Sad news

So sorry to get a call today that Dad's sister Lois Goodson died yesterday. What a wonderfully caring person. She will surely be missed by all who knew and loved her. Love you dad.

Computer breathed its last this week. David refuses to rebuild it a third time for me so we are waiting on a new "non-HP" computer. I think I'm done with HP's for now. At least I didn't lose anything on my hard drive since I have learned to back it up more frequently and since David hadn't even loaded the restored files onto my rebuilt HP. Some times it pays to not do things too quickly. More tonite. Right now I'm hunting and pecking with my fat fingers on my iPad. Have a good day!

Fourth Place Isn't So Bad

No, I'm not talking about the goings on in South Carolina today.




Today was the district tournament for Quick Recall for middle schoolers.



Our kids earned fourth place.



Yeah!







There were only four teams.








Bummer.






David stayed home with the two younger kids while I was with John and Emily most of the day during the competition.  They had fun, but just didn't have a good day of things going their way.  It was an extremely close competition, we just happened to come up short.


Maybe next time!






We're still proud of you guys.

In Honor of Martin's Big Day

The kids were out of school Monday.

For once, they were not out because of wind or water or snow.

It was Martin Luther King Day.   Thus, no school.

In honor of the day we went bowling.

Not really.

Actually, we decided it was too cold to go to the zoo so we looked for indoor options.

All of us like to bowl.

None of us are very good.

That's okay.

We have a good time anyway.

Look who took off work and went with us.

I am taking donations to the "David Shupe Needs A Shave" fund.

Contributions may be sent to our current address.

I think everyone had a good time.

As you can tell, the place was PACKED with people!!

(kidding there)

Not much exciting here.  The kids got grade cards yesterday.  All A's except one from the middle school crowd.  All O's and S's from the elementary crowd.  The preschool crowd isn't graded yet.

We are proud of them.




I steam cleaned carpets Tuesday while Grant was at preschool.  I had to ponder whether it was worth stopping long enough to seek shelter in the basement while a tornado touched down about four miles from home. 

I kept cleaning.

I didn't want my carpets to be dirty when my house was blown away in the tornado!




The kids have their final match in Quick Recall this Saturday.  Their team finished fifth in their regional bracket.  That qualified them to move on to the county tournament this weekend.  I really don't look for them to make it to state level, but they could surprise all of us still.  We'll see.





Grant and I are still cranking out Perler Bead shapes like there's no tomorrow.  He is wild for them right now.  No pictures of his new creations, but he gets ever more inventive as he works with them.  Yesterday he spelled his name with them.  I thought that was pretty good for five years old.



One of our ducks in MIA.  I don't know if it went looking for a better mate or if it became dinner for a lucky raccoon.  Either way, I'm guessing Donald has seen the last of Daisy.  I'm not looking forward to breaking that news to the kids.  I guess they'll learn first hand about how the food chain works with small animals.


The pond continues to fill quickly.  It should easily reach the spillway by spring.  We are looking forward to stocking the pond with some bass and catfish this coming fall and having some homegrown fish in a couple years to eat.


The horses are doing fine.  We've not been out to ride in a few weeks,  but hope to get there sometime this coming weekend if the Quick Recall tournament doesn't drag into the late afternoon.



OK, enough rambling.  I've got to go get kids ready for bed!


Goodnight!

Milestones

Today we reached a milestone in this house.

The little blue LINE in this picture shows how tall my oldest son is.

The problem is that the little blue DOT shows how tall his mother is!

Yes, I am now looking up to John.

You can see he has really shot up past Emily the last six months. 

She's got quite a way to go yet to catch me.

We record the kids' height every year on their birthday and on their 'half birthday'.

January is John and Emily's half birthday.

I guess I'll have to get a stepstool to record John's height from now on.

The next goal he has is to reach that second dot on the growth chart line..

that would be his dad's height.

I don't expect it will be too long before he passes up his dad too.

Skills Building 101

For a kids who holds a fork like a shovel,

Grant's latest passion has produced results nothing short of miraculous.

He is fascinated with Perler Beads....

teeny tiny beads that can be arranged into just about any shape or image then melted and fused together with a hot iron.

I'm not kidding when I say they're tiny.

He has progressed from just plunking random colors down with no rhyme nor reason to their arrangement to making some very pretty patterns like this.

