Continuation of puppies...This is the last pup to go. We really miss him, we called him Nana, which is short for Banana Split, his new name is Dopey...because of his eyes! I think the name is pretty dopey! If we kept him (which we thought we might) we were going to name him Jackson, now that is a cool name!

Chessie was happy to see him go I think! She kept attacking him, in fact on Friday I came home to the most horrible dog fighting sounds from the back porch. I thought a pit bull had gotten in our fence and was attacking our dogs, little did I know it was Chessie fighting her own pup! It sounded like we had a dog fighting ring going on, it sounded worse than it was, neither dog was hurt. One of the window panes on the back door is broken as I put my hand through it trying to knock on it to get her attention. It did get her attention as glass flew all over the porch. My hand, fortunately, was only scratched. Hopefully my dad can fix the pane this week.
ok, no more posts about the puppies!!

Continuation of the puppies...Mason (our only chocolate!), Titan, Chub and Amber.

We sold our last puppy on Friday! Although I am glad that we were able to sell them all I am also very sad that the experience is over and we have no more puppies!! I miss having a little pup running around! The whole thing was a lot of hard work but, loads of fun too! I'm glad that we did it, the timing was perfect. Our fall schedule is a bit busier than this summer and it would have been hard to keep up if we had puppies at this point! All of them went to wonderful homes...here they all are with their new names...


Stella Belle, Maggie, Harley and Risky

Catherine had her 2nd soccer game this week (Christopher's team didn't play). The Li'l Angels did a great job! If score were being kept, which it wasn't. It would have been 12-2! "Cat" scored 5 goals, she was outscored by "Tat" who made 6 goals! It is so fun to watch! She gets the ball, runs all the way down the field, scores, and runs all the way back. Even when she is supposed to be playing defense she takes the ball all the way to the other goal. Ok, so she has to learn the difference between offense and defense...well, she does know the difference she just wants to Score!

For those of you wondering...No coin has been discovered yet!
There have been 2 times that I was unable to check...for reasons beyond my control...so maybe the coin did come out. The problem with that is she may have to have another x-ray if I don't actually see the coin w/i 4 weeks, just to make sure it was expelled...pray that we find it, and don't have to spend more money!
I also had to take a puppy to the vet this week. After coming home Fri afternoon, our droopy eyed dog had an even droopier eye than normal...he looked terrible! I called the vet and they said eye problems can get really bad really quick so I should bring him in for a look. It turns out he has a scratched cornea...poor pup, I know how bad that hurts. He is now on 2 different drops and an antibiotic.
About an hour after we returned from the vet, we sold that puppy. We greatly reduced the price of the 2 remaining pups (1 male, 1 female) and called a friend who was interested in buying one. They chose the male, we said goodbye and off they went...happy to have only 1 puppy left. The next morning the new family called and asked if they could exchange the male for the female. The puppy was fine but the rest of the family really wanted a female. That was no problem for us...we like the male better and do have a potential buyer for him. That family doesn't know about his eye yet and I would have to drive him to Lufkin. I'm sort of hoping that falls through, it would be better to sell him to someone local. I am kind-of wanting to keep him too though and so are the kids. I'm just not sure we are ready for or need 2 dogs...that's a lot of vet costs! We'll see what happens this week. At least we're down to one!

Cat now has a temp. She woke up really late this morning, in fact I had to wake her up at 8:15, that is not like her, she is always up early. Calixto was so sweet to take Christopher and the car-pool kids to school so I could stay home-let her sleep and wait for the AT&T guy to come. She felt a bit warm this morning and seemed tired all morning. After lunch she was very warm so off to bed she went. Maybe it has nothing to do with the coin, maybe she picked up something at the Dr's office. I'll just keep an eye on her...no church for us tonight, she'll be disappointed about that.
We actually got some school time in this morning. I've decided just to work on phonograms, writing and reading this year. I am tutoring a student in writing road to reading 2 times a week and that has piqued her interest in learning the phonograms too. She did a great job! We had fun and even sat outside to read and later sat under the tree for a picnic. It is simply a beautiful day!
Woo-hoo Autumn is coming!!

Oh what a day!!
It started off by taking Catherine to the Dr's. she slept well last night and had no trouble eating so I figured she was fine and the coin would pass shortly. But, just to be safe (and since the Dr wanted) we kept our appointment. He of course sent us to radiology to get a chest/abdomen x-ray...sure enough, shining quite brightly on the film was the coin. It had already made its way to her stomach. We couldn't tell what coin it was since it was slanted. Now we wait and...search!
After her appointment I had enough time to get her to Mother's Day Out and get to my hair appointment. (The color of the highlights still isn't exactly what I want but, it is ok!) I then met Calixto for lunch at Roly Poly's I got the same basil cashew chicken wrap and for the 2nd time my finger tips went numb after eating it...ok...is that weird or what? Has anyone ever heard of that? Would a food allergy make your fingers go numb? It was annoying but went away w/i the hour. I ran home to find that I had missed the AT&T man that came to install a new jack in our office. Ugh!! I forgot about it with Catherine's foreign object dr's appointment and all. I had time to make some rescheduling calls when Cat's school called...she went to the "bathroom" and I had to go search for the coin!!! I found no coin...maybe next time! We ran home changed for dance and off we went-class went well and she seems to enjoy it more this year. Afterward we ran to pick-up Christopher from a friend's house, they keep him until dance class is over. Then it was home to change for soccer practice. Christopher went to practice with our neighbor and I took Catherine to her practice.
While there I locked my keys in the car!!! Calixto was in Hallsville planting trees and could not leave so, a friend drove me to my house where I had to find an unlocked, unpainted shut window. (I don't usually lock the side door but the neighborhood dogs were barking so much earlier when I was home I locked it just in case! ) I was able to climb in the bathroom window and retrieve the spare key...back to the soccer fields we went. As we pulled up to my car we noticed the back window was open!!!!! Ahhhh!!! I felt so stupid! How could I not have seen the open window?! We finally got home...no dinner made, no gas in the car for carpool tomorrow. I ran to get gas and we ate a nutritious meal of hotdogs! The kids are in bed and now, it's time to rest and hope tomorrow is a better day!

