Misc. Happenings

Since I haven't posted much lately, I have added a conglomerate of pictures from the last couple of months.

Some of the annual pictures of the girls in our backyard.

The girls' class did a BBQ chicken dinner & bake sale for their student convention in March. They raised between 1/3 - 1/2 of the money needed from this fundraiser (their 1st one so far). Below is a picture of some of us pricing bake sale items. We also received many compliments on the chicken-the chefs did a GREAT job!!!

Kerri waited patiently (well, kind of) for Thanksgiving to arrive, so she could use our outdoor pumpkin as a target. She, along with Jeff, did a great job of mutilating it. :)

"Angels" in our school's Christmas program.

The "mayor" & a "wiseman" killin' time until the program started.

This is a shot of our Christmas tree. Kerri was messing around with her camera & trying to get a unique special effects shot for student convention in the Spring. This was my favorite picture of the ones that she took.

If some of you have been faithful readers of my blog, you may remember the manger scene that I posted that Jeff had "accessorized" with some of the girls' packed away Barbie stuff & added a machine gun for our tree topper angel to hold.

Well........................Kerri is now following in her dad's footsteps. McDonald's is offering their holiday/custard pies again (the didn't have them last year) so Kerri had to save the box in honor of them selling them again. You should have heard her when we noticed that they were offering them this year. :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

To all of my family & friends:

October Happenings

My cousin, Aleda, made all of these hat & scarf sets which my students LOVED! The girls & I, each picked a set, but we didn't model for a picture. Thanks for making them, Aleda!

Kerri's 14th birthday!! Peanut-butter pie......yummy!!!

Fall Colors

Just thought I would share some of the beautiful fall colors around our house. The trees in our yard & along the side of our yard always supply us with beauty each fall. The girls get tired of it, but I always take their pictures outside during the autumn season since the trees are such a great backdrop of color. Even Zeus gets in on the shots now! :) As I tell them, I don't get many pictures of them anymore (especially since they are teenagers now) so they have to put up with some of my traditions. One is the annual fall photo session & the others are professional pictures for Christmas & Christmas Eve pictures. After all I won't have too many years left to take my traditional annual pictures, so that's my great bargaining chip or pathetic mom tactic!!! :) :)

*These are posted especially for my cousin, Aleda, who lives in Florida & misses out on the beautiful colors of Fall.

The ending of Farmer's Market

Well, the girls & I decided to stop doing Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings. We lasted 5 out of the 6 months, and thoroughly enjoyed it! Since school has started & Sharree has also started a couple of college classes, we found that all the baking was getting to be a bit much in the evenings. We usually mixed up our cookie batters on Tuesday evening, baked a few dozen on Wednesday evening after church, and then baked the rest on Thursday evening. Most of the time, the oven was on from 4:30 until 12:00/12:30 in order to finish baking all the cookies. Our repertoire of cookies consisited of the following: Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip, Banana-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, Soft Sugar, Pumpkin, Molasses, Double Chocolate Chip, & Chocolate No-Bakes. We did not do all of these at the same time, but usually offered at least 4-5 different types each week. Then on Fridays, we made coffee cakes, Chocolate No-Bakes, & Toffee Bars.
We did a final count of our baking achievements and came up with the following totals:
4 batches of Toffee Bars
6 pies (Blueberry & Apple Struesel)
33 batches of coffee cakes (each batch= 5- 8in. cakes or 6 loaves; double layered)
300 dozen cookies (we sold @ 93% of those/the others were for samples or us)
We met & became acquainted with many wonderful people that were either fellow vendors- Kathy & Wacky [his name fits him :)], Diane, Jennifer, Karen, Larry, the Steinkes, Barb, Tonya, the Brunks, ...- or faithful customers -Becky, Ray & Dolly, the Coffeys, & many that I can recognize only by their faces, but will work on learning their names next year. I am quite tired of baking for now, but will be ready again next summer!

Licensed Driver

The biggest event in the last couple of weeks is that Sharree passed her driver's test and is now a licensed driver. She received a perfect score on her driving & did excellent on the maneuverability portion (the only part she was a bit nervous about which is a great accomplishment for her-not being very nervous or worried).

Tonight she drove on her own (well her sister was with her) for the first time to church to practice a song for service tonight. As I waved to her as she drove off, I told Jeff that we were at a new chapter of life, to which he replied that he DID NOT like it. :)

We did some reminiscing of our own & remembered that we were not nervous at all driving on our own, but realized that our parents probably were. I did ask mom this evening if that was the case when I started driving on my own and she answered, "Yes!", though I wasn't surprised.

It seems like you get through one phase of life with your child and another is right there to take its place! So, as Jeff & I are quickly realizing.......... our babies are growing up!! AAAAHHH!!!!!

School

My students (-one).

School started on Wednesday, August 26th for us, and this is my group of students minus one boy who is recovering from a tonsillectomy. Two of the students are new to our school this year, and are fitting in nicely. Our class consists of one 1st grader, three 3rd graders, one 4th grader, three 5th graders, & two 6th graders.
The caution banner on the door behind the students does not mean that there is something wrong with it or that rennovations are occurring. It goes with the theme of our classroom: Kids Under Construction. :)