winter birthday dinner

 

We waited to have our quarterly birthday dinner until Madison and Andrew moved back.  Today was a lot of fun.  Taco bar, kids home on spring break, baby snuggles, and cake.  How could a day be any better than that?  I love having them all home.  I am feeling exceedingly blessed today!

 

Since all the kids were here, we tried to get a group photo.  Nothing ever changes with this group.  If we ever got a good picture of all of these goof balls, we would probably faint.  :)  I love them all!  I also love how they love each other.  Family time makes me happy!

Regionals

 

The model meeting group traveled to Gardner for Regional 4-H club day yesterday.  The weather had played heck with the practicing, and again, I was kind of nervous that we were not as prepared as we should or could have been.  Again, I was pleasantly surprised by this group.  They did a great job.  They got a blue ribbon for their performance, and a few comments that should help them with their future model meetings.  I am very proud of them!

 

I am especially proud of Harper, who had several lines in the meeting, including a motion and she not only knew her lines, she also said them loud and clear!  It was great!

 

Mostly, I am just happy to have this year under our belt!  I enjoyed it, but the weather kept us from preparing, and that was sort of stressful to me, especially considering the group is pretty young.  I am glad they had the experience, and I am glad it is finished! 

 

Cameron got tickets for Jim and Preston to attend the game with him last night.  They had a great time!  Having KSU win the game and be named the big 12 champions was a pretty good day to be there!  

 

Cameron was also selected to participate in a 3 point contest.  I know the pictures are sort of hard to see, but he won!  Apparently he made one 3 point shot, and the other person made none.  He won a year's worth of dinners at Chipotle.  He is having a twitter contest to get rid of his prize because he apparently does not enjoy eating there!  

It was a good Saturday!

League band

Yesterday, our school hosted the league band concert.  This is something relatively new that the league is doing.  It is pretty neat. They get all the bands together in the league,  they choose some music (which the school directors work with the kids on before hand) then they get together with a guest director, and they come together and perform a concert.  

There were a lot of kids, and Preston and Quincy were sort of hard to pick out, particularly Quincy since she plays trombone, which sits toward the rear.  This league has some talented kids in it, and the concert was really fun to go listen to.  I enjoyed it!  I did feel bad about missing Ash Wednesday mass, but was happy that Mallory and Madison were able to take Harper and Saige at least!  The snow day sort of messed around with my neatly organized plans.

I had a lot on my mind, as the band boosters served the dinner for this event.  I knew I had to bring cookies, and I knew that there were probably some gaps that needed filled as the booster board is small, and we were serving a lot of meals.  I remembered to tell P&Q that they were to wear their red shirts for the afternoon rehearsal, and I remembered to give them money so they could get the meal that we were serving, but I realized when I got there, that I forgot to remind them to take dress up clothes for the concert.  I saw Preston first and was relieved that he remembered, and looked nice.  Quincy isn't known for her desire to dress up, so I had a little bit of worry that she would not have on concert attire.  She did remember to grab clean clothes.  I told her she sort of looked like a lumberjack.  She said, well, YOU bought me this shirt!  :)  At least she was clean.  

Momma always said....

There'd be days like this.

Yesterday was one of the days that if I didn't have good family, I wouldn't have made it through!  

I was supposed to take Jim to the eye doctor, and while he was there, take Saige to get her cast removed.  Then Harper woke up not feeling well.  After driving the bus, I ended up staying home with her in the morning, Jim rescheduled his eye exam, and took Saige to get her cast off.  She was so excited to be able to wash her arm!  Bath time was a lot smoother too!

Thankfully, Madison was home yesterday.  She watched Harper (who after a while was just really tired and thankfully not sick) and she also baked the cookies I needed for Preston and Quincy's league band meet today.  I am happy that she was home and willing!  I have missed her!  Having the baby around is a huge bonus too!  I got a little snuggle time in before I had to leave to drive the bus again!  

I had volunteered to be the driver for Preston's quiz bowl team yesterday afternoon, so I was happy it worked out that I had help!  Preston's team traveled to Prairie View.  They had a pretty large tournament.  Preston's team absolutely kicked butt yesterday and ended up in the championship round.  They lost the championship round by one question in a heated round.  I sincerely enjoyed watching.  Quiz bowl is so much fun to watch!

They got 2nd place, but honestly it was a hard competition, and I am very proud of them all!  

Harper's teacher sent me this picture.  Harper has been working for quite a while on an "American hero" project.  She picked Elton John.  I am not sure how she decided Elton was an American hero, but in my opinion, she isn't wrong!  She has worked pretty hard on this project.  I overheard her tell Quincy she will be happy to be done with Elton John!

Yesterday, I had a text from Cameron with this photo attached.  His high school FBLA sponsor was in Manhattan and looked him up.  He was so happy to see her!  He told me it made his week!

Last night, Cameron texted me this picture to tell me that he won the Mr. Haymaker contest.  He is indeed, Mr. Haymaker 2019.  His celebrity status at KSU might be getting out of hand?!?!?

I asked what one had to do to become Mr. Haymaker.  Apparently, it is a pageant style contest.  He rode his unicycle for the talent portion.  I never got a clear answer on his ball gown entry!

So it was a wild day.  We got through it.  I am thankful for the family I have, and the ability to adapt when things go crazy.  I am equally thankful that yesterday is over with!

Freed up

We had planned what was an incredibly packed weekend.  But due to the weather (again) we had a lot of things get cancelled or postponed.  It freed up a lot of time and running, which at the time was necessary, but it always just makes the next week crazier, as it gets rescheduled.  

The 4-H biscuit and gravy breakfast fundraiser did not get rescheduled.  We had the early shift, the set up, and cook the food shift.  The kids on that shift had an early morning, but they worked hard and seemed like they were having a lot of fun.  The younger girls and I worked the clean up shift as well, but I failed to take pictures of their hard work sweeping and mopping!  The kids sold a lot of breakfasts.  It was incredibly lucrative!

After our shift, Quincy and Landrie had a league choir contest, and then Quincy went shopping and spent the night with Landrie.  I never heard much about the contest and do not know how it went.  Jim and I ran to get groceries and ran into them at Orschlin's though, and they seemed like they were having a great time shopping!  It was sort of amusing, they had baby chicks out.  I had just said to Jim "it's a good thing Quincy isn't here, she would want to take home chicks!"  we walked around the corner, and there were Quincy and Landrie.  The first thing Quincy said was "mom....can I use the rest of the money you gave me to buy some chicks?"  Negative child - it is much too cold!  

Madison and Andrew had to run some errands.  They asked Saige if she would dog sit for Bailey while they were gone.  Saige took the job very seriously.  She reported to me that she had taken the dog out to potty, gave her a cookie and a belly rub.  She also read the dog a book she made, and put Bailey down for a nap!

The dog kept looking at me like "I don't know why this kid won't leave me alone!"  She is a really nice dog.  I think instead of a old crazy cat woman, I am starting to be a crazy dog lady!  My house and my heart are full of dogs!

There is going to be high drama though, when we sell this particular puppy.  Saige named him Fello and she is totally in love.  She has begged for us to please keep him.  She has also begged grandma to take him.  Nobody is cooperating with her plans.  He is a very cute puppy!  I am hoping someone local will buy him and keep her informed of his progress.  

Colin came home for a  while yesterday so he could meet his new niece.  He was just as pleased to meet her as the rest of us!

We are all so in love with this little girl.  She is so sweet!  I am glad some of our stuff got cancelled, so we were freed up a bit and could hang out and hold her!