A Pre-Thanksgiving Story

This is our new steer!

Erica is the pretty princess.

Well, lots has happened! So much has happened that Mom told me to separate before Thanksgiving and during/after Thanksgiving into 2 separate blogs entrys. So I shall. This is, obviously, the one before Thanksgiving, since I'm going to do them in chronological order. I couldn't get some of the pictures to move or allow me to put words underneath them if they allowed me (ever so graciously) to move them, so I decided to ignore them. The pictures (if they were in chronological order) would have Sawyer being puffy and showing off first. Then Erica and I being pretty pretty princesses. We were bored and hyper, so we decided to play the game. We recruited Kayla, but she didn't enjoy it at all. I couldn't get a pic of her, but I took some of Erica and myself. It was fun! I took the picture of the house today, about 5 minutes ago for Maryanna. I love you girl. Here's your picture. My room is the one above the front door on the right. That's my window. And now for the black cow and the weird trailer. That's a long story. This is why Mom is making me separate before and after Thanksgiving. Here goes. We (Dad, Kayla, Erica, and I) borrow a trailer from a friend, Mr. Audalay. We buy all our hay from him, and he's a really good friend of ours. We borrow it from him to take Tavi and the goats over to him to be bred. We fix it up (it's hard to tell, huh?) and then we keep it for a while so we can take Tavi back when she's done getting bred. Well, we go over there Wednesday night at around 5 to pick her up. We did it that soon and that late because Dad had told Mr. Audalet that we wanted a steer from him and whenever he rounded them up to just separate Tavi and the steer and we'd come pick them up. He calls and says that he's got them locked up in his pens and wants us to go get them. We have to weigh Dad's truck first (because if we weigh the truck and trailer before we get the steer and after, we'll know how much he weighs and can pay Mr. Audalet accordingly) so we weigh and pick up the steer, go back, weigh again, and then pick up Tavi. You can guess by this time that it's just about dark. And I left out one little detail that should make this really interesting for you: the trailer has no back lights. (I know...bad! Really bad!) So we're driving home in the dark with two cows in this dumpy, 65 year old trailer. (The tire that is the subject of my story you are about to read is pictured: it's the front one of the two seen.) And our friends, the Hastings are supposed to be there that night, and we needed to finish cleaning the house. Well, Dad decides that without lights on the trailer, we're not going to take the interstate. We'll take Walden. Well, we're not 2 minutes onto Walden when this little car goes in front of us, then slows down goes behind us, then goes back in front of us again, and rolls down his window. I know. Busted. I wish that was what had happened! The guy inside the car says "Hey, you've got a blown out tire that looks pretty bad." We say thanks and pull over into this subdivision. It's 6 at night, and in Texas that means it's been dark for about 30 minutes. We call a friend, Jeremy, who lives in Sour Lake to come help us cause we have a spare tire, but it's completely empty. So it takes him about 40 minutes to get to where we are. While we're waiting, we pull the tire out of it's spot and guess what comes out with it?! A dead hornet's nest, a dead spider, and a huge mound of dirt. It was really gross. It was cold, too. It was pretty much a nightmare. But the worse is yet to come! Haha. There was some fun. But it started out a nightmare. The Hastings were so much fun! I'm so glad they came!!!!! But the most interesting thing happened the next morning. Thanksgiving morning. It was pretty much a nightmare and very unimaginable. You think I'm joking. Read on.

New puppies, tigers, cows, etc....

I finally got a pic of Tavi on here!

This is the puppy Kayla is going to get for Christmas! Isn't it cute??

The puppy being sweet with her aunt

As you can see, the puppy loves KK!

The tiger, Brutus!

