Just me and my girl

Mallory and Madison are at a slumber party. Colin is in Iowa with his wrestling coach watching the Olympic try-outs. Jim took Cameron and Preston fishing. That just leaves Quincy and me all alone at home. She has been keeping me entertained! We planted some flower seeds, took a bubble bath and read some books. Now she is singing and playing with all Preston's toys while he is not here to stop her!

We spent the afternoon at the city pool. (Grace, I still say it is too cold, but the kids swam for a couple of hours and didn't complain too much!) We then took care of the pigs, and then all the kids disappeared to the various events listed above. Quincy was pretty sad at first, but she is good now! I am enjoying the relative quiet and lack of being at the ballpark! I am also hoping that Colin had a great trip to Iowa, they left this morning around 5 am and won't return until late tonight sometime. He is staying the night with his friend, and we will pick him up tomorrow. I would venture to guess that he will be exhausted! Here's hoping he can sleep in the car on the way home! Anyhow, I think it was a great opportunity for him to get to go, and I am sure he will tell us all about it!

I've been good, right?

Quincy: I be good right?

Me: Yes, you have been very good.

Quincy: Then I go to the 'cession' stand?

Didn't take her too long to figure that out did it?

Firsts

The first swim of the summer of '09 lasted about 10 minutes due to the extremely cold water. Nobody complained about the cold, just didn't stay in for long!
Preston played his first t-ball game. He got 2 good hits in without using the T so we were pretty excited about it. It has been long enough since the other kids played t-ball that we had forgotten how the kids get bored when they play the outfield, and how they tend to start crying halfway through. Since Preston got 2 good hits and did not do any crying at all, we consider this a very successful game!

Our Pig Growing Experiment Seems to be Working!

These little babies are growing fast! (And getting dirtier and smellier by the day).

What the...????

I found this when I got home from work yesterday. I didn't know what it was, but it sure looked gross! Apparently, this is what happens when your 13 year old daughter walks her little brother to the store and buys him breakfast. Fun Dip - all the colors mixed together and eaten with a grapefruit spoon counts as a serving of fruit, after all it is fruit flavored, and they used the correct utensils for fruit!

here it is...

We finally got the sonogram photos to scan. They didn't turn out very well, and these were done at 7 weeks, so the baby is more like a beating footprint but, you can get the picture anyway! Hopefully we will have another sono in a few weeks and then we will have some pictures that look like an actual baby! Ha!

Rain

Yesterday, we were trapped indoors all day due to a misty, miserable, cold, rainy day. This made for a lot of sadness when ballgames were postponed. Since we haven't played that many games yet, we are still sad when we don't get to play! Quincy entertained herself by stealing the girl's makeup and giving herself a make over. She really loves to eat their lip gloss. This did not go over very well I might add! Whereas I generally enjoy a nice rainy day to do some baking and housecleaning, I must admit that I much prefer a sunny day when the kids are out of school!

The city pool opens this Saturday, the kids are very excited about this. Grandma filled her pool as well, but it has been too cold to swim (not that it would stop them from trying it, but mom said NO!).

We have finally completed all the paperwork and testing for Cameron's school next year. I am relieved to have this task finished, as it was a bit time consuming and cumbersome. Now all we have left to do is to pick out his elective courses. I believe his choice is to take Spanish, but I also believe it is because he thinks he can learn to curse in Spanish!

Colin has BRAVE parents!

That's right, we purchased our 10 year old son a bright shiny trumpet! For months now, he has been talking about playing the drums in beginning band. Last night, at the band meeting, he decided he REALLY wanted to play the trumpet. He is very excited, but right now I am praying for the start of summer band because at this point his "playing" sounds a bit like a sick cow.

Summer fun!

Quincy's "big" catch!

My boys love to fish! The plan for last night was to take all the kids plus Colin's friend out to the land we bought, build a campfire and let the boys fish. That plan was thrown out due to an unexpected rain storm that quickly left, but also left it too muddy to get into where we wanted to be. So we took all the kids to the city lake, fished and cooked hotdogs on the grill there instead. I think that everyone had a great time despite having our plans changed. Quincy even caught her very first fish! She was a little bit intimidated by the fish, but still likes talking about him!

New News

Jim and I are happy to announce that we are going to add baby #7 to our family. We found out a few weeks ago. Today we told the kids, so it is only a matter of time before everyone in the universe knows! I wanted to scan the first sonogram photos, but I can't get the scanner to work, so I will have to do that later on. So far, everything looks good with our newest little blessing and we are very excited. Baby #7 is due on Christmas day.

