Cousins

 The kids always have so much fun hanging out with their cousins!  I hate that we live so far away and don't get to seem them more often.  The kids miss them so much!

  Ray C. had fun teaching the kids one of his favorite pastimes - squirrel hunting!  And with about 800 acres of farmland, there was no shortage of squirrels (or trees for them to climb in)!

 Girls!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Mary Frances!  

The Boyd Farm

It's always fun to visit our family on the farm! 

 The Boyd kids!

 The boys

 picnic at Papa and Peppy's

 Everybody loves Grandpa Duke!

Furby

Mary Frances really wanted a Furby for Christmas - an orange one, to be exact!  So, I am happy to announce that we have added a new pet to our family -- happy because this one requires no food or care when we are gone!

Furby has brought us some great joy over the last few weeks!  She is hilarious!  She talks her own funny language, and you never know what type of mood (mode) she will be in when she wakes up.  It could be pirate mode, where she talks in the third person.  Or, she might be in "girly girl" mode which is really "valley girl".

Christmas Eve

There is definitely something special about celebrating the birth of Jesus in an unfinished church building!  This is an evening we will not forget!

5th Annual Mother/Daughter Tea Party

The tradition continues... 

Mary Frances and I have so much fun putting this together every year!  It is so much fun to be girly and share it with our friends!  Every year we invite new friends that we have met and the friends we have kept all this time!  I know we will treasure these times forever!

 Abby and Chrissy Benton have been to every one of our Houston Tea Parties!

Leahanna Moore is married to one of our worship leaders at Foundry.  Tquan, her husband, also teaches Thomas guitar which has given Mary Frances the chance to make some new friends!  Caty and Cianna have been wonderful friends, and we love getting together with them! 

 We are so happy to have family here with us now!

 This year's group of girls!

Tiffany and Maya Murrietta have been good friends from church, as well!  

Thankful for Friends

We have been thankful to have our lifetime friends from Georgia visiting us this week!  It has been a wonderful week visiting with our friends, shopping, eating, and following Thanksgiving traditions begun more than 20 years ago!

Mary Frances tests for Yellow Belt

Mary Frances and Chase both started Tae Kwon Do this summer, but Chase had to stop once football started.  So, Mary Frances is ahead of both boys and was able to test for her yellow belt a week or so ago.  She's the third one from the right on the back.

 And she's pretty good, too!

 The first test was lower key with only Mary Frances and Chase testing, but this test was a big deal.  There were about 15 students testing for either their orange or yellow belt!

 Check out that kick!  Don't mess with her!

 I love these action shots with her hair swinging behind her!

 Counting to 10 in Korean while doing push ups...

She did a great job and earned her belt! Yay, Mary Frances!

Dewberry Farms

Jessica and I took some of the teenagers to Dewberry Farms last week to run through the corn maze and act like teenagers.

 We had a great time, but we did cheat in the corn maze!  Some of the boys figured it out, but the rest of us were just wondering around!

 Sweet girls!  We have a great group of girls!

 Madi is fun no matter what she's doing!  

 Had to snap this silly picture of Tabor and Ashley.  Tabor was making fun of the girls.  Now whose laughing? :)

 Jessica and I had fun rolling the kids around in this tube.  They were all over the place!

Happy Birthday, Honey!

We celebrated mama's birthday at Pappadeaux!  It is a fabulous New Orleans - style seafood restaurant!  It has been so much fun to celebrate with our family in person.  We are so bad about birthdays from a distance, but when everyone works together, it has been fun to get together and go out!  Papa went with us too, but every picture we took of the group was BAD!  We had a lot of lighting problems and bad photographers! :)

Jessica and Daddy ate frog legs.  The thought of slimy frogs was a little too disgusting for my taste buds, and then, to top it off, they brought these huge legs.  Where do they get frogs that big?  

Wanna Spar?

Mary Frances has started sparring in Tae Kwon Do.  She was so excited to get her equipment a few weeks ago! Now we need to get it for Thomas, too!

Handsome Clothes

 Chase loves to wear a tie! He looks pretty good in it, too!

Volunteering

Mary Frances was very excited to be helping with this year's Judy Dierker Holiday Market at church.  It is our annual "Craft fair" and holiday market at Foundry that raises thousands of dollars for missions. Cy-Hope greatly profits from the funds, and Mary Frances was thrilled to be a part of it.  So, she volunteered to make Sugar Cookies and Pecan Pie!  The pies we made were gorgeous, too!  

Then, she signed up for a shift working the Treat Shoppe at the market.  So, while she volunteered, I shopped....which also benefited missions! :)

I love her servant's heart!

Need a Pencil?

If my students borrow a pencil from my bucket, they are required to leave their shoe at my desk...just so they remember to return the pencil! 

So, crazy at it sounds, I love it when I walk to the front of the classroom after the bell rings to find shoes piled up at my desk!  It makes me feel like I'm at home!

This was a test day!  After the first few days of doing this, usually there are only one or two shoes!  It's amazing how resourceful you can be when the consequence for not being prepared is unpleasant!

Thomas Tests for Orange Belt

Thomas just started Tae Kwon Do (TKD) in September.  He tested for his orange belt a few weeks ago!  We were so proud to watch him test and accomplish his goal!

 He did a great job under pressure!

 White Belt pattern.

 Slide and diagonal kick

 Step behind side kick

 10 push-ups -- counting in Korean

He did it!!!  

He even broke the board!!  Yay, Thomas!!!