Kentucky Select Band and Governor's Cup

A couple months ago, Weston tried out for the Kentucky Select band.  This year it was a little different than last year.  They had 2 middle school bands instead of just one.  The clinic and concert were the weekend right after we got home from Texas.  Weston got to miss a day of school on Friday for the all day clinic.  He had a lot of fun!  The songs were fantastic!  If I can figure out how to upload a video off of my phone, I will see if I can show you one of the pieces.  I wasn't feeling particularly well this weekend and forgot my camera, so all I had to take pictures and video with was my phone.  Weston was sitting there on the right side.  They are on the 3rd row and he is 3rd from the outside.  :)

You can see him a little bit better here!  They played 4 or 5 songs and they were all excellent.  I think that my favorite one was an american tribute song collection.  :)  The kids also enjoyed all the songs.  I was glad we were able to go and hear Weston play.

This past weekend was the district Governor's cup competition.  Barth took him up to his middle school where this year's competition was taking place.  Weston took a science and social studies test first thing in the morning.  I went to the school at 10:45 for the quick recall portion.  I was so excited to go since all the regular matches are after school and I can't go since I have all the kiddos with me.  It has to be very quiet for the matches.  I always enjoy them.  Weston was in for most all of the matches that they competed in.  His team took 1st place.  They were undefeated this season and were undefeated on Saturday.

At the very end of the match, they took the 4 kids that had been competing for most of the time out and put 4 new ones in.  While Weston was sitting out, I snapped a quick picture of him!  I can't believe he will be in high school next year!  Surely I am not old enough to have a high schooler!!! :)

After the quick recall matches came the awards ceremonies.  Weston placed first on the science test.  Here he is getting his medal for that test.  Notice his coat.  Right before the awards started he decided to put it on.  When I asked him why and if he was cold, he replied, "No!  I'm just getting all ready that way we can make a quick get away!  I've been at this school long enough for a Saturday!"  Silly kiddo!

Here are all the kids that placed on the science test.  It was pretty obvious here that he has not yet started to grow like some of the other kids that are his age.  Oh well!!  :)

He placed 3rd on the social studies test.  He will compete next weekend in the regional competition on both tests as well as with the quick recall team then.

Here is the entire quick recall team.  When they compete with the quick recall, they compete with 4 from their team vs 4 from the opposing team.  I was surprised that they had so many that they took on the quick recall team this year.

And here he was at the end of the day.  He got 2 blue ribboned medals and one white one!  Good job Weston.  The Lord has blessed you with a smart brain.  I am glad that you use your talents so well!!!  Congratulations!!!

Snaggletooth and Standing

A few weeks ago, Amber lost her first top tooth!  She was so excited to loose another tooth and get money from the tooth fairy!  I can't believe how big she is getting.

And these days, our sweet little Katelynn is pulling up on anything and everything she can get her hands on.  :)  It won't be long now until she is standing on her own and walking.  She is talking up a storm and can get anywhere.  These last almost 8 months have flown by!  

And lastly, I wanted to show the new picture arrangement on the staircase wall.  I made these big canvas pictures for Barth for Christmas and he wanted to hang them here around the picture of Christ and the children so that every day our children could remember that they are children on God and that He loves them!  

Trip to Texas - at the Whitleys

The night that we were all together for the Christmas, G and G Whitley took us to see these beautiful lights!!!  I was going to go in to the doctor later that evening since I was feeling so terrible, but I was really thankful that I was able to see these beautiful lights in person!  They were so lovely.  Even prettier in person than they were in the pictures.

We were quite the group heading out to see the lights!  :)  It was quite cold that night.  For the most part we had beautiful weather while we were in Texas, but there were a few cold days thrown in there too.  That is just how Texas is, and I love it!!!  :)

We went over to the Yorkes for a few days and then came back to Momma and Daddy's on Saturday.  I was feeling a lot better by then.  I thought that this was a good picture of Momma and me.  I was thankful that we got to get a few pictures of the 2 of us.  We hardly ever get ones of just us.  Most of the time, we are the ones taking the pictures.  :)

That day was BEAUTIFUL!!  A little windy, but really just a perfect Texas winter kind of day.  Momma and I took the kids for a walk while Barth went to the rock shop.  Grandpa kept Katelynn at the house and had fun with her.  We ended up going to 2 different parks, 2 different ponds, and just had a grand old time of it!!  The kids loved climbing this cool rock wall at the park.  You can see Grandma in the background playing with Brian and Weston.