Of course, this is a tie-breaker baby, so the boys are wanting a brother and the girls a sister. Time will tell I suppose! This also means that the house planning might have to take a front seat rather than a back one due to the space constraints in our current house. But my great grandma said it best when she said it is always easier to add a plate to your table than it is to take one away. Jim and I are just interested in getting a healthy baby and are of course praying that all goes well.

Softball

Mallory and Madison played their first softball game in Auburn last night. They played pretty well, and won 16-13. The Auburn field is pretty tough to play on, they have cement side walls and gravel on the field. Madison tripped on some gravel while trying to retrieve a foul ball and scraped herself up petty good. Madison did a great job pitching and playing 1st base, Mallory spent the night playing 2nd. They are actually fun to watch at this age! Knowing the rules, and having some skills developed makes a huge difference.

We are enjoying a quiet holiday weekend. Lots of little stuff going on, but mostly just hanging out around the house. I am happy to have a couple of low key days before the madness gets into full swing!

School's out!

It will probably sound totally insane for a mom who is about to have 4 kids released from school to say that she is excited about the last day, but I am! The past month seems to have drug on forever. And since we have started baseball in the evenings, sometimes not getting home until almost 11, getting up in the morning has been excruciatingly difficult. Truly, though I enjoy having my kids around. I like them. They keep me busy, they make me laugh and yes, sometimes they drive me nuts, but for the most part they are a ton of help, they are fun to be around and I am happy to have them back!

That being said, I am also very torn up still about the decisions that our school board has made. This will be the last year that Overbrook has its own school. They will be combined with 2 neighboring towns and this school will only house grades k-2. I am sad about that loss. I am a lot of other things besides sad about it, but mostly I am just sad. I liked our town's small school. I liked knowing that my kids were just down the street. I liked the fact that some of the teachers were ones who were there when I was a kid and that they know my kids and their family. I am just not one who adapts to change very well, especially if I can't see any real reason for the change. I know that we are now committed to staying in this area, after all we just spent a ton of cash buying land, but I still don't like what has been done. I will work to make sure that my kids get out of this system with an education, and I will homeschool them if necessary to insure that. All we can do is move forward and keep our eyes open to make sure that our kids are taken care of. For now, though I am just going to enjoy having my kids home!

Preston's Last Day

Today was Preston's last day at Jumpstart Preschool. They had BIG WHEEL DAY. It was really fun, there was a bike wash, popcorn stand, popsickle stand, kool-aid stand, and a bank to get money. Each kid was given a driver's license and some money. They were having a ton of fun! Preston and Quincy are both enrolled at Jumpstart for next fall, but Quincy will only get to go if she gets potty trained, which we are working on (unsuccessfully).

Back to the ballpark?

Colin's 1st game

Colin had his first game last night. It was not the prettiest game I have ever seen, but they did end up winning. He seemed to think it was pretty fun, even though he took a pitch in the back. He also knocked over the catcher because he ran into home base rather than sliding, and we had flashbacks to all the times he did this last year!

Told you so

I told Madison that if she used my camera for evil I would post it on the blog - so here it is - just for you Madison!

The best part

My favorite part of all the running of summer, ball park jumping, hog feeding, running in the sun, and playing in the pool is that bedtime is no longer a fight for my Quincy girl! She seems to drop off and I don't hear much more until the next morning!

and so it begins...

Cameron had his first ball game last night against Appanoose. Cameron played catcher for the whole game (this makes my legs hurt just watching). They won 13-4. The team played very well, and all the practices seem to be paying off!

Tomorrow night Colin plays his first game. We are looking forward to seeing his team play, they work very hard in practice.

Colin has also been given a chance by his wrestling coach to go to Iowa to see the Olympic try-outs for wrestling. He is really excited about this opportunity. He continues to enjoy the free-style wrestling. He is learning lots of new (legal) moves and throws which should help him this winter during the regular season.

Forgot to mention...

Jim did take the boys out to the new pond to try it out. Preston was the only one who caught a fish, it was a perch. Colin caught a snapping turtle though, so that was pretty exciting! I think they had a good time! No photos available, as I didn't want to venture out in the mud!

Another Wild Weekend

This is Jim - he played in the parent vrs. child game for Colin's team on Saturday. He is still paying the price for his efforts, as he somehow seems to have thrown out a hip and is limping. He still managed to get in a monster hit, steal 3rd and make it home before he decided he might be dieing! The parents did end up winning too!

The above are photos from the 4-H swine weigh in this weekend. This was the beginning of the rate of gain contest, as well as tagging the hogs which will be sold at the auction at the county fair. Colin's hog weighed 30 pounds more than the others even though they are litter mates and have been on the same exact diet. I told you that he was going to end up in his own pen on a special diet before August! (And a special thanks to Uncle Eric for driving our pigs safely to Osage City and back!)

