Some Updating

I should have been updating as the week went along but somehow this fell to the bottom of the "todo" list....which is not something I like.  Anyway, the week after vacation is always tough and this one didn't disappoint.  We hit the ground running-or rather dragging, but not all bad just hard to get into the routine again.  I have to say we are really enjoying American Heritage Girls.  This past Monday was the monthly meeting that focuses on missions, and it was Christmas Box time.  I was a little annoyed just because I feel like between school and church we could almost put together a half dozen on them.  It turned out to be a great experience.  The leaders took the time to explain the boxes, show videos of children receiving the boxes and earged the girls to make each box personal.  I loved spending time putting the box together and writing notes to the little child.  It was time well spent and since I have all the kids at the meeting we all ended up putting the box together.  After it was all finished Brayden told me he really wished he could go and help deliver the boxes...it sure looked like a lot of fun.
  Tuesday, Thurdays we were back into the swing of football.  Brayden has come so far in this sport.  I am happy he loves going to practice but a little apprehensive that he might be liking it a little too much!  Saturday was his last game of the season-ended with his scoring and getting the extra point.  The team lost but then again that is nothing new for them.  We will see what next year holds for football-I miss soccer!

Wednesday we were back at church for bible blast.  Ron and I are helping with quizzing this year and it is turning out to be kind of fun.  The kids are beginning to know us and making them laugh is a lot of fun, although I am not too sure of Ron's scheming ways to get candy from the little ones.


Thurday was Andrea's field trip day.  I figured since we missed the pumpkin patch I would take her on her day off.  Turned out we should have just stayed home.  It was out at the nature center-far out of our way and the temp literal dropped from 74 to 54 while we were hiking.  As usual there is nothing of interest to see in OK winds-the naturalist was trying to explain fungus to a bunch of four year olds-thrilling!  Andrea did great-James not so much.  Time to dig out the winter gear. Definitely a minus for living in OK! 

This week it was observation week for gymnastics.  Normally I just drop the girls off at the gym and are not allowed inside-this was the big week.  Okay, not so big.  I could hardly see the girls as they were in the far back of the gym filled with over 50 girls all on different apparatuses.  James was in awe of the girls about a half a foot from is face dismounting off the beam-crazy stuff!  The girls seemes to be doing a lot of very basic stuff but the laughs and smiles tell me they love it.

Friday was the big day at school, time for the annual Walk-a-thon.  With the weather I was not so sure how it was going to go-first frost of the year, freezing winds.  I had to stop at walmart to load up on some mittens for the kids.  They were all out on the track by nine-freezing with the wind and clouds but they were all running with the whistle blew.  Turned out they all stuck it out.  Brayden ran walked about five miles with some of his buddies.  Becca and Andrea hung out together, Andrea loves Becca's friends and I loved walking with them getting to know all of them.  James didn't want to do anything but sit and whine.  The only time he walked was with his little football/cheerleader buddy who finally convinced him to walk with her.  Would you know that when 10am rolled around and we were all leaving the sun decided to peak out of the clouds-what a difference it made.  I was just glad for a warm car and some coffee.

Finally the weekend.  I really should have divided this up.  Saturday I ran the Tulsa Run, there is just something about lining up with thousands of people, music pounding that makes you actually excited to run 9miles.  It was FREEZING!  But with some sunshine it turned out to be a beautiful run down riverside.  My time was slower than past years but I couldn't have run any faster or felt better, about at average of 9min mile which is a pretty good pace for me right now.

We finished the day off with our annual pumpkin carving party.  Who know Texas was growing such HUGE pumpkins this year-there was a lot of scooping.  It is crazy to me how the group continues to grow-lots of kids but still a lot of little ones, such fun! We had the first tamp casualty this year-yes....it happened, some broke their hand by falling off our tramp (yes, Ron managed an "I told you so")  It was lot of fun, lots of food, lots of work!  Sunday is definitely a day of REST for EVERYONE.

The kids, minus the two little ones and another family having to visit the minor ER.  Yes, somehow we totally forgot to carve James' pumpkin.  He was so proud of his pumpkin-didn't even seem to notice it wasn't carved.  He is going to get his own private carving session this week!

The tramp was ton's of fun for all the kids-still doesn't make up for when the one falls off resulting in injury.

Our friend is getting pretty good at writing in the dark with a flashlight-always kind of funny to see how accurate you can be while trying to beat the shutter!