We visited a ghost town right here in Manor yesterday! It was really fun to let the kids explore, and I think we will make this an annual tradition around Halloween time!
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| ghost town |
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| Will Berry Undertaker… haha |
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| Boo Hill graveyard |
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| jail |
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| This was fun to go in and out of the jail cell! |
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| this boy loved running around |
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| Good job Aggies on the win yesterday! |
Ever since Rilyn got gum in her hair a couple months back, and I had to cut a good portion off, (she had layers), I’ve wanted to chop Rilyn’s hair to make it all even! But I couldn’t, because she needed to have ponytails in every weekend for cheerleading. Now that cheerleading is officially over, we went to chop off her hair! Now I love Ella’s hair-very thick and has good body. But Ella wanted her hair just like Rilyn’s, and so Ella got her hair chopped off too!
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Yesterday was Rilyn’s Central Texas Pop Warner Cheer Championship! This was a way bigger deal than I imagined! Their team got to perform where the Austin rodeo is and took center stage as thousands of people watched! There were about 12 cities represented there from around central Texas. Since Rilyn is in the youngest division, she only ‘performs’ and is not competing for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. They do get judged though, and out of the 5 judges, most of them gave them 7’s or 8’s (out of 10’s) on their overall performance! We watched about 38 performances yesterday and it was a lot of fun to watch! I brought the wrong lens and the lighting in there was horrible, so excuse my bad pictures! I put Rilyn’s name above where she is standing.
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| The Manor Falcon Tiny Mite team marching in to perform! |
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| Ready! (Yes, there were CRAZIES there like this lady in front who wore a pom pom
on her head. Her husband painted his whole bald head yellow and purple!) |
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| This was their ‘lift’ they did in the routine. Rilyn had to hold the girl’s back to make sure
she didn’t fall! |
I dropped off Rilyn at 7:45 in the morning and I picked her up at 5:00 p.m.! When I saw her she was crying because the Manor Falcon Jr. PeeWee team got 4th place and therefore couldn’t go on to San Antonio. So sweet being empathetic. (Our Pee Wee team got first place, so they are going to San Antonio, and if they win that-Disney World!) So that is why she isn’t looking thrilled in this picture. She is holding up a necklace charm that says “Love 2 Cheer” that each girl got at the end of the competition.
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For the third time now, I’ve volunteered to take pictures at an event (all of them happen to be for Rilyn so far), to help make money for her school or cheer team. (Each parent pays some money and I will fancy up their photo and e-mail it to them!) Last night was Rilyn’s Fall Fest at her elementary school. I took 40 pictures-whew, that’s a lot of editing, but well worth it!
They could come dressed up and Ella wanted to be a bride! She looked really cute because I saw her walking around with the front veil over her face very serious, like she was a real bride. Rilyn chose to wear her old dance recital costume and Asher, well, daddy was just lucky to get all 3 kids by himself to the fall fest. (Not to mention it was pretty important for Asher to wear a baseball shirt to support the Rangers!) 🙂
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There was lots of activities at the pumpkin patch!
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| Farm animals to look at! (Notice the sign and what Asher
is doing! Oops!) |
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| a corn field maze! This was really fun! |
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| A hay bale maze. Again, notice the sign and then what James is doing! |
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| Rubber duck water races! Levi and Rilyn both won! 😉 |
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| daddy and his kiddos |
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| family shot! |
I’ve been told Rilyn is a mini-me. She doesn’t look like me, but thinks and acts like me in many ways. One glaring example that I’ve noticed lately is how she is obsessed with scheduling/calendars. Innocently, I put a calendar in the girls room to show them important events that are coming up and incorporate math skills. I ‘X’ off every day to show them how many days til a holiday, etc. I will ‘X’ the calendar day off without fail. I have actually gotten out of bed because I’ll remember that I forgot to ‘X’ out the day, all the while telling myself how stupid it is, but I just need to do it. Crazy, yes.
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| my calendar that I keep up ‘for the girls’ 😉 |
Now, I see all these calendars and schedules popping up in Rilyn’s room that she has created where she, too, is ‘Xing’ out the dates or keeping a schedule. Here are a few examples I’ve found hanging up in her room. She doesn’t even tell me she does this people. Seriously, this girl is hardcore type ‘A’ personality!
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| this looks like another October calendar |
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| this looks like a schedule of what her days should look like. |
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| she got her hands on a free calendar from a realtor, even
though I told her one calendar in her room was enough. |
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| This is her ‘specials calendar’ from school in which she insists on ‘xing’ out the days here too. |
Also, Rilyn has figured out a way to manipulate her little sister! She has created a ‘sticker chart’ for Ella. If Ella does something nice for Rilyn, Rilyn gives her a sticker and when Ella fills it up, (gets to the butterfly), I guess she gets a prize of some kind. Ella loves this, and I’m wondering how long it will take before she understands that she is being ‘played’ by her big sister. Rilyn will say things like, “Ella, can you run in our room and get me that pencil? I’ll give you a sticker on your chart!” Me, being the oldest sibling in my family too, thinks this is pretty genius of Rilyn and allow it to carry on. 😉
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| Notice how long her chart is? It goes in a swirl and looks like Ella has to get 50
stickers before she gets to the butterfly! |
One of the many things that I love about James is how creative he is in incorporating spiritual matters into everyday events for the kids. He drives Rilyn and her friend to school each morning. The drive is probably only a little over 5 minutes long, easy to veg out or try to wake up for the day, right? That would be what I would do anyway! But James? He devised a memorizing scripture game that he “plays” with Rilyn and Cole each morning. They work on memorizing one scripture passage a week and if they have memorized it by Friday morning, they go to donuts for a quick treat! He started this last year and I thought it was so cool. This year, he is challenging them with harder, longer scriptures. What a way to start off each morning! This is Rilyn reciting from memory Romans 12:2.
The Falcon football/cheer teams had a “dance” Saturday night to celebrate “homecoming” where they would announce a homecoming queen and king for each division. (They draw a name out of a hat for the queen and king, so this has nothing to do with popularity.) I volunteered to take dance pictures that night and the one I took of the girls and James turned out cute, don’t you think?
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| Gotta love Ella’s face! |
James was able to video the big announcement of the night!
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| This is Rilyn starting to get nervous and scared because
she thought winning queen meant she had to dance with the king! Poor girl! |
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| So excited now! |
After the dance, she told me she ‘felt’ like she was going to win. 😉 Both my girls are apparently party animals as they wanted to dance the night away. (They get this from James!) They were hilarious to watch, (we have some video!) and so cute too!
the paquettes 