Trey Heye Invitational (Swim Meet)

On the Blocks...

Freestyle...


Results Board for Freestyle (she was in lane 6)...
Look how close it was between the Kammie who finished 3rd in this heat. Only 3/100th of a second seperates her and the 1st and 2nd place finishers. Man!

On her mark for Backstroke...

Backstroke...

Result Board for Back (lane 1)...

On the blocks for Breaststroke...

Breaststroke...

Results board for Breaststroke (lane 1)...


IM
At the wall at the end of her Butterfly...

Back...

Breast...

Free...

IM Results board (lane 1)...


Results
50 Free 35.51 (9th of 42)
50 Back 44.28 (11th of 40)
50 Breast 54.77 (19th of 39)
50 Fly 41.67 (7th of 28--she earned a ribbon and two points for the team)
100 IM 1:34.35 (12th of 31)

Brown Belts

On December 8th, Kammie and Zack, and then later Kate also tested for their Brown Belts in TaeKwonDo. (That made for a busy night of running back and forth between the elementary school and the community center.)

Kam and Zack passed off their form at the same time. Here are some shots. (My i-pad froze and didn't record it for me.)
Kam
Zack
Kam
Zack
Kam

Their bow at the end of form...


Sparring...


Zack presented with his Brown Belt...


Kammie presented with her Brown Belt...

Kate's form...


Kate presented with her Brown Belt...


It's been a long road to this point, but they are that much closer to their Black Belts!

Winter Wonderland

Each December at Pine Forest Elementary School they do a Winter Wonderland. It's where each grade has the opportunity to peform/sing holiday songs and they hold a silent auction as a fund raiser for the school. This took place on Thursday the 8th (while James was out of town and TaeKwonDo belt testing took place). It made for a busy night, but we did it all. Mrs. Cesge, the music teacher does an Awesome job with these kids! [I'm so grateful for her. At Providence Elementary School in UT we had a horrible music teacher that would just put in a movie, often Disney, and call that music. She couldn't teach singing or recorders or anything, because it was just too hard with the young kids. Don't ever tell Mrs. Cesge that. She goes above and beyond. She's done a 5th grade musical for the last 2 years and is working on Willy Wonka Jr. with Kammie and the other 5th graders now. AMAZING!]

Spencer among the Kindergartners with Gingerbread men...


A couple of Spencer's songs...

Gingerbread men


Up on the House Top



Close up of Spencer at the end as they filed off the stage...


3rd Graders...

Zack on the back row...


A couple of Zack's songs...


This one with Kazoos


More Zack, this time with red eyes...


Kammie as they were lining up...


5th Graders...


Close up of Kam singing...


5th graders again...


Noel song (I think you'll like this Irish sounding one Dad)...


On the recorders...



Sidnie dancing while Kammie and the 5th graders sang...


A snip of a Polar Express song with Sidnie dancing...

Woodpecker

We see woodpeckers here all the time, but they usually move up, down and around the tree so much, that it is hard to see them for long. As I finished my run on Thursday. I heard the knocking/tapping of a woodpecker in a tree in my neighbor's front yard. I looked and there were actually two in one tree and a female in the tree right next to it. I got my camera, but couldn't get both woodpeckers in the same shot very well, but this is a decent photo of the one. The red on the head is cool.

Cutting down a dead tree in our Backyard

We have lots of trees between our house and the golf course. This summer the golf course sold us more of that green space to be included in our backyard. So, now that that land is ours, James was bound and determined to cut down a couple dead trees in our backyard. He set out early to do this, but with one distraction and "honey do" to another, he wasn't able to get to it until 4:30pm yesterday afternoon.

First he tied ropes around the tree and anchored it to two other trees, so that when it came down, it wouldn't fall in the direction of our house or the neighbors' house, or their fence for that matter.

The dead tree...
James with his safety gear and the chainsaw...
Hard at work cutting it down...


Video of Kathie and James trying to get the tree to fall off the stump...

A success of sorts...We finally got it off the stump, but all it did was jump forward. This happened two more times and then got it's upper branches caught in other trees branches. We left it for a moment while James got the chain blade put back onto the chainsaw and it fell (on it's own) onto another little tree, where it broke a major branch, but it didn't land on the neighbor's fence, so we were pleased.

By the time we got that done, there was no sun light to work on the second tree.

Holiday Lighting

These things are better seen in person, but here are our holiday lights.

The lights outside on the house in red and green...

Our Tree...

All tuckered out

After the long week of having all her siblings home and not getting regular naps like she should, this was Sidnie. She was attempting to watch a holiday movie with her siblings...

Decorating for Christmas

Of course as soon as Turkey day is over, the kids immediately start bugging us to put up the tree. [I know some get their decorations up before Thanksgiving, but I like to wait until after.] They don't always understand what it takes to get ready for that. One family tradition that we have is to give each child an ornament for Christmas. So, to put up the tree you must first have their new ornaments.

I had grand plans this summer to make a pirate themed ornaments like we saw on Ocracoke Island while visiting Captain Blackbeard's museum and gift shop while on our summer beach vacation. Of course, I'm not the artist in the family and the goal was to get my talented mother to help, but it never happened. Here are some pictures from the gift show that I wanted my mom to help me recreate...

A front view...
From the back...
A pirate in star form...

I never got to it. My mom was here briefly in August for Zack's baptism, but there wasn't time to get anything like that done and then I forgot about it until now. So instead, the kids had to settle for some nice natural wood ornaments we purchased at Michale's on Thanksgiving Day.

All the kiddos with their ornament gift...
The new ornaments...

We worked on decorating the whole house as well and James got the lights put up on the house outside. We are now officially the most festive house on our street. It looks good.

Peppy didn't mind one bit all the comotion that went on. He just curled right up on the couch with a Christmas stuffed moose and slept...