This month

FFF

Everyone helps

Mauri likes this one

Brady measures his

Brandon wanted a tall tree, but it won't fit in our little house

Sunny loves to dress up

So to catch everyone up on our goings on, here are some pictures of the past month.

I surprised Tony for his birthday and took him to dinner. Then we went bowling. The surprise was that some friends met us.

We went to cut our tree again this year, which was very fun. Sunny loved all of her girly chritmas gifts.

Brady was helping me make chili and he thought this onion was just what it needed. I had left the room for a minute and when I came back to stir the chilli this was what I found.

Second Runner Up

Mauri was in her first pageant today. She was so cute. I'm going to try and ppost the video when I get it. She was doing really good until my mom and Aunt Sarah waved at her. She of course waved back and then Madelyn, who was sitting on the front row waiting to crown the winner, put her fingers next to her mouth telling her to keep smiling. This made Mauri raise her hands up as if to say "what?". Then she rolled her eyes at her as she finished her T walk, and on her way out, she heaved a big sigh. Typical Mauri. :) It will be fun to watch again. Madelyn was dissapointed that she didn't get to crown her. If you were judging on looks and personality, she should have won. Madelyn had to do all the crowning, and there was one girl who was 11, but she was 5'7". She practically had to sit on the floor for Madelyn to get the crown on. Kappi had to come help her.

Brady wanted his pictures taken with his pretty sisters. We asked during the pageant who he thought was the prettiest, and he said Mauri.

This is Kappi our awesome baby sitter.

The little girl in the middle won in her category.



Madelyn trying to crown the tall girl.

Her most Photogenic photo

Brady's Pumpkin Party

Brady really wanted to have a pumpkin party for his birthday this year. He loved the pumpkin bread that he had at Aunt Karin's, so that's what I tried to make his cake taste like. It was really good. It had cream cheese frosting. YUM! He had a blast. My friend Mandy, who should be a party planner, came over and decorated our deck. She already had all the decorations! She also brought a tote full of costumes and pumpkin t-shirts for the little ones! I took the rest of my cream cheese frosting, which is just CC and sugar, and made the best pumpkin ice cream.

Go Gators!....or not

Jake gave this cheerleading outfit to McKinley

when she was a baby.

All the girls have worn it at one time or another.

Beware PETA

Friday Humor

Remember When We Could Do This and it Was Cute?

A Few New Pics

Oscar

Everyone who knows me knows I'm not crazy about animals. I have a love hate relationship with my dogs. We recently lost Buddy to a snake bite and tonight Oscar was hit and killed by a car. I really had grown to like this dog. He was a gorgeous dog. Anytime I saw other dachshunds

I realized how extraordinarily good looking he was for a dog. He always let me know when someone was here, and every night he would let us know that he had seen his shadow or some tree's shadow. Usually right outside my bedroom window. Just enough to keep it a love-hate between us. Madison loved him though. She really loved him, and he loved her.

Bambi's MOM

I killed my first deer last night! It killed my headlight.......

McKinley's Jr. High Basketball Schedule

Sept. 11 @ Baker 6:00

Sept. 15 @ Home 4:30

Sept. 16 @ Ponce De Leon 4:30

Sept. 22 @ Home 5:00

Sept. 23 @ Home 6:00

Sept. 25 @ Home 4:00

Sept. 29 @ Laurel Hill 5:00

Sept. 30 @ Home 4:30

Oct. 2 @ Bethlehem 6:30

Oct. 6 @ Rocky Bayou 5:00

The End of the Tooth Story.....for anyone who has nothing better to do with their time but read a blog about my tooth woes

