I'm a killer......

I had my first hunting experience today...... To my surprise I ran across a few people who thought it was rather hilarious the thought of me hunting. Guess I never thought of myself as the prissy girl who would never hunt, but others do...or something along that lines anyway. Candice and Rigo were both suprised and the guy that sold me my hunting license asked me if I'd ever hunted and looked at me like I was crazy for buying it. Well.....not only did I hunt, but I did a pretty good job I think. I took a few practice shots at some beer cans....3 for 3, then shot my deer with my first shot. Her name is Jane...Jane Doe. She may be small, but it's my first one and I'll be back out there to get my buck later this season. My sister got her second one today....a 9 point buck. She hunted for the 1st time last year. I'll post pictures of her beauty later...don't want to make myself look bad. There are some pics of Abigail and Kaden..they always have a great time at the pasture!

I was a little sad for a moment...maybe a little grossed out too :)

Happy Halloween!!!

So, better late than never. Well, you could say that I procrastinated on Abigail's costume. And when I say procrastinate, I mean I waited until Wednesday night and there was only 1 costume in town that would fit her....so that's what I bought. I thought it was pretty lame, but I didn't have time to get creative. They had to dress up for school so she went as a sooner because I knew her costume would not make it all day and I wanted her to be comfortable. Here are some pics. Her costume ended up being a hit at the mall. That's where we went, we were tired and so were the babies, so our halloween excursion was short and sweet. The babies liked it and we got to hear how cute kaden and abigail were about 100 times so it was fun!!

Kaden was superman for school and Abigail was a Sooner girl

They didn't quite appreciate their costumes at first....

Kaden was Corn on the Cob (a costume my Meemaw made years ago) and Abigail was Smarties

More pictures from Oklahoma.....

Here are some more pictures from our trip to Oklahoma City during the hurricane. It was Abigail's first birthday and she also had her 1st professional haircut. I cut it when she was 6 months old, so she's had 2 haircuts already and she's only 1. Thanks again Aunt Candice and Uncle Mark for letting us have Abigail's birthday party spur of the moment at your house!! We love you!

Before.....

How cute is this? Looking at herself..

After....

How ugly is this cake?? That's what you get for last minute I guess. I'm just going to tell her that Kaden wrote on it for her.

The family...Love you!

Happy Birthday Abigail!

Happy 1st Birthday Abigail!!

I can't believe a year has gone by. It seems like yesterday was the day she was born. She's walking, talking (mostly her own language, but still talking a Lot), has had 2 haircuts already and has 3 teeth (they are slow to come in, but that doesn't stop her from eating). She's the best thing that's ever happened to me and she has such a wonderful personality. I truly am blessed. Here are a couple of pictures from Abigail's birthday last week. These are from Candice's camera. I still haven't got mine loaded onto the computer yet. I will hopefully get to that tomorrow. I have some good ones of her eating cake and opening presents. Wasn't Abigail so cute?!

Hurricane Drill.....

So, I'm sure you all know how the hurricane turned out. Did some damage, but not to Victoria. Guess we could just call it a drill. Erica and I got some practice in fleeing. We packed up and headed to Oklahoma City on Thursday. We didn't want to chance it with the babies. It ended up turning away from us and we didn't even get rain and the wind only blew 35 mph or so. Typical day in Oklahoma. So, it turned out good here. And we got to have a nice visit with some friends and family. Abigail's birthday was on Saturday. She's the big 1 year! We had a little spur of the moment party. It was great and thank you Aunt Candice and Uncle Mark for letting us have it at your house. We love you! I'll post pictures of it soon. Abigail also got her first professional haircut. Pictures of the great weekend to come.......

An adventurous day....

