Time Flies

Oh, my word! Where did November go?!?!?! It seems like we were just celebrating Halloween, now it's Thanksgiving and Dec. 1st is less than a week away.

November has been another busy month - though with more normal busy-ness. We have settled into a more normal routine. My schedule has let up a bit - which I'm loving. I still have all my private lessons, but I'm still done by 6:00 most evenings instead of 9:00 or later! It's great to be home in the evenings and actually cook supper. Which is good, because my favorite place to get food on the go closed in A-town. That was a sad day. No more Triple P - but that only means something to those of you who live here. No more good ice (we aren't big enough to have a SONIC like the rest of the world)!

We are ready for a break! I'm so glad that this morning was the last morning to have to get Tae up and ready for school for a few days. She needs a break so badly. We had a holiday Labor Day and have not had a day off from school since. I love the State Legislature! They are the ones who have put us in this predicament - but I'll leave the rest of that soap box for another day.

I am so ready to put my tree up. Several of you have already done so. I need to clean house before I do that! So, enjoy Thanksgiving and, for those of you that haven't decorated yet - have fun doing that, too!

Haunted House

It's one thing after another here right now! We finished contest two weeks ago and I basically took last week off. Didn't do anything I didn't have to do.

Now, here we are, at Halloween. Our church is hosting the 5th quarter after the football game this week. So naturally, there's got to be something "Halloweeny" about the 5th quarter. So here we go with a haunted house. I'm tired, and I'm not even the one doing most of the work. Our poor preacher, is a haunted house guru - and a maze guru. He's done the maze this week and worked very hard to get people to help with this. It's going to be fun, but I'll be glad when it's over.

I'm ready for the holiday season. I know, some of you may be booing me! But I am. I didn't get a chance to decorate for Halloween (life was just too crazy) but I'm really getting ready for the Holidays. And this year, they are going to be even more fun with my nephew, Brock, around. And Addi is finally getting to the point that she's noticing and paying attention to what's going on. It's like she went from no talking, to completing full sentences!

Happy Halloween - I promise to put up pictures of "Sharpay" and my little lady bug this weekend!

Contest is OVER!!! Life goes on...

Saturday was our big contest day. The twirlers did awesome - they made it to state for the 17th year in a row. And I have 4 girls make it to state as soloists. So the twirling portion of the day was great. Then our band also competed that evening and made straight ones. They also did a fabulous job and it was so much fun to work with them. They are great kids.

Now - the rest of life goes on! First order of business - my house :( I hate house cleaning, and then when I'm busy like I've been the two months, it really goes down the tube. Jake's done a great job keeping it livable. But now it's time to get the entire thing cleaned. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Oh, well. I will enjoy the clean house once it's done - it's just getting to that point.

In the midst of the last few weeks of craziness, Addi had her third birthday. It was a lot of fun. I'll get up some pics and post about that soon. It's just hard to believe that my babies are growing up so fast.

Stay warm - if you're in west texas. I think we're getting another taste of winter as I write!!!

WTAC

OK, for the rest of the world out there that are not band geeks like me, WTAC is the West Texas Auxiliary Competition. Wow, long name. Basically it's a competition for the auxiliary's of marching band - drum majors, twirlers, flags, and drum lines. It's a fairly large competition held at Coronado every year.

Well, my girls did FABULOUS there! It was very exciting. Our prelim performance was good enough to advance to the finals where we placed first. We beat two other lines that are very good - Colorado City and Frenship High School. Yes, it was exciting for a little 2A school to beat a 4A school.

One of these days, I'm going to try and post a video of them. I'm so proud of these ladies - they have done a fabulous job this year.


Now - other things going on in life.....

my baby is about to turn 3. I'm having a hard time with it. I guess I'm just sad that my last baby is growing up. I'm not saying we're through with kids, but I'm just not sure that we're going to have another one. It may still happen in the future, but, who knows. So I'm having a hard time thinking about being through with babies. Tonight, we had to pull out more clothes from the shed. A) I get teary eyed from thinking of Taelor in those same clothes and B) I get teary eyed thinking Addi will be the last one to wear them. Isn't it funny how clothes can bring back so many memories. I think of the most random things that Taelor did when I see certain outfits. They are all good memories, but it's also sad to realize that time goes too quickly.

So, a very random post, but my life is pretty random right now!!!

Jake's Promotion!!

I have to brag on Jake. He got a promotion recently and we got the first reward (paycheck) from that promotion today!

I am so proud of Jake - and I don't say it often enough. As many of you know, he was working two jobs for several years so that I could stay home with our girls. It was tough working Dillard's and a paper route. And Dillard's was a dead end job. No where to go! So when this job in A-town opened up, we knew it was going to be a good thing.

And now, after being there just over a year, he's already received a promotion. He is the Fertilizer Manager. The company is planning some really big things here.

I always knew Jake could be successful if were ever given the chance. And this job was that chance. He needed a job where he could prove himself over time and work his way up. That's what he's doing.

So, praise God that He blessed Jake with this job! And Jake, way to go. I knew you could do it!!!

Poor Tae

I want to start by saying - I'm not a bad mom. My children takes baths regularly, they go to bed at a decent time, and we brush our teeth. Probably not as "religiously" as Jake would like - he does it 4-5 times a day...but still.

Well, poor Tae had 8 cavities. We found them this summer. All of a sudden (on our NM trip) she started complaining about her bottom molars hurting. Well, I looked and didn't really see anything (not that you can always see cavities) but we bought some Oragel and continued on. By the time we got to Jake's parents in Farmington, I looked in the top of her mouth to find HUGE, GAPING holes in her teeth. So we went to Jake's dentist in Farmington - he wouldn't touch her. He didn't want to get started on the large amount of cavities there. So he sent us home with pain medication and some antibiotics.

We survived the rest of our vacation, and came home to visit our dentist. He also would not touch them, so he sent us to a pediatric dentist. Well, they scheduled her for the work in Oct. Two months from the time we visited him. It was going to be a long wait. Well, they had an opening come up Sept. 11th that we were all too happy to take.

They put her under while they did it all. We knew she would probably have about 3 teeth pulled from our previous visit. Well, they ended up pulling seven (yes, 7) teeth, doing root canals and caps on 3, putting 2 spacers in and doing fillings on 2 teeth. Five of the pulled teeth were baby molars, and the other two were in the front. The permenant teeth above them are pushing through, and those baby teeth weren't budging. Thankfully, all the affected teeth are baby teeth, but the poor girl just has awful genes. Yes, we need to do more brushing (we are much more religious about it now). But apparently, Jake's family has awful teeth.

Hmm...Jake knew he was getting a diabetic, allergy, asthmatic woman when he married me. I didn't have a clue my children could also have AWFUL teeth. Now, my teeth aren't straight and pretty or anything, but they are healthy.

Well, back to Tae...once she came out of the anesthetic, she's done fine. But man, she was very violent waking up. But she has done GREAT since we've been home. We stayed home from school yesterday (we didn't get the 7+ inches that Lubbock got, so we still had school) but she's done better than I would have. Only took pain meds the first day and hasn't had anything since Thursday night.

That's been our week - hope yours hasn't been as eventful as Taelor's!

My gals!!!

Some of you have requested a pic from my days as a twirler - that will have to wait! For now, I wanted to post of pic of my HS girls this year. These are the ladies that I am so blessed to work with!!