oh our little Ca-hin!
This was this past Sunday as she waited to leave for church. She was teaching her friends to play Candy Land. She was reading from a story book, making up the words, story and game. She kept herself entertained for quite a while!
Today, while she was supposed to be taking a nap, I heard her start to gag, then she cried out "Mommy"! I ran in and she told me she swallowed a quarter! She was beginning to panic. I grabbed her up and tried to do somewhat of a hiemlich (however you spell it) manuver...it wasn't so easy, her little stomach muscles were so tight. She just kept spitting, she could breathe...I got her to calm down and she realized she could breathe and swallow. I had her drink some juice and she seemed ok. I put her back to bed and then called the Dr's office. I had to leave a message and they call you back. The nurse called back about 30-40 min. later, Cat was already asleep. She told me to make sure she slept upright and to get her up to eat something to make sure it would go down. They were concerned b/c a quarter is big enough to block her esophagus or intestines. As I thought about it, I remembered that she calls all coins quarters...so I don't really know what coin it was. She has been fine since then...she is sleeping in bed with me tonight propped up on several pillows. The Dr wants to see her in the morning. It was a pretty scary thing today and we are grateful that God was watching over her and protected her from a potentially deadly situation.

"I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night, The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore." Psalm 121

This is our 13th scripture to learn. As a family we memorized 12 passages this summer. On Sundays (on the drive to church) we would say the week's verse and review all the past ones. We really enjoyed this. Christopher now has 2 separate scriptures to learn each week in school so we let him off the hook as far as our Fighter verses, but the 3 of us are continuing on. We have allowed a little more time to memorize this Psalm since we are still adjusting to the busy-ness of fall. Soon we'll be back on track.

Our newest Soccer Star

Soccer season started on Saturday...it was a good day...it was a bad day! Catherine played in her first indoor game and she tore up that field! She must have scored a ba-gillion goals! it was incredible, she looked like the energizer bunny out there! Christopher was even impressed by her abilities! It was so fun, she didn't want to take her uniform off all day. Actually, she almost had to stay in the shorts forever...I tied the shorts really tight b/c they are so big on her the elastic doesn't fit, well I tied it so tightly I couldn't get the knot undone...I ended up cutting the string off. Now I have to go buy some new ones, they aren't the kind you can restring!
Christopher's team lost their first game, the score was 4-3. We know this will be a hard season as the other teams really want the Tigers to end the winning streak they've been on. The game was tough but we lost b/c our boys didn't play as a team. We have some good players but they want to be the stars and not pass the ball, or play as a team...hopefully this loss makes them realize they need to start playing together. It was a scorcher out their on the field at noon!!

I like my house to be neat and clean! Some may think I am a clean freak...I don't think that myself! I just function better if things are orderly. Calixto's desk is a mess...the way he likes it...it drives me crazy at times but, I have for the most part left it alone!! My desire for neatness does not always extend to the hidden areas like closets and drawers, as the picture above proves! For a long time the messiness of this particular closet has weighed on me heavily...so on Labor Day I finally pulled everything out and organized...I feel sooooo much better! I am going to install shelves on the right side so, I'll have some more adjusting to do when that is finished. That will aleviate some of the clutter in Calixto's office too as we'll store his work related things there. After the shelves go up the next project is to get rid of the boxes of "stuff" in our bedroom! We've lived here 9 months and I've not needed anything in those boxes...chances are they need to be thrown or given away.

I'll do a little catch up since I have been away from blogging...both updating mine and reading others. I've been busy adjusting to our new fall schedule. Here was Catherine's birthday....we didn't have a party this year, we will have one for every other birthday. This is the off year. It was a Wednesday and so we went to church for dinner and small groups. She loved it and told everyone she saw that she is now five!

Among a few other gifts she got a "church bag" this is filled with markers, crayons, a notebook, coloring book and doodle pad. This is only to be used during church on Sundays. She loves the bag and wants to use it throughout the week but, she has done well leaving it alone!

On the following Saturday Calixto's Dad and step mom came to celebrate. I made a chocolate cake with sprinkles as per her request. I used the recipe on the back of Hershey's cocoa, which is just delicious!

Here is her big present...a brand new bike that she actually fits on. Her old one has been way to small for some time now! She loves her big bike and does very well riding it. She did lose riding privileges for a few days last week as she didn't stop and look for cars before crossing the street...she's learning!