Today has been crazy.....I got cursed out by one of my girl students today. She dropped the f-bomb on me in front of the whole class. Good times. Then we had to spend the afternoon getting our classrooms ready for Hurricane Ike. That's right, hurricane. Apparently it has a bulls eye on us and the district cancelled classes for the rest of the week (along with all the other districts around us). The town seems to be in a bit of a frenzy, some gas stations are out of gas, supplies such as water and batteries are selling like hot cakes, the bank had about 20 cars in the drive thru when I went (I didn't stop either). Right now there is a voluntary evacuation, but a mandatory evacuation is going to happen. Just not sure when it will be put into place. My dad has spent the afternoon boarding up the house. There are already houses boarded up all over the place, along with the giant grocery store boarding its windows too. Towns around us are evacuating, so I'm sure traffic is going to be interesting. Hopefully not a nightmare. I'm still not sure where we're heading. At first we were thinking San Antonio, but now we're not so sure that's far enough away, so we may end of in Oklahoma for several days. My first hurricane, and from what it sounds it's going to be a doozy. Category 3 possibly 4 when it hits land. For those of you who don't know, Victoria is only 30 miles from the water. Guess we'll see what happens. I just hope the house is in one piece when we get back.

1 down..... 186 More to go....

Today was the first day of school and it went suprisingly well. I was very nervous and overwhelmed this last friday while I was preparing. I cried several times, but after Finally getting completely organized I felt really good about it and wasn't very nervous at all. Now on to day 2. I'm excited about it and the 8th graders aren't nearly as big as I had pictured. I will try to take pictures of my classroom this week and post them!

Binky Backup

Judging from these pictures I guess you could say that Abigail LOVES her binky's. She crawled room to room like this the other day. Aunt Erica thought it was too cute and snapped some shots. I guess she's afraid that Kaden may steal one and she'll need to have very quick access to another. Let me tell you, she's quick on the draw too. It takes about 1 second to get one of those in her mouth if you take one of them out. It took her quite awhile to even learn to take one, and now you can't hardly take it away. It was pretty cute though seeing her roaming around with 3 of them!

Very Sad News

My Aunt Sharon passed away today at about 1:00pm. This is a very tragic loss for the entire family. My cousins are especially having a difficult time. They lost a sister about 15 years ago at the age of 14, so to lose their mom at the age of 49 is beyond unbearable. Their hearts have suffered too much too soon. They are going to need more prayers then ever now. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers during this incredibly painful time in their lives.

Prayers Needed

My mom's only sister, my Aunt Sharon, has been in the hospital a little over a week now and is need of all your prayers. She has cancer and was very critical for several days to the point they weren't sure she was going to pull through it. She is doing better, but better is still not good at all. She is only 49 with a husband, children and grandchildren who have all been very brave and strong thus far. They are all in desperate need of your prayers. 49 is so terribly young, so if you're reading this, please take the time to say a prayer for her health as well as her family.

Terrible Blogger

I have been terrible about blogging lately. Not that I've ever done a very consistent job at it, but I've been even worse recently. I've been a little stressed and working on getting things prepared for the beginning of school. I never imagined there would be so much to do. I'm not even sure I'm getting close to getting everything finished. Guess I'll find out soon enough. School starts the 25th and I'm officially starting this week. I'm starting to get pretty nervous about it.

Abigail has been doing well. Getting very big. I can't believe how much she has grown. She'll be 1 year old in 1 month. I haven't even begun to think about her party. I should probably get that started! She's trying to walk. She still needs a lot of help, but she's getting much better. She might actually be walking by her birthday...maybe a little after. I was beginning to wonder though because her feet are so small, I wasn't sure she'd be able to balance. She still wears size 1's. And I even have a hard time keeping those on her. Anyway, I'll try to post some pictures very soon. I'll actually need to take some for that to happen, but I promise I'll work on it.

They grow up too fast....

I've always heard this, but never really quite understood it. Abigail has grown so much so fast. It seems like yesterday I was doing everything for her....and it really is like it was yesterday. Now she feeds herself a lot and plays by herself. When I took her for her 9 month check up our doctor said start putting her formula in a sippy cup to wean her off the bottle by the time she's a year old. Well I did that and she took to it so well that she is already completely off the bottle and drinks everything from a sippy cup. She'll only be 10 months old tomorrow. It makes me a little sad to see how fast she's changing. When her daddy was here he practiced walking with her and now she wants to do it all the time. He asked me today if I was practicing....and well, I have a little, but I don't want her to grow up too fast. I know it's just walking, but I want her to be a baby. :( But I guess I'll work on it for him. Oh, not only does she drink out of her sippy cup, but she does it sitting up. No more lying down to drink her milk.