Well, top to bottom! :) Tavi is finally pictured for all to see! I talk about her all the time, but you've never been able to see her before! Now you can. The picture was taken about 1 year ago, when we first got her. She's about a year old in the picture. She has grown bigger since then, and the tag in her ear was taken out as soon as she would let us near her. She was very skittish at first, and Cleo didn't help! We let Tavi into the pasture, and Cleo decides some fun at poor Tavi's expense, and herds her all over the pasture! I wasn't there to see, (I was at choir) but I heard stories. Now for the puppy!! I love puppies, don't you? They're so cute! And Kayla's new one is really cute (exceeded only by my puppy, Philly, and it's tied with Grace for cuteness). I didn't see the puppy, but Dad and Kayla went to see it. Here's what's happening with the puppy. She's not old enough to be taken away from it's mommy, so Kayla went to save her pick of the litter, and we can pick her up sometime in mid-December. (Kayla could say the exact date and time and then go into a monologue about how cute she is and how much she loves and misses her! But I could have too if I was separated from Philly! hehe) She went to see it on Sunday when we got back from church, and she was dying all the way home from church and drove us all crazy when we were eating! But she loved the puppy. And everybody found out about it at the Harvest Banquet last night at the church. There was lots of yummy food, but I was the unfortunate victim of being too far back in line, so I missed out on mashed potatoes, rolls, and Mom's deviled eggs. But it was still great, and I get it all again in 3 days!! hehe! :) I'm pretty excited. But at the Harvest Banquet, we raised 490 pairs of shoes for the program Shoes for Orphan Souls. It was pretty cool. But, before I forget, about Kayla's puppy: if any of y'all think of a cute name for her, then just comment and tell us. Kayla is at a loss for a name for her puppy, and she doesn't like any of the names we've come up, so y'all's help would great, and fun! And about Brutus. He's not really evil looking like that in real life. He was angry at Erica and I because we wouldn't give him any more food. So that's why he's glaring. But he purred while we took the pic. He hasn't caught any more little mice things, except for the 2 I told you about. Or at least I thought I told you about. I don't know whether to be grateful or not! :) And Maryanna, I'll put a pic of the house on here for you in a little while. It's rainy and cloudy and almost dark so the picture wouldn't be good at all. So I promise I'll do it next time I blog! :) Sorry I couldn't do it now. It was great to talk to you, girl! And everybody else, we would love to hear from you. Either updates or names for KK's new puppy!

P.S. Y'all are probably wondering, "What's up with the different sized pictures?" Well, it's just something that I'm experimenting with. Which size do y'all like better?

I can post pics!

sweet girls

Phils

Gracie

this picture turned out really good, this was the first pic last night that I took after I realized the power of the flash!

the turkeys: Tom Sawyer, Henny Penny, and Turkey Lurkey

OK! I figured out how to put pics on and type what I wanted to under them! Yeah! Three cheers for me! Hahaha. Maybe I will start blogging now if I can think of anything to say since I figured this out. Don't mind my babbling. Erica

Critters and other things

OK I'm not sure how to put pictures on, so I'm not sure if this is going to work or not. Last night Tom was puffing up and gobbling, so I ran up to get the camera to take a pic of him and when I get back, he decides he's done. How timely. I'm going to try to put some pictures on I took last night and this morning. I took several and if they turned out I will put them on, but it wasn't until the very end when I discovered the flash so most of my pics are really dark and you can't see any of them. :) Anyway, oh I'm going to try to put a video of mom and Kayla blowing up a balloon and letting it go, but I may have to take it off ... so, we'll see. Today we have been cooking pie crusts and it has been a blast, they actually turned out. (see previous blogs) Mom made 7 and will probably use them all on Thanksgiving. 13 people can put away a lot of food.

In Honor of the Hastings. :)

We always take pictures before we leave the Hastings house. This one is about 1 year old.

I found a pic of the goats! This is Joy, as a kid.

In Galveston, there was a paddle boat at our rental house. It was fun. Go, Grandma!

This is Brutus, my wonderful cat. Isn't he so cute?

This is about 2 years ago, when we went hiking, we found crawfish. It was way fun!

