UT vs Kansas

Heading into the stadium with the sea of burnt orange. 

Tickets please.

We had a perfect view of the jumbotron. 

Must have been a good play!

The Horns running out onto the field in a cloud of smoke.

Mimi and Avery.

Daddy & Caleb.

Mom and Austin.

Horns Up!!

Texas Longhorn Tailgate

Locker Room Tour

 We were in for a real treat for our first UT football game this season.  Wes's college friend who is one of the head equipment managers for the team, gave us a quick tour of the UT football locker room before the game.  I've never seen so much UT gear in one room in my life.  The kids got a kick out of seeing the players locker area and they were on a hunt to find "the other Malcolm Brown."

 Pregame - uniforms and gear set out for each player.

 Locker room shot.

 Hook 'em.

The kids got UT Nike swoosh arm bands as a parting gift.  What a great experience for our Longhorn crew!

Fall Favorite.... A Hayride!

This is our favorite fall event.... no frills, no fuss, just a good ole' fashioned hayride.  We invited some of our favorite people for a Saturday afternoon hayride down the country roads and then enjoyed a pleasant fall evening in the backyard. 

Emma Kate, Della, Jordan, Avery & Sienna

Polo anyone???

I may have mentioned it before, but a few months ago, I was asked to be a board member of the local Boys & Girls Club.  So far it has been very rewarding.  One of the top priorities of the board is fund raising and this year, through a connection of one of the board members, a benefit polo match was held for annual and potential donors.  The thing that totally amazes me about this is that this match was held essentially in Brenham's backyard.  How many of you Brenhamites that are reading this knew that there is a polo field in Brenham?  Well, technically, it is not it in Brenham, but it is in Washington County, off of FM332/Oil Field Road at Pegasus Ranch.

This is the "main house" on the property.  Talk about amazing!!!  In addition, the grounds include a horse stable that holds up to 30 horses, the polo field 300 yards X 160 yards), several ponds, a two story gazebo and 6 miles of concrete drive.  Yes, it is equivalent to a fairytale. 

I knew absolutely nothing about polo before today and was educated a bit about the sport as the morning progressed. The game consists of six 7-minute chuckers. After each chuckers, the players switch out horses. After three chuckers, it is half time and time to stomp the divots.

At the end of the game, the crowd was treated to a great BBQ picnic.  Talk about a great way to start a Saturday morning!  We were excited to get to share this event with the kids and we were excited to hear that the owners of the ranch are interested in making this an annual event.  Sounds good to me!

Austin's super powers

Last night we were on the way home from the homecoming parade and Wes was telling the kids that they could have one more piece of candy out of the bag they collected from the parade and then the rest would be put away when we got home.  That followed with "NO!!!"  "We want more!".  Then Austin chimed in, "If I had super powers, I would freeze you and mommy so that we could eat all the candy."  We couldn't help but laugh and I responded "Then who would fix your supper for you?"  He thought about it and let us know he'd unfreeze us after all the candy was gone.  Yes, this comes from my cartoon watcher. 

As for the homecoming parade, you can't beat a good ole' small town parade.  I had may camera set on a manual setting and all my pics came out extrememly dark.  Had they turned out, you would have seen Caleb riding with Uncle Doug in the fire truck, Austin riding on the football team float beside Malcom Brown and Avery collecting an unbelieveable amount of candy along the parade route.  Good times!

"Where have you been?"

That was the first sentence in an email that Wes sent me this morning.  Good news is that he does read our blog.  Bad news is, he had to correct me on a lot of chicken information I stated in my latest post.  This just goes to show how hands off I have been with the chickens... could be why I took so long to blog about them.  And I guess I am dedicating another whole post to them because I was way off on my information.

So.... we did not receive eggs in the mail.  We recieved chicks, yes they delivered baby chicks in a box through the mail.  Now I remember thinking that was really crazy!!!  And he specifically ordered 5 rhode island reds, 5 white leghorn and 5 americans.  2 of the white leghorsn died early on and one went missing last week.  The green eggs come to us curtousy of the americanas, so we have 5 chickens laying green eggs, not 2.  Boy was I off on that one!

Thanks for the clarification, honey.  You always do have to keep me in check.

Can't believe I've left out the chickens....