I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a relief!! I know some of you were probably thinking that I didn't because I haven't posted anything about it, but they just released the scores this morning. I was rather scared to check, but finally did and it was great news! I passed with flying colors so now it's time to start really planning for the school year. So much work to be done. Thanks for all your prayers. I worked really hard on it and it paid off. Everything is just falling into place now. I can't wait for these upcoming months. So much going on and it's all life changing. I'm so excited!!!!! YEAH!

Busy last 1 1/2 weeks!!

We have been on the go go go the last week and 1/2. Rigo was able to come home on leave for 2 weeks and flew into Austin last Saturday. We headed to San Antonio where his mom's met us there and we spent a great day and 1/2 there. He had never been so we did the river walk, alamo and some shopping. We headed back to Victoria for the rest of the time he was here where we spent time in the pool, lounged around, and stayed up way too late with family. One of my very best friends ever, Carmen, was in San Antonio for drill and drove up for 4th of July weekend. We spent that day out at the pasture playing around and cooking out. It was very relaxing and that night Rigo and Carmen put on a fireworks show. We bought this big package and we were all suprised at the quality of the fireworks. They were really big and it was more entertaining than going back into town. We just popped them off the pier over the pond. It was so nice. The next day was Kaden's birthday party so we had to rush around getting ready for that. It was a lot of fun and he got way too many presents. He is so spoiled. I think I may have been the worst spoiler of all. :) That night we went out to 'the' club in Victoria called Cactus Canyon. Oh, I forgot to say that Kaden's dad was in town for the 4th and his birthday, so Rigo, Carmen, Erica, James and I all went out that night. You should have seen the enthusiasm seeping from our pores. I think we could have all really just gone straight to bed, but times together with friends and family like that are few and far between so we went out. I think we had a good time sharing each other's company and that's what matters most. Carmen and I stayed up until 4:30am which I most definitely paid for the next day. It was so worth it though. I miss her so much! Everyone left sunday except for Rigo who I took back to the airport today. He has to go back to Baghdad tomorrow until October, so keep him in your prayers. Hopefully the time will go by quickly and most importantly safely. I started class back up yesterday too. Needless to say I'm exhausted, but it was a wonderful week and 1/2. There is nothing better than spending time with family and friends. I love you all!!!

Daddy and Abigail at the Alamo

At the River Walk

Riding and elephant in a store on the River Walk

Kaden's 1st Birthday Cake!

He shared his cake like such a good boy. Abigail jabbered something to us for about 30 straight minutes after this. I'm pretty sure she was way hopped up on sugar!
The fabulous ball pit. I love this thing because it can't deflate. Got it at walmart.

One of the truest friends I know and have. Love you Carmen!

Look out 8th graders! Here comes your new math teacher!!

That's right.....I had an interview this morning at a middle school here in Victoria and I got hired just 10 minutes after my interview!!! I'm going to teach 8th grade math. I'm so very super excited and nervous at the same time. I got all kinds of textbooks to go over what exactly I will be teaching so I will have lots of fun reading and planning to do. The stress isn't quite over yet though. I have to take my huge content exam a week from saturday on the 21st. In order for me to teach I have to pass this test. So if you are reading this please say a prayer for me. This is a huge deal and the beginning of a new career that I am so excited for. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and prayers. Yeah for me!! I'm so excited!

More vacation fun

For those of you who think I don't post enough (Rigo & Candice), I'm posting 2 days in a row so there! Like I said in my previous post, mom and the kids have been here all week on vacation. On Monday we went to the pasture and had all kinds of fun. There is a pond with a little motorized boat to ride on, a mule (which is like a golf cart), a four wheeler and you can swim in the pond. The kids had so much fun and my cousin Sam was there to play too and he's the same age as Luke so they had a great time. Later that day we headed to the lake to do some tubing, but didn't capture any pictures of that because we left the camera at the camper. That day was packed full of fun. The rest of the week we did some shopping, swam in the pool and watched some movies. We had a great time and I hope we get to do it again soon!