Sarah holding one. She was a lot braver then I was when it came to holding those things!

This is a picture of us, including two friends, Lannie and Clay. They are so much fun! Another picture of us in the paddle boat.

There was a pool in Galveston, and the boys were throwing us girls. It was way fun.

Erica took this picture when we were at Caddo Lake. Isn't it great?



Well, substitute one problem for another, huh? I finally figured out how to do more then 5 pics in an entry, then I can't figure out how to type underneath some of those pics because the words are coming out blue and underlined, and I can't make it go away without erasing the pic. So I've stopped trying for now, and just didn't type anything under the picture. But right now, you're probably wondering why all the Hastings pictures, right? Well, in honor of them coming (and me being bored) I decided to put some pictures of them on our blog, and on the way, I found some other fun random pics. But I also thought of something else. Did you ever notice that right now, there are more pictures then words? That's kinda crazy. But you can blame it on me, I guess. I am the one posting all of them. (Except for the last 2 entrys. The one of all of us girls wearing masks and the one that just says that 'the Hastings are coming...bye peeps'.) Those definitely weren't me. But others are entitled to a little blogging on here, I suppose. :) Now for the stories behind the pictures. I really should stop showing y'all what happened 2 years ago. It's probably boring y'all. But I get bored and then I think of this, and then I want to show y'all everything. But for the stories. (Focus Alissa!) All of the pictures of the Hastings are self-explanatory. The hiking was way fun! I will remember that for forever, along with Buffalo Creek. Right, guys? It was a blast! I found that picture of Joy on my hunt for pictures, and I decided to include it cause y'all have never seen them. The other one is Cookie, and we don't have many pictures of her, but when she gets back (which I'm hoping is very soon!) I'll get a pic of her on here. Along with one of Tavi. We need one of her on here, too. The picture of Joy, though, was when she was in our garage. She was really lonely, and constantly bleated and got into trouble, so we had to goat-sit her. It was crazy. So she's sitting on top of the ball box in the garage when none of us felt like watching her, but she wouldn't be quiet. And Brutus! He's a cutie and a sweetie. I love him so much! The other day he found 2 mice things, but I don't really know what they were. Because when we got out there, it was hard to define what it was. We were really proud of him, though! He's so cute when we find it. He knows what he did, and expects extra food for it. I love him! He was the first animal we got on our farm. Cleo rolling is fun to watch. I love it when she does. Especially when she's in the backyard. You can get some great pictures! Sometimes you can catch her when she's laying down for a long time. But her favorite part is rolling. I have no doubt that she does it at least once a day. :) The paddle boat, and the one of Claire, my cousin, flying through the air is when we were on family vacation in Galveston with Dad's side of the family. We rented a house (sniff! I think it's gone! sniff!) that had lots of cool little things like a paddle boat, a pool, and every mermaid thing you could think of. (Right, Jenna? haha!) It was really cool. Well, in the paddle boat pic, we, or should I say Kayla and Claire, convinced Grandma to go paddle boating. It was great to watch. And the other one of us 3 and Claire. We had fun doing it, but I got tired fast. That can wear you out! And now, y'all are probably wondering about the human pyramid. Well, it's a long story, and I'll definitely make it longer, cause I add stuff in. But here goes. We went on a mission trip this summer with our youth choir from church. "We" meaning Mom, Erica, and I. It was a lot of fun, and we were there for the 4th of July. But I'll get to that in a minute. So we went to Boston. It was a lot of fun. A blast. And some day (probably not far into the future) I'll devote an entire entry to Boston, but not today. Long story short. The guys that went wanted to make a human pyramid. Really badly. And they had tried lots of times. In one of our performance songs, they even did one involving 6 of them. 3 on bottom, then 2, and 1. It got easier and easier for them. They tried one with 4 on bottom and had a hard time with it, but eventually got it. So then they decide to try 5 on bottom. It was great. You can't tell, but there are about 40 people watching along with the person who took this picture. Probably everyone who went to Boston was watching. They tried the first time, and fell. Then they decide to try again, and they get it. The guy on top was probably up there for about 4 seconds. Maybe 5 if you push it. But closer to 3 or 4 seconds. Not very long. But it was still cool. And since this entry was supposed to be about the Hastings, I'll finish with a word about them. I love them, and they're coming for Thanksgiving, and they'll be here in 5 days. I can't wait. I'm way excited!!! I'm giddy with excitement! We're going to have so much fun! :)