Way back at the end of June, I forced my dentist to pull one of my wisdom teeth. It was killing me, and I thought having it pulled right before going camping would be the best option. Well after he tugged and yanked and pried for 45 minutes he finally came out victorious over my monster, 4 pronged wisdom tooth....minus (later to be discovered) the other 4 halves of their twisted evil roots. My dentist said he thought he left one root piece in there, but it was small and shouldn't give me any problems. Apparently these roots are supposed to disappear on their own and never cause me anymore grief. HMMM Nope, they're evil and hateful and decided to stay firmly wrapped around some big important nerve in there. Anyway...after enduring a dry socket while camping and still trying to enjoy some of the awesome food (thank you Ryan, Josh, Doh Doh, Mom, & Tony) Oh and thank you Mr. Jackson(who probably won't ever see this, but someone can tell him he got a shout out on my all important blog) for the medication and superb dental care. Ok, so about a month and a half after the initial pulling I finally started feeling normal. Yea! I had decided I was just going to leave the other wise tooth in there. Maybe I needed it. Well after about a week of feeling better I wake up with a monster knot on the side of my jaw. Those darn roots had caused an infection and were surrounded by a big pool of P*ss. I hate that word. I bit the bullet and went to the Oral surgeon who I was trying to avoid. Heaven forbid I have my tooth pulled while feeling absolutely nothing and getting a fine much needed nap at the same time. Like I said maybe I need those wise teeth. I went to his office, xrays and tooth in hand. Yes, I kept my tooth. I thought the tooth fairy would come., but they don't take wisdom teeth. I had put the tooth safely in the xray envelope(I thought it might be helpful if the Dr. could see the demon he was dealing with). I handed the package to the very nice receptionist girl and went and sat down on their very cushy and posh leather couch and started thumbing through a yacht magazine. (It amazes me how the choice of magazines differs according to your area of waiting. Like if you had the joyful task of waiting at the health department for a school shot your magazine choices would be mostly in Spanish and a 5 month old copy of the ENQUIRER or PEOPLE) Anyway back to my story. Suddenly I hear a scream from the receptionist area.
"CHARIS!!!!! "she yelled. I ran around feeling sheepish and embarrassed knowing why she was upset. "Did you know there is a tooth in this envelope?" she questioned.
"Are you serious?" I said, "How the heck did that get in there?" thinking to my self I guess that was stupid to bring my tooth. No one else must ever do that. Stupid,stupid stupid. You're so weird. She disgustedly handed me my tooth which she picked up with a tissue by her fingertips(it had fallen in her lap when she took the xrays out). Hey, it was clean. I had taken it home and brushed it and scrubbed it and bleached it. It was quite magnificent...for a tooth. Well it turns out that when the surgeon started looking at my xray and the fancy one he took he still was puzzled about the number of roots that might be there. He said to me, "I sure wish I could have seen the tooth. It would give some idea of what I'm dealing with when I go in. Now I took the credit.
"But sir", I said proudly, "I kept the tooth and I brought it with me today for this very reason" grinning somewhat painfully with new found appreciation for my oddness. Anyway he gave me some great stuff and I had a very weird but restful nap and came out minus the nasty roots and my other less impressive wisdom tooth. I vaguely remember hearing and seeing things while I was under. As I was waking, I remembered everything so clearly. It wasn't a painful memory. I just kept replaying it over and over. But when I was fully awake, I couldn't remember anything but knowing I had remembered in my subconscious state. Yes, I know I'm strange, but that's OK. You know my name is Chris without the a.... So now almost 2 weeks from my surgery, I see a ray of light. I'm down to 1 pain pill a day and my TMJ is relaxing a little. By the way, for anyone who suffers from TMJ, there is a massage that treats it quite successfully. So, hopefully this will be the end of my saga. Sara says blogging is therapeutic, and I must say this blog turned out to be.

Our Student of the Month!

Well Landon, you will be very proud to hear that your cousin McKinley was chosen to be student of the month out of the whole middle school. That must mean she's really smart just like you and your big brother Bryce! Keep working hard. I'll put up a picture of her with her certificate when she gets it.

Sunny's New Dress

McKinley wanted me to fix her sewing machine this weekend. This is what I wound up with. I didn't even have pattern. I'm so proud of myself. I haven't sewn in 10 years. The hardest part was learning how to use a new sewing machine without having the owners manual. Oh, and making the button holes. I had to take the sewing machine outside, so I could watch kids and sew at the same time. I had all these materials saved here and there in different craft boxes.