gone fishing

during one of our short school days this month, i took two of my kiddos fishing.  the day was gorgeous and being out in nature with my 

children was priceless.   

 a proud moment...mackenzie chose not to fish, but shot over

20 turtles from the pier

reese was not able to go because she was at a uil competition getting

third place in number sense

(a chip off the old block)   :)

Christmas preparations

tis the season...

this never happens to me, but when the weather gets cold, colin gets the itchin' to bake.  and the kids love it!

here are some of their recent creations...

 and Christmas preparation is not complete without a couple of humiliating pics of the pets

 (sorry, but i get it from my mom)

 and i have to throw this in here...this little guy was following my husband around church.  he was so cute and let colin touch him. 

another thing to add to "you know you live in the country when...."

look who's in the kitchen

the girls both participated in the 4h food challenge this month. 

 both of their teams won first place in the county competition. 

 

reese's team - the spice girls

mackenzie's team - the jalepeno hotties

 

here are the two teams waiting for the district competition to begin

 and the results...the jalepeno hotties got fifth place in the

senior main dish division 

reese's team did not place, but had a great time cooking with friends

christmas tree farm

jack recently went on a field trip with his classmates to a

Christmas tree farm

 they got to choose their class tree together

 and tell santa what they wanted

what a fun day!

ice cold

a couple of weeks ago, an ice storm hit our town.  everything shut down except for the neighborhood sled team practice 

 we used whatever we could find to ride on

 and froze our tails off

only 185 more days until summer!!

Gaylord ice with family

hanging with aunt candy and uncle rex before we hit the cold area

 "chillin" with granny and grandpa mac

 the main theme of the ice was "the nutcracker," but they also had a new york city section

the whole crew

catching fire

all these chicks left the guys behind and went to see the fabulous premeire of catching fire. 

new smiles this week

Mackenzie got her braces off!

 and jack lost two teeth on Friday night

 

our first rodeo

we all rode the bull on friday, but unfortunately, the pics of mackenzie and i did not turn out.  so...

 colin's first bull ride

 jack on 'el toro loco'

and reese in action

men's skeet shoot

i am so thankful we are in a church where we have skeet shoots, fishing gatherings, deer censuses, hog huntings and mechanical bull riding.

 please note that this was a men's only event.  these four pics were the only ones taken during the 6 hour time frame.  quite frankly i am thankful that there was documentation of any kind.

 this is jack helping load the clay pigeons

 colin - taking his turn slinging

not sure about this one, but it appears to be a free-for-all.  poor bird never had a chance!

alotta catching up to do

well, due to high prices, our 18 years of season tickets to the aggie games are coming to an end.  so, this post is a last hoo-rah to the 2013 season. 

that would be deneise's thumb and lemon-chill spoon photo bombing an other-wise romantic pic

some of my favorite people

even after 18 years i don't think i have ever seen this gal

stay for an entire game

 sweet friends...abbee's first time to ever attend an aggie

football game (really shellee?? - that is bad parenting!)

these two actually watched some of the game

(but they brought their books just in case things got boring)



bbq cookoff

we had such a great time at the bbq cookoff last year that leanne and rex wanted to come back again.  we all loved going around and sampling fabulous items such as ribs, chicken, home-made tortillas, pulled pork, brisket and dutch oven sweet bread.

after the cook-off, we went home and watched 3 football games, ate some wings, calzones, kettle corn and these fantastic cupcakes.

reese went to her first junior high dance on Friday. 

it was a Halloween dance and they were encouraged to wear costumes.

she went as hermoine granger and her bff went as katniss everdeen.  apparently, they danced all night...but not with any boys!

place your bets

 when we started building the tree house, colin and i made a wager regarding which of our children would be the first to figure out that they could jump off the fort and on to the trampoline.  and the first one to jump was......reese

                           

and jack was quick to follow

mackenzie eventually jumped, but there was no camera nearby

surprise!

look what we found in our backyard...a chicken!

buster was so excited!  we had no idea where it came from and ended up giving it away to a friend of a friend.  as it turns out, our neighbors had started raising chickens and one of them flew the coop.  i felt so bad for giving the chicken away.

i mustache you a question

jack looked super-cool on mustache day at school!

more dove hunting

some more recent photos from dove hunting...

we went hunting again on friday - its pretty great that we can hunt within 3 minutes of our house

we only shot 5 birds, but had fun just being together

 and shane learned how to field dress a dove

cross country chicks

mackenzie made the varsity cross country team this year

 they had their first meet on wednesday and kenz ran 2 miles in 15min, 3 secs

 the girls cooled off in the water after the meet

during the junior high portion of the race, a deer came out of the woods and hit one of the runners.  she

was not injured, but it certainly took her by surprise.  now thats cross COUNTRY!