Boy stuff

Here is a video of Sebastian eating his ice cream at Jason's last night.


And brothers playing together. They were having a great time kicking this bin as hard and fast as they could.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had Lito and Lita for the weekend and Uncle Matt, Tia Nana and Julian for Thanksgiving lunch, so there was a lot to be thankful for! :)

We gave Lito his slightly late birthday gift

And the guys monkeyed around a bit

 I can do it too!

The kids decided to rake a leaf pile for playing in (and throwing younger siblings in!)

Uncle Matt took this cool video 

The Yummy Turkey

 

 Breakfast with Lita

Little guy

He loves being chased these days, especially by Pawpaw and Manah. You just can't growl or act scary. He definitely doesn't like that!

Soccer Tournament!

Allia's team had their end of season tournament today. Going in they were a very close 2nd place overall. They won the first game 9-0 then went into the championship game against the 1st place team. They played an absolutely awesome game of soccer and won that game 2-0 for the championship. They were, of course, thrilled! Allia played so well and came very near scoring several goals and had a couple of assists again.

A cold front blew in just as the first game was starting. The wind was absolutely freezing! That was one cold game!

The sun came out in time for the 2nd game, but the wind was still really chilly!

Allia has been playing soccer with her neighborhood friends in the yard and talked one of them into coming to the championship game with us. So here are her fans for the 2nd game playing in the woods away from that wind!

The champs and coaches

 Looking forward to winter break and another great season in the spring!

4H trip to Rosenthal

We had a unique opportunity last night to visit Rosenthal Meat Science Center on A&M campus with our 4-H Food and Nutrition group. It was really interesting and educational...and admittedly a little fun for me to be back in a college classroom after so many years! :0 The girls enjoyed the experience, and I am happy to say that none of us have converted to be vegetarians afterward!

Cow skeleton

 Actual Cow Carcass (One side)

 Touring the facility...the giant smokers - Daddy would be jealous!

My future Aggie students

 

Sick boy

This guy spent the past 4 days with fever. Poor thing! He would hardly eat anything but a few popsicles. He spent a lot of time half dressed to keep him from getting too warm.

I got a half smile, but make no mistake, he has not been happy!
But he still managed to cheer on the aggies in his football PJ's at Pawpaw and Manah's house. Cutie! He likes to say, "Go, Aggies!"

Soccer Saturday...finally!

After 3 weekends of rainouts, we finally had soccer this weekend! Allia was so happy she didn't even mind having to play a double header!

Allia played so well, I was really proud of her. She had 2 attempted goals, one near miss and one stopped by the goalie. Then she had a really awesome assist so her teammate could score. Now we get ready for the tournament next weekend!

Last Hot Shots

Stephen had his last Hot Shots practice, and he had a great time as usual. There were a few kids missing, but here is his group.

Coach Rachel is by far his favorite coach. He even likes her better than the guy coach!

And their last game of "tails"

The Simple Things

Kids sure do have a way of taking simple things and making them quite enjoyable. Sunday after mass, we went to Pawpaw and Manah's to play ping pong in their garage since they were gone for the morning. The kids found these furniture rollers and had a grand time riding around on them and racing them like little go carts. It was so much fun that they all went back in the afternoon for another round, and Pawpaw even joined in the ping pong!

 After our usual Sunday dinner together, Sebastian snagged Pawpaw for some reading time. He really loves books these days!

Bug!

Austin caught one of the big flying grasshoppers in our yard, and the children enjoyed studying it. I think it was a bit injured because it was pretty slow. Mariana was able to catch it several times after Sebastian let it go! He was really intrigued!

Gymnastics Party

Soccer was rained out for the 3rd weekend in a row! Luckily we had a sweet friend's birthday party to keep us busy, and what fun that it was at a gymnastics place! (the kids have always begged for one of these parties!). They all had such a great time and really worked up an appetite. Anastasia ate 3 times her normal lunch. We may have to enroll her in a gymnastics class!

This guy was very careful and didn't do much until all of the other children were watching the birthday girl open gifts. Then he snuck onto the trampoline by himself and had a grand time!

Boxes

There is always a silver lining with a major appliance replacement...the box, or in this case, boxes! Although it was bulk trash day and very tempting, Austin and I restrained ourselves from putting out the boxes so the kids can enjoy them for a week.

Thankfulness

We got our Thankfulness tree up Monday, only a day late this time! Everyone was anxious to hang leaves, but I decided to do one per day this year to spread out the thankfulness a bit (and just maybe because I don't like cutting out thousands of paper leaves)! ;)

Speaking of thankful, another transformer arrived in the mail. The children were so excited and thankful to have another one to play with so that they can play together now.

And one more thing to be thankful for...air conditioning! We have been without it for about 12 days now. It hasn't been too bad since our temps have not gone above 84. But the nights have been warm and stuffy with the windows closed, and my allergies are going crazy from having the windows open all day. Our unit took a plunge while Austin was out of town for work, and we finally have a new one installed and working now. Yay! So thankful!

Lots of celebrating

It was another busy weekend even with all soccer cancelled again due to rain! Saturday we had morning chores and an afternoon watching the Aggie game. The younger crowd camped out in Manah's bedroom with Disney Jr.

Then we had a movie night with some good friends.

Sunday we had mass, RE, then the parish All Saints' Party. We also had dinner with Manah and Pawpaw honoring Allia's baptism day with a yummy chocolate cake. Then some friends of ours had their annual All Saints' Party yesterday, rescheduled after the weekend rain.

I totally failed at picture taking this weekend with only these three. Oh, well!