Halloween 2105

Today Cessie and I had a mom date. We went to two of her favorite places: Burger University and the Library. She really will get through all those books in a flash. She has an insatiable appetite for reading.

She is also so much like a second mom. I caught her taking photos of the kids before she took them trick or treating. Such a great big sister and daughter!

Charity and Sam had cute costumes but did not want to wear them for some reason! So Cessie just drew a kitty face on them.

Jonah decided to blare his electric guitar to the kids as they came trick or treating. Actually I am sure most of our neighbors could hear the concert too. They were good sports about it.

Charity and her candy.

I didn't get photos of Eden or Andy because they spent the evening with their friends. Those two are so popular and into their social lives it's crazy.

Snuggles

This is a bad picture and so random, but I wanted to post it anyhow. This is Cessie and me doing what we like to do from time to time; snuggling in her bed. For some reason Eden took a photo of it and sent it to me.

Andy horse riding

The Claymans, whom I've mentioned before, and run a farm, gave Andy a horse riding lesson. It was Andy's first time on a full size horse. (He had pony rides before.) He got to ride by himself and loved it.

Becca's very first band concert!

Oh she was so excited and so cute!

Carving Pumpkins

Cessie is such a good big sister. She took a lot of time to do some pumpkin carving and seed cooking with the babies. They loved it. They love her.

Charity's face!

Sam's cat obsession oct 2015

Charity at school 2 oct 2014

Charity at school oct 2015

Compassion Experience

Yesterday for FFD we drove down to Buda and went to the Compassion Experience. It was so neat. We had to split our family in half because the exhibit rooms were too small to accomodate all of us. So I just have photos of these 4 kids during the experience.

They have you enter this mock third world country and you go from room to room hearing a true life experience of a child in that country.

It made us all emotional and really was touching.

The kids wanted to help. We all did.

Text Messages

Steve and I are still obnoxiously in love.  Truly. He is the best.

Charity at school

I took these cute photos of Charity during recess the other day.

Chiggers

A couple of weeks back we had a family service project to help build some trails at a park. A wilderness type park. I did not make it to this activity because it was the day I disloctaed my shoulder. So Steve took the kids without me. 

One of the people overseeing the project warned of chiggers in the brush. Apparently Steve missed the warning. Not long after the activity he thought he had been bitten by a fire ant.  He has bad reactions to fire ant bites. It originally looked like a singularly bad bug bite. But as the days carried on, it spread and spread and began to look pretty horrific. He went to a doctor who prescribed medication for what we had thought was an allergic reaction to an ant bite. But it wasn't getting better. Steve did some research and learned it was chiggers. He told Cessie who mentioned the warning they had gotten at the service project. Chiggers eat away at you and feed their babies on your flesh. It is NASTY!!! It has been over two weeks and the wound is still pretty bad.  He has spots all over his body. But the home treatments he learned has helped it turn the corner. Poor guy!

Ballet students

These are some of the sweetest girls and best students a teacher could have.  I love them!

Texas fans

 I cannot emphasize enough how much pride Texans have for their state.  Grocery shopping you will find many foods that sucessfully market their product on the claim that they are "Texas corn chips," "Texas" cereal, bread, snacks...you name it.  Many stores sell a great deal of Texas paraphernalia. People wear Texas clothing, display flags on their cars, properties, businesses, even many homes have texas shaped stones built in to their home to have their address numbers on.  The kids recite the Texas Pledge of Allegiance in school daily, along with the American Pledge of Allegiance.  It is out of hand.  And we love it. It's contageous.  The other day Steve asked me to buy him a Texas flag to hang in his office.  I got such a kick out of that request. I ordered one online.  But when the package arrived it ended up being a 10 pack.  So everyone in the family gets one! (Incidentally the flags were made in China.)

Charity/Mom Ballerina Buddies

Oh how I love this picture Charity made for me!

Sukkot with Kelly

On Friday Sam and I were invited to have lunch with Kelly (my friend,) on their farm.  Their home and property are so fun to visit.  Sam loved the animals. He even got to gather eggs from the chickens.

If you look in the background you can see a hut like structure.  It is their Sukkah.  Kelly and her family are Jewish. They had just finished up their week-long celebration of Sukkot.  During Sukkot they put this Sukkah up to eat meals in.  (Some orthodox observers sleep in their Sukkots during the 7-8 day holiday.)  the Claymans do not sleep in theirs.  

Anyhow, Kelly made us lunch and we ate in their Sukkah.  I really enjoyed it.  I love learning about her religion and traditions. And Kelly is one of the dearest friends I have ever been blessed to have.  We just adore their family.

Date Night

Steve and I tried out Flicks Brewhouse for the first time.  It's a movie theater that runs like a restaurant in the theater.  You have a waiter and they work so quietly and stealth-like so as to not distract from the movie.  The food was yummy!  It was my favorite kind of movie experience.

Service Project

Our last family service project was making Halloween decorations for the children's hospital.

Favorite Charity Video Oct 2015

Kids in the Rodeo opening ceremonies

Sam with his winnings oct 2015

Kids at Rodeo oct 2015

Charity & Sam Rodeo Nickel Scramble oct 2015

Kayaking oct 2015

The Rodeo

Our best friends here own a farm and have a large horseriding/rodeo training operation going on.  It's really cool!  

Anyhow, they hold an annual rodeo and they invited our kids to be a part of the opening ceremony.  I will post a video of it soon.  But they rode around the arena in the back of a truck and the announcer introduced them.  It was exciting.

They also got us a truck to sit in for a good view.  It felt like VIP seating.  We had Emily and her kids join us too.  So it was a lot of fun.

Charity and Sam did the Nickle Scramble.

They were thrilled with their winnings!

They also got some free cups and Charity got this T-shirt.

Some of the older kids did the event where they chased calves around trying to grab a ribbon off of them for some cash. Nyah got one and got $5!

This is right before they took off.

This is them taking off.

This felt like the epitome of the Texas life. It was so funny and different from mine and Emily's element that we just kept looking at each other and laughing.  With all the animals, dust, blaring Country music, hats and boots, I felt as if I was in an alternate universe.  But we had so much fun.