Holy Pigs!

Although I had been worried about the small size, and late purchase date of this year's swine project, things had been rolling along really well....they were gaining weight, and looking very much like the prize winning county fair hogs we would like them to be. Until this week!

This week, Stinkerbelle, Mallory's hog, started limping. He is better now, but we were very worried about his leg! I really think it is because when the water is turned on he runs and flops and jumps and slides like he is a little kid instead of a 250 pound hog! Luckily, his leg seemed much better this weekend!
And the other trauma of the week? Sarge, Colin's hog developed a hole in his jaw. It wasn't gross or bloody, just a hole. If you look close, you can see a pink spot on his black jaw. We think that he was bitten - either by a spider or a rattlesnake. It was a very mysterious hole, and we were panic stricken since judges probably don't want to see pigs with holes in their heads! We consulted our friend Brian, as well as the town vet, and decided a few days worth of antibiotics would be worthwhile. After 3 shots, his hole is closed completely, and all that remains is a pink spot on his black jaw! We hope he will be completely healed by the county fair, which starts the middle of next week. So needless to say, it was a little bit of a nervous week, but it would seem things are getting better!

Jim took the kids to Branson for the weekend to spend time with his family. I stayed home, and kept Harper. I have heard a lot of tales from the kids about all the fun they had, although they aren't home yet. I am so amazed at how quiet the house is when it is just Harper here! She played with her toys and says very little! She did occasionally go to the stairs and yell up for Madison.....which was kind of sad! She also helped me with donut duty at church this morning. I had a total moment of panic when I was refilling the juice container and turned around to find her missing! She had crawled inside the huge cupboards under the sink! When I found her she squealed like she had really outsmarted me! (And she had!).
Anyhow, I miss the other kids, I love our chaos and I am happy they will be home to terrorize my household!

catching up

(Cam is 2nd from the left)

Last week, we finished baseball season. Colin and Cam's teams both lost out of their tournaments. Cameron's team got metals for being 3rd in the league. Cam did not take the loss very well, he was really hoping that they would be the champions this year! They can try again next year!

Being finished with ball allowed us to do a few other things with our evenings, including the evening swim session at the pool, and cleaning up the little girl's bedroom (sort of). The kids have also been practicing walking their hogs, fishing, and enjoying playing in the yard. It has been extremely hot, so waiting for the sun to go down to play outside seems like a good idea!

Colin even caught some fish which we fried and ate. My friend told me some secrets to making them taste more like chicken and less like fish! I must say I was impressed! I think maybe we can start incorporating a little fish in our diets! It was nice to see Preston eat something and not complain about it!

Mallory and Madison have been baking like crazy and selling their baked goods as well as those drawing tickets. They have been pretty successful. It has absolutely killed the little ones to have them make the house smell like cookies and then wrap them up for sale!

Cam joined forces with then neighbor girl to have a toy - bake sale and lemonade stand this weekend. They had a ton of fun, got rid of some stuff from our house, and made a little money. Cam has been working very hard all summer to try to gather enough money for Jim to take him and his brothers to Oklahoma this winter for a Thunder game! He has been working for a woman doing gardening, collecting cans, and doing hard labor for his sisters! The garden woman has been very kind to him, and to us....as we enjoyed a lot of yellow squash from her garden this week --- Madison even made squash bread, which I will say did not sound like a good idea, but it turned out really good!

In a nutshell, that is what we have been doing this week. I should have taken more photos, but just didn't get it done!

Its a Girl!

I had a sonogram yesterday. Ocho looked great! They told us they think she is a girl, and that she is measuring just right for our due date! She was very active, throwing punches and kicking at the sonogram lady! I explained to the lady that this is good behavior since she will need to be able to defend herself against Harper!

We feel very blessed that things seem to be going smoothly with our new baby. We have picked out the name Emerson Grace for our new little one! I can't wait to meet her!

Last Cam standing

Three of the four summer ball teams are now finished, with Colin's team losing out of tournament play tonight. This just leaves Cam's team to try to take a title. Of course, we are proud of all the teams regardless, and although it is sad to see a season come to an end - it has been too hot for ball to be enjoyable for the past couple of weeks! I suppose sitting outside is good practice for the county fair?

Other than finishing ball season, we have been trying to keep cool at the city pool, and the kids have been attempting to keep their pigs alive (thanks grandma for the extra care!).

The girls have been very busy trying to raise money for their trip to Washington DC next summer....they have been pushing a drawing for a whole hog and a Wii, and they had a pretty successful bake sale on Saturday. They are in the middle of planning a softball tournament for the first weekend in August. It should be a lot of fun, and we hope it will be a great fundraiser for them! I am all about any fundraiser where they don't have to ask our family/friends/neighbors to buy stuff - especially cookie dough, candles, or magazines! They have been having a lot of good luck, and we are fortunate to have patient and generous family, friends and neighbors!

Princess Q is 5!