October Vacation

who could that be?

and this one?

oh, one more! who is that masked girl?

star gazing

roasting marshmellows for smores, yummy!

pretty as a picture

how sweet :)
They're smiling now!Fun at the park

3-man totem poleMy favorite picture!

These are a few more pictures from our "camping" trip (in a cabin) to Caddo Lake in north Texas. We only went for 2 days, but we all had a wonderful time. From hiking to eating to getting messy from eating smores (always a must while camping!) to star gazing to playing games & fun in the park. We stopped by a small town & went shopping - yes shopping. It was fun, we found a few funny treasures & of course, photo opportunities. :) We also took a few pictures that may qualify as "school" pictures - we'll post them soon. Shelly

The Hastings are coming!!!

Hey guys! I'm so excited! The Hastings are coming to our house for Thanksgiving! We get to hang out with them and play around and celebrate all at once. They won't get here for another week though. :( They are getting here Wednesday night and leaving Saturday morning. Talk later peeps.

Some Pics

This was taken when Kalee came over. Love you, girl!

The strange way she looks is from the fun side effects that the Photo Booth has.

This is a great one of Erica. :) Don't you love her hair?

This is an older one of Erica and me being silly.

This is one of the family photos we took on Sunday.

Well, there isn't much to say on this one, since I just finished the other one. I think this might be about 30 minutes after the other one. Kalee lives in AZ, for those of you who don't know my awesome cousin. :) She was so much fun to have here!! And I tried to get a good one of Kayla, but there isn't a recent one of her that looks okay. That's the best I could do. I did get a good one of Erica though. Don't you like it? I don't know exactly what I'm doing in the other one, but oh well. Maybe LSU or Florida had just lost a football game. :) But the scrap on my chin in that one is from an unfortunate meeting with the bottom of a pool. And the one of us was pretty good, I thought. It was Dad's idea for all of us to wear black. I didn't like it, but it looks ok. That's all for now, again. My school has to get done sometime. Ciao!

Animals and a yummy cake

This is a pic I took of myself on Photo Booth

This is the yummy cake Mom made that fell apart. Story below.

This is a picture of our tom, his name is Sawyer :), puffing up like a real tom. He's on the right.

Another picture of my beautiful dog. :)

This is Nancy Grace and her chicks.