These are all his creations.

He's done all of these in less than a week.

I think he's got the fine motor thing quite under control now.

Time to move on.

Maybe we can work on letter recognition now!!

I just found this picture on my camera.

They are David's 'birthday presents' from Grace and Grant.

The kids found my aluminum foil and wrapped up toys from the playroom to give David for his birthday.

Inside these carefully wrapped packages I believe David found:  a pair of drumsticks, a fisher-price camera case, and a book.

It's the thought that counts, right?

New Year's Eve Party - G rated

When the average age of the younger party goes is under 20, some modifications must be made by the party planner.....

Thus, there was no wild dancing...

only a lively game or two of Twister....

Some people played less "fairly" than others.

Gambling and other such adult entertainment was replaced by

"GO FISH"

"Do you have any 3's?"

"No.  Go Fish!"

Chex mix and soda were consumed in place of champagne and hor douvers.



But the evening would not have been complete without a little midnight celebration.

These guys hung on until the bitter end.

Their reward?

Party hats, leis, blowers, noise makers and.....

fireworks set of by my biggest kid of all!

After sleeping in Sunday morning, we returned to Louisville and began the process of 'undecorating' the house.

Grace and Grant were more than a little excited to be given the job of vacuuming up the needles from the Christmas trees.

Isn't it great when kids still think of these chores as fun??

They were actually fighting over whose turn it was to push the vacuum!

Happy New Years!!

I do believe I am caught up on pictures finally.

Now I just have to sort them sometime and put them on the right date.

Not tonight though.  I'm off to bed.

Goodnight!!!

Who Had a Birthday??

Still slowly catching up on pictures....

While we were at the farm between Christmas and New Years, someone had a birthday.

We celebrated with birthday cake....

both pretend cake....

and a real one too......

This is what a Texas Sheetcake  looks like when Mom leaves the cake pan for it at home and has nothing at the farm to bake a sheetcake in!

Here's the birthday boy.

It looks like someone should buy him a razor for a birthday gift, huh??

Preparing to blow out the candles...

but a couple certain somebodies beat him to it.....

Grant made dad this card (with help from mom).

Dad loved the card.

It said...

"Happy Birthday, Dad. I hope you enjoy your presents. You are the best birthday boy. Love to Dad From Grant"

Grace also made her daddy a card.  Hers said...
"Dear Dad, I hope you have a happy birthday to day Dad.  And i hope you have fun trning 45 to day!  Love, your dotter  Grace Shupe"

He loved this card too.

After opening gifts and putting the little kids to bed, we then celebrated his birthday by beating him at a game of rummy.

Happy Birthday, David!!

Saddle Up Your Horse!

Here's a look at a couple of the new horses.....

This is Bella.

I think she is by far the favorite of the kids.

Grant and Grace both ask to ride her often.

These are the two newest to the family.

They came to us with no names, so for quite some time we're referred to them as

Thing 1 and Thing 2.

I think the kids have settled on calling this mare Juliet to complement one of the other horses named, of course, Romeo.

She's a sweet little mare.

Emily has been riding her the most.

She would appear to have two speeds most of the time....

slow

and

stop.

The palomino is another mare that is pretty small.

Both of these horses are fairly young too.  The guy we bought them from thought they were about five or six years old.

This one has now officially been named Whinny.  I thought she was going to be Sally (Grant's suggestion), but somehow that got replaced by Whinny in the final vote.

She has a little more life and spunk than Juliet.....but not much!

That makes them the perfect horses for kids to learn on!

Snowball....

Brownie.....

Butterscotch....

These three are more aptly known as The Three Stooges.

It's funny to watch them sidle up to the big horses who are all around sixteen hands or taller and start kicking at them.

My goodness, Butterscotch can't kick anything higher than their ankles!!

I'll give him credit for trying anyway.

Sunday we went out after church and rode for a few hours.

The kids are getting more and more comfortable in the saddle.

I would guess by springtime we'll let them take their horses out alone if they want to.

We did have a 'first' this weekend.

Someone (who shall remain nameless) wins the prize for being  the first family member to get bucked off.

Let's just say one of the horses hasn't been around too many blue tractors!

Horse and rider are both fine in spite of a bruised ego and maybe a sore leg.

Want to guess who?