Happy Monday!

We had such a great week last week with my mom visiting that this week will seem boring in comparison.

~Charleston pulled out another huge win over Danville making them 4-0 and winning the conference opener.   And the great thing is that all 3 of Christian's grandmothers were there this week to cheer him on.  

Meaning they weren't paying a bit of attention to me when disaster struck since I was sitting behind them and between 2 total strangers.   I was watching the game and felt something hit my hair.  At first I thought it was some kid throwing something.  But no.  

It was a BUG!  In my HAIR!!!!  

And it wasn't coming out even though I was shaking my head around like a lunatic.  The lady beside me took notice and asked what it was.  A BUG!!  In my HAIR!!  

And you won't believe this but she pulled it out of my hair with her bare hands!  

And the world was set right again.  

I'm still impressed with her bravery because if the situation had been reversed, bless her heart....let's just say that the lady beside her might have taken that opportunity to visit the concession stand at that point.  

~LB had a sweet 16th birthday and finally got her ears pierced!    I'm looking forward to watching her enjoy all kinds of earrings....because believe me, she will.  

~Our friends Don & Marianne were out of town this week and Honey and I got to fill in for them at church.  That meant I got to teach 1-2 grade Sunday school.  LOVED it.  I've actually wanted my own Sunday school class for some time but right now they are all full of wonderful teachers.  It was a lot of fun to fill in for Ms. Marianne though I know I paled in comparison.  We learned about Zacchaeus and memorized Luke 19:10..."The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost."   When I wrote it on the chalk board the homeschool mom in me had to resist the urge the label all the parts of speech.

~ And now this week is full of usual regular type of everyday stuff.  But really the usual regular type of stuff is special too and I'm trying to savor it and enjoy it instead of navigating and surviving it.  I'm memorizing Phil 4:8.  I've learned its a form of loving God and loving others even with our mind as I learn to notice and praise the things that are worthy.  Even in the everyday.

 Phil 4:8..
8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

 

Birthday With M&Ms And Football

I have a fun size bag of m&ms on my nightstand that is driving my kids crazy.  Each one of them have asked me like 50 times if they could have it and who's gonna get it and what's it for.  Who knew that 17 m&ms in a tiny bag could cause such a stir.  So I'm leaving it there to torment them because that's the kind of mom I am.

And it's not like they haven't had enough sugar.  My freezer was full of ice cream and that was BEFORE Grandma came to visit.  When Mom got here she made sure they enough for unlimited banana splits with all the toppings.  So yeah, they're good.

G'ma's visit has been lots of fun.  Shopping, eating, going to the park, gaming, story telling, and tonight is

GAME NIGHT!!

Then tomorrow we have a birthday!!  16 years of sweet Laura Beth.  

Isn't this so cute?  She was 8.  So that was 1/2 her life ago.  

And now...

Isn't she so beautiful?  

We have a big day planned of lunch with Grandmas and Dad, balloons and presents, ears pierced (!), and 

GAME NIGHT

again.

We went shoe shopping for our football players because boys just need shoes all the time.  I've had the same shoes for 8 years so I don't know what their deal is.  It might have something to do with all the disappearing food in the kitchen.  But in any case, their new shoes are sharp.  Just hope they are good for field goals and PATs.

Chance and Christian.  

I could watch this every day. 

We Found It!!

After the Gentry game I was getting ready for bed and OH NO!!!  My earring was lost!  GONE!!  

My favorite. 

They were my grandmother's. 

I loved them.  

I looked all over the floor, took off my shirt, shook out my hair, re-traced my steps back into the house, prayed over it, looked in the car, and made the kids search the driveway.  

Nothing.  

Which could mean only one thing.  I lost it at the game.  Two hours away.  On bleachers.  Or underneath probably.  I called the school but figured it was lost forever.  

But today!!  I was working in my closet with 2 of my kids and I looked down and THERE IT WAS!!!  

Oh happy day!   

Our Football Experience

Some of my friends have been asking about our experience with football this year and I realized that I'd hardly even blogged about it.  Where have I been??  This has all been so new for everyone involved and we didn't even know anyone who had taken this route before. 

So here's what happened. 