They all had so much fun playing!  We walked from place to place.  By the time bed time came, these kids were ready to crash!!!  They played and played and played!  :)

They had fun on this teeter totter thing.  I even played on this with the kids.  It was a lot of fun to play on!  I thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine and warmer weather.  Thankfully we got to enjoy all that warm weather because when we got back home to Kentucky it was -8!!  With the wind chill it felt like -35!!  That is just downright COLD!

A nice lady with her family at the pond gave us a few slices of bread.  The kids all enjoyed feeding the swans and ducks.  The swans were so pretty.  I don't remember seeing them there before, but Evan sure did love them.  All the kids did.  Brian enjoyed taking pictures of them!

Later that afternoon, Melissa came over with Claire.  We all had a fun time jumping on the trampoline outside.  We got a great picture of us 3 girls together!  :)  I was so thankful that we were able to go and see everyone at Christmas time this year.  We had planned on taking our kids out of school for the first 2 days after the break.  When it came time to go home, the weather was bitterly cold where we lived, so they actually cancelled school both of the days that we were going to take off!  It was a Christmas bonus!!!  :)  (Well, not the cold, cold, cold weather, but the fact that we didn't have to use any of our parent excused absences!)  Life is now full tilt back at home!  Hopefully I will be able to get up some more pictures of the things that have been happening since we got back!  I am thankful that we were able to take our trip and that our family stayed healthy for the most part while we were there!!

Trip to Texas - At the Yorkes

One of the days that we were staying with Grandma and Grandpa Yorke, they took us to go see the new Perot museum in Dallas.  It was a cool museum and the kids had a lot of fun seeing all the cool things that were there.  Here they are scooping up "food" like a bird would.  There were some pretty neat things to see on each of the floors of the museum.

Katelynn was pretty good while we were there.  She isn't too fond of the stroller.  Most all of my other kids have liked the stroller, but not her.  She doesn't like the car seat either.  Most of the time the stroller was empty and either Barth or I carried her.  :)

There were lots and lots of cool interactive things for the kids.  I think that they enjoyed the interactive parts more than the reading about what each thing was.

The boys here are making their own bird calls.  Pretty fun to see what the wavelengths were like on each bird call.

The boys, of course, LOVED the dinosaurs.  Evan was especially excited about them, but somehow I didn't get a picture of him!  Who knows?  I was feeling somewhat better by the day we went here, but I was still not great and didn't get all that many pictures.

Brian was going around with me at this point, so I got a picture of him doing the forecast.  That was pretty fun.  They read a prompt line on a tv and then it showed them like they were real weather forecasters up above their heads.  All the kids liked this, but I only got a picture of Brian with it.

They had a big stuffed peacock, and since Amber loooooovvvveeessss peacocks, we had to get her picture with this one.  :)  Right at this point I ran into someone that was Steven's age that I was friends with my freshman year of high school.  She was on swim team and in choir with me.  She is married with 3 cute little kids of her own.  That was really fun!

We were also able to get together with everyone on the Yorke side of the family on one of the Sundays that we were there.  Zachary was getting his Eagle Scout and they had the ceremony at G and G Yorke's house.  They had the boys that were scouts help with the flag ceremony.  It was fun to see how big everyone is getting these days!!  The kids all had a great time playing together.

Amber was in love with her cousin Zachary!!!  I can't believe that he is almost 17!!!!!  Where has the time gone?  He was just a little bitty thing when we got married all those years ago!  He was so sweet with Amber and played with her.  He played hide and go seek with her and all sorts of games.  He is certainly a good kid!

Okay, so not the best picture of Weston, but I wanted to include one that had Adara in it and Trevor too!  Adara is just older than Weston and Trevor is 12, so right there in between Weston and Brian's ages.  They are all getting to be so big!  Both Randy and LaMonte and their families just recently moved back into the area, so it was great to be able to have everyone all together again.

Poor little Evan.  By the time we got to the Court of Honor, he was just plum tuckered out!!!  This was the day before we left and our kids had run, run, run and had so much fun with both sides of the family, that our littlest ones were just so darn tired.  It was only 6pm, but as Evan sat with my on this chair, he fell fast asleep.  He looked like a little angel sleeping there, so I had to get a picture.

Here is Zachary doing his final scout oath before getting his Eagle!  It was so nice because Randy and Mary tried to include everyone in the ceremony.  I played the piano, Barth read a thing on the eagle as a symbol.  LaMonte gave a talk and so did Randy and Mary.  Grandpa conducted.  I can't remember what everyone else did, but it was very nice.

We had a great time visiting with Grandma and Grandpa Yorke.  The older kids enjoyed playing games and seeing their cousins.  There were so many nice days that we also enjoyed playing out in their back yard too.  It may have been a short visit, but it was very nice!

