Allison Turns 9.

Wednesday, September 24th, we celebrated Allison's 9th birthday. We can't believe we have a 9 year old. Bill was in Dallas and wouldn't be home until that afternoon, so I woke Allison up by singing "Happy Birthday" very loud, she loved it. Every year, I wake her up with a song. After 13 hours of labor, I get to do anything I want on her birthday. Hehehehe..... Allison wanted me to eat lunch with her and surprise her with a special meal, well, what do you get at 11:00 a.m. and that can be eaten in 30 minutes, Chicken Express!!! Yummy! I also surprised her with a little birthday cake from Kroger. She was so surprised. After picking up balloons and running a few last minute errands and wrapping the last of the gifts, it was time to get the kids. Bill got home about 30 minutes before I had to pick up the kids, so he was able to go along. Once we got back home, she was so excited to see all her gifts waiting for her in the living room with balloons and flowers. We let her open a couple of presents, but the rest had to be saved for after supper, what a bummer. Her only request for her birthday was to have a homemade yellow cake with chocolate icing made by her Mommy. How sweet. Dinner - every year we let the kids pick where they want to eat, Allison chose Luby's, her favorite, after trying to coax her in another direction for our meal, ha, enough said, it was Luby's. Chris, Christy, Kendall, and Mom all joined us for supper and gifts. She had a wonderful Birthday.

Allison posing in her Birthday shirt before school.

Allison holding her little cake at lunch.

Having lunch with AllisonAfter school Allison posing with all her gifts.Opening one of her gifts from Nanny.More WebkinsAnother Precious Moments for her collection.Nanny sent Alex a gift also, a Ben 10 toy, made his day!

After all the gifts were opened.

My masterpiece, Allison loved it! It was yummy!

Eating birthday cake.

The Tree That Wouldn't Give Up.

Saturday, September 20th, it was time for our hurricane Ike tree to become firewood for the winter. The only problem, the tree fell into another tree and all the top branches were now intertwined into the other tree branches, this tree was obviously not going anywhere. Trying to save the other tree, Bill enlisted Chris's help, well it took a little longer than expected and after the third try it was down. It was not as easy as it looked either. Bill had to pull it out of the other tree and it would not budge at all. It finally came down .

Aggie Soccer

Friday, September 19th, Allison and I went to our first Aggie Lady's soccer game. We went with some of our close friends, who are also Aggies. It was so much fun! I never realized a soccer game could be so exhilarating, Allison really got into the action, she yelled the entire game. (Of course we had to take 2 bathroom breaks, get snacks, which consisted of snow cones and Dippin' Dots, my favorite.) The Aggies played Cal and won, 1-0, it was a very interesting game to watch.

Warm-up

Morgan, Faith, Allison and Abby (down front)Talking to a Yell Leader

During the game.

The girls are Sawing Horns Off.

Mom's Birthday

Mom celebrated another birthday, not telling her age, because she would kill me, we weren't able to celebrate with her on her actual birthday, September 13th. Hurricane Ike put a little damper on the celebrations. Christy, Kendall and I took Mom out to lunch last Wednesday to celebrate. We took her to Johnny Carino's because they have the best Bread Pudding around. It's yummy!

So Sweet!

Yertle the Turtle Goes Home

Sunday, September 14th we freed our turtle. In the spring we were putting in flowerbeds and dug up a baby turtle. It was hibernating. I didn't know anything about turtles at the time, so I thought I better check and make sure he wasn't dead, not knowing turtles hibernate, I put him in some water and he woke up. Oh no......what do we do now?????? It was cold outside and the creek was very cold, we would have killed him if we released him, so we decided to give this little turtle a home until it warmed up. We went to Petsmart and got a special tank and a couple of books, our "free" turtle quickly became an expensive turtle, since we had spent all this money on a "free" turtle, the turtle lived with us for a little longer than he should have. The kids gave him a name, Yertle, we had just finished reading Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss, it just seemed to be a very fitting name. Last weekend, Hurricane Ike blessed our creek with lots of water and Bill felt like it was time to let Yertle the Turtle go home. Of course, there are pictures documenting the event I had to share. The kids had to say their last good-byes and were sad, but once he moved quickly into the creek, they got really excited.

Yertle the Turtle before he was freed.

Putting him back in the creek.He's finally free!

The Before, During and After Hurricane Ike

On Friday, we took everything off the porches and cleaned up anything and everything outside. The school district canceled school, so the kids had a day off. Since we did not have Labor Day off it was so refreshing to have one day to recuperate after all the early mornings. Finally, a day to sleep in . Bill worked at home and didn't have to travel, thank goodness. We have bad memories of him trying to get back to Texas after Katrina, so it was a relief to have him home.

Saturday the hurricane hit us, winds blowing about 40 miles an hour, rain blowing, and lots of trees swaying back and forth. By 8:00 a.m. we had a tree down, it didn't fall completely to the ground, instead it fell onto another tree but didn't knock it down. After an entire morning and afternoon of blowing rain, all I have to clean is the outside of the windows. They are now covered by a thin layer of dirt. We feel very blessed to have very little clean-up and that we never lost power.

BEFORE:

Friday afternoon clouds, the calm before the storm. (facing south)

We put my car far enough away from anything that could fall on it and closest to the garage. We couldn't put it in the garage since the garage is still full of boxes we relocated before the house renovation started.

We had to protect the birdies.

DURING:

Allison and Belle watching the Weather Channel

Alex hanging out in the TV room with Allison.

AFTER:

The tree we lost.
We had a Canadian Goose in our yard after the hurricane.
The small amount of debris from the trees.
On Saturday night we all got together, ate dinner and played Mario Kart on Wii, it was a blast.

Welcome Home New Kitty Belle

On Tuesday we picked up our new kitty - Belle. She is the sweetest little lap kitty, very docile. We just love her. Allison talks about her all the time and carries her everywhere. She is one spoiled kitty.

Napping on the kitchen table.

Sleeping with Allison.

Playing with Alex.

Laying on Bill.