The boys were minding their own business this summer playing soccer together in the front yard like usual. 

They had no idea they were being watched.  

But apparently the kid next door took notice of Christian's kicking skills and the wheels started turning in his head.   Our neighbor, Chance, is a senior this year at Charleston High where football is quite the big deal.  For the whole town.  And Chance is a super star.  (He's also Christian's holder and #11 in all pics)

Next thing we know, there is a knock at the door from a guy introducing himself as the high school football coach asking if there would be a chance that Christian would consider kicking for them this year.   Under the Tebow law, homeschoolers are allowed to participate in public school sports.  Interestingly, he'd never seen him kick.  

Well.  This is certainly something we'd never thought of.   

But Christian was interested and it sounded like fun.  Besides, we figured we weren't married to it so if it turned out to be anything other than great, we could step out.  

We bought a football.  Or actually Grandpa did.  

And Christian put his little brothers to work chasing down imaginary field goals while the neighbors watched and hoped this was their chance to turn around a poor kicking game.  

A couple weeks later Oakland Raider's kicker, Eddie Carmona, came by to take a look and work with him on his kicks.  Eddie is a former Charleston Tiger.  He came over a couple of different times and we all thoroughly enjoyed him and appreciated his willingness to work with our boy.  

Summer practice started and Christian got a chance to meet the team and work muscles he'd probably never even used before.  

Meanwhile, I was learning what all was going to be involved and asking some homeschool mom-ish questions.  Like ..... does he have to have a shot record?  do I have to turn in grades?  are there attendance requirements?  ...stuff like that.  

I called the superintendent and he was full of answers.   In fact, he was very eager for Christian to come on board.  He offered the use of the library, any resources that I may be interested in, AP classes, college classes, and everything that would be available to any other student.  In fact, he said that Christian could come and go as he pleased using it like a college campus.  If he wanted to enroll in any class and didn't like it, he could just drop it without it being recorded on a transcript.  He said he wanted to be a help in any way he could and they were working to re-write the school's by-laws.  (This was a first for them too.) 

The things that were required

1. a physical

2. a current standardized test score 

3. enrollment in 7th period athletics  

That was it.  

At this point I was starting to see just what a big deal football really was around here.  Several times I would need to make a phone call or run an errand and someone would say...."Oh, you're the new kicker's mom!"  

Hilarious! Like he was famous or something.  

A couple weeks later we were texting back and forth with the coach about Josh playing on the 7th grade team.  Now I was more apprehensive about this one since he's so young and not quite as "fully baked" as his brother.  Lots of thoughts like.... influence of the other boys, whether he knew the game well enough, the responsibility of it all, and if he was just ready for such a thing at this point in his life.  

We've had some iffy moments but so far so good.  We set some rules with him and he's doing great.  

We are about 3 weeks into the season and this is every bit as much fun as soccer ever was.  This town and school has been so welcoming and more than accommodating in every way.   The principal even gave all our kids free passes to every home game to save us some money every week.  

Friday nights are a blast!  The lights.  The announcer. The band.  The excitement.  The stands are full and at the away game our visitor side has more fans than the home team.  And at every game so far, someone has come and introduced themselves to me.  

And now for some pics....

A good block.  Josh is #81.

I can't get over how big some of these kids are!  What do their mommas feed them? 

But look at the determination in those eyes! 

And now with this guy we've gone from this...

To this.. 

One of my faves....

Be still my heart. 

Our Weekend

I am sitting in an empty house.  The only sounds are the humming of the dishwasher and the crickets and frogs singing through our open windows.  I don't think I could ever get used to this.  I enjoy quiet moments as much as the next momma but it doesn't take me long to miss the kid noise.  Even the un-sweet noises of my kids.

It's date night and my in-laws offered to feed the kids dinner tonight.  So my man and I had our own dinner and he left to go pick them up.  I'm sure they are having a blast and aren't missing us a bit.

Did you have a good weekend?

Here's a little of what we did...

2 bubs sharing granola bars

A box!  The mailman came early with presents!  A new phone for Lane and some DD shirts all from Nana and Grandpa.  Now that's the way to start the weekend!! 

Future Charleston kicker?

We love these. 