Hey everybody! This is...well, you know who. Well, I'll start from the top. The pic of me is from today. I'll get a good pic of Erica and Kayla and Mom and Dad. Ohh! I just thought of something. We just took some pics of the family on Sunday, but we didn't get very far. Nobody wanted to take pictures, then the battery on the camera kept dying, but we got a good one. When I'm done with this post, (cause I can only do 5 pics at a time... blogspot rules) I'll post the other pics. Now for the story about the cake. Dad was going to have a Thanksgiving lunch at work today, so yesterday, Mom made him a chocolate pound cake. She worked really hard making it. Mom left, and told Erica and me (I know. Smart, right? Never leave cooking up to us!) to get it out of the oven when the timer went off. We were in a rush to walk the dogs and said ok. Well, we rush the walk and get back home with 2 minutes to spare. It smelled really good, but we remembered what Mom had told us, and waited till the timer went off. (All you cookers out there can see what's coming!) Well, as you know, we were supposed to get it out then, cause it was done, but in our rush to leave with the dogs, Erica and I didn't get all the instructions. Well, Mom got home, and said, "Uh oh! That cake smelled burned! Did y'all take it out on time?" We assured her that we took it out the minute that the timer went off. She said, "Well, didn't it smell done when y'all got home?" We said yes, but we waited for the timer to go off. She freaks (cause this cake was a lot of work) and tries to get it out of the pan. It was fully cooled off at this time. Well, in her attempt, it breaks in the pan. She gets upset and calls Dad, and they decide to cut it before they leave, no big deal. Well, Dad takes it out when he gets home, and the top doesn't come with it. You can look at the pic again. It completely fell apart. But, let me tell you, I'm so glad it did! That cake is so good!! Now for Sawyer. The turkeys are really funny. When it starts to get dark or they get tired, the roost. Their choice this time, and most of the time, was our backyard fence. Sawyer puffed all up because Philly and Grace were barking at them, and Kayla snapped a pic of them. The hen on the left, Turkey Lurkey, thinks she's a tom, I'm pretty sure. She tries to gobble like Sawyer sometimes, and she puffs all up like him, and she's mean like him. But the sweet hen, Henny Penny, knows she's a hen, and she's my favorite. She hasn't scratched me like the other two, and she doesn't act like a tom. The pic of Philly was taken at the same time that the pic of Nancy Grace and her little chicks was. She is such a sweet mom to them. She used to have 5, but we gave 3 of them away. So now she has 2. They are about 6 or 7 weeks, by my estimation; and they're getting adventuresome, without getting big, if you know what I mean. They can squeeze through the bottom of the fence into Kayla's garden. Nancy Grace, being the mom that she is, flies over the top to be with them. No matter how many times we put them back in their coop, they get out again, so we let them run around out there for most of the day. They are so cute. And Nancy is unusually large because when people come around, she puffs all up and clucks. It's pretty funny. Mom just called this a book, so I'll go now. I'm gonna post the pics of the family, and any other random pic I might find. Who knows? Adios for now, or ciao. hehe.

Update by yours truly

Hey everybody. You can make a guess as to who this is. :) I've been waiting for Mom to post something new on here, but she hasn't, so I decided to. Kayla has come safely back from hunting, and she enjoyed herself immensely. I would post some pics on here of her trip, but her camera broke down during the trip, and subsequently, we have no pictures. Another important thing that's been happening is that Erica is recovering from an infection in her leg, called cellulitis. (That's probably the wrong spelling, but I don't know the correct way. Mom can fix it later for me.) She is more prone to it, because your lymph is what keeps you healthy and what fights disease. She is doing really well, and you almost can't tell that she had it. The antibiotics are making her sleepy, but it shouldn't for much longer. One more little thing. It's raining a lot over here. I think we got close to 10 inches in one day. It's flooded really badly. On our way home from babysitting last night, a lot of our road was covered with water. It was bad. But it's gone down a lot, because it hasn't rained recently. So the ground needed it. Mom will probably write some better, more accurate, interesting things later, but that's all for me. I was going to post some more pics of our Boston Mission Trip, but I'll talk to Mom and Erica, and see which ones they want on here. Talk to y'all later! :)

hehe :)

This is one about a year old of us being silly. Erica took it.

This is Philly, as a cute little puppy.

Hey everybody. It's me, again. Liz. :) Umm, I was bored so I decided to get on and post something. This is my new toy! This is fun! Kayla is gone with the Devilles, family friends, hunting by San Anton. She's probably in a little watch stand thing right now, as we speak. With her camo jacket. Or she could be sleeping, or playing tag with the girls, or she could already be skinning something she caught. Well, I'm gonna get on and see if I can find some more fun pics of us. And KK will probably get on when she gets back from hunting and put on some pics. We just played the funnest game while babysitting the Downs. It's called Disney's Scene It. It's really fun. You should try it some time. That's all Mom will let me do. We're off to the library and a football game, and then homework.