The blur that was October.....

What have we been up to? Good Question.....let me consult my calendar. Other than our weekly routine of dance, errands, CBS and AWANA, we've had field trips to the fire department and the pumpkin patch, school pictures, parent/teacher conferences, free dress day (that mom forgot about and had to rush back home for a change of clothes), the bike-a-thon (Emma did ride all 15 miles to earn another free dress day....mom rode about 13 miles and earned a sore rear end!), playgroup at the park, looking at the Halloween decorations on grandma & grandpa's golf course (a yearly tradition), visiting with out-of-town aunt and uncle, Missionfest at Grace and Ebenezer, surprise "Mommy Shower" for a dear friend to celebrate much anticipated adoption of her two darlings, Jake left on hunting trip, girls and I escape to the beach for the weekend, Lauren caught a cold, grass grew (and was mowed for the first time!).


Phew! Can't wait for November! :-)

Project Runway

Today, my mom and I (with Christie and Lauren in tow) went to F&M Fabric store. For those of you who do not live in Bakersfield or who do not venture down Niles Street, F&M is the fabric store to end all fabric stores. A warehouse sized building with floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall bolts upon bolts of every kind of fabric you could ever want....and a whole lot that I'm not sure anyone should ever want! Pink Buddhas printed on yellow cotton. Really? Even if you're Buddhist, what in the world would you use that fabric for!?! Anyway, I was in search of material for window coverings, a bed skirt and a duvet cover for Emma's room. (I needed pink and brown, not yellow and Buddha)
I felt very "Project Runway" as I perused the aisles. I wanted to shout, "Pink charmuse!! Where is your pink charmuse?!? Hurry!!" Granted, I do not sew (unless you count patches onto Awana vests) and I don't even know what charmuse is (or how to spell it!). In the end, I left empty handed and slightly dazed from the sheer volume from which to choose. I'll have to send my MIL to get it anyway since she's the one who sews everything for me. Last time she asked me to please not pick out the material myself....apparently some fabrics are harder to sew than others! Oops :-) Maybe I'll go with her so that I can yell for the fabrics though!

Pee-Wee Rodeo

Last Saturday was the pee-wee rodeo at the good ole Kern County Fair. "Rodeo" may be a bit of an overstatement. There was roping (on a roping dummy), ribbon pulling, stick horse racing and dummy cow milking. Emma participated in the latter two. In hindsight, we should have signed her up for all four.....there were only 5 participants and only one entered all four events.

She took her participation very seriously!

Is there anything cuter than a little girl in Wranglers and a cowboy hat?

Here she is preparing for the big ride - notice how she's holding her hat in case her horse takes to bucking! :-) She rode her stick horse around a post 5 feet away from the starting line and then back. She came in fourth, although judging was difficult as the whole thing lasted about 9 seconds. They could have made it a little more difficult for this age group.

This is the dummy cow milking. All they had to do was milk it enough to have a drop come out when they tipped the cup upside down. Again, they should have made them fill the cup half way or something because this event took about 5 1/2 seconds. She got 5th. Darn!

Here she is with her ribbons. She was disappointed that she didn't get the 4 foot tall trophy for first place (I can't say that I felt the same!). :-) I should have taken a picture of them. It was kind of ridiculous. She had a lot of fun and had a rather large cheering section that she was very proud of.

I don't have any photos of Jake's events, but he was there 4 nights. He and his partner won the "sorting, in and by" on the last night. There are 11 steers numbered 0-10 and they had to sort the odds and evens and put them in two separate pens. The team that does this the fastest wins. He and Danny did it in 57 seconds. They were hoping for belt buckles, but they won duffel bags (or as all of the other cowboys were saying, purses) and a small check that should cover about half the cost of entering. He said he also would have rather had a 4 foot tall trophy!

There's always next year! :-)