Saige's birthday party

Saige had a great time at her birthday party!  

She was so happy everyone could join her! 

Saige is 3!

Our baby girl is 3 years old today!  She is such a joy!  She is easy going, funny, sweet little girl.  She gets drug along to so many events and she hardly ever complains!  We love having her in our family!  We are blessed! 

Happy birthday Saige!

And to make her day even more memorable, SFT won their game tonight to become sectional champions.  They get to move forward in the state playoffs!  

Photos from the weekend

 Friday night, the big boys won their playoff game!  I believe this makes them the district champions and also means they get to keep rolling!  It was pretty exciting!

 Saturday morning, Quincy kicked off her volleyball season.  She is playing through the Carbondale Rec.  They spend about an hour working on fundamental drills and serving with the high school team.  After that, they practice what they learned by playing a game against each other.  Quincy did a great job serving and she was thrilled when we left because she had a great time!

 When volleyball ended, we took a shift working at the 4-H bake sale at the Overbrook Craft fair.  I was told several times that Preston is a natural born salesman.  I have to agree, I didn't see too many people turning down his requests for helping out the club by buying delicious baked goods!  

 On Sunday, Preston had a flag football game.  Our friend Claire kept the girls entertained when she brought a tent.  Who knew the way to keep kids contained was with a tent?  :)  

 Preston had an awesome game including running in 3 touchdowns.  His head barely fit in the van afterward!  (Preston is in the gray pants).

Somehow, we need to figure out how to get weekends to last longer!  It was a fun one!

Broiler doomsday

The broilers were 8 weeks old which is the usual time for butchering.  A couple of weeks ago I tried to get Jim to tell me which day we wanted to butcher them.  Jim responded with telling me about this place he heard of in Garnett which will process them for you. We did a little bit of research and found that it was relatively cheap, and that you just make an appointment, show up and come back with flash cold chickens ready for the freezer.  Jim couldn't have been more pleased!   He was worried that he wouldn't be good at chicken cleaning!  I let Quincy and Preston take today off of school.  They were shown how turkeys and chickens are processed.  We got to see the very beginning of a lot of thanksgiving dinners!  Sometimes you have to leave the school to learn things!  We were very impressed and I am completely sold on this method of chicken cleaning!   Of the 50 we started out with, we had 45 chickens left.  They are averaging in weight of 3-4 pounds (a bit smaller than our original 5 pound goal).  I believe we are about 7.50 per bird, so I feel that we will save money on chicken overall.  Not to mention, our kids learned a little about poultry processing, meat raising and work that goes into a small farm project.  I think we may do this again in the spring.  Before we decide, we may have to taste test them! 

Monkey brains

We have a few hedge trees in the yard.  When I say a few, I actually mean a lot.  Jim told the kids hedge balls are monkey brains.  Today we tried to work on cleaning the monkey brains out of the yard.  I know they will eventually rot and disappear, but for now they are a walking hazard!  

Plus I had willing helpers!  

I hear that placing them in your basement works for repelling spiders and other bugs.  Yes, I did try it.  I will let you know if it actually works!  

One of the helpers wasn't  as helpful as he could be!  

Flag football

I have so much fun watching flag football.  It is such a laid back, fun program.  Preston is having a lot of fun too, which makes me enjoy it all the more.  

You might notice his new hat. He scored it at the KSU game he went to with Jim and Uncle Jay on Saturday.  He was beyond happy with it, and told me he will never have to comb his hair again he can just keep the hat on.  

Soccer finale

Harper (above) and Quincy (below) had their soccer tournaments today.  They had a lot of fun this season and I feel like they both improved in the game.  

Neither team placed in the tourney, but since it was excessively cold, nobody seemed disappointed by that.