Collin’s big stop!

The last football game of the season was this past week.  We were sad that the team, struggling with the flu we had the week before only wanted to play 2 quarters of the B game.   The 2 prior weeks we struggled with the flu and terrible weather, so I was ready for some football.  We were not disappointed, the guys gave it their all!  Collin had a great stop.  He read a pass well and got right in their and immediately stopped it!  I of course had come down on the field for some good shots and he was on the opposite side… busted! He not only stopped him, but he pushed him backward a good bit! If only 66 was not in the way!

Cross Creek Candle Open House

Last weekend the kids and I had fun getting out the candles for our candle open house.  To both help them and  earn some extra money, I decided to sell the hand poured soy candles that  Chris’ cousin Tricia and her friend make and sell.   We took some pictures of the displays we had up to show off the various scent samples. If you would like to order you can order directly from the website at Cross Creek Candle Co and mention my name in the notes as your consultant.  We are hoping to tuck the extra money aside for our trip to South Africa next year!!!  I do love their candles, they are so highly scented that they rivel Yankee or Gold Canyon candles, plus they are from pure soy, something that makes my husband very happy!There are  have some lovely fall and winter scents available.  If you would like a sample I can scrape some from a sample and send them to you or let me know and I’ll bring you a sample to try. 

“Padded Trampoline Football”

 

Collin, Hans and Alan love to play trampoline football, not sure exactly how that would work, but they do!  Last weekend  Taya was here for a visit and she got in on the fun.  

You can see bits and pieces of blankets showing through… kind a funny.   They get hurt less this way and gosh, it’s funny!

News!!!

Well here are Hans and Alan, relaxing in bed after a busy day. It's Thursday, very cold, very rainy, so we left them at Dick and Carol's so they would not freeze at Collin's football game in Nickerson. The game went poorly, but that's another story!

Hans has been selected to sing with the KMEA 4-6 Honor's Choir (only 2 were chosen from the each grade). He is very excited and has been staying after school to practice music with Mrs. Anthony. The choir is OCtober 24th!!!

Alan who you may know has struggled with reading since kindergarten...now has some answers! After some headaches at home and school he was referred to an eye MD (Even though he passes the vision screening). He has Conversion Excess, thus when he is reading his eyes over converge and the page goes out of focus for him. The MD took a paper and a transparency with the same thing printed on it and moved it just a millimeter and show us that this is what a gook looks like for Alan. We are so relieved and he is excited that now he knows what is going on!!! I feel terrible for the times when I thought he was just not paying attention or trying hard enough.

Corn Harvest 09

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H1N1???

Erin started it. A week and a half ago she woke in the night unable to sleep. As i tucked her back into bed she was burning up! 101*F at least. I gave her Motrin and the next day she was "fine" although I made her stay home from school. Dinner time *pop* there goes the fever, plus aches, sore throat, cough, runny nose. You could see it come over her. Kept her comfortable for a little more than 48 hours and that was that. Everyone else in the house had a bad cold and cough, but no fever.

This past Wednesday Hans was particularly grouchy in the car after AWANA complaining that Collin's reading light was hurting his eyes etc.

As I tucked him into bed....burning up. He was already coughing and sneezing. Out of the 4th grade class of 21 only 8 students were in school on Friday. Other classes were not as effected...

yet!

Who will be on the couch next week with the cat? The ironic thing is, sometime soon they will be bringing the H1N1 vaccine to the school for all the students to receive. Now I have no intention of having any of my kids vaccinated, I think we over vaccinate already. The irony is, I think they're too late.

Now does anyone else remember standing in line to get vaccinated. I remember in 2nd grade, the wait was worse than the shot!!!

Sadly, my friend Staci was going to come and stay with us with the 2 boys Brody and Barrett, because they had a wedding in Wichita Saturday. They did not come and we missed Collin's Thursday night football game in Hillsboro. Oh well, what can ya do!

State Fair

Whoo hoo, everyone loves the state fair right? You know lots of junk food, stinky animals and overpriced rides!!! This year we went with Bill and Paula and had a pretty good time doing all 3 of those things! We saw a sheep with 3 horns...ew.Getting wet on the Water Slide...and eating Uncle Bill's pop corn.Bounced on the trampoline/ bungee thing...And got trapped on the bumper cars from hell! all the kids got stuck in the middle and just sat there. Erin came out with a huge headache and we went home!

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

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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!