This is Mallory on Friday evening (the one in the background not shoveling poo). I made the kids clean out their pig pen before the storms came in. She was fairly certain that she was going to be swept away in a tornado, and was very upset with me for even suggesting that the pig chores should come before her personal safety! She took the photos below out the front of the van on the way to grandma's house to prove the point that she might just die and it would be all my fault. The pigs had dry beds and clean feed and water just a little before we got 4.24 inches of rain in an hour. Needless to say, there were not tornados in this area, but we might have been swept away in a flood! I might not mention this to Mallory any time soon!

It was a busy weekend, full of fun times and lots of activity. I feel very blessed to be able to do all this stuff with my family. I hope that they will remember all this fun when they are grown!

Tomorrow, Cameron plays his first baseball game. From there, it is a downhill slope of ballpark hopping! I am looking forward to school letting out on Friday this week. The kids are tired of going, and have long ago stopped learning anything. They were pretty disappointed on Friday when their playday got postponed. My PTO group still fixed everyone at school lunch...we fixed 450 hotdogs on a grill at the front of the school. Luckily, the cooks agreed to bake the cookies, so I didn't have to do that! I think the lunch turned out pretty good, and the kids seemed to enjoy it. They will try their playday again this week. Cameron and Mallory and Madison all have their end of the year field trips this week as well. Overall, I don't see that this week will be too difficult! It will be nice to be done with school though, and onto summer activities!

It's ours!

We are very excited to announce that we are the proud owners of years and years of payments on land! The closing went very smoothly and we had no trouble either there or at the bank - seems that the realtor and the banker were both as excited as we are! We have a guy who is going to farm it for us this summer. I think he is using it for hay mostly. We have promised the kids that we can start on that treehouse right away though! And the boys think we are going to fish right away too, we HAVE to know what kind of fish are in that pond!

Overbrook's Got Talent

Today was Overbrook's school talent show. Cameron was in a country line dance (he is the one in the front in the very center). The kids' 4-H club performed this line dance several months ago for 4-H club days, and they got to go to regional club days too. They did a very good job. Back in February, when they did this as a club project the other big kids were involved too, but they didn't want to participate in the school talent show, so that just left Cam dancing today! Overall, I would say that the Overbrook kids are pretty talented. We did not get to stay for the entire show however, due to Quincy's inability to sit still for very long.

Today was also the first official meeting of our new district PTO and I was elected as the secretary. I am not sure what I have gotten myself into, but I am excited about having such a large group of interested parent volunteers to work with! It seems to be a really great group so far! I am also going to be working on the carnival committee - which I agreed to do so long as I am not in charge of getting donations! I am not fond of that job. I can cook or set up games all day long, but asking people for donations is not my strong point!

Tomorrow is our closing for the land we are buying. It looks right now like everything is going to work out well, and we are really excited. I can't foresee any reason why this time tomorrow night we won't own 35 acres (well the bank will technically own it I guess). I am very excited and have started looking at house plans - although they will probably only serve as wallpaper for the time being! Keeping my fingers crossed and saying a few extra prayers that all goes as planned!

Perception

Tonight, I was drawing a total blank on what to cook for dinner. Colin asked for biscuits and gravy. Well, that is easy enough so I made it for him, and for my other children who also love the dish. I was thinking though, while cooking about why I don't particularly like it, or why I don't make it very often without being begged to. I decided it is because when I was a kid, biscuits and gravy was what mom made when we were out of groceries. Growing up on a dairy, we always had plenty of milk, so gravy was cheap and easy. My mom used to make a big pot of gravy and a big pot of tapioca pudding a few days before we went to the store. I guess I equate this meal to one that you only cook if you have to! I guess when my kids grow up they will think this way about sloppy Joe's! Incidentally, I don't have anything against making pudding!!

Mother's Day

We had a great Mother's day. Just the kind of day that I love, with not much running and everyone home!

We did have the closing mass for Religion Ed this morning. This is the second year that I have helped teach, I think it is very rewarding, and I truly enjoy the kids. I hope that they will ask me again next year and that I can carve out the time to do it. This year I helped with the first graders. I learned quite a lot about the kids and I believe that they all learned their expected prayers, as well as a few other important things. I worked with a woman who absolutely loves to do crafts, so our kids had a lot of fun while they were learning. Today, the kids were all very well behaved, and since they have them sit in the front of the church with their RE teachers instead of with their parents, I was very thankful for their good behavior! It is a nice mass, as they have the kids participate in all the parts of the service. Mallory and Madison were readers, and they did a great job!