Our older girls have been so helpful this week as the rest of the crew was battling sickness.  So their daddy wanted to do something special for them....like ice cream.  I suggested he buy those little individual ice creams in those fancy flavors.  But he wanted something that the whole family could enjoy.  He came home with 3 (three!) different ice creams.  Blue Bell no less!

Later Lane was saying how happy she was that everyone got to have ice cream because it made her feel like she was a blessing to the whole family.  Oh yes, Love you are!!  

My Favorite Things This Week

~Lane and I got to work at COTS (church on the streets) Saturday and meet some new friends.  Like 125 or so including lots of sweet kiddos and a newborn baby girl.  I do believe those will be my favorite Saturdays.  I had a picture but my computer decided to delete it which is ok because it wasn't a good picture anyway so you're not missing anything.  Lane took her puppet and delighted the kids.

I passed out food and held the baby and cleaned up trash....but not at the same time.

~Oh my goodness gracious.  I LOVE this boy.   And I think he looks terrific in his football clothes.
Game night was as much fun as my neighbor said it would be.  And Y'all, the whole town was there it seemed.  Did you see the video on Facebook?  I've watched it like a thousand times.  I have every nuance memorized.  Charleston won something like 42-19 and 6 of them were Christian's points.

~This has been what's been going on like 19 times a day.  Chess.  And I don't get it.  But they do and love it all of a sudden.  I'm more of a Go Fish girl.

~We started Spanish last week and I can say 3 words.  Soup, Rock, and Shoes.  So I go to church and practice them on Edgar and he tells me how I say them all wrong and makes fun of my accent.  But won't he be surprised next week when I pull out some impressive word like Toothbrush.

~My man planned date night this week.  He cooked a fancy dinner all by himself and even included apple juice in fancy glasses.

~I won $22!!  TWENTY TWO dollars!!   Jes and I won the 50/50 split at bee club last night.  I'm saving for a honey extractor.  Only $80 more to go....I need to win more splits.  Like the football one that's like $400.  Jes was so excited!

Bee meeting was terrific with a whole honey extraction process set up and 3 different uncapping tools to try.
There was a smoker lesson just for me and an example of what not to do....that would be me too.  I learned that there are 300 bees in 1/2 cup which is how many you need to use when doing mite testing and why first year beekeepers usually have a high failure rate.   Yes, it was a great meeting.   

Farm News

Guess what happened?

Well we had this watermelon sitting on the table for 2 days.  Just sitting there waiting for a spot in the fridge.
So I walked by the table and OH MY WORD!!

The watermelon puked!  All over the table and on Josh's math book.  And it smelled horrible just like real puke.  I didn't even know that watermelons knew how to puke.

~  Our garden is on phase 2.  That means that we didn't water it enough and ran out of energy and Momma got busy with school and football started and it basically died and we all got in trouble.  It was a special day.

But for the record, it would've happened anyway because spring gardens don't last all year but some of us are in disagreement over that one.  Yeah, it was a special day that required some Duck Dynasty therapy.  And some Star Trek for date night.

So we cleaned it up, tilled it, and planted some fall seeds.

~I read the article in Time magazine about the bees disappearing.  And really I'd rather stay in the dark regarding that kinda thing.   I mean if you have added supers and done everything you can and your bees still swarm there ain't nothing you can do about it.  But now I'm really antsy waiting for Monday for my next hive inspection.  A couple weeks ago I had them checked by the Arkansas apiary guy from Little Rock.  He said they were perfect.  (I agree!)










~Isn't this a pretty sight?  That means eggs!

We are getting about 5 a day now and it's still exciting every time.  

But the roosters are another story.  Mean and noisy.  Yesterday one of them drew blood on my sweet Nate.  It is time for them to go. I found a guy to buy them and he can not come soon enough.  

Back To School

I've been wanting to blog all week.  But do you  know what happens when you have a back-to-school party?  You have to go back to school.  Like full time.  Not just when you don't have enough cucumbers to can that day.  Why do I always forget that part? 

And if that wasn't enough you have to clean house too.  Like all the time.  Especially when you add in more school stuff .... even though you have purchased every organizational storage tool imaginable.  And THEN!! These people still think they need to eat.  Multiple times a day.  

