the game...

 What an exciting night we had Friday night!

 Kids with war paint on, rooting for our team!  Even though the game was 2 and a half hours away, we had a great crowd come up to cheer them on!

Dylan's soccer team tied 1 to 1 at the end of the game, it then went into 2 ten minute overtimes, and then a 7 round shootout!
Oh.My.Word. Now I remember why I don't like sports, I get way too involved, it gets me all riled up!
Unfortunately, we lost, but the team played very well, and it was quite an exciting game!
Then...on our way home, at around 11:30 pm, we pulled into Walmart to return a video, I jumped out of the car and heard this loud air leaking sound and realized it was my tire, it had a pretty significant hole in it!  Thankfully, my dad was with me, Ryan was riding with a friend not far behind us and was able to come help.  With the help of a complete stranger who gave us some pliers, fix a flat, a tire repair kit, and some air, we were able to fix it, and it is still holding strong today! 

District soccer champs!

Our team won districts!!!

Tomorrow we are heading up to Suttons Bay again for the soccer regional final game! If they win tomorrow night they have only 2 more games to be the division 4 state champions!!!   It has been so much fun watching these guys play, even Dylan, a freshman on the varsity team has had some playing time!  I don't like sports generally, however, I find myself getting pretty excited and really enjoying it when they play as good as they have lately!  It is fun because we know several of the kids on the team from church.  4 of them were adopted from the same orphanage we have gone to in Mexico, and have all come home since we moved here.  Awesome kids who've had a rough start in life and aren't perfect{who is?} but are loved beyond measure and are amazing on the soccer field.  Dylan's good friend Sammy, also a freshman is number one in the state for assists, and Marcos is number 2 on the leader boards for goals!

Way to go guys, we are so proud of you!

Fall fun...

Check out this sky, it has been so beautiful lately.

We were given some pumpkins and we decided to paint them in hopes they would last a tad longer.

{which, by the way, didn't help, 2 of them are rotten already and we painted them on Saturday.}

The boys painted theirs with chalkboard paint and planned to write on them with chalk.  We have 2 black pumpkins and one with black and orange stripes!  Clever kids.

Dylan decided to try something different, he spray painted his pumpkin to look like a candy corn.

The girls and their hairy pumpkins!

Fun times and great memories made with these precious treasures God has given us!

An update on Luisa... she is still coughing, but only a few times a day and unfortunately, there is still sometimes puke involved!  Please pray it goes away for good!  Thanks.

a few random things...

Anaya, after her first day of Friday addition, looking a tad disheveled!

The boys measuring the size of Noah's ark, which, I might add, was amazingly huge!

School is going well so far for everyone, we are thankful for a great few weeks in.  Anaya is loving Friday Addition, (the kids go to a home school group every Friday) it feels weird to just have Lucy with me.

 I have started including house work as part of school and we call it "home economics class."  {Thank you Dorothy M. for the great idea!}  Since renaming the 'chores' and doing them as part of our day instead of tacked on to the end of it, the kids have been much better about getting it done without complaining!  YAY!

Dylan plays on the varsity soccer team since there is only one team, and even as a freshman has been able to get in some playing time.  Their team is doing very well and it is fun to watch his games. {yes, I actually said that!}

Dylan is enjoying high school.  I feel like we hardly ever see him anymore, he is involved in sports and has practice or a game then homework and it's off to bed, pretty much.  But, as I look back over the years I am so thankful for the time we had together here at home and I pray that he will be a blessing to those he comes in contact with every day.

How many of you have this on your "To Do List?"  Notice it says "last."  Um yeah, they would do this first and spend all day out there with those cows if I let them!