Yesterday our little princess turned 5 years old! This is a birthday she has been dreaming of for about a year! She is sooooo excited about going off to kindergarten this year! She is a funny kid, and we get a kick out of her (most of the time). She keeps us on our toes! I can't believe she will be going off to school this fall! Not sure what happened to the last 5 years! Quincy loves to be busy. She adores going biking and fishing with Colin. She loves playing football and soccer, but was not as fond of softball this summer, although I do think she had fun! She is also constantly dirty, from digging in the dirt, sand, or whatever else she can get her hands into! She loves the pigs, probably more than all the other kids combined! We are very blessed to have her in our family! We love you Q and hope you had a good birthday!

Yesterday, as it seems to have become tradition, I took Quincy shopping to pick out some birthday gifts. As we were in line to check out the woman in front of us bumped into the woman in front of her. I guess it might have been the heat, or the aggravation of waiting in line in walmart, but they got into a fight. Quincy looked at them and said "please don't cuss, I am only 5 years old!" The woman in front of us apologized to her! It was pretty funny! And a good life lesson I guess!!! As I said, she keeps us all thinking and on our toes!

Preston and Quincy both played in tournaments last night. Both teams lost in the first round games, which was sad - sort of - until I realized it freed up the rest of this week from the ballpark! Having a few days off from sitting out there is never a bad thing! Preston's team played really well, and ended up losing by one point, it was sad to see them lose after playing so well!

If I was being honest, I would say that I didn't really expect Quincy's team to go on in the tournament. They haven't won a game this summer, and they don't really have any type of attention span anywhere on the field! They did have really awesome socks though! :) Quincy told me that she didn't really like softball, but she did like her shirt! Maybe she will love it next year! When Mallory and Madison were this age, they told Jim that the best part of softball was sitting in the dugout doing cheers with their friends. It almost broke Jim's heart, but to see them now, you would never know they felt that way when they were little!

Photos from Last week and Quincy's b-day party

Just a few photos that I never got loaded up after the 4th of July.

Preston wanted to be in the bike parade, but was worried about crashing because he isn't very steady without his training wheels. I told him he could ride his scooter, but then he was worried that it was a 'bike' parade -NOT a scooter parade. Thankfully I was able to talk him out of this worry and there were a lot of kids on things other than bikes!

Harper didn't ride a bike either!

Colin and Quincy went through the parade twice - cutting thru the alley behind the bank and getting in the back of the line - they were a little overzealous I think, especially considering how hot it was!

Even Jim got in on the firework action! He was having a little too much fun acting like a kid, and I might have had to put a stop to him throwing firecrackers at the kids feet!

Quincy will be 5 tomorrow. We had a little party for her today. To say she was a little excited would the the understatement of the century! She has been looking forward to being 5 for a loooong time now! She put on quite a show at her party acting like a wild woman!

Grandma did an awesome job making her a pool cake. She thought it was the best cake ever!

When I asked Quincy what she wanted to do for her birthday, she responded with wanting her cousins to go swimming, eat cake, and spend the night. She spent the night with them a couple weeks ago, and she wanted them to sleep over here! She wanted to go swimming with them- which would have been fine except that the pool in town is having trauma with the pump and the deep end is closed - so she wanted to swim in her little pool. It looked a bit crowded in there - but they played in the backyard for almost 2 hours in that little bitty pool! Funny what will keep kids entertained. I wasn't sure if Kyle and Alex would spend the night - but it appears after spending the whole afternoon/evening outside they were exhausted and are crashed out on the living room floor! I sure hope they stay asleep!

We also finished the regular season of soft/baseball this week. We are headed into tournaments the next two weeks. This week is Preston and Quincy's week. They both play tomorrow night at the same time. Disappointing if it ends up being their last games since I am definitely only able to be one place at a time - I will miss someone's game. Maybe it won't be the last game of the season so I will have another chance. But that is the way it goes sometimes. I have to admit I am a little more than ready to have our evenings back!

July 4th weekend

We had a great July 4th! I was expecting it to be a little bit hard, starting off the weekend with a party at my grandma's house. July 4 was one of her favorites, and she always celebrated with her family all coming to her house for a huge party, food, and fireworks. I really miss her - but I am glad we went to the party. It was good to see the family! And the kids had a super awesome time!

We spent Sunday crashing our neighbor Bev's party next door. She always cooks the most amazing smoked meats and the kids have a lot of fun swimming in her pool (which is not permitted the rest of the year - not that she would ever tell them no - but I figure she doesn't really want us in her backyard all summer!).

On Monday, the kids participated in the Overbrook 4th of July Bike parade. This was once a very small event, but has grown each year and is really HUGE now! I even commented at one point to Jim that there weren't many people watching the parade......I soon found out that it was because everyone in town was IN the parade! We had a low key day and finished it off with the Overbrook city firework show. This is also amazing - totally free, and truly, an awesome fireworks display!

As usual, holiday weekends go by too fast, and we had to return to work all too soon! I spent my afternoon looking for one of our dams at work.....my maintenance man is on vacation this week, and I have a mower coming who needed directions. This is one of the dams that I have only been to during inspection and I have never driven there by myself.....needless to say Quincy and I spent some bonding time driving around in the country where I THOUGHT the dam is located, but never did find it! I had to call the landowner, who was kind enough to give me good directions -even if it did make me look like a giant dork! Oh well, I have been a dork before! Here's hoping with the directions I can find the gate and let in the mowers! Good use of the tax payers money huh?