But here I am.  And I've been wanting to tell you about our back-to-school party.  

First off my kids all made a wish list which started with socks and underwear and ended with every type of snack food they've ever eaten.  It was extensive.  

Lane and I always have the best fun doing this together.  We leave everyone at home and we shop shop shop for all those fun supplies.  The younger kids are the most fun to shop for.  Art kits and sticker books, colored pencils and Transformer backpacks.  LOVE.  I have to be more creative with the older ones to try to find something new they'll like.  We filled up the cart and checked off the lists until we ran out of school money.  

After breakfast the next day, everyone went to their rooms and waited for the bell to ring.  Meanwhile Lane and I set every body's new stuff at their spots and made it look cute.  

Then SURPRISE!!

He loves his new calculator! 

I try to get them one "big" present and then all the littler ones.  The younger kids got backpacks, the older ones got lap desks, and Mally got an art kit.  

I'm pretty sure only homeschoolers get this excited over school supplies.  Maybe?  

But the fun wasn't over this time.  Nana wanted to be involved in our back-to-school and she came the next week.  So the kids revised their lists with the things that Mom didn't buy and Nana took everyone shopping... 2 stores even, and lunch!  Hobby Lobby was one of the stops of the day and we didn't even break anything.  Aren't we growing up?  Thanks to Nana our back-to-school fun was doubled! 

So the last couple of weeks we have been back at it with a new gusto.  We've added Spanish, piano, art, and a new history/geography program.  2 of our kids are taking a writing class from our piano teacher. Everything else is at home. 

It's shaping up to be a good year! 

Our (3day!) Weekend

I'm sitting here watching my clothes fly on the clothes line and waiting for it to rain.  How I hope it rains...but can it just wait until my clothes are all dry?

We started the weekend with a big breakfast complete with lots of ketchup.  Nothing needs ketchup more than breakfast foods at our house.  Lots of music.  Lots of dancing.  Lots of food.  Lots of ketchup.

A Saturday morning trip to the feed store was in order but after they got there they found out we had a totally flat tire.  Then it turned into a trip to town, a box of Little Debbies, a lot of money later, and 2 new tires.  

Mowing is always on the Saturday to-do list.  And now the yard looks pretty.

Did you hit the Savers sale today?  We went right after church...well the ones who couldn't get out of it did.
That would be the boys.  This was the yearly boys' shopping trip looking for clothes.  You can imagine their excitement.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate to shop with more than 2 people under the age of 20?  One time in Colorado we went shopping with 14 people at Walmart.  On a Saturday.  That has to be some sort of record.  Up and down each aisle all fourteen of us.  Why?  I don't even know.  And now when I go to Walmart with a bunch of kids I feel like I should look up the manager and apologize in advance.

Well clothes shopping with boys is actually easier than Walmart.  There is nothing more they'd rather do then hurry up and do something else.  It was beautiful chaos Y'all.  And fun.  I'm not sure that the other shoppers would agree.  The girls disappeared and I only saw them at the end when they had their cart full of stuff.

So I got all the jeans 4 boys will need for the winter, 3 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, and whatever the girls got for $54.

Meanwhile, Honey and Christian escaped to Sams and came back with Season 3 of Duck Dynasty!  Because he said, "Duck Dynasty covers a multitude of sins."  .....lets just say I wasn't too happy with him before that....

Moving on.

By the time we hit the road to go home it was almost 2pm and those of us who didn't pack a lunch were lamenting our bad decision .  And somebody had the great idea of invading Grandma's house.  That always means food.

We went home first to unload the car and change clothes.  And I decided to stay home and get some things ready for school tomorrow.  So I gave the how-to-behave-at-Grandma's-house-when-mom-isn't-there speech to couple of kids who needed a reminder and they were off.

And I was alone to wash new clothes and clean the house and look at school.

OK just now Honey called and GASP!!  I went to answer the phone and noticed that it was sprinkling outside on my clothes!  So I had to make a quick rescue and dry them the old fashioned way in the dryer.
But you know what he said?  He said that Grandma offered to keep the kids for date night and he was on his way home!!  

Grandma is awesome.