Lucy has been sick..ish for nearly a month now.  She is totally fine until, she has a "Bronchial spasm."  Then she coughs so hard she nearly passes out and sometimes she throws up or has tons of nasty junk...I'll save you the details, but its bad.  Really bad. I have brought her in to 3 different DR.'s and the ER, and all say bronchitis...one even said "mild Bronchitis!"  That was after I video taped her coughing fit.  Mild my foot!  Shes been on steroids, antibiotics and breathing treatments, nothing seems to help.  So that's been fun...Thankfully she is totally fine most of the time and the fits seem to be getting fewer and farther between, hopefully she can start sleeping in her own bedroom soon?!?

I think that is all for now, we are enjoying the cooler fall weather and getting settled into our new routine, it feels good to have turned that corner of dreading the end of summer and I am feeling rather blessed!

school...

 Dylan's backpack is packed and ready for the first day of HIGH SCHOOL!!!...

All of the home school books are here and organized.  I will have kindergarten, 2nd, 4th and 6th grades going on over here...

Tomorrow is the big day for all but one....

Ready or not the time has come!

4H

If you read this post and this post, then you know that the boys have been raising feeder calves for 4H.  Well, today was the big day for these 2.  4H small Market show day.  Aren't they the cutest little farmers you ever did see?

Today was the day all of the time spent with their calves practicing was put on display for all to see!  Here are a few pictures of them with their calves over the last few months as they cared for them and learned all of the many things they needed to know for raising and showing their calves.

We learned about all sorts of things like, banding, dehorning, marketing, showmanship, clipping, trimming and yes, I say we because I was at like 98 percent of their meetings(because Ryan was working,no choice,) I too got quite the education!

At one of the clinics they had a bunch of calves for the kids to practice showing and the girls and Easton had a cow to 'hang on to' as well! I am sure there is much more of this is in our future!

Jayden and Spencer practicing 'setting up' their calves using their show sticks(who knew there was such a thing!)....

 Bath time!(once again, who knew? Oh I could go on and tell you about the blow drying, hair spraying, hair dying that goes on with these show cows, but this is getting long as it is, so I'll just stick to our cows...)

I love this picture because it shows the sweet smile on Jayden's face as he looks at Socks.  This kid LOVES his cows!  So much so, that he wants to be a beef farmer when he grows up, or actually now.  He asked for more cows for his birthday!

These boys have worked so hard between shoveling and hauling manure, stacking hay and straw,  to feeding and walking their cows and all without complaint.  This 4H project has been such a great experience for them.  (sometimes a pain for us with the meetings and expenses that we have yet to recoup...but totally worth it!)

I am not a huge fair fan, in fact I think I was at the fair once since we moved here. But, this week, we have made up for that, we have been at the fair every. single. day. and then some....

 There they are Socks and T-Bone.  They are tiny yet, they didn't make weight so we can not sell them at the auction as we had hoped, but we kinda figured that would happen, we had a late start due to some misinformation, but no biggie, they could potentially sell them in the barn on Saturday, however, neither of the boys want to sell them!

Jayden took 3rd place for showmanship in his division!  We were pretty happy with that for his first time ever.  Way to go Jayden!

 Spencer took 6th place out of 10 I believe, which was very good and we were so happy for that as well!  Great job Spencer!

They also both got A's on their project notebooks which detailed all of the costs and feed types and amounts, photos, marketing info, etc...lots of work!  So proud of you boys!!

Take a kid fishing day...

Dylan and Jayden participated in the "Take a kid fishing day" this year.  It was a great opportunity for them to get out on the big lake.  Of course they get to go fishing with Ryan regularly, but unfortunately, our boat is too small for salmon fishing.

Ryan helped pack up the fish...

Jayden got on a boat with a friend from church that we didn't even know was going to be there!  They caught 3 nice ones, and had a great time together!

The people who take the kids fishing volunteer their boat, gas and time for the day!  They had a hot dog lunch and each kid got a trophy, t-shirt, and a gift bag with lures and bobbers!

Dylan's boat caught 11 fish!  He didn't know the other kid on his boat, but had a great time with him and their crew.

Each kid came home with 2 big bags of fish!  If your kid ever has the chance to participate in an activity like this I highly recommend it!