Trip to Texas- Whitley Christmas!

The Monday after we got to Texas we had Christmas at my mom and dad's house!  :)  It has been a loooooonnnnngggggg time since we had been back at Christmas time.  Aaron was just a baby like Katelynn then!  I wanted to make sure to get pictures of everyone while I was there.  Here we are, all the girls!

We got one with the boys too, but Austin was at work.  

We had a yummy Christmas breakfast!  I love the breakfast tradition.  :)  The kids all sat in the dining room.

Liam wasn't hungry, so he played on the couch for a bit.

All the adults ate in the dining room.  It was neat to have Great Grandma Whitley there too.

Grandma and Amber!!  Amber loves all the attention she gets when she is around her grandmas and grandpas!  :)

Then everyone gathered for present time!  :)  With our crew there, there were a lot of people in the house!

Grandpa is such a baby person.  He was so happy to finally meet Katelynn!!  She was happy to snuggle with Grandpa.  I was surprised that Katelynn did so well given all the new people and commotion that went on for our entire trip!  She really is such a good baby.

All the gifts got passed out!  It looks like a lot of fun!  And it was!!! :)

It was so fun to get to spend so much time at Grandma and Grandpa's house!

Cute little Claire Belle!!  :)  It was fun to see how much she has grown since the last time we saw her this summer.  She is really talking good now!

Getting all of us together.  We were being kinda silly!  :)

Thanks for a very nice Christmas Momma and Daddy!!  It was wonderful to be with you all at Christmas time!

I was glad to be able to get a picture with my kiddos and Great Grandma!  Since we don't get to see her very often, it was good to get to visit with her and let my children get to know her a little bit!

Trip to Texas part 1

I am so behind on this blog, I know.  I am behind on just about everything lately.  I have been fighting one case after another of mastitis, and I just can't seem to get my feet under me to get back into the swing of things.  I was on an antibiotic for nearly 3 weeks, just to get mastitis back again only 3 days after I got off of it.  Blech!!  :P  I am now on another, super-duper dose of another antibiotic in hopes that this does the trick for good.  Anyway...... just so you know why I have been slacking!!  Now, on to our trip!

The day after Christmas we took down our tree, packed up clothes and things and got ready for our trip to Texas!!  Everything was ready the next morning, but we had to wait for our trash to be picked up and then we were off by 9am!  We were going all the way into Texarkana, so it was going to be a long day.  The kids were good on the trip though.  We ran into some construction traffic in Arkansas where we went a mile or two in one hour.  All in all, it took us just over 13 hours that first day.  It was supposed to take 12, and given that we stopped for both lunch and dinner, and sat in that traffic, I thought we made pretty good time!

The kids had lots of fun playing video games in the car.  In general, I am not much of a video game person.  Our kids are limited to only being able to play on Tuesdays and Saturdays and only for an hour on those days.  I would rather they play outside or in the playroom.  But that is just me.  I do like to have the games for the long trips though and they like that there are no restrictions when we travel.  :)

Evan wanted to watch a show.  I can't remember what he was watching.  He watched a lot of Christmas shows and Barney on the way.  It was getting to be later in the day at this point and he was tired.  Tired of being in the car seat and just tired in general.

After sitting in the car seat for so long, and given that we weren't really moving at all, I got Katelynn out and let her play on my lap.  She was glad for that.  I started off in the front, but most of my time was spent in the back tending to Katelynn.  Weston and I switched out seats back and forth as needed.  We made it to our hotel.  We got 2 rooms, but this hotel didn't have connecting rooms.  Our rooms were side by side, but there were no connecting rooms.  So, I had Amber, Katelynn and Evan, and Barth had Weston, Brian, and Aaron.  My room fell right to sleep.

It didn't take us long the next day to travel into Dallas.  Just after crossing Lake Ray Hubbard, Amber had to go to the bathroom.  We couldn't find any McDonald's to stop in so we stopped at a Bass Pro Shop.  :)  Afterwards we let the kids walk around and look at the cool fish tanks.

They were glad to stretch their legs a bit even though we had only been on the road for about 2 hours.

Evan and Amber loved the fish.  Katelynn was just happy to be out of that seat!  She wanted nothing to do with it the second day!!!

We rolled into G and G Yorke's house around noon.  They had a picture planned for the day with everyone.  It was the only time that everyone could get together for a big family picture.  Here are all the cousins outside.  19 in all!!  :)  Katelynn was done by this point, but all in all, the kids did great!

It was so fun to see everyone!!  The kids had a great time seeing Grandma and Grandpa and getting reacquainted with their cousins!!  It was a fun start to our trip!