Preston's t-ball practice was cancelled due to rain, so that freed up our evening. I was silently thankful for the rain because I was truly enjoying the lazy day! I am sure that the lake we are trying to drain at work is not getting any lower though, and so I really should not be happy about more rain!

I hope that you all had a very blessed Mother's Day, and a great weekend! I know I did!

Pig Whisperers

Colin and Cameron really love these hogs! Anyone want to trade laundry?

Finally

After more than a year of searching, nagging our poor realtor, crying when things we thought we wanted sold, dragging the kids to countless open houses and driving around fruitlessly in the country, we found some land that we like! We have signed a contract and are supposed to close next Thursday. We are so excited! We are realists, though and know that we most likely won't be able to build for a couple of years. At least we know where we will be, what is possible there, and that it will be ours! The land sits about 3 miles from where we currently live.

The kids have already decided that there is (pictured above) the 'perfect' treehouse tree, and have big plans for dad and all his tools. Colin doesn't understand why we won't just drop him and his friend Zac off out there with a tent and some food and let them camp out for a few days. They can catch fish and make their own campfire- it will be great - please mom?? UUUMMMM I don't think so son! But we can go out and fish in the pond and spend some time out there if you like, my pouting 10 year old!

Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well at the closing next week!

Starting to get in the summer groove

Preston is really loving t-ball!
Dirty Kids! Makes for good nights sleep!





Overbrook PRIDE recently put in new playground equipment and a new children's fishing pond. The new equipment is great for when the big kids have ball practice! The fishing pond isn't open yet, but the boys got to help stock the fish.

If you don't mind rotating your head a little - Preston and Quincy were having a little picnic with sand pies in the back yard. Cute! I couldn't figure out how to turn it right. ???

We have been staying busy as usual. I took a new position on the Overbrook Library Board. I have my first meeting tonight. I am looking forward to it, although I feel a little frightened by the 4 year commitment. Of course, we love our town's library, so being part of keeping that going will be great! The girls have a track meet today, and then their league meet is on Tuesday, and then we can mark that on our done list! They have had a great time I think! Colin has started summer free-style wrestling. I have to admit the throws are a little intimidating for a mom to watch, but he loves it and we are glad that he is able to get to the practices and is enjoying himself. We have ball practice every single night of the week, and I just got the preliminary game schedules, and it looks like we are ball-parking it 6 nights a week this summer plus Saturday morning t-ball. I am excited to offer the opportunity to our kids and I love to watch them play!

The pigs are getting big already - Colin's Jenius might just eat us out of house and home - he is really getting huge. I forsee his own special pen and a diet before the end of summer! They moved the county fair back a week, so we have quite a long time before they show. Colin is really good with the pigs - I mean he really loves them. He gets in the pen and squats down and they all come running - he lets them chew on his clothes and he scratches them and talks to them. One would think they were dogs the way he acts! The other kids are ok with the pigs, but don't really think of them in the same light as Colin does. Maybe he should have been Grace's Godson!!

Well, things here are too quiet, I better go see what Quincy is up to!

Thanks Uncle Jay!

Preston loves his new hat!!

Jr. High Dance

Madison and Mallory had a jr. high dance last night. They reported that the chips were stale, but other than that it was a pretty good time. They said that they didn't dance with any boys - but I wasn't there so who knows!

Busy week

My PTO hosted a carnival as a "goodbye to Overbrook school" yesterday. I was stationed at the inflatables all day, Preston and Quincy had a great time sliding and bouncing in between the classes, and what a nice benefit of working - to get a huge slide and a bounce house all to yourself! They had a great time! The only trauma we had was when I had to unplug them for the end of the day - Quincy had a very sad few minutes, which were easily forgotten with the cotton candy that she got! It was a pretty good day overall, I think the kids enjoyed it!

It has been a very busy week here. Almost too busy really! We have hardly had a chance to catch our breath before we have to run right back to the next activity. Ball practices are going well, and suprisingly, we haven't missed too many due to rain. It seems like it clears out for long enough to squeeze them in. Mallory and Madison's track meet was cancelled due to the weather. I was unaware that Kansas has a monsoon season, but it would appear that we do!

Jim and I worked at a biscuit and gravy feed this morning for PRIDE. I think it was pretty successful, and we even had enough of a break that we got to eat a nice breakfast! It was also ballpark clean up day. So much for a Saturday! Jim and his friend Jay took the boys to the KSU spring game...a tradition that they look forward to. Personally, I think they especially enjoy this game of the year because of the vet school cook out - but we won't mention that to them!

Just for you, Grace

Superior Creature = Cow - see how cute? See how curious? See how warm and fuzzy?

Less superior creature - see how unwarm and friendly?

Just wanted to try once again to teach this very important lesson. And I couldn't let much more time go by with pig photos and no cow ones!