I'll leave you to guess which one I did, but his father had definite opinions on what I should have done! Let me know what you think!

Here are a few football photos. Collin has been playing slot back. This is a kick off return. This has been a lot of fun for him since he rarely touched the ball last year! We played Haven last night (we're white). They only had one team (as opposed to an A & B team like we have). The B team played the 2nd half. Collin had a reception, ran some good yards and was tackled by several players. He shook it off, but mom looking through the zoom said, OUCH!

Collin gets to run the plays in so he gets 1:1 time with the coach.Collin's friend Andrew playing QB and doing a fine job!

Cutest Dog Competition

Give me all your lovin…

This is Freckles and Teri, the woman behind the blog!  Both of these girls are rarely photographed.  The kitty is one of our faux Himalayan cats.  She is not accepted by the other females so she lives in the neighbor’s barn but comes out every so often for food.  It is very rare that she is in a lovey mood, but tonight she was.  I had been taking Abby pics, so Alan took pics of me and Freckles.  I love her eye brows, they make her always look worried, well she is always worried, but they are funny. 

Lacey went hunting with Chris and Collin yesterday, leaving Abbey whose knees are just not up for hunting anymore home with me. So for a consolation prize we went for a walk and what a bonus, there was a covey of quail in our yard that she chased all over! It was rather startling when they popped up! Anyway, we went up to the RR track near our house for a walk and I snapped some photos of our “old girl”. Her muzzle has greyed and yet the look on her face was so youthful. Sometimes it looks like it hurts her so to walk and other days she does much better. This was a good day. Any day you get to scare the cat is a good day, right?

Kansas Wheathearts

Odds and Ends:
Here are a few snipits from summer that are worth sharing. big changes for our 2 oldest this summer. Erin decided to donate 8 inches of hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths
The quality was not great as Becky was working fast and I had to snap quickly! Here she is popping it in the mail. bye bye hair!

Collin will be turning 13 this month, so while he had some down time Chris took him on their special outing to spend some quality man time and buy him his own shot gun. (gulp) How can I possibly be old enough to have a son who has a gun???????? He did take his Hunter Saftey this summer, did I not take a pic of him with his patch? That's outrageous! I will have to remedy that. Anyway, dove season has opened and the boy wants to go hunting. It does not help that his friend took off school opening morning (of dove season????). I'm sure he'll get his fix this weekend.

Football camp 1-8 09

Click here to view these pictures larger

Here we go! Football season opens with Fall Preview night. What a delight for Collin to get a reception and a good tackle this first night! He manages to juke the first tackle and get a good block from 32 and get a decent run.

Here he assists in a tackle. Henry's going down!

His first game is this Thursday. Mom is both excited and "gulp" well mostly excited!