Since this blog is the kids' scrapbook, I try to make sure and talk about key things that the kids are involved in, places we go, as well as things that are a part of their everyday childhood.  With that in mind, I am quite surprised that I have failed to blog about our family of chickens.  I've thought about it, but the follow through was obviously poor.  Sooooo.... here goes.
Early last spring, Wes came home with 4 chickens.  If I remember correctly, all but 1 wound up being a rooster and boy did those roosters make great soups, seriously.  The roosters were a little mean and their obnoxious and off key cockadoodledoing was more than we could take.  With just one hen left behind, Wes decided to order chicken eggs off the internet.  I was blown away by the thought of eggs being delievered in the mail.  Well, it happened and after a few weeks in an incubator, we had 15 baby chicks... yes 15.... this was the minimum egg order. 
I'll fast forward a few months....

The playscape is multifunctional now, a kids play haven and a chicken coop.

We have a variety of chicken types and I won't even begin to pretend that I know what they are.  They aren't "tame", but they've gotten pretty comfortable around us.  We may not have a dog, but with the chicken's we have a place for our dinner scraps. 

 4 boxes for the chickens to lay their eggs. 

 We are picking anywhere from 9 -15 eggs a day. 

Not sure this picture shows it very well, but two of the chickens lay green eggs, they are a very light shade, but green none the less. 

So scrambled, over easy, hard boiled, or sunny side up, we have all the eggs we need, plus 12 dozen more.  Good thing the kids like to eat omelets.  Let us know if you'd like a few dozen.  We'll make you a good deal and maybe throw in a chicken with your order.

Thursday evening ramble...

It is well before 9pm and our house is quiet.  Caleb is staying with Popo and Mimi tonight since he will be heading out to the golf course with Popo early in the morning.  This is his first night to stay away from us by himself.  Is it bad that I am not worried about him?  As for the golf tomorrow, I hope Popo packs lots of snacks for 18-holes!  Avery fell asleep on the couch shortly after we found her Halloween costume online and Austin is wrapped up in Aladdin on the Disney Channel.  Wes has resorted to our bedroom to watch either college football or hunting, likely channel surfing between the two.  All this peaceful action give me a little time to sit and ramble.
This afternoon I took a glance at the invites we have tacked up next to the October calendar.  They include 6 kid birthdays, a Boys & Girls Club benefit polo match, a November wedding, a family reunion and a church fall festival.  Add to that our annual hayride, a trip to the deer lease, and a family photo shoot and I'd say we've got plenty to do this month.  Let's not forget a few nights a week at the park for soccer games.  Yes, this is why times flies by!
We are over six weeks into school and so far so good.  Avery has managed to stay on "green" almost everyday for behavior.  The days she hasn't been on green she's gone to "gold" which means she did something super or had excellent behavior.  We love gold days!  Austin has had a few gold days, mostly green, but he did come with one yellow.  Apparently he chose to pull a girl's finger back when she had something he wanted.  I can live with one yellow day.... we all have our bad days.  So far behavior has been no concern of mine, homework on the other hand has created a few challenges and not only because they sometimes don't want to do it.  Sometimes we have a hard time making time for it.  I must do better in making it a more regular part of our routine.  Caleb is doing great as a Bouncing Bear.  He is still quite the ladies man.  When I asked him the other day how many girlfriends he had, his response without hesitation was "14"!  We are in trouble!
Enough ramble for now.... Happy Fall! 

RAIN day

Rain... Bring it on! As we were walking out the door for church today Wes made sure we had an umbrella in the car because it looked like rain was on the way. Sure enough, we met the rain on our way to church and it continued on throughout the day. We need more, but we are thankful for all that we received today.  It was so nice to see the heavy clouds linger and see the drops fall for longer than 30 minutes.

It felt like the kids were seeing snow.  We broke out the rain jackets and they played out in the rain all afternoon.  While they enjoyed their time in the rain, Wes & I headed up to the loft above the garage.  The "loft" has become a storage area and we are hoping to one day turn it into the originally planned big game room, but we've got to downsize our "stuff".  It is crazy how much you can accumulate in just a few years.  We are getting ready for a garage sale, so we spent a few hours going through toys, clothes, tools and just stuff that is of no use to us. 
After filling up my car and the back of Wes's truck with "stuff", we were going to make a family trip over to Granny G's house where we are having a garage sale in a few weeks.  I was upstairs when Wes told me it would probably be best if he went alone. He said the kids were filthy and buried in sand.

Sure enough this is how I found them, literally buried sand. 

They played for at least 3 hours this afternoon without a "mom, she hit me" or a "mom, will you get me this" or a shrieking cry.  They were in their own little world and I even had to bribe them to come inside for a shower.  It was wonderful!

I have to add that after they brought themselves out of the buried sand, they ditched all clothing below their waist.  They thought it was fun to swing without underwear and I saw their bare bums as they repeatedly ran to the swing, stomach first, to fly like superman.  Ahhh... the joys of  being a country kid!!