Roller Skating with Friends

We were the only ones there and the owner let us push our strollers!

Good Thoughts

I listened to a speaker, and I really enjoyed what she had to say. The thoughts center on homeschooling, but I really think you can apply these thoughts to everyday life:)
Here's the link:
http://budurl.com/blogcontest
Click on "click here to download free audio"
Let me know if this doesn't work.
I love, love, love you dear sisters!!!!

-Deb

FAT ( I mean PORTLY) Boy!

OK, Toby is 4 months old and I think it is time we address his weight problem!

Seriously- you could put a pin in this foot and it would pop!Some might think that we don't feed him enough so he has to eat HIMSELF!
Shelby and her favorite dog!

My "Little Bird"

Perhaps we need a piano?

Scavenger Hunt

Mallory had a scavenger hunt tonight at church. It was a digital camera hunt with some fun, interesting items on the list.

We had to have a picture of Chinese food, so we ran into Pei Wei and asked a lady if we could take a picture of her food!

A picture of a toy. (We were in Target)

Okay - we did our best with this one. We were supposed to take a picture that showed a depth illusion. You can tell that the group is holding up the building, right????
A picture of a fountain gave you extra points if a member of your group was actually in the fountain.

The kids did a great job on the "posing in the same position as a statue" picture.

We had fun and basically ran into kind, helpful people. We did have one lady with an interesting response. We needed a picture of someone dressed all in one color. We found a lady in Target who was dressed all in purple. I explained to her what we were doing and asked if we could take her picture. She replied, "Just take it and let me go." We did!

Some of the other fun items were bird poop, a man with a moustache and no goatee or beard with it (we found him in Target), a sign with a misspelled word (did not find it), Imperial Sugar (Target), and a gas receipt for $.10 (I literally prayed that God would not let me go over to $.11 - it is not that easy!).

Not exactly what I had in mind

As we were driving home from errands and thinking about lunch, I was pondering how the hot sandwiches we were going to make are so very crumbly. The bread is like French bread that crumbles terribly with every bite. Well, we cleaned the house last night and I could not bear the thought of having to clean the floor again since I know that there would be a mess after eating lunch. Well, I decided we could eat outside. Fun, right? Mason and Mallory set up the card table, and then it started raining. They fixed that problem by moving it into the garage! This is not exactly what I had in mind. I wanted to scrap the whole idea, but everyone else was into it and thought it would make a family memory. Please note that my chair was right next to the trash cans. I was especially crabby as I was cleaning the crumbs off the garage floor so that we would not attract bugs into the house through the garage. I would have much preferred cleaning the kitchen floor than the garage floor. Those of you reading this who are not family can certainly pretend you do not know us!

Morning Makeup

The Oldest and Youngest

The Oldest and The Youngest Cousins!

A Great Birthday Evening!

We can't believe Luke is 15!

A fun dinner with the Nichols - lots of laughing!

Luke and Lainie at Permian

Mom and her two boys.

Luke and Jarrod win first place!

Cute Tobster

Boys and Their Imaginations.....What Fun!!

In the past couple of weeks, Andrew and Thomas have had some very imaginative fun, and here's the outcome.....Thomas is royalty on a "throne" in the garage, and then there's the "laser maze", of which Samson was not a big fan (but he was a good sport)!

We love you all, and hi Lainie:)

Enjoying our Visit!

Great Time!

Pictures from Faith and Hannah

Faith and Hannah sent us these beautiful pictures. Thank you so much!

Mallory has the flu

Fight Night

Luke and Jake participated in a "Fight Night" with sparring and patterns competition. This was the first time for the boys to officially spar in a real match. Jake won his match. Luke was paired against a 26-year-old who has been a blackbelt (second degree) for 10 years! He did lose, but held his own and made all of us proud. He said he heard his nose crack once (you can see the resulting blood in the photo) - he may have a little fracture. Still they both had fun and are on an adrenaline rush right now at 10 p.m.! The fighters could have a coach over to the side, and that is Luke coaching Jake in the second-to-last photo.

Fun Night with Friends

We had a fun night making pizza and s'mores with Justin, Megan, and Chad.

Stock Show and Rodeo

Today we went on a field trip to the Ft. Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. We had a really good time and saw some pretty interesting animals! We all came home with tons of shoowey on our shoes!

This cow was giving Abby Kate a look like "Don't come any closer!"

I love this picture! They were all scrambling for some lunch!

Cheri was "Ms. Teacher" and asked several of the kids showing their animals to tell us about what they do.

This little girl was showing a steer. She was 8.

The girls got to hold cotton from a field. Rhema and T got to come with us!


The rodeo.


The petting zoo- of course the favorite for all the kids! They could have stayed there ALL day! This is a tiny baby goat.

Of course you are not supposed to pick up the animals, but apparently the rules don't apply to Shelby when it comes to her and animals!

Strange looking cow!

Mason and Mallory's books

Jake asked me to post this on the way to school:

Mason, I liked the plot of your story.
Mallory, my favorite part was when they were lost in the woods!

Jake

Wonderful Gifts

I would like to thank you sisters for sharing all of your WONDERFUL news of my precious nieces and nephews!!!! Cheri and Jodi- it cheers my heart to see your beautiful children playing, smiling, and growing so, so much!!
As for the "Wonderful Gifts"- I am referring to the most recent posts - the amazing talents of Luke and Jake with their TaeKwon-Do matches and accomplishments, and Mason and Mallory with their magic fingers on the key board and piano. I vote for a concert at the lake this summer- to include the violin and piano, with singing debuts from the little blondes!!!
I put pics of the house we are in the process of buying, mostly for Mom, because she's really interested and I know she loves to get all our news on the blog (hi Mom!).
Love you all so, so much- Deb-Daar

View from the back yard. That's a working barn with horse stalls inside:)

Two songs that Mallory composed

Cute

This is TOTALLY too dark, but cute if you can make it out!

Praise Band

Mason has been practicing with the Youth Group Praise Band. They played yesterday for the worship time during halftime of the Super Bowl. He does a GREAT job on the key board!!

Dressed for Daddy

I dressed Toby in honor